Cassiteridæ

Cassiteridæ, the 'Tin Islands,' first merely mentioned by Herodotus, where the merchant-sailors of Carthage bartered their wares for tin. The Greek kassitêros, 'tin,' is the Sanskrit kastira, and it has been supposed that the Phœnicians brought the name with the metal from the islands off the coast of India. The islands appear on Ptolemy's map as off north-western Spain, but they were afterwards identified with the Scilly Islands, or with Cornwall; more recently, however, very strong reasons have been advanced for regarding them as the little islands about Vigo Bay, off the Spanish coast. See Elton, Origins of English History (1882).