A NATURAL AND HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ISLANDS OF SCILLY; THEIR DESCRIBING SITUATION, NUMBER, EXTENT, SOIL CULTURE PRODUCE, RARITIES, TOWNS, FORTIFI- THEIR GOVERNMENT, LAWS, CUSTOMS, GRANTS, RECORDS, AND ANTIQUITIES. The Importance of thofe Iflands to the British Trade and Navigation; the Improvements they are capable of; and Directions for all Ships to avoid the Dangers of their Rocks. Illuftrated with a new and correct DRAUGHT of thofe Ifles from an actual Survey, in the Year 1744, including the neighbouring Seas, and Sea-Coafts, next the Land's End of Cornwall. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, The Tradition of a Tract of Land, called Lionefs, devoured by the Sea, formerly joining thofe Ifles and Cornwall. Of the Cause, Rife, and Disappearance of fome Iflands. By ROBERT HEATH, An Officer of His Majefty's Forces, fome Time in Garrifon, at Scilly. London, 1750, 8vo. An Estimation of the Quantity of Land in Acres, contained in each Island, according to the Map. 4 St. Agnes 510 330 6 Samplon 120 7 St. Helens 80 10 Eaftern Islands, ftocked with Conies, and fit for feeding Cattle in Summer. 15 Nornour 15 13 16 Litte Arthur 17 Little Ganilly 9776 N. B. Befides the above, which are most noted, there may be numbered about a dozen bearing grafs; and Rocks innumerable above water. very fmall Islands *The introductory obfervations, and directions to navigators, are omitted, as little interefting to the general reader. VOL. II. 5 A Several Several of these islands afford tin, and fome alfo lead and copper. The tin is difcoverable by the banks next the fea, where the marks of the ore, in fome places, are visible upon the furface: this I was affured by fome very confiderable Cornish tinners, in the year 1744; who defired me to make reprefentation thereof to the prefent proprietor, for obtaining his lordship's confent for their working of tin and other metals in Scilly, wherein they proposed a certain fhare to his lordship free of expences; but I did not then fucceed. * The islands of Scilly are denominated from a very small island, near them, first called by that name; probably from its fituation, near dangerous rocks, fimilar to the rock Scylla, near Sicily; mentioned by Virgil. And it is obfervable, that Scilly and Sicily have refemblance of fituation, in lying refpectively at the feet of their neighbouring tracts of Cornwall and Italy; fuppofing each of those tracts to have the figure of a human leg. Scilly iflands were antiently called † Sillinæ Infulæ ; for Severus Sulpitius, relating that luftantius, a factious and feditious heretic, was banifhed by Maximus, the Roman Emperor, expreffes himself in these words: Ad Sillivam Infulam ultra Britannicum deportatus. They were alfo called, by the ancient Greeks, Hefperides and Caffiterides, from this western fituation, and abounding with tin. And § Silures by Solinus; Sigdeles by Antoninus; by the Dutch, Sorlings; and in feveral of the Tower records, and manufcripts of antiquity, Sully, or Sulley; which laft name is probably a contraction from Infulæ, as ifles from iflands. And in fome grants, or charters, they are called our Ifles. The antients had a custom of deriving one name from another by transposition of letters, for fignifying fuch things as were fuppofed fome way to have a relation. The rock Lifia, mentioned by Antoninus, lying between Scilly and the Land's End of England, by tranfpofition makes Silia. This rock is called alfo, by the inhabitants thereabouts, Lethowfo, or Gulf; and its making a great noife, like the rock Scylla near Sicily, by the tides rufhing against it, is fignified by Lis, or Lifo, or more properly the antient British word Llais, which laft being tranfpofed makes Sylla; whence might come our prefent Scilly, as lying near it, about which are many rocks of fimilar nature. But waving this trifling cuftom of authors, in finding out derivations, these islands were firft difcovered by Hamilco, a Carthaginian, belonging to the Silures, a Phoenician colony in Spain; as Solinus reports. He was employed by that state to fearch the western coafts of Europe. And Dionyfius Alexandrinus fpeaks thus of the Hefperides, our prefent Scilly. • Lib. 3. v. 246. Æneid. v. 420. 555. 685. Camden's Britannia. + Camden's Britannia. Virg. Æneid. Lib. 3. Ptolemy, in his Geography, calls the Welch of Bulleum, (a Town in Brecknockshire) Silures. Again't Against the facred Cape, great Europe's head Th' Hefperides along the ocean fpread; Whofe wealthy hills with mines of tin abound, They were called Oftrymnides, by Feftus Avienus in his poem De Oris Maritimis, or Book of the Coasts, wherein he writes: In quo Infulæ fefe exerunt Oeflymnides Laxe jacentes, et metallo divites Stanni atque Plumb: multa vis hic gentis eft; Superbus animus, efficax folertia Negotiandi cura jugis omnibus Nolufque cymbis turbidum late fretum, The ifles Oeftymnides are clustering feen, Untaught to build, or ftubborn plank to join, With leathern boats, contriv'd of skins and wood. Thefe kind of boats were used anno 914, for we read of certain pious men tranfported from * Ireland into Cornwall, in a Carab, or Caroch, (the fame with Corracle) made of two hides and half; or, according to fome, of three hides and half. This account takes notice of about 145 iflands called Scilly; but ten chiefly, befides abundance of hideous rocks, and huge ftones above water, placed in a kind of circle, clad with grafs, or covered with a greenifh mofs; fome affording many forts of cattle, corn, fowl, &c. but most stocked with rabbits, herons, cranes, wild fwans, and fea fowl. The largest takes its name from St. Mary, where is a calle built by Queen Elizabeth, anno 1593, called Stella Maria, or Star Caftle, with a garrifon. This ifland is about eight miles round the reft were called Rufco, Brefer, Agnes, Annoth, Sampfon, Silly, St. Helen's, St. Martin, and Arthur. And two leffer called Minan-witham, and Minuiffifand, which feem to derive their names from mines. Strabo, in his third book of Geography, fays, the ifles Caffiterides are ten in number, close to one another, and fituated in the ocean, to the north of the port Artabri (i. e. Gallicia) in Spain. That one of them is defart and unpeopled, and the reft inhabited by people wearing black cloaths, and coats reaching down to their ancles, girt about their breafts, and with a staff in their hand, like the furies in tragedies. That they lived by cattle; and ftraggled up and down like them without a fixed abode, or habitation. That they had mines of tin and lead, which commodities they used to barter with merchants for earthern veffels, falt, and inftruments of brass. And Euftathius, from Strabo, calls these people Melan *Such were the faints Dubflane, Machecu, and Manflunum, who, according to Matthew of Westminster, forfook Ireland, thrufting themselves to fea in a boat made of three ox hides and half, with seven days provifions, and miraculously arrived in Cornwall; as St. Warna arrived at St. Agnes ifland in Scilly. |