It is this use of tin that has enabled food canning to develop and bring about enormous changes in the diet of all civilized nations. There is only the smallest possible amount of tin in the container because the metal is expensive. The British housewife speaks of “tinned” foods, but the American calls them “canned” foods. Used as a thin coating to prevent sheets of wrought iron or mild steel from rusting, tin is universally familiar as an essential part of the containers of preserved foods. A plateau in Nigeria mines more than 10,000 feet above sea level among the mountains of Bolivia, in South America and the Netherlands East Indies, Siam, China, Indo- China, the Belgian Congo and other parts of the world contribute supplies of a metal which has many uses. The greater part of the world’s requirements is obtained from the Federated Malay States, where enormous mechanical dredges costing up to £100,000 scoop up the tin- bearing earth. To- day only a small proportion of the world’s tin is supplied by Cornwall. In later years the methods of mining in Cornwall and the enterprise and skill of the miners played a great part in the development of mine engineering in other parts of the world. For it was Cornish tin that put England on the map of the ancient world. The mine is 3,700 feet long, 1,600 feet wide and nearly 300 feet deep.ĪLTHOUGH the story of tin is less spectacular than that of gold, it is a fascinating one, particularly to Britons. The photograph shows the Hong Fatt Mine, one of the largest open cast mines in the Federated Malay States. THE LONG INCLINE up which excavated material is hauled to the puddlers on the surface. Among the most productive tin mines in the world are those in the Federated Malay States, where the ore is extracted by many different processes, all of them of great interest
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