Tin
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Tin. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
Important: Safety Warning This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes. This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon. This metal has been known from very early times, but its ores have been found in a few places only; the metallic tin is not found in nature. Chief among the European sources of tin are the mines in Cornwall, where it is found as tinstone. The Phoenicians and Romans obtained from these mines all the tin employed by them in the manufacture of bronze. Malacca, Borneo, and Mexico also yield tinstone. In the preparation of this metal the tinstone is crushed and washed, and the clean ore is then put into the reverberatory furnace along with fuel and a small portion of lime. By this means the oxide is reduced, and the liquid metal, together with the slag, consisting of calcic silicate, falls to the lower part of the furnace. The blocks of tin thus obtained are still impure, and require further refining by gradually melting out the pure tin, leaving an impure alloy behind. The refined tin thus obtained is principally used for tin-plate, the remainder being the block-tin of commerce. The manner of producing grain-tin is to plunge blocks of the metal into a tin bath, where they are caused to assume a crystallized nature, after which they are either broken up with the hammer, or allowed to fall from a great height. The long grains are caused by the latter process. Tin is a brilliant, silver-white metal, softer than gold, slightly ductile, and very malleable, as evidenced by the common tin-foil, which is no more than 1/1000 of an inch thick. It melts at 442 deg. The peculiar cracking sound emitted when tin is bent is owing to the disturbance of its crystalline structure. Owing to its weak affinity for oxygen, it tarnishes but slightly on exposure to air or moisture, and is therefore valuable for domestic utensils. It is this property that renders it so useful as a coating to prevent other metals from oxidizing. The common tin-ware is simply thin sheets of iron coated with this metal. Tin dissolves in hydrochloric acid. If this metal be heated beyond its melting-point, with access of air, it becomes converted into the binoxide, and burns with a brilliant white light. It is certainly one of the earliest known metals, as it enters into the composition of bronze, of which alloy many of the ancient statues, weapons, and tools were made. Most metals are made harder, whiter, and more fusible by tin. It forms the principal ingredient of Britannia metal, pewter, and many solders. The finest pewter is mainly composed of tin, with some temper. See PEWTER. Tin forms an amalgam with mercury, with which to silver mirrors and other objects. Tin-foil is placed on a flat slab, then covered with mercury, and the glass placed over it, when, weights being applied, the superfluous mercury escapes, leaving a film of the silvery amalgam adhering to the glass. See MERCURY. Tin is hardened and made more silvery by alloying with antimony; zinc has the effect of cleansing it. See ANTIMONY; ZINC. Melted pewter is prevented from oxidizing by letting a piece of zinc float upon the surface of the alloy while casting. One ninth of tin added to copper makes gun-metal or bronze, which is tough and rigid, but can neither be rolled nor drawn--a wonderful change from the original qualities of either metal when unalloyed; and what is perhaps more remarkable, if further additions, up to about one fourth, of the soft tin be employed, the alloy is made hard and elastic. A further increase up to tin 1, copper 2, and the alloy becomes so brittle that steel tools fail to make any impression upon it, except to crumble it; its malleability is completely destroyed, a brilliant white alloy, highly crystalline, having taken its place, with no trace of the red copper in its texture. Such an alloy is susceptible of a brilliant polish owing to its extremely close and hard nature, and for this reason it is used for speculums; but special means must be employed for grinding the surfaces, as they cannot be cut. See SPECULUM-METAL; ROSSE'S TELESCOPE; COPPER; BRONZE.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a well known silvery white metal. It is softer than lead and may be hammered or rolled into exceedingly thin sheets known as tin foil, but grows brittle at a temperature of 200 deg. C. and melts at 228 deg. Tin ore or tin stone is a compound of tin and oxygen. It occurs chiefly in granite rocks where it is mined like gold ore, but, like gold dust, it is also to be sought in the gravel of valleys where it has been carried by torrents as the granite ledges have crumbled away. Tin occurs in nearly all the granite states of the Union. The mountains of New England , the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, North Carolina , and California have yielded tin ore in small quantities, but the only American mines of consequence are found in the Black Hills of South Dakota . The entire American production is about 30,000 long tons yearly. The tin mines of Cornwall in England are celebrated and have supplied a large part of the world with tin since the day of Julius Caesar. The Phoenicians employed slaves to work the tin mines of Spain. Agricola, an early Roman historian, mentions the tin mines of Portugal. The granite ledges and gravels of Devonshire, Brittany, Bohemia, Finland, and Mexico, produce tin. The enormous modern demand for tin has been met in part by the Straits Settlements of Asiatic waters, at present the most important tin-producing district in the world. The mines of southeastern Asia have been worked for 400 years. It is thought that long ago they must have furnished the tin employed in the manufacture of the implements used in the prehistoric bronze age . In the southern hemisphere, tin is found in Australia, Tasmania, and Bolivia. A considerable portion of the tin supply goes into the manufacture of bronze, for an account of which the reader is referred to the article under that title. Britannia metal, used in the manufacture of toys and of tableware designed to imitate silverware, is composed of from eighty-two to ninety parts of tin alloyed with antimony and a small admixture of copper and sometimes zinc. Pure tin, like silver, resists rust. Tinware is made of sheet iron coated with tin, which, especially in the case of tin cans for preserving vegetables and fruits, excludes the air and prevents decay. America is obliged to send more money abroad for tin than for any other metal. We import 95,000,000 pounds a year from England and the East Indies. To make commercial tin out of this imported ingot tin, steel or iron plates are dipped in a tank of molten tin and are then annealed by a proper degree of heat in ovens. The American manufacture of so-called tin employs 25,000 people and reaches the enormous volume of 1,000,000,000 pounds a year, unprecedented in the world's history. Formerly tinware was made by cutting the material into suitable sheets and soldering them together, but now almost all "tin" goods are made by stamping the article out of a single sheet. Several thousand people are engaged in this work, to say nothing of japanned and enameled tinware. Half of the world's supply of tin is consumed in the United States. The price in New York has ranged in recent years from twenty-nine cents to thirty-eight cents per pound. American manufacturers of tin plate are protected by a duty of one and one-half cents per pound.