The ore from which the metal was extracted is called _chalcitis_ by Pliny,[108] and may have been the "chalcocite" of our present metallurgical science, which is a sulphide containing very nearly eighty per cent.

of copper.

The brief account which Strabo gives of the mines of Tamasus shows that the ore was smelted in furnaces which were heated by wood fires.

We gather also from Strabo that Tamasus had silver mines.
That the Phoenicians conducted mining operations in Thasos we know from Herodotus,[109] and from other writers of repute[1010] we learn that they extended these operations to the mainland opposite.

Herodotus had himself visited Thasos, and tells us that the mines were on the eastern coast of the island, between two places which he calls respectively AEnyra and Coenyra.