Part 2
On the north and south coasts of the county, there are several _Slate Quarries_, the slate from which is generally adopted for the roofing of houses; but the best species is found in the celebrated quarry of _Delabole_ near Camelford, which is said to produce the finest and largest slates in England.—“The quarry is about 300 yards long, 100 broad, and upwards of 40 fathoms deep. The slate is first met with about three feet below the surface of the ground, in a loose shattery state, with short and frequent fissures, the _laminæ_ of unequal thickness, but not horizontal.—Thus it continues to the depth of 10 or 12 fathoms, when a more firm and useful stone is procured, the largest pieces of which are used for flat pavements. This is called the _top-stone_, and continues for 10 fathoms, after which the quality improves with increasing depth, till at the 24th from the surface, the workmen arrive at the most superior kind, called the _bottom-stone_.—The colour is grey-blue, and the texture is so close, that it will sound like a piece of metal. The masses are separated from the rock by wedges driven by sledges of iron, and contain from five to 14 superficial square feet of stone. As soon as this mass is freed by one man, another stone cutter, with a strong wide chisel and mallet, is ready to cleave it to its proper thinness, which is usually about one eighth of an inch; the pieces are generally from a foot square, to two feet long, by one wide, but the flakes are sometimes large enough for tables and tomb stones.”[3]
The art of husbandry, three centuries ago, appears to have been little practised in this county; the grounds, says _Carew_, “lay all in common, or only divided by stiche meale, and their bread corn very little; their labour horses were only shod before, and the people devoting themselves entirely to tin, their neighbours in Devonshire and Somersetshire hired their pastures at a rent, and stored them with the cattle they brought from their own homes, and made their profit of the Cornish by cattle fed at their own doors. The same persons also supplied them at their markets, with many hundred quarters of corn and horse loads of bread.” But he also observes, “that the people increasing, and the mines sometimes failing, the Cornish felt the necessity of applying themselves to husbandry, and their improvements answered their expectations; for in the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they found themselves not only in a capacity to support themselves, but also to export a great quantity of corn to Spain and other foreign parts.”
Within the last 50 years, a considerable quantity of the waste lands has been enclosed and cultivated; but after the growth of two or three crops of corn, much of these lands have again been neglected on account of the great expense of manuring them. A very considerable quantity of waste land has, within these few years, been enclosed by Charles Rashleigh, Esq., of Deeporth, near St. Blazey, and which is likely to prove a considerable benefit; E. I. Glynn, Esq., of Glynn, near Bodmin, has also had a large quantity of waste land enclosed, for permanent cultivation. In making enclosures, the fences generally consist of a _stone hedge_, or layers of turf, planted with thorns, nut hazles, and furze. In many parts of the county on the coast, where there is an opportunity of procuring _sea sand_ for manuring the land, great quantities of corn have been grown, particularly in the western and eastern districts. It is usual after a crop of wheat, to sow the ground with barley, after which, turnips or potatoes; but the general course of crops in Cornwall, is considered extremely reprehensible by the author of the Agricultural Survey of the county, owing to the wretched, exhausted, and foul appearance of the grounds laid down with grass seeds. This may, however, be partly accounted for, by Cornwall not being a _dairy county_, and milch cows being generally kept for rearing the young stock.
The soil and climate of Cornwall are peculiarly adapted to the growth of _potatoes_, and these are at all times a standing dish at the humble repast of the labourer. Of the sorts most cultivated, which have been long established, the _painted lord_ and _painted lady_ are much approved; but a kind of apple potatoe, _entirely red_, called _Carolines_, are grown in great abundance, as the standing winter crop. The most early potatoe produced, is the _kidney sort_, and as a proof of the goodness of the soil and climate, in the neighbourhood of Penzance, _two crops_ are frequently produced in a year, and one acre of ground has been known to yield 300 bushels, Winchester measure, for the first, and 600 for the second crop! Many thousand bushels of potatoes are exported annually from Cornwall to London, Plymouth, Portsmouth, and other places. A Cornish bushel of potatoes, generally weighs 220lbs., and are sold from 4 to 5s. a bushel.—Most of the labourers in the county keep a pig or two, and as potatoes are so easily cultivated with advantage, they frequently use them to fatten their pigs.
The _Cattle_ in Cornwall are chiefly of the Devonshire breed, and large quantities of the best oxen are annually sold to graziers and contractors, and sent out of the county to be slaughtered. Many of them are used by the farmers for agricultural purposes. They are shod, or _cued_, as it is provincially termed, and are extremely docile and active, while they are often driven by boys, who cheer and excite them by the song and the goad.
The _Sheep_ of Cornwall are also, generally speaking, of the Devonshire species; and some of the Leicestershire breed have been introduced of late years, with great advantage. Mr. Worgan says, “a pure _Cornish sheep_ is now a rare animal; nor from its properties, need their total extinction be lamented.”
With respect to _Horses_, few are kept in Cornwall for ostentation, or to live in idleness or luxury. The gentleman’s horse is often put to the cart or plough. The farm horses are well adapted to the hilly surface of this county, being a hardy and active sort. Most of the farmers keep up their stock by breeding a colt or two annually; but one-eighth of the horses for saddle and draught are supposed to be brought into the county by eastern dealers.[4]
_Mules_ are bred in Cornwall, but are mostly employed in carrying supplies to and from the mines. Troops of 50 at a time are frequently to be met on the roads in the mining country, loaded with copper or tin ore.
The trade of Cornwall is mostly confined to the exportation of _Pilchards_, _Tin_, _and Copper_, the three great staple commodities of the county. The imports chiefly consist in groceries and bale goods, from London, Bristol, and Manchester, and coals from Wales. Large quantities of flour are also imported at Falmouth and Penryn, chiefly for the miners.—The manufactures in Cornwall are but trifling, compared with other counties. Some coarse woollen, a paper mill or two, and a carpet manufactory, is all that can be enumerated.
The most important objects connected with the History of Cornwall, are its numerous _Mines_ and _Fisheries_, and which for centuries past, have given employment to nearly one half of its inhabitants, and yielded a considerable revenue to government.
The _Pilchard Fisheries_, which are mostly confined to _East and West Looe_, _Polparrow_, _Fowey_, _Charles Town_, near St. Austell, _Mevagissey_, the _Creeks_ of _Falmouth Harbour_, _Mount’s Bay_, on the southern coast, and _St. Ives_, on the northern coast, generally commence in July and end in November.
The Pilchard, in form and size, very much resembles the Herring, except that it is smaller, and not so flat sided. “The dorsal fin of the Pilchard,” says Dr. Maton, “is placed exactly in the centre of gravity, so that the ordinary mode of distinguishing it from the Herring, is to try whether, when taken up by the fin, it preserves an equilibrium, or not. The body of the Herring dips towards the head, and the scales are also observed to drop off, whereas those of the Pilchard adhere very closely.” They mostly arrive from the North Seas at the Islands of Scilly and Land’s End, about July, and shift their situation as the season prompts and the food allures them; but unfortunately the fish have for the last two seasons been exceedingly scarce, which has been a great loss to the fishermen. They are generally caught in large nets of a peculiar make, called _seans_, and the fishermen are directed to the shoals of fish by persons stationed on the high lands near the shore, who discover them by the colour of the water. The nets in general, are managed by _three boats_, containing 18 persons. The seans are about 220 fathoms long, 16 fathoms deep in the middle, and 14 at each end, with lead weights at the bottom and corks at the top. The cost of these seans is very great, sometimes as high as £300 each; and a _track sean_ of about 108 fathoms long and 10 deep, costs £120. The _boats_ for carrying the seans, cost about £60, and the expenses incident to the first out-fit, (including every thing that is necessary,) may be estimated from £1000 to £1200, exclusive of salt.
The fish, immediately upon being brought on shore, are carried to the store-houses or cellars, where the small and damaged fish are picked out by women, and carried away and sold to the poor, or used for manuring land. The remainder are laid up in broad piles and salted. In this state they lie soaking 20 or 30 days, during which time a great quantity of dirty pickle and bittern drains from the fish: when the piles are taken up, the chief part of salt remaining at the bottom, is added to some fresh salt, and serves for another pile. The next process is to wash the fish in sea water, and place them in hogsheads, where, with great weight, they are pressed together as compact as possible, by which operation a great quantity of oil issues through the holes at the bottom of the casks.
The number of fish packed in each hogshead generally amounts to about 3000; and the quantity of salt used annually exceeds 50,000 bushels, each bushel weighing 84lbs. and one hogshead requires 420lbs. of salt; but nearly one half of this quantity is spoiled and sold to the farmers for manure at the rate of 10d. per bushel. Forty-eight hogsheads of Pilchards generally yield a ton or 252 gallons of oil, the price of which varies according to the times, but generally fetches about £25 a ton.
In some instances one sean has been known to take and cure near 1,500 hogsheads in a season; but the fishermen are more fortunate at some places than they are at others. The quantity taken in a season may be estimated at from 40,000 to 60,000 hogsheads of 40 gallons each.
The number of persons employed on the fisheries, cannot be estimated at less than 14,000; and the capital engaged is said to amount to upwards of £350,000. The tythe of each sean is £1 13s. 4d. yearly, exclusive of the duty paid to government for salt.
“The sea,” says Borlase, “is the great store house of Cornwall, which offers not its treasures by piece meals, nor all at once, but in succession, all in plenty in their several seasons, and in such variety, as if nature was solicitous to prevent any excess or superfluity of the same kind.”—Among those which visit the coasts of Cornwall, the following may be enumerated.
The _Blower_ or _Fin Fish_, (the Physeta of the ancients,) and so called from the quantity of water which it blows into the air through a hole in its head.
The _Grampus_, the next in size, is usually about 18 feet long, and sometimes large enough to weigh 1000lbs.—The voracity of this fish is so remarkable, that it has been observed to prey upon the Sea Hog.
The _Blue Shark_ is frequently seen during the Pilchard season.—It has no gills, but breathes through holes or pipes, situated betwixt the mouth and the pectoral fins.
The _Monk or Angel Fish_, is a flat species which seems to partake both of the nature of the Dog Fish and the Ray. The back is coloured like the Seal, without streaks, and has a white belly.
The _Sea Adder_ is a kind of nettle-fish, about 16 inches long, and has a back and tail fin, with scales shaped like those of a land adder.
The _Sun Fish_, so called from being round and emitting a kind of lucid splendour in a dark apartment, is very rarely seen.
_Turbot_ are caught in great plenty during the summer season. In Mount’s Bay particularly, there have been instances of 30 being taken in an evening, with the hook and line. When plentiful, they are generally sold from 4d. to 6d. per pound.
_Mackarel_ are also caught in great abundance.
_Red Mulletts_ and _John Dory’s_, which are very delicious fish, are very plentiful, but seldom caught eastward of Plymouth.
_Conger Eels_, of an extremely large size, weighing from 60 to 120lbs. each, and which with their adder-shaped heads, have a very disgusting appearance.
All sorts of shell fish are very plentiful, particularly _Oysters_; but in general they are not so good as those found on the Kentish and other coasts. The best sort are found in the creeks in Constantine parish, on the river Heyl.
Respecting the _Mines_, the author of the General View of Cornwall, says, “in a narrow slip of barren country, where the purposes of agriculture would not employ above a few thousand people, they alone support a population, estimated at nearly 60,000, exclusive of the artizans, tradesmen, and merchants, in the towns of St. Austell, Truro, Penryn, Falmouth, Redruth, Penzance, and others.”
The tin of Cornwall constituted a branch of commerce at a very early period; the Phenicians and Grecians are said to be the first persons who came to Britain to traffic for that article, but how long they enjoyed the advantage cannot be exactly ascertained. On the discovery of the secret that the Phenicians and Grecians had the means of procuring this valuable metal in Britain, the Romans under Cæsar were induced to undertake an invasion. Though they had possession of the mines for a long period, it does not appear they made much progress in working them. During the Saxon government, the tin mines are said to have been altogether neglected, and the subsequent wars with the Danes and antient Britons prevented the possibility of much progress being made in mining concerns. After the Conquest, the mines were of little value to the proprietors, and even in the reign of King John, the product of them was so trivial, that the _Tin Farm_ amounted only to 100 marks, and the King, with whom the right of working the mines solely rested, was so sensible of their low state, that he bestowed some valuable privileges on the county, by relieving it from the arbitrary forest laws, and granting a charter to the tinners, &c.
During the time of Richard, King of the Romans and Earl of Cornwall, the revenue of the tin mines yielded an immense return; at which time many Jews appear to have been employed in working them. Notwithstanding this success, the latter were banished from the kingdom in the 18th year of the reign of Edward I., when the mines again became much neglected. Shortly after a charter was granted (through Edmund, Earl of Cornwall) to the gentlemen of Blackmoor, proprietors of the Seven Tithings, affording the greatest quantities of tin; by which charter, more explicit grants of the privileges of keeping a court of judicature, holding pleas of action, managing and deciding all stannary causes, of holding parliaments at their discretion, and of receiving as their own due and proportion, the toll tin, or one-fifteenth of all tin raised, were defined. At the same time, the right of bounding or dividing tin grounds into separate portions, for the encouragement of searching, appears to have been regulated; by which the labouring tinner, who might discover tin in waste or uncultivated lands, became entitled to a certain interest in the land, upon giving proper notice in the Stannary Court to the proprietor thereof. The bounds limited the particular portions of ground to which the claim was made, and were formed by digging a small pit at each angle, so that a line drawn from each, determined the extent of the claim. This practise still exists, and the bounder is obliged to renew the pits every year, by removing any dust or rubbish that might otherwise hide his land marks.
Carew says, that “this charter had a seal affixed to it, with a pick axe and shovel in saltier.”
In consideration of the privileges granted by this charter, the gentlemen tinners undertook to pay to Edmund and his successors, Earls of Cornwall, the sum of 4s. for every hundred weight of white tin. To secure the payment of that tax, they agreed that all tin should be brought to places appointed by the Prince, and there weighed, coined, and kept till the duties were paid.
In the 33rd of Edward I., this charter was confirmed, and the tinners of Cornwall were made a distinct body from those of Devonshire, having before been accustomed to assemble on Hengston Hill, every seventh or eighth year, to arrange their concerns and property in the mines. The laws and privileges of the Cornish miners were further enlarged in the 15th year of the reign of Edward III., and subsequent acts passed in the reigns of Richard II., and Edward IV., which confirmed the previous privileges, and the tinners divided into four bodies, and placed under the superintendance of one Warden, reserving them an appeal from his decisions, in suits of law and equity to the Duke of Cornwall in council, or should the title be held in abeyance, then to the Crown.
A Vice Warden is appointed by the Lord Warden, to determine all stannary disputes; he also constitutes four Stewards, (one for each precinct) who hold a Stannary Court every three weeks, and decide by juries of six persons, with a right of progressive appeal to the Vice Warden, Lord Warden, and the Lords of the Prince’s Council. The original Stannary Towns were Launceston, Lostwithiel, Truro, and Helston; to these places the miners were obliged to bring their tin every quarter of a year. But in the time of Charles II., Penzance was added for the convenience of the western tinners.
All tin ores are wrought into metal in the county, and are afterwards cast into blocks, weighing from 2½ cwt. to upwards of 3 cwt. each. They cannot be disposed of till assayed by the proper officers, and stamped with the Duchy seal, which bears the arms of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, viz. a lion rampant, gules, crowned or, with a border sable garnished with bezants.
Since the reign of Henry VIII. the coinages have been held quarterly. The average annual produce of the tin mines is about 25,000 blocks, which, exclusive of duties, may be valued at £260,000, and yielding a revenue to the Duchy of Cornwall of about £10,000 annually. The most considerable tin mines now working, are in the neighbourhood of St. Austell, St. Agnes, and Piranzabuloe. The celebrated _Polgooth Mine_, near the former place, however, has not been worked for upwards of 20 years past.
There are also many other valuable tin mines in the western districts, north-west of Truro.
Besides the mines, there are several stream works in the county, which have yielded immense quantities of tin.
“In digging a mine,” says _Dr. Maton_, “the three material points to be considered, are the removal of the barren rocks or rubbish, the discharge of water, (which abounds more or less in every mine,) and the rising of the ore. Difficulties of course increase with depth, and the utmost aid of all the mechanical powers is sometimes ineffectual, when the workings are deep and numerous. Mountains and hills are the most convenient for working, because drains and adits are then easily cut to convey the water away into the neighbouring valleys. These adits are sometimes driven (as the miners term it) to the distance of one, or even two miles; and though the expense is enormous, these are found a cheaper mode of getting rid of the water than by raising it to the top, especially when there is a great influx, and the mine very deep. It seldom happens, however, that a level can be found near enough for an adit to be made to it from the bottom of a mine; recourse must be had then to a _steam engine_, by which the water is brought up to the adit, be the weight of it what it may. As soon as a shaft is sunk to some depth, a machine, called a _whim_, is erected, to bring up either rubbish or ore, which is previously broken into convenient fragments, by pickaxes and other instruments. The whim is composed of a perpendicular axis, on which turns a large hollow cylinder of timber, (called the _cage_) and round this a rope winds horizontally, being directed down the shaft by a pulley fixed perpendicularly over the mouth of it. In the axis a transverse beam is fixed, at the end of which two horses or oxen are fastened; and go their rounds, hauling up a bucket or _kibbul_, full of ore or rubbish, while an empty one is descending. The ore is blown out of the rock by means of gunpowder, and when raised from the mine, is divided into as many shares or _doles_ as there are lords and adventurers, and these are measured out by barrows, an account of which is kept by a person who notches a stick for that purpose. Every mine enjoys the privilege of having the ore distributed on the adjacent fields. It is generally pounded or stamped on the spot, in the stamping mill. If full of slime, it is thrown into a pit called the _buddle_, to render the stamping more free, without choaking the grates, (thin plates of iron full of small holes.) If free from slime, the ore is shovelled into a kind of sloping canal of timber, called the _pass_, whence it slides, by its own weight, and the assistance of a small stream of water, into the box, where the _lifters_ work. The lifters are raised by a water wheel, and are armed at the bottom with large masses of iron, about one hundred and a half in weight, which pound or stamp the ore small enough for its passage through the holes of an iron grate, fixed in one end of the box. To assist its attrition, a rill of water keeps it constantly wet, and it is carried by a small gutter into the _fore pit_, where it makes its first settlement, the lighter particles running forwards with the water into the _middle pit_, and thence into the third, where what is called the slime, settles. From these pits the ore is carried into a large vat, called the _keeve_, where it is washed and rendered clean enough for the smelting house. Most of the tin mines now working have steam engines, the advantages of which have proved a great benefit to the proprietors of them.”
The famous _Wood Tin_, as it is called, has frequently been found in the stream works. It nearly resembles the colour of _Hæmatites_, with fine streaks, or _Striæ_, converging to the different centres like the radiated zeolite. From the experiments of the celebrated Klaproth, wood tin was found to yield 63 parts in a hundred of tin. The most general state in which the tin of Cornwall is found, is the _calciform_, the greater quantity of ore being indurated, or glass-like; and its most prevalent matrix is either an argillaceous or a silicious substance, or a stone composed of both, and called by the miners _caple_: none of the calcareous _genus_ ever appear contiguous to the ore, except the fluors.”