CHAPTER VIII.

THE COPPER MINES.

Perchance you now feel no insurmountable objection to visiting and inspecting the grand source of the prosperity of Conistone—the copper mines to wit.

Miss Martineau tells you that—“The traveller should see the copper works at Conistone (if he can obtain leave,) both for their own sake, and for the opportunity it gives him of observing the people engaged there, and because they lie in his way to the tarns on Conistone Old Man, and to the summit of the mountain itself.” Should you happen to know this very eminent and excellent writer, pray tell her that she might have omitted the parenthesis which insinuates that leave to inspect the mines is sometimes refused; for I assure you and her, that such leave has never been refused during the reign of the present liberal and enlightened manager, and that has lasted upwards of twenty years, and will, I earnestly hope, last for upwards of twenty more. You will find that you have nothing to do but walk up to the office like a gentleman, as you are, (if you be not a lady,) send in your card, state your wishes, and you will not only obtain the wished permission, but the offer of a proper equipment, and candles, and be directed to a competent guide and cicerone.

Very well, then; you may follow the same route you took at the commencement of your last ramble—that is to say, along the Lake side, by the slate-quays, over Yewdale Bridge, past the Church to the Black Bull, the end of which you pass, and soon come to a wooden bridge connecting the road with a number of cottages arranged in the form of an irregular square with a tail to it, and called “the Forge.”

[Sidenote: WAY TO THE MINES.]

As you saunter on towards the hills, you arrive at a huge inelegant building of three high stories, formerly a corn-mill, but now converted into eight roomy dwelling-houses, and a large public room. Immediately above this old corn-mill, on a gentle acclivity at the apex of the fertile triangular plain of Church Conistone, so close to the fells as to be almost overhung by them, and surrounded by richly-decorated grounds, stands Holy-wath, the residence of one to whom Conistone is mainly indebted for the prosperity she has for so many years enjoyed.

Those interested in planting operations, especially in _trans_planting “adult trees,” may here see numerous examples of success in that difficult art; for all these large healthy trees in the grounds of Holy-wath were transplanted by Mr Barratt, some few years ago, from beyond the lake.

The neat cottages beyond, smiling over the beauty below them, are called 'Boon Beck, and, like nine-tenths of the houses you have seen, are inhabited by miners. Pass through the Fell-gate, taking the road to the right, and a pretty stiff pull you will find it.

[Sidenote: GHYLL AND FALLS.]

On the upper side of the road, you have a steep fell-side consisting of grey rock, alternating with green pasturage, and on the lower a high and dry stone wall, and when you come to a gate therein, you may rest, and look over, or through it, at the dale and village from a new point of view. It is “devoutly to be wished” that, when wearied in the up-hill journey through life, we may always find a resting-place pleasant as this. You are, of course, delighted, for the beauty of Conistone is of that sterling character that, from whatever direction you gain a peep at it, you are struck with renewed admiration, and you are always inclined to fancy that it is seen to most advantage from the place whence you then happen to be looking. But all earthly delights must end, and you must not stand all day gazing so eagerly at the landscape through the gate—reminding one of a hungry monkey eyeing gingerbread nuts through the bars of his cage. So resume your walk, and when the wall terminates, you have in its place a deep rugged ravine, with the soap-_suddy_ beck brawling and foaming along its jagged course at the bottom. And here the lover’s leap might commodiously be perpetrated, as one of Mr George Robins’ advertisements said in its enumeration of the attractions of a property he had to sell hereabouts some years ago. But you had better, if you contemplate such an exploit, defer the execution of it, until once I have shown you all that is worth seeing around this same Conistone; and then, if you still wish to quit a world containing a locality so beautiful, why, the sooner such an insensate animal makes his exit, the better for all parties concerned. About half way up the ghyll, you come to a waterfall of about forty feet, where the water, being much broken by the inequalities above, and upon the broad ledge it falls from, spreads out like a huge white apron _gathered_ a little at the waist. A hundred yards higher is another fall, and, higher still, a third, where the stream is split into three by two sharp projecting rocks, and, about half way down, falls upon a sort of “slantindicular” shelf, whence, white as butter-milk, it makes a second fall at right angles to the first, and forms altogether a highly interesting subject of contemplation.

[Sidenote: CHRONOLOGICAL DATA.]

And now, occupying the upper end of an oblong basin amongst the hills, you see “a little town” of sheds, offices, workshops, and water-wheels, which, with the constant clatter of the machinery issuing therefrom, presents a most extraordinary contrast to the silence and solitude of the surrounding wilderness. These are the works belonging to the Copper Mines, which Copper Mines were in existence when Christianity was not, for there is good reason to believe that copper was wrought here, and that extensively, by the Romans during their first occupation of the country, and also by the Britons before them. In support of this supposition, I beg to offer an extract, bearing upon the subject, from that very grave and erudite work, Mr A'Beckett’s History of England. “Before quitting the subject of Cæsar’s invasion, it may be interesting to the reader to know something of the weapons with which the early Britons attempted to defend themselves. Their swords were made of copper, and generally bent with the first blow, which must have greatly straitened their aggressive resources, for the swords thus followed their own bent, instead of carrying out the intention of the persons using them. This provoking pliancy of material must often have made the soldier as ill-tempered as his weapon.” Since those remote days, these mines have never been entirely deserted, save for a few years during the rumpus kicked up by Oliver Cromwell and his compatriots, at which period of our national history, lead and cold iron being more in request than “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals,” they were shut up; but on the restoration of tranquillity and of “that sad scamp, the Merry Monarch,” operations were resumed, and continued with varying energy and success until the advent of the present management. At that period there were only two or three miners employed, but since then, matters have been very different. The mines have been rapidly increasing in extent and prosperity; they now employ several hundred people, and are become a splendid property to the present enterprising company.

[Sidenote: MINING—OLD AND MODERN.]

It is worthy of being remarked, that, in the early ages, the mode of obtaining the ore, which is generally found in veins, or lodes, intermingled with quartz, and surrounded by very hard rock, was similar to that which the Roman historians say was adopted by Hannibal to smooth his passage over the Alps; that is, they kindled large fires upon the veins, and, having heated the stone as much as possible, poured water upon it, (the Carthaginians used vinegar,) which, by the sudden and copious abstraction of caloric, caused it to crack, or burst, and so rendered a circumscribed portion workable by their rude implements, some of which—small quadrangular iron wedges, with a hole at the thick end for the insertion of a handle—have been recently found in the very old workings. The invention of gunpowder and its application to blasting purposes, have, of course, for ages, superseded this primitive _modus operandi_;

And now these rock-built hills are hourly “shaken By thy humane discovery, _Friar Bacon_!”

Some of the operations are carried on by what are called “tribute-workers,” the workmen receiving a certain proportion of what they raise, and, when fortunate, some of them realize large sums under this system; but the greater part by far of the underground work is done by bargain, some man, or, more frequently, men, undertaking to excavate a given number of fathoms in a certain locality and in an assigned direction, for so much per fathom; the results of their labours being brought out along the levels by waggons, and by “kibbles”—a sort of large strong bucket—up the shafts. If you happen to be fresh from College, it may be necessary to inform you that a level means a horizontal, and a shaft a perpendicular excavation.

High up the mountain side, you may notice a solitary water-wheel which, from having nothing near it visible from below, appears to be spinning away like a child's toy mill, without aim or object. It is at the top of the main shaft, and is employed in hoisting those kibbles and water to the horse level.

[Sidenote: THE HORSE LEVEL.]

And now having arrived at the works, before examining the details of the dressing process, suppose you take a subterranean ramble, and see how and where the ore is obtained, and to do that comfortably, it were well to borrow some regular mining habiliments to save your clothes;—the gentlemen below stairs will excuse your appearing amongst them in full dress.

It will be wise to select the oldest and most extensive part of the mines for exploration, and _it_ is that most to the east; so, when you are properly equipped, and have procured candles and a guide, proceed at once to the horse level mouth, light your candles, open the door and walk in, and as you proceed, it were well, once in a way, to take a lesson from your respectable fellow-biped the goose, who, I have been told, always lowers his head when entering even the highest doors; for if you disdain the Saviour of the Capitol’s example, you will hardly save your own capital, the arch of living rock beneath which you travel being too low for even a little man to walk with an erect front. When you have progressed thus with your crest lowered for some distance, you may straight your back and look up, for you are under the “Cobbler’s hole,” a tremendous chasm, from which a vein of copper, extending to above the water-wheel you saw on the hill-side, has been wrought, and when you are advanced about a quarter of a mile into the level, you are at the side of the shaft which reaches from the said water-wheel through all the workings down to the deepest level; and by which the kibbles containing the ore are hoisted a few fathoms above your head, and there emptied into a large hopper, the mouth of which is six or seven feet above the level, and under it the waggons are run to be loaden.

[Sidenote: VISIT TO THE INTERIOR.]

If you are determined to descend the shaft, it must be by a series of ladders, with wooden sides and iron steps, and you come upon a platform, or “landing,” at every few fathoms. Diverging occasionally from, but generally following the line of the shaft, you pass several old “bunnins”—I am not sure about the orthography, but the derivation is, I fancy, from _bound in_—which are short logs of wood jammed between the opposite walls of rock for the miners to stand upon when working in such situations. As you proceed on your perilous journey, you must not allow the thundering echoes of the distant blast, or the astounding rattle of the rapidly descending kibble and its chain, to deprive you of your presence of mind, else you are “but a dead” tourist. But supposing that you carry your senses along with you, and are resolved to stop at nothing short of the deep workings, you continue, sometimes crawling down the ladders, and sometimes stepping cautiously across the landings, and pass several levels in your descent—viz., one twenty fathoms down, one thirty-five, one fifty, and at length you arrive at the seventy fathom, when you are some where about the level of the village, or about 420 feet below the place where you commenced your underground knight errantry—or, again, about 640 feet below the top of the shaft. There is, “at the lowest depth a lower still,” some twenty fathoms below this another working called “the ninety;” but you are already deep enough for any useful purpose. Moving a short way onwards, you come in sight of two men working upon a “bunnin,” and looking, according to your notion, very much like inhabitants of a still lower region, the darkness being made barely visible by a couple of twinkling candles plastered against the rock with clay. Their attitudes are somewhat picturesque, as they hold up and turn the jumper with the left hand, whilst they keep driving it into the flinty rock by an incessant rapping with a hammer held in [Sidenote: BORING AND BLASTING.] the right. Having bored their holes to a sufficient depth, they proceed to clear them out with an iron instrument something like a yard-long needle, with its point bent and flattened—first scraping out the borings or fragments of stone, with the point, and then drying the hole with a small wisp of straw, or dried grass, drawn through the eye, and worked up and down in the hole until all moisture is completely mopped up. They then fill a tin tube with gunpowder, and conveying it into the hole, withdraw the tube and leave the hole filled to one-third, or one-half its depth with the powder. Having corked down, by way of wadding, the wisp used in drying, and carefully cleaned away any stray grains of powder which may possibly adhere to the sides, they next thrust a long sharpened rod of copper, called a “pricker,” down one side into the powder, and pass an iron “stemmer,” or ramrod, grooved on one side to fit the pricker, to feel whether it work easily, which it will not do, if the pricker be improperly inserted. They then beat in with the stemmer a quantity of soft rotten stone, called “stemming,” sufficient to fill up the hole, finishing off with a little clay, and commence the withdrawal of the pricker, an operation of some nicety. Having got it out, they pass down the hole it leaves a long straw filled with powder, having a piece of match-paper attached to its outer extremity; and having secured their tools, and uttered two or three indescribable warning shouts, the precise sound of which it is difficult to realize, but which consist of the monosyllable “fire,” they ignite the touch-paper and immediately retire to a respectful distance, and you had better retire with them, to await the report, which, when it does occur, will be pretty likely to make you jump an inch or two out of your skin. Returning to their working, they note carefully the effects of the blast, and breaking up the larger fragments, and beating down any loose pieces that may hang about the sides, they select a suitable “lofe,” and recommence boring. About three blasts in this hard rock is considered a fair day's work, the men working eight hours a day in shifts—which does not mean that they array themselves in chemises to work in, but that they are relieved, or shifted, at the end of eight hours, by other workmen taking their places.

[Sidenote: RETURN TO DAYLIGHT.]

And now having visited the depths of the mines, and witnessed the most important, as well as the most common of the underground operations, and, moreover, being almost “scomfished” with the powder smoke, you are anxious to return to the blessed light of day, and “Heaven's untainted breath,” and may clamber up the interminable ladders you descended by. What you have seen, of course, conveys no adequate idea of the extent of the mines, for these hills are almost honey-combed by levels and other workings; but you have seen enough to show you the nature of copper mining. It is rather extraordinary that the mines, even in their deepest parts, are infested by myriads of rats, and why they harbour there, or what they get to eat, would require a longer head than mine to discover.

It says much for the excellent arrangements on the part of the management, that, notwithstanding the dangerous nature of the work, and the number of hands employed, serious accidents are of very rare occurrence; and when they do occur, they are almost always the result of negligence, frequently involving disobedience of orders, on the part of the sufferer. However, one of the most melancholy that has yet occurred, was purely accidental, and I may relate it as a sad episode in mining life. A father and son—Irishmen—named Redmond, were employed at the foot of a shaft, “filling kibbles.” The father’s kibble had descended, and he had unhooked the chain, handed it to his son to attach to _his_ kibble, which was full, and commenced refilling, when his attention was attracted by a cry, and, starting round, he saw his son carried with the kibble rapidly up the dark shaft. He called to him to hold on by the bucket, but that was considered hopeless by the workmen about, because the shaft is tortuous, and the sides very rugged and uneven. A very short time shewed that they were correct, for the unfortunate youth's body was heard tumbling down the shaft. The old man placed himself below, stretching out his arms to catch the body as it fell, and was with difficulty dragged from the position where he would have shared the fate of his son, whose mangled body fell close to his feet.

[Sidenote: ANECDOTES GRAVE AND GAY.]

Another story of a different character connected with kibble-filling, I may tell you by way of relief to the above sad narrative. A man was employed in this department, who had seen better days, and whose thoughtlessness or ill luck had reduced him to labour thus for his daily bread, but whose humour and ready wit were by no means impaired by his fallen fortunes. One of the agents observing some small stones falling down the shaft, said, “Take care—or you'll have your brains knocked out!” He continued his work, replying coolly, “If I’d ever had any brains, Captain, I shouldn’t have been here!”

[Sidenote: PROCESS OF SEPARATION.]

And now, having safely returned to this every-day world, you may examine the processes through which the ore has to pass, before it is fit for the market, for, unlike most other mining, one-half of the work is not done when it is brought above ground. Well, first, you perceive, it is thrown from the waggons into a heap, where water runs over it, and by cleaning the lumps, shews more plainly what each piece is _made of_. Then from the heap it is raked by men to a platform, or long low bench, along which a number of little boys are actively engaged in picking or separating the richer pieces from the poorer, and it is highly amusing to watch the expertness and celerity with which the imps make the selection, and toss each lump into its proper receptacle. The richest portion is carried at once to the crushing mill, the poorer is thrown into another shed below, to be broken up and further picked, and the mere stones are wheeled off to the rubbish heap. The ore being broken small is thrown into the crushing mill, and passed once or twice through it, being returned to the mill by an endless chain of iron buckets, which dip into the heap of crushed ore below, and, carrying it up, empty themselves into the mill. When ground to the size of coarse sand, the ore is carried to the “jigging troughs,” which are large square boxes, filled with water, and having each a smaller box, with a grated bottom, suspended in it from a beam above, and filled with ore, a “jigging” motion being imparted to the grated boxes by water-power. This jigging under water causes the grains of pure ore, which are heavy, to sink and pass through the grating of the inner box, and the particles of spar and rock, which are lighter, to rise to the top, whence they are scooped off and wheeled away to undergo another pounding and washing. The pounding is effected by means of two long rows of stamps or heavy iron-shod pestles, kept incessantly rising and falling in beds fronted with perforated iron plates, and fed with the material, and a flow of water to wash it, when fine enough, through the holed plate. It is, after that, collected to go through the process of “buddling,” which consists of laying it on slanting shelves, at the head of long wooden troughs, also slanting longitudinally, and a limited stream of water being allowed to run through it and wash it slowly off the shelves and down the inclining troughs, the heavier and valuable portion remains at the head, whilst the lighter and worthless portion is washed down to the lower end. All the waste water used in any of the dressing processes is made to flow through a series of large tanks or reservoirs, in which it deposits all the fine particles of ore that may be floating away, and from these tanks some thousands of pounds' worth of ore is collected annually in the form of slime, and looking like bronze, which with all the other ore is shipped to Swansea to be smelted.

[Sidenote: ANOTHER WORD FOR MINERS.]

An impression is general that the people employed here are more than ordinarily “ignorant and profligate.” Nothing could be farther from the truth than such a supposition. They, doubtless, have their share of the failings of human nature, and many enjoy themselves rather freely at the month’s end, when they receive their pay, but open or obtrusive profligacy is very rare, and their ignorance is certainly not so general as that of the pastoral and agricultural population around them. And I maintain that, in kindness to each other, in the proper discharge of the duties of domestic life, in demonstrative respect for those above them, in real civility to strangers, though accompanied perhaps, in some instances, by gruffness of manner, the mining population of Conistone are not to be surpassed by any other of equal numbers in the world, and are certainly not equalled by any that I have been amongst.

I have now nothing more to say about either mines or miners, but leave you to divest yourself of your miners' habiliments, and cleanse your fingers from the candle grease at your leisure.