316 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



about a mile and a half to the west of Penzance, between 

 Treneipe and Newlyn, and one at Chyandour, a village a 

 little to the east of Penzance, and almost a suburb of it. 

 Those sacks of tin were often carried on mules from the mines 

 through Penzance to the smelting-house at Chyandour, and 

 to me it was always a gladdening sight to see the drove of 

 tweiaty or more mules coming steadily along in pairs, keeping 

 step in due marching order, and bearing their heavy burdens, 

 following the man in charge, who preceded them on horse- 

 back, their red-looking sacks of tin appearing so uniform, 

 each sack (of which there were generally three on a mule) 

 containing about 1 cwt. 



(3.) Arrived at the smelting-house, the raw tin was melted 

 down in large furnaces and run into regular-shaped moulds 

 cut in granite, each block forming a parallelogram of about 

 2 ft. long by 1 ft. broad on the surface and 6 in. to 9 in. deep, 

 and narrowed on all sides and on the base below, its upper 

 surface shining brilliantly. 



(4.) The next step in the process would be to carry these 

 blocks of pure tin metal into Penzance (as one of the " coinage 

 towns") to the "coinage-hall" there, in order to their being 

 duly coined by the officers of the Duchy. This was done — 

 (a) By weighing them separately and infixing the weight in 

 the face of the block ;,(&) by stamping each block with the 

 arms of the Duchy ; (c) by clipping off a small piece (an ounce 

 or two) from one of the corners : and now it was ready for 

 sale, use, or exportation. 



(5.) But there was still another tin-melting house, or 

 premises, near the quay at Penzance, where those blocks of 

 tin were (when required) again melted down and made into 

 small tin bars or rods. This was a peculiar and pleasing pro- 

 cess, which I will briefly describe : An open furnace, or big 

 melting-pot, into which one of those blocks of tin was placed, 

 being suspended on a large iron hook. Around the building, 

 against the walls, was a row of thick flat-surfaced grey-marble 

 slabs, each about 4 ft. long by 2 ft. wide, cramped around 

 with iron. In the face of those slabs were cut across straight, 

 narrow, semicylindrical grooves, very near each other, about 

 f in. wide and deep. These were carefully filled with the 

 liquid tin, brought from the furnace in deep short-handled 

 bowl-ladles, and poured into the grooves, which soon became 

 solid and cooled, and were dexterously picked out singly by 

 the workman. It was a very interesting sight to see the 

 skilful and experienced workman pour quickly into each 

 groove sufficient metal to fill it from his heavy ladle held by 

 both hands, and then to pick up rapidly the shining tiny bars, 

 still very hot, into his left hand well armed with thick woollen 

 rags. These bars were then stacked crosswise, and looked 



