CoLENSO. — Memorabilia, Ancient and Modern. 317 



very pretty. Sometimes, but rarely, there would be a short 

 or imperfect one, which, of course, would be again consigned 

 to the melting-pot. I understood that those small tin bars 

 were exported in that state to the West Indies and other 

 countries as an article of commerce. 



I would also remark on the peculiar appearance of the tin- 

 smelting houses, owing to their several very high and narrow 

 telescope-shaped brick chimneys, regularly cramped and 

 banded with iron throughout to the top, one, of course, to 

 each furnace. On a dark night the bluish flame that rises in 

 the still air from the top of each chimney has a very singular 

 look, somewhat weirdlike, and must often seem strange to the 

 visitor or traveller by night not knowing the cause, particu- 

 larly the smelting-house at Chyandour, from the fact of it 

 being situate in a low valley close to the foot of a high range 

 of thickly wooded hills, the dark foliage of the trees in the 

 immediate background serving to enhance the romantic 

 appearance of the tremulous and coloured flames of fire. 

 Moreover, I believe those smelting-houses are often, if not 

 generally, worked in by night. 



I have said that Penzance is one of the " coinage towns " 

 of the Duchy of Cornwall. This I will further explain. In 

 Cornwall at present there are five coinage towns — viz., 

 Launceston, Lostwithiel, Truro, Helston, and Penzance. 

 These are termed in law " stannary towns," and have certain 

 peculiar laws and privileges respecting mines and miners ; 

 and all tin raised in the county must be taken to one of 

 them in order to it being stamped and the dues paid. The 

 infancy of the stannaries, with which the history of the Courts 

 is almost inseparably interwoven, is obscured by the " purple 

 haze of antiquity." Gilbert, in his " Historical Survey of the 

 County of Cornwall," observes that the " hand of time, united 

 with the loss of the first charter and the destruction of many 

 stannary records at Lostwithiel in the unnatural times of 

 Charles I., have thrown an air of obscurity, doubt, and 

 uncertainty on the stannary laws which it would now be a 

 difiicult, if not impossible, task to remove." There is a con- 

 sensus of opinion that the word " stannaries" is derived from 

 the Latin stannum — tin, but it is believed by some it comes 

 from stean, the old Cornish word for tin. It would seem that 

 the formation of Stannary Courts followed hard upon one of 

 the recurrent periods of activity in the production of tin a 

 century or two after the Norman invasion. The tin-mines of 

 Cornwall were not very productive in the reign of John. 

 That king was Earl of Cornwall, and according to one or two 

 historians he bestowed some valuable privileges on the county 

 — relieved it from the operations of the arbitrary forest laws, 

 and granted a charter to the tinners. A still more favourable 



