88 "OUR HOLIDAY IN CORNWALL 



hundred men are employed. We had neither time 

 nor had we sought permission to descend to the 

 depths, two thousand feet under the sea. What we 

 did see was sufficiently interesting. We were shown 

 many of the works exhibiting the most ingenious 

 methods by which the various metals are separated. 

 It was particularly interesting to notice the use 

 made of rusty, partly decomposed old iron, which 

 has the property of attracting the last mites of 

 copper from the final washings. 



Passing through one room, we were all but 

 asphyxiated by the fumes of sulphur and the 

 evaporation by which arsenic is extracted from 

 the ores, which, instead of flying off, as is its 

 tendency, into smoke up a chimney, is so driven 

 about through immense zigzag tubes before the 

 final upright shaft is reached that a residue is 

 left, enough to poison millions of people, and, as a 

 bye-product, add materially to the profits of the 

 mine. 



The bay in which this mine lies has an evil 

 celebrity for the many wrecks that occur there. 

 A lighthouse is now being erected on a point a 

 short distance westward. The question whether 

 the minerals have anything to do with the deflec- 

 tion of the needle is as much mooted on this side 

 of the land as on the southern side, where the 

 Manacles lie, and which are supposed to have had 

 a mysterious influence on the fate of the Parts. 



August 5. Ah ! me. How these holidays do slip 

 away ! This is our last working day, and I have 



