212 III story of the English Landed Liter est. 



of laudownership to something a great deal deeper down 

 than the surface, and it is of vast importance to collect and 

 treasure up these early traces, which establish a precedent at 

 the first infancy of that mining industry which now supplies 

 the whole world with either raw material or hardware. We 

 are a nation particularly subservient to precedents, and turn 

 back to history for knowledge how to act whenever our national 

 lawyers find themselves amidst unusual surroundings. It is 

 thus our great unwritten code of Common Law has been com- 

 piled ; and whether it be a king's insanity^ or an unusual phase 

 of conjugal relationship,- our judges hark back to precedent for 

 their ruling. 



We cannot but doubt then that these early traces of mining 

 leases have played over and over again an important part in 

 the Common Law of this land. The whole question of mineral 

 proprietorship opens out a wide field of thought. Tin, for 

 instance, was being excavated at the period of the so-called 

 village communal system ; and it would be interesting to learn 

 how a tribal economy would dispose of its profits. The earliest 

 existing reference to Cornish customs of tin mining is contained 

 in the Charters of 3 John and 33 Edw. I. ; and the rights of 

 the miners are mentioned as ancient even then. Who first 

 originated these grants of privileges to the tinners, or rather 

 who first assumed the seignorial jurisdiction over such privi- 

 leges, is a secret of the remote past. It is not improbable that 

 the pre-historic inhabitants of the tribal era of Cornish history 

 ■were totally ignorant of the tin industry. From the very 

 earliest ages this part of Great Britain had been exposed to 

 foreign influences ; and it is not at all unlikely that the rights 

 to dig tin and turves to melt it with were originally vested in 

 the person of some exploring Phoenician merchant or Spanish 

 mining expert. 



Handed down from time immemorial, these privileges at 

 length found legal recognition in the above mentioned 

 charters. By the first of these ancient deeds only the old 



* Macaulay, Hist, of Engl. 



' Edward Turner, article on Baron and Feme in the Incorporated 

 Law Society's Proceedings, of the 18th Meeting, 1891. 



