INDUSTRIES 



INTRODUCTION 



CLIMATE, mineral wealth, and geo- 

 graphical position are the three 

 elements which have determined 

 in the past and which still deter- 

 mine the occupations of the in- 

 habitants of Cornwall. A coast-line of enormous 

 extent with estuaries which afford safe shelter for 

 ships and fishing craft ; mineral resources such as 

 no other county in England possesses ; a climate 

 which enables sub-tropical plants and shrubs to 

 grow in native luxuriance to these natural ad- 

 vantages Cornwall's chief industries fishing, 

 mining, and horticulture are to be attributed. 

 Foundries and boat building, the manufacture of 

 explosives, safety fuses and the like, are merely 

 subsidiary and supplementary. In the present 

 work the larger industries are dealt with separately . 

 by writers of practical knowledge and experience. 

 In what follows here it will suffice to call atten- 

 tion to those industries which have either become 

 extinct or have not acquired a leading position in 

 the county. 



The numerous references in the Patent and 

 Close Rolls to the king's mines of gold and silver 

 in the counties of Devon and Cornwall render it 

 certain that, in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 

 turies, gold and silver were found in these counties 

 in sufficient quantities to be worth working. In 

 I378 1 the prior of Bodmin and the abbot of 

 Buckfast had letters patent enabling them ' to 

 control the profits arising from the gold and 

 silver mines ' leased to Henry of Burton, and re- 

 quiring them to account for one-seventh of the 

 profits to the king. Thirteen years later 2 a 

 commission was appointed to survey the ' newly- 

 found mines of gold, silver, lead, and tin, and 

 other metals, and to set the necessary workmen 

 and labourers to work them for the king's ad- 

 vantage.' In 1461' Sir John Nevill received a 

 grant of ' the king's mines in Devon and Corn- 

 wall in which gold and silver can be found,' at a 

 rent of 100 yearly. In 1480* surveyors were 

 appointed to superintend the agreement which 

 had been made nine years previously with Sir 

 John Fogge for the working of all mines bearing 

 gold and silver in Devon and Cornwall. These 

 references are illustrative of many others, all of 

 which go to prove that mining for gold and 

 silver was carried on with satisfactory results. 



1 Pat. 2 Ric. II, 3 July. 

 'Pat. 15 Ric. II, ii August. 



3 Pat. i Edw. IV, 2 May (p. 191). 



4 Pat. 20 Edw. IV, 12 June (p. 213). 



It is curious however that the rolls supply no 

 data enabling us to discover either the precise 

 locality of the mines or the amount of gold and 

 silver obtained from them. 



Within comparatively recent years small 

 quantities of gold have been found in the parishes 

 of St. Stephen in Brannel, St. Austell, Redruth, 

 Gwennap, Manaccan, Illogan, Budock and else- 

 where, but nowhere in payable quantities. 5 



Lead ore rich in silver at Wheal Pool near 

 Helston, yielding forty ounces of silver to the 

 ton, and at Wheal Rose, yielding sixty ounces 

 to the ton was discovered towards the end of 

 the eighteenth century, but the cost of working 

 was so great as to lead to the abandonment of 

 the enterprise. At Guarnek near Truro good 

 results were obtained in or about the year 1720; 

 and when operations were resumed at the same 

 mine in 1814, out of 800 tons of silver-lead ore 

 thirteen-twentieths were silver. In 1788 lead 

 rich in silver, and also fibrous native silver in 

 the gossan, were discovered in the parish of Per- 

 ranzabuloe at Wheal Mexico ; but it was soon 

 found that below a certain level the silver dis- 

 appeared. Nevertheless, at Trebisken, in the 

 same parish, so late as 1860 the following results 

 were obtained : 6 



tons cwts. qrs. Ib. 



1087 



At Herland in Gwinear, early in the last cen- 

 tury, silver worth 8,000 was obtained in the 

 form of vitreous silver ore, arsenicated silver ore, 

 and black oxide of silver. A little later, a dis- 

 covery of native silver and silver ore was made 

 at Wheal Duchy near Callington. The value 

 of the silver obtained there was about 3,000. 

 Besides the places already mentioned, the most 

 noteworthy sources of silver in the past have 

 been Dolcoath, Wheal Basset, Ludcott near 

 Liskeard, and Wheal Brothers near Calstock. 



5 Trans. Roy. Geol. Sot. ofCornw. xii, 241. 



6 Given by R. Hunt, F.R.S., in his British Mining, 

 from the account books of the mine. 



513 



