INDUSTRIES 



from what has already been said, we know that 

 tin gravel might be found at still slighter depths, 

 in fact immediately beneath the surface. 



With the advent of shaft mining in the rock, 

 however, all this became changed, and pits were 

 sunk 40, 50, and occasionally 60 fathoms. 1 At 

 once the question of drainage assumed the im- 

 portance which has clung to it ever since. 2 In 

 the old stream works, wooden bowls seem to 

 have been used at first for bailing purposes, 3 or 

 the ' level,' a deep trench, running from stream 

 work to river, served to clear it of water. 4 

 After that came the windlass, as yet turned by 

 human power, and bearing up the water in 

 leathern bags or buckets, 5 and then the use of 

 small hand or force pumps, 6 and, at the same 

 time, in the larger works, the adit, 7 similar to 

 the level, but in the form of a drainage tunnel, 

 driven through the hillside to meet the shaft at 

 its foot. The adit, however, was too expensive 

 an undertaking to be within reach of all, and, 

 even where employed, its usefulness was limited, 

 since when the shaft was driven deeper than the 

 level of free drainage, other devices had to be 

 used to bring the water to the adit head. Mean- 

 while the windlass took various developments as 

 regards application of power, the best-known 

 being the horse whimsey, or whim, in which the 

 rope from the shaft passed around a huge upright 

 drum, turned by a team of horses. 8 In other 

 mines recourse was had to rag-and-chain pumps, 

 each consisting of an endless chain, broadened at 

 intervals by leathern bindings, to fit snugly into 

 a long pipe of from 12 to 22 ft. in length. It 

 was worked by a windlass at the surface, and 

 catching up as it did a series of short columns of 

 water, served quite well to clear a small mine, its 

 chief drawback being the severity of the labour 



1 ' The Relation of Tin Mines and the Work- 

 ing of Tin in Cornwall,' by Dr. Merrest, Phllosoph. 

 Trans, xii, 949 ; J. Childrey, Britannia, 8 ; Worth, 

 Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of Mining 

 Skill, 15. 



1 The increased price of materials, added to the ex- 

 pense of drainage, brought about a period of great 

 depression throughout the tin mines (S. P. Dom. 

 Chas. I, cccxxii, i). 



3 Worth, Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 28. 



4 'Notes on the Remains of Early British Tin 

 Works,' by Robt. Hunt, Gent. Mag. xiii, 696. 



4 ' Improvements in Mining,' by Jos. Came, Trans. 

 Roy. Geol. Sac. Cornto. iii, 48. See also ' An Indenture 

 and Ordinance respecting the Working of Silver 

 Mines in Devon and Cornwall,' by E. Smirke, Arch. 

 Journ. xxvii, 37. 



6 Worth, Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 30. 



7 'An Indenture and Ordinance respecting the 

 Working of Silver Mines in Devon and Cornwall,' 

 by E. Smirke, Arch. Joum. xxvii, 133 ; Del Mar, 

 History of the Precious Metals, 63, 72. 



b Worth, Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 30. 



which it entailed on the men working it. 9 To 

 drain a mine of any depth, a series of these was 

 necessary, and a 4-inch pump drawing 20 ft. 

 employed from twenty to twenty-four men work- 

 ing five or six at a time in six-hour spells. 10 



For the introduction of hydraulic drainage 

 engines it is impossible to fix a date. They took 

 the form usually of overshot waterwheels of 10 

 or 15 ft. diameter, turning in shallow shafts and 

 operating rag-and-chain pumps, or their improve- 

 ments the plate-and-chain and the bucket-and- 

 chain. In deep mines, a half-dozen of these 

 wheels, one above another, might be called into 

 service. It is equally out of the question to 

 attempt to say when each of the above drainage 

 devices came into use, flourished, and disappeared. 

 All have been used side by side. The level, 

 which had probably been familiar from prehistoric 

 times, 11 was practicable only in the most shallow 

 works. The introduction of the adit in the 

 stannaries cannot be traced back beyond the be- 

 ginning of the seventeenth century, 13 although 

 Carew in 1602 refers to it in terms which seem 

 to imply that it was at that time no innovation. 13 

 Rag-and-chain pumps appear first at a somewhat 

 later period. 14 The typical mine described in 

 Philosophical Transactions in 1671 would seem to 

 have been drained, when on the hillside, by an 

 adit, to which the water was lifted by windlass 

 and buckets, while if it were on a plain the latter 

 arrangements alone could be. relied upon. 16 At 

 the close of the eighteenth century the famous 

 Wherry Mine at Penzance was drained by a rag- 

 and-chain pump, worked by thirty-six men, a 

 mode of drainage still resorted to in shallow pits. 18 



Apart from the forms assumed by drainage, 

 certain other features of the early tin mine de- 

 serve mention. For raising the ore and rubbish, 

 buckets or ' kibbles ' were used in Carew's time, 17 

 and have in some cases been employed ever since. 

 In the older mines a simple windlass lifted and 



Cf. G. Agricola, De Re Metallica, (ed. 1536), p. 

 1 3 1 et seq. 



10 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 150. 



11 Polwhele has found the remains of one at the end 

 of a prehistoric tinwork in the Scilly Isles (Hist, of 

 Corntv. bk. ii, lo,note). 



" Convoc. Cornw. 12 Chas. I, c. 28, 31. 



13 Carew, Surv. of Cornto. 



14 Convoc. Cornw. 1687, c. J. Cf. Pryce, Miner- 

 alogia Cornubiensis, 141 ; Polwhele (Hist, of Cornw. 

 bk. iv, 136) makes it a century earlier. 



15 ' Mineral Observations on the Mines of Cornwall 

 and Devon,' Philosoph. Trans, vi, 2 107. Cf. Geo. Sin- 

 clair, Hydrostaticks, 298 ; John Houghton, Collections 



for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, 2 1 April, 

 1693 ; Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining and the Coal 

 Trade, 71-74, I57-I59- 



16 Report on the Stannary Act Amendment Bil/(iSSj), 

 Q. 291. 



17 Carew, Surv. of Cornw. (ed. 181 1), p. 1 1. Worth, 

 Historical Notes on the Progress of Mining Skill, 27. 

 ' Mineral Observations on the Mines of Cornwall and 

 Devon,' Philosoph. Trans, vi, 2104. 



545 



69 



