INDUSTRIES 



In the infancy of mining only the massive and 

 productive pieces were dealt with before melting. 

 The richest stones were smelted in the block, 

 and the metal disengaged by the direct action of 

 heat. The poorer were subsequently pounded 

 with rocks, and washed. The first improvement 

 upon this method was the working of these stones 

 in something of the fashion of a mortar and 

 pestle. Next came the use of mills to reduce the 

 ore to a still finer state of pulverization. In 

 Loe Pool Valley are still to be seen boulders of 

 hard elvan, with surface indented into deep hol- 

 lows where the tin stone was battered, prepara- 

 tory to its reduction in the furnace, 1 and Pol- 

 whele has left an account of an ancient mill 

 discovered in the Scilly Isles, 2 as well as that of 

 the remains of an old ' buddle,' or washing 

 place. 3 



Smelting at its inception was carried on by 

 the miners themselves. A small pit was dug, 

 and a fire kindled in it, close to where the ore 

 was found. Upon this the stones were thrown, 

 and the metal afterwards gathered from among 

 the ashes and sand. 4 Several antiquarian dis- 

 coveries in Cornwall have led Pryce to the con- 

 clusion that this was the form of operation pre- 

 vailing at the time the Phoenicians visited 

 Britain. 8 By the time of Diodorus Siculus, 

 however, an advance had been made. The 

 astragalus block, which figures so prominently in 

 his account, must have been the product of a 

 furnace from which the flow of metal could be 

 directed. Of such there are many remains, vary- 

 ing in character, but passing under the common 

 name of ' Jews' Houses.' Some were built into 

 the shape of inverted cones of hard clay, 6 about 

 three feet broad at the top, and three feet deep. A 

 blast of air, conveyed by common bellows to the 

 lower part of the furnace, served to create an 

 intense heat, and the molten tin was discharged 

 from an opening at the foot. 



Another fairly advanced but probably excep- 

 tional smelting furnace has been discovered in 

 the Land's End district, near St. Michael's 

 Mount namely, a bronze cauldron, resting upon 

 a layer of charcoal. This specimen has been 

 held to be a Phoenician vessel introduced into 

 the mining districts in the days before Strabo. 7 



Still another early type of smelting furnace 



1 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 35. 



* Polwhele, History of Cornwall, i, Supplement, 64. 



* Ibid. 65. 



4 Pryce, Minerabgia Cornubiensis, 281. Louis, The 

 Production of Tin, 6. 'Notes on an Ancient Smelting- 

 place for Tin,' by Le Grice, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. 

 Corntv. vi, 43, 



6 Pryce, Minerahgia Cornubiensis, 281. 



6 ' Notes on an Ancient Smelting-place for Tin,' 

 by Le Grice, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornw. vi, 44, 45. 



7 ' On the Fragments of a Bronze Furnace dis- 

 covered near St. Michael's Mount,' by R. Edmonds, 

 Proc. Penzance Nat. Hist, and Ant. Soc. i-ii, 347. 



was of granite, and dome-shaped, and with it 

 have usually been associated the granite moulds, 

 of which many have been discovered on Dart- 

 moor, 8 and other stream-tin fields. 9 



No written records exist for the course of 

 smelting operations until we reach the year 

 1 1 98. 10 De Wrotham's letter of that date in- 

 forms us that there were two smeltings, the first 

 apparently a rude process, taking place near the 

 mine itself ; while the second could not be 

 done except at certain towns designated by the 

 warden, the reason being the connexion of the 

 smelting with stannary taxation. From other 

 sources we learn a few details concerning the 

 preliminary treatment of the ore. Twenty years 

 ago there existed at Retallack Farm, Cornwall, 

 the remains of a mediaeval ' crazing-mill,' in 

 which the tin stones were reduced to sand before 

 being treated with fire. The house measured 

 20 ft. by 13 ft., and in the gable wall was a 

 rectangular opening, 2 ft. square, where passed 

 the axle of the water-wheel. Within and with- 

 out were granite millstones, three or four feet in 

 diameter, grooved on the face in a circular direc- 

 tion. In the vicinity were also found stones 

 with basin-shaped hollows, similar to many 

 found in different parts of Cornwall and Devon, 

 and probably used for pounding the ore ; and one 

 stone, a rough granite block 4 ft. in length 

 by 14 in. in breadth and depth, which showed, 

 by the regularity of the hollows worn in it, that 

 the pounders were probably worked by machinery, 

 like the present-day stamps. Other stones were 

 found, apparently used for pulverizing the sand 

 by hand ; and also a rough stone buddle, about 

 two feet in diameter. 11 



With the advent of improved methods of 

 smelting it became no longer necessary to fuse 

 the tin twice to obtain a proper fineness, and 

 from the first and second smeltings instanced by 

 De Wrotham arose the single blowing-house 

 process known to Beare and to Carew. To set 

 even an approximate date for its introduction is 

 impossible ; but it seems to have been in common 

 use by the middle of the fourteenth century, as 

 we find the Black Prince sharing in the profits 

 of several at Lostwithiel in I359- 12 In 1426 

 occurs the case of John Aunger of Cornwall, 

 ' husbandman and blower'; 13 and in 1495 the 



8 Bate, 'Historical Antiquities of Dartmoor,' Rep. 

 Roy. Corntv. Polytechnic Soc. 1872, 149. 



9 Gent. Mag. Ixi, 34. Some time ago, in East Corn- 

 wall was unearthed an entire mining village, containing 

 three of these granite furnaces, in various stages of 

 preservation ; while scattered about were pieces of 

 slag, and occasionally of metallic tin ('Notes on Some 

 Antiquities in East Cornwall,' by R. N. Worth, 

 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. iv, 75, 76). 



10 Black Book of the Exchequer, No. 10. 



11 ' An Ancient Crazing Mill,' by James Bryant, 

 Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. vii, 213-214. 



11 White Book of Cornw. 32 Edw. Ill, c. 89^. 

 13 Cal. of Pat. 14.26, 308. 



547 



