A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



of the steam-engine. It is not clear when 

 or at what place the latter first appeared in 

 Cornwall. Pryce dates its introduction at about 

 the year iJoS. 1 Carne declares that the first 

 was at work at Wheal Vor from 1710 to 1 7 14- 2 

 Redding, on the other hand, says that the earliest 

 was erected in 1725 at Wheal Rose. 3 It was 

 still believed that water could be raised only 

 32 feet, and at first the new invention took the 

 form of a series of steam suction pumps which, in 

 mines of any depth, were so multiplied that the 

 first outlay and subsequent cost were enormous. 

 The scale on which Cornish mines were oper- 

 ated, and the increasing amount of work thrown 

 upon the engine, soon rendered it imperative 

 that some forcing arrangement be adopted. 

 Morland had patented the plunger in 1675,* but 

 its development was slow, and the first note we 

 have of its adoption in any mine is in 1796, in 

 the United Mines, Gwennap. 5 



Meanwhile, Savery's engine of 1696 had been 

 superseded by Newcomen's in 1705) yet so con- 

 servative were the tinners that in 1742 only 

 one steam-engine was to be found in the whole 

 county. 6 Then came a rapid advance, and in 

 the next 36 years more than sixty were erected, 

 and more than half had been rebuilt and en- 

 larged. 7 Newcomen's engine, effective as it was 

 in comparison with previous efforts, was com- 

 pletely displaced in the latter years of the eigh- 

 teenth century by that of Boulton and Watt. 

 Their first engine in Cornwall was erected in 

 I777 8 at Chacewater. In five years' time 

 twenty-one had been set up, and only one of 

 Newcomen's remained, that, too, disappearing in 

 1790.* Further improvements at the hands of 

 Trevithick, Hornblower, and Woolf brought 

 the Cornish mine-engine to a high state of 

 efficiency in the early decades of the nineteenth 

 century, 9 while the practice of draining the sur- 

 face of the mines, and the greater attention given 

 to the tightness of the adits and pit work, lessened 

 materially the work required of the engines. 10 



The result of these improvements was a rapid 

 increase in the depths at which tin could be 



1 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 153. 

 * ' Improvements in Mining,' by Jos. Carne, Tram. 

 Roy. Geol. Sac. Cormv. iii, 50. 



3 Yesterday and To-Day, i, 128. 



4 A similar kind of pump was known to the 

 ancients, but had lacked the most important part of 

 Morland's invention, the stuffing-box. 



s ' Cornish Mine Drainage,' by Mitchell and 

 Letchies, Rep. Roy. Cornai. Polytechnic Soc. 1874, 1 3S- 



6 Worth, Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 22. 



7 Pryce, Mineralogia Coranbiensis, xiv. 



8 Ibid. 313. 



9 ' Improvements in Mining, by Jos. Carne, Trans. 

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Corma. iii, 52, 53, 56. Worth, His- 

 torical Notes Concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 23. 



10 ' Improvements in Mining,' by Jos. Carne, Trans. 

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Cormv. iii, 66. 



mined. From 1720 to 1778, 90 fathoms repre- 

 sented the maximum depth as attained by the 

 aid of the Newcomen engine ; but the advent of 

 Watt's improved machines is marked by a sudden 

 increase of this maximum to about 200 fathoms 

 in the years approximately from 1778 to 1812. 

 During the following quarter-century 200 was 

 reached, 11 and the progress during the remainder 

 of the century was correspondingly rapid. The 

 Dolcoath Mine, in 1900, had reached a depth 

 of 470 fathoms below adit, 12 and several other 

 Cornish works were little less extensive. 13 



Nearly contemporaneous with the great ad- 

 vances in ore-dressing and mine-drainage appears 

 an almost equally important improvement in the 

 apparatus for mining itself. A description of an 

 ordinary tin miner's tools is given in Philosophical 

 Transactions in 1671, showing that, with the 

 exception of tamping-iron and borer, they were 

 practically the same as to-day. A beele, or 

 Cornish tubber, was used, with double points, 

 8 or 10 pounds in weight, and well steeled. 

 With care it might last six months, but had to 

 be new-pointed every fortnight. A sledge 

 weighed from 10 to 2O pounds, and should last 

 7 years. Gads, or wedges, were of 2 pounds 

 weight with steel points. They lasted for about 

 a week, but required sharpening every two or 

 three days. 14 These and the ubiquitous shovel 

 and barrow constituted the tinner's kit. 



The drilling and splitting of the lode were 

 rendered obsolete by the introduction of blasting. 

 It seems to have been introduced in Hungary or 

 Germany in about the year 1620, but England 

 did not take it up until 1670, when we find it 

 introduced into the copper mines at Ecton, 

 Staffordshire, by German miners brought in by 

 Prince Rupert. 16 From there it spread into 

 Somerset in i684, 15 and soon afterwards entered 

 Cornwall, where it seems to have been employed 

 at St. Agnes in the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century. 18 After that its universal adoption was 

 simply a matter of time. 



For more than a century blasting was carried 

 on in Cornwall in a dangerous way. 17 After the 



11 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 24. 



13 Records of the London and West Country Chamber of 

 Mines, vol. i. pt. i, 16. 13 Ibid. 18. 



14 ' Mineral Observations on the Mines of Cornwall 

 and Devon,' Philosoph. Trans, vi, 2104. 



15 ' State of the Tin Mines at Different Periods,' by 

 J. Hawkins, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornvi. iv, 84. 

 ' History of Mining in Cornwall and Devon,' by John 

 Taylor, Tilloch's Philosoph. Magazine, v, 357. Gallo- 

 way, dnnals of Coal Mining and the Coal Trade, 226, 

 227. 



16 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 17;' State of the Tin Mines at Different 

 Periods,' by J. Hawkins, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Corntv. 

 iv, 86. 



17 Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornto. \, 78, et seq. ; 

 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of Mining 

 Skill, 1 8. 



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