INDUSTRIES 



powder had been introduced and tamped an iron 

 rod called the ' needle ' was driven through the 

 tamping, and in this aperture was placed a hollow 

 rush filled with powder to act as fuse. Some- 

 times quills were used, in which case the tamp- 

 ing was put around them and the needle not 

 inserted. The iron needle and tamping-bar were 

 the cause of many casualties, but it was not until 

 within the nineteenth century that the safety fuse, 

 and safety tamping-bar, shod with copper, were 

 suggested, and even then it required some time 

 for them to enter into general use. 1 In recent 

 decades the use of dynamite or gun-cotton has 

 driven out that of gunpowder in open workings 

 or wide levels. Rock-borers worked by com- 

 pressed air have likewise made considerable head- 

 way in the larger tin mines, 2 but the primitive 

 methods of the pick and drill are still far from 

 being completely displaced. 



Contemporaneous with the introduction of 

 the steam-engine, but more rapid in its develop- 

 ments, came the reduction of the ore by the use 

 of pit coal. This problem (and the growing 

 scarcity of wood fuel made it a serious one) had 

 long been a favourite hobby of inventors. As 

 early as 1632 Dr. Jorden had asserted its 

 practicability, 3 and had tried, unsuccessfully, to 

 solve it. 4 At about the same period a similar 

 attempt was made by Sir Bevil Grenville, 6 but 

 this also failing, the matter seems to have dropped 

 from public notice. Meanwhile, with the deca- 

 dence of the steam works came an added impulse 

 toward the supersession of the still primitive 

 charcoal blast. The alluvial ore, occurring in 

 rounded masses and grains in a high state of 

 purity, was especially adapted to this method. 

 The charcoal ashes formed the necessary flux, 

 while the fuel contained no elements capable of 

 injuring the metal. Lode ore was somewhat 

 more refractory, and this fact, added to that of 

 the scarcity of charcoal, resulted in a series of 

 fresh attempts to utilize the cheaper fuel. 



The invention of the process has usually been 

 ascribed to Beccher, a German chemist residing 

 in Cornwall in the latter years of the seventeenth 

 century, 6 but little, if any, use was made of it 

 for some years, and Beccher's claims, depending 

 merely on his own assertion in the preface to one 

 of his works, 7 are possibly open to question. It 

 was not until 1 705 that a Mr. Liddell obtained 

 a patent for smelting black tin with fossil coal in 



1 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Ski 11, 1 8. 



s lbid. 19, 20. Hunt, British Mining, 507-528, 



537-539. 56i. 



s Jorden, Discourse of Natural Baths, 50. 



4 Galloway, dnnals of Coal Mining and the Coal 

 'Trade, 215. 



4 Pryce, Mineralogla Cornubiensis, p. 282. 



6 For an account of his life see ' The State of the 

 Tin Mines at Different Periods,' by J. Hawkins, 

 Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cormc. iv, 87-91. 



' dlphabetum Minerale (ed. 1682). 



iron furnaces. 8 Close upon this patent came the 

 invention of the reverbatory furnace of masonry, 

 in which the finely divided ore could be smelted 

 easily, and at the same time direct contact with 

 the fuel be avoided. 9 This was the origin of the 

 so-called Cornish method of tin-smelting. The 

 ore, mixed with finely crushed anthracite or culm 

 was charged upon the bed of the furnace and 

 heated until reduction was complete. The less 

 fusible and pasty slag was then drawn from the 

 furnace, while the completely melted portion, or 

 ' glass,' was tapped out with the liquid metal. 

 The former was then removed and the metal 

 purified. 10 Pryce described this method in 1778, 

 and in all essential points it was the same as now, 

 except that his furnace charge was but five or six 

 hundredweight of ore, while nowadays a two or 

 three ton charge is preferred. 11 



The first reverberatory furnace is said by 

 tradition to have been set up at Treloweth, 

 although, according to another statement, it was 

 established in 1706 at Newham by Monatt, a 

 German, and after a few years transferred to 

 Calenick. 12 Many years were still to elapse 

 before the blowing-house was superseded. 

 Charcoal tin being of a slightly superior grade 

 fetched a higher price, 13 and as long as sufficient 

 stream tin could be found to charge them, blast 

 furnaces still persisted. In 1765 Jars found 

 both methods used side by side. 14 Pryce's testi- 

 mony in 1778 is to the same effect, 15 and it was 

 not until about sixty years ago that the last 

 blowing-house at St. Austell was finally dis- 

 continued. 18 



The successive developments in the industry 

 which set it upon a modern footing, namely, im- 

 provements in ore-dressing, drainage by the steam- 

 engine, the introduction of blasting, and smelting 

 with pit coal, need not blind us to smaller im- 

 provements. First we have to note an almost 

 continuous series of improvements in ore-dress- 

 ing, continuing from the first spurt in the seven- 

 teenth century down to the present. Hardly 

 had the eighteenth century begun when the 

 crazing-mill fell into disuse 17 owing to im- 

 provements in stamping and dressing, which 

 rendered it unnecessary. The former process 

 between 1671 and 1778 had undergone great 



8 Pryce, Mineralogla Cornubiensis, 282. 



9 Louis, Production of Tin, 8. 



10 Ibid. 



11 Ibid. 9 ; Cornish Mining, 9. 



11 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 50. 



13 Borlase, Natural Hist, of Cornwall, 182. 

 "Jars, Voyages Metallurgies, iii, 212-213. 



15 He tells us that the blowing-houses smelted from 

 eight to twelve hundredweight of tin in twelve hours, 

 by the use of from eighteen to twenty-four sixty- 

 gallon pecks of charcoal (Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 1 36). 



16 Cornish Mining, 13-15 ; Worth, Historical Notes 

 concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 5 I. 



17 Joum. Roy. Inst. Corntv. i, 179. 



551 



