A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



changes, the stamps becoming six times as effec- 

 tive as they had been before. The lifters were 

 of ash, and their iron heads weighed 140 

 pounds. 1 Pryce's description also seems to 

 show that all the heads in a coffer operated 

 upon the tin in succession, the blow of the first 

 sending it to the second, and that of the second 

 to the third, after which it was permitted to 

 emerge. 2 



We find huddling, 3 sezing, 4 dilleughing, and 

 framing 5 practised as before, but with greater 

 delicacy of manipulation. 6 'Trunking' also had 

 been introduced 7 for the stamped tin stuff which 

 ran from the coffer to the two farther pits. At 

 the semicircular head of the trunk (a pit much 

 like the buddle) a boy stirred these slimes with a 

 small shovel so that the water which ran in might 

 wash both filth and tin over a cross-board about 

 10 inches deep, from which it passed into the 

 body of the trunk. What remained at the head 

 was framed, and the residue trunked again, and 

 then framed also. The calciners, formerly of 

 moor-stone, were now built of brick, 8 and the 

 burnt leavings, which until 1735 had been 

 thrown away as useless, were after that date 

 reduced to metal. 9 



The great work of the nineteenth century has 

 been the provision of more precise and efficient 

 arrangements for dressing, chiefly by the substi- 

 tution of automatic mechanism for human labour, 

 the motive power in almost every case being de- 

 rived from steam. 10 The stamps, for example, 

 are worked almost entirely by steam, and are 

 heavier and more numerous, running in many 

 cases to forty-eight in a set. 11 Among other im- 

 provements have been the crushing mill, the 

 stone breaker, the sizing trommel, the classifier, 

 the continuous jigger, 12 the round buddle, the 

 automatic frame, and the self-acting calciner. 

 The crushing mill was introduced shortly after 

 1806, by Mr. John Taylor, and from that time 

 to this has formed the chief apparatus for redu- 



1 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 39. 



2 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, ^^\. 



3 Add MS. 6682, fol. 294-295. 

 4 Ibid.fol. 295. 6 Ibid. fol. 296. 



6 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 133-135. 



7 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 39. 



8 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 224. 



9 Ibid. 230. 



10 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 40-41. 



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

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornto. iii, 61-62. The first steam 

 stamp was at Wheal Vor in 1812 (Hunt, British 

 Mining, p. 725). 



12 The first jigging machine erected in Cornwall was 

 introduced by Richard Taylor at the Consolidated 

 Mines, Gwennap, in 1831, and the first continuous 

 jigger was patented in 1843 (Hunt, British Mining, 

 694-695. See also Proc. of Mining Inst. Cornw. i, 

 No. 3, pp. 34-53)- 



cing ores for the jigger, buddle, and other con- 

 centrating apparatus. 13 Framing has been so far 

 improved that one hundred frames can now be 

 managed by a girl and a boy. 14 Trunking by 

 machinery was introduced at St. Ives in about 

 the year 1825. The buddle, formerly a shallow 

 oblong trench, is now a circular concave or 

 convex frame revolving slowly beneath a jet of 

 water, centrifrugal force classifying the ores 

 according to their weight. 



In mining itself more scientific methods 

 of prospecting came into vogue during the 

 eighteenth century. Costeaning and shoding, 1 * 

 although now abandoned, 16 were still practised in 

 the days of Pryce, but already they had been 

 supplemented by boring, 17 and by a better know- 

 ledge of geology. Our ancestors were satisfied 

 to pursue a single vein without suspecting that 

 others might exist near at hand, or if aware of 

 their existence they were apt from want of 

 capital or disinclination to invest it, or perhaps 

 from want of a greater spirit of enterprise to 

 leave them unexplored. At present the lodes 

 are more speedily and fully searched by the 

 practice of driving across the country from north 

 to south, and vice versa, as well as by other 

 methods too technical to be here described. 



Ventilation, in the eighteenth century, was 

 extended by the provision of boarded channels in 

 the bottoms of adits, by which streams of pure 

 air were carried into the mine. 18 Another 

 method was that of a stream of water passing 

 into one of the shafts, the accompanying air being 

 carried by a pipe placed close to the discharge of 

 the water to the extreme end of the level where 

 required. 19 This process, still used in 1 860, was 

 sometimes assisted by small fans worked by boys. 2 * 

 Other apparatus have been suggested from time 

 to time, 21 but none have proved especially effec- 

 tive, and the ventilation of the tin mines is 

 largely natural, the air finding its way in by 

 certain channels, and out by others. 22 Save where 

 a drift is very long the air is fairly good. Im- 

 proved ventilation brought increased health to 

 the labourer, and added efficiency to his work. 



13 Hunt, British Mining, p. 693. 



14 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 4041. 



15 Ray, A Collection of English Words, 131. 



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

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornto. iii, 7475. 



17 Add. MS. 6682," fol. 281. 



18 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 146-147. 



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

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornw. iii, 64. There does not seem 

 to have been any application of the method of puri- 

 fying the air by fire, such as took place in the coal 

 mines at this time (Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining 

 and the Coal Trade, 326-327, 253-254). 



20 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 32. 21 Ibid. 33. 



Report on Stannary Act Amendment Bill (1887), 

 Q. 366. 



552 



