INDUSTRIES 



In 1586 and 1602 four hours in the twenty-four 

 was the longest time during which a tinner could 

 remain at work, 1 but by Pryce's time it had 

 become possible to extend this to six hours, 2 and, 

 fifty years afterwards, to eight. 3 Another result 

 of the better ventilation was that instead of 

 being forced to sink air shafts at a distance of 

 about 30 fathoms from one another, the miners, 

 by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth 

 century, could proceed 100 fathoms from a shaft 

 without feeling discomfort. 4 



The old-fashioned methods of descent into 

 the mines by means of long ladders, so injurious 

 to the health of the men, have, within the last 

 century, been superseded in the larger mines by 

 the use of the man-engine, which was first intro- 

 duced in i842. 5 The expense of this arrange- 

 ment, however, has proved too great to allow of 

 its use in all works, and even where in operation 

 the plan of the Cornish tin mines is usually so 

 irregular that the use of ladders can be only 

 partially superseded. In other mines is used the 

 wire rope and cage method of descent so well 

 known in the collieries. 6 



Some time after the improvements in drainage 

 came the introduction of the steam-engine for 

 drawing ore and rubbish from the mine, a work 

 previously done by application of horse power. 

 A saving of 50 per cent, hastened its adoption, 

 especially in view of the fact that a modern 

 mine of any depth could not employ horses 

 enough to raise its rubbish. 7 ' Kibbles,' or 

 heavy iron buckets, are still clung to in many of 

 the works. In others this clumsy method of 

 haulage has been supplanted by the use of ' skips,' 

 which travel between guides after the fashion of 

 ordinary freight lifts. 8 



The transportation of ore had been effected by 

 means of pack-horses, but, as mines became 

 deeper and more extensive, this method grew 

 not only expensive, but entirely inadequate. So 

 much ore was raised in 1750 at Polberran, 

 St. Agnes, that carts had to be pressed into ser- 

 vice. The Fowey Consols, one of the larger 

 mines, maintained in its service mules by the 

 hundred. 9 Tramways were the first to super- 



1 Childrey, Britannia, 8. R. Carew, Survey of Corn- 

 wall (ed. 1 8 1 1 ), p. 35. 



1 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 178. 



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

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Corniv. iii, 64. R. N. Worth, Histori- 

 cal Notes concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 58. 



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

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Cormv. iii, 63-64. 



' Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 26. Rep. on Stannary Act Amend. Bill 

 (1887), 0.710,711. 



6 Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining and the Coal 

 Trade, 283. 



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

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornto. iii, 61. 



8 Hunt, British Mining, 596-597. 



9 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of 

 Mining Skill, 48. 



sede the pack-horse, their introduction into 

 Cornwall occurring in i8i8, 10 but in the course 

 of a few decades we find them pushed aside by 

 the steam railway, with its branch lines reach- 

 ing to the shaft's mouth. 



With the deepening and better drainage of 

 the tin mines, came improvements in their 

 general engineering. Originally the lodes were 

 followed from the shafts at points where they 

 were rich, and without any attention to order or 

 regularity, the workmen throwing the deads 

 behind them into the worked-out places as they 

 proceeded. They were led on by a bunch of 

 ore, and when that failed their work was done. 

 While lifting power was limited, this was, un- 

 doubtedly, the most economic mode of pro- 

 cedure, but it remained at best a hand-to-mouth 

 sort of arrangement, inevitably destined to give 

 way to other and better forms. 



It was probably difficult to pursue this system 

 where the water was ' quick,' so another was 

 adopted, namely, that of sloping downward from 

 the shaft (i.e. hewing away the lode in stairs, or 

 steps, of 6 or 8 ft. in height, one man following 

 another). On this system, as soon as the shaft 

 is sunk 6 or 8 ft. under the adit, if the lode is 

 productive the first step is commenced, a second 

 follows it, and a third as soon as the shaft is 

 sufficiently deep. 11 



The facilities for exploring the lode, and 

 making new discoveries, were scarcely greater 

 by this system than by the last, and a further 

 improvement soon followed, namely, that of 

 driving levels, or horizontal galleries, on the lode 

 from the shafts, and sloping the lode downward 

 from one level to another. On this plan, al- 

 though the mine was explored by the levels, the 

 ore was taken away almost as fast as the shaft 

 was sunk, and if any unexpected changes took 

 place, if, for instance, the lode should, even for 

 a short space, become unproductive, the mine 

 had no resources in itself to furnish the means 

 of paying its ordinary expenses. 12 Independently 

 of the risk, this system was enormously expen- 

 sive, for, in the first place, obviously, even if all 

 the lode were ore, a mass can be taken away 

 from above at much less cost than from below. 

 This, however, was the least important part. In 

 sloping downward the whole lode, good or bad, 

 had to be removed, as it was impossible to get 

 at the ore without removing the dead ground also, 

 all of which work had to be done before the 

 lode was properly drained. The mixture of ore 



10 There is no mention to be found of any use of 

 the self-acting planes and other devices preceding the 

 tram in the northern coal mines. The Cornish 

 mines are very tardy in their introduction of the tram. 

 It had been employed in the coal mines as early as 

 1765 (Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining and the Coal 

 Trade, 283, 318, 3z9-33i,.37)- 



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

 Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornw. iii, 67. 



12 Ibid. 69. 



553 



70 



