INDUSTRIES 



smelter can hardly claim serious consideration, 

 since he buys his black tin on the dry assay, not 

 on the actual metal contents, but on the assumed 

 contents which he will recover by his method of 

 smelting. As, therefore, by his conditions of 

 purchase he has already safe-guarded himself by 

 securing an allowance equal to his probable loss 

 in smelting, he can hardly ask for further con- 

 sideration. Moreover, as he sells his ' ashes ' at 

 prices based on their tin contents, he is actually 

 reimbursed for at least a portion of the loss in 

 smelting, which the miner has already allowed 

 him in full and in kind. 1 



The relations between tinner and smelter are 

 a result largely of the apathy of the Cornish 

 mining companies and their slowness to grasp 

 the ordinary principles of business management. 

 At present, however, it would be difficult, in the 

 face of organized opposition on the part of the 

 smelting monopoly, as well as the existence of 



the present system of leases, under which the 

 tinner is usually debarred from smelting his own 

 tin, to bring about the much needed consolidation 

 of mixing and smelting. Yet, until this takes 

 place, and more chance for profit is given the 

 tinner, it is hard to see much hope for the tin 

 mines of Cornwall. Since the early seventies 

 the discovery of vast and easily worked deposits 

 of stream tin in Australia and Tasmania, to 

 say nothing of a huge increase in the output 

 of the East Indies, have depressed prices so far 

 that although the Cornish lodes are still rich, 

 most of the mines have been forced to close. 

 The present output of about 8,000 tons comes 

 almost entirely from a half-dozen large mines, 

 headed by Dolcoath, while the scores of aban- 

 doned shafts which dot the tin districts point to 

 the fact that a land which once supplied the 

 world with tin, is for the time, at least, hopelessly 

 superseded. 



COPPER MINING 



The copper deposits of Cornwall present no 

 such features of historical and economic interest as 

 do the stannaries. Occurring only in lodes, and 

 comparatively deep at a level, they were late in 

 being developed, and in consequence carried for 

 their miners no charters of privilege or codes of 

 mining law, unless we except the fact that in 

 1837 copper mining in Cornwall and Devon 

 was brought under the operation of the then 

 modified stannary laws and courts.* 



No trace is to be found of mines or of mining 

 tools 3 among the cupriferous rocks of Cornwall 

 which would lead one to believe in the fact of 

 their having been worked at a period before or 

 contemporaneous with the Romans, 4 although 

 the latter erected several brass foundries in Britain, 6 

 and probably were acquainted with the copper of 

 Keswick and Anglesey. 6 During the Middle 

 Ages a more or less desultory quest for the metal 

 was carried on in England, but mainly in other 

 counties. Several documents of the period of 

 Henry III refer to the discovery of gold and 

 copper mines in Devon, and the king's claim 

 upon them as mines royal, 7 while the same 



1 Cornish Mining, 20. The smelter's profits are 

 subject to wide fluctuations. Thus, in 1900, they 

 were only 3 percent., but in 1899 25. For the 

 period 1883 to 1900, an average of 12^ per cent, was 

 realized. 



1 Statutes 6 & 7 Will. IV, c. 106. 



s ' Copper Mining in Cornwall,' by Jos. Carne, 

 Trans, cf Royal Geol. Soc. Cornw. ii, 37. 



* ' Antiquity of Mining in the West of England,' by 

 R. N. Worth, Journ. Plymouth Inst. v, 127 ; Caesar, 

 De Bella Gallico, bk. v, c. 12. 



5 Borlase, Antiquities of Cornwall, bk. iii, c. 15. 



6 Pennant, A Tour in Wales, iii, 59. 



' Pat. 47 Hen. Ill, m. 12 ; Close, 47 Hen. Ill, 

 m. 15. 



county figures in a grant of the sole rights 

 of gold, silver, and copper mines, issued by 

 Edward III. 8 At the same time there is evi- 

 dence that copper was worked in the Keswick 

 district in Cumberland. 9 The total amount 

 raised from these several sources must always 

 have been scanty, inasmuch as during the reigns 

 of Henry VIII and Edward VI Parliament pro- 

 hibited the export of brass and copper, the reason 

 given being the small quantity produced. 10 



With the Elizabethan period came a revival of 

 mining pursuits, and in particular the re-working 

 of the Newlands and Keswick lodes by the newly 

 incorporated Company of the Mines Royal. 11 Yet 

 it cannot be doubted that most of the copper of 

 this period was imported, and even at a much 

 later date the British yield appears to have been 

 small, as is shown by a memorial to the House 

 of Commons, presented by the brass manufac- 

 turers, to the effect that ' England, by reason of 

 the inexhaustible plenty of calamine (not of cop- 

 per), might become the staple of the brass manu- 

 factory, for itself and foreign parts, and that 

 the continuing of the brass works in England 

 would occasion plenty of rough copper to be brought 

 in. ' ls 



No records exist of the production of copper 

 in Cornwall until the latter part of the sixteenth 

 century. Camden in 1580, had ventured the 



8 Pat. 32 Edw. Ill, m. 4. 



9 Phillips and Darlington, Records of Mining and 

 Metallurgy, 19. 



10 Stat. 21 Hen. VIII, c. 10 ; 33 Hen. VIII, c. 7 ; 

 2 & 3 Edw. VI, c. 37. 



11 S. P. Dom. Eliz. xx, 103 ; xxxvii, 34 ; cclx.xv, 

 145. 



a Printed in Moses Stringer, Of era MineraKa Ex- 

 flicata, 156, 157. 



563 



