A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



that his account nearly represents the indebted- 

 ness of the county to the smelter Costar, of 

 whom he speaks so highly. According to 

 Borlase, 1 the ore was either spalled (broken with 

 hammers), or bucked (bruised upon a rock with a 

 bar of iron), and then re-sorted. The best part 

 was washed and sifted into a tub through a 

 griddle of inch-square meshes. Of this, the 

 finer portion was jigged in water in another and 

 smaller sieve, while the ' dredged ore ' was 

 washed and picked, and the poorer part stamped, 

 as was the case with tin, the crushed stones 

 passing as usual from the stamp coffer to several 

 pits, where it was distributed in accordance with 

 its specific gravity. The heavier part remaining 

 nearest the stamps was then jigged (a process 

 brought in from the Derbyshire lead mines), 3 

 and the rest trunked, huddled, and tossed. 3 



Pryce, in 1778, writes in much the same 

 strain, but goes into wider detail. The dressing 

 of copper ore, he says, cannot be according to 

 one uniform method. 4 The hard and poor ores 

 require much bruising and roasting before being 

 clean, but the better grades are easier to operate. 6 

 The manner of dressing and cleansing is much 

 like that for tin, but as good copper is usually 

 dug and raised in large masses, as little as possible 

 mixed with other matter, a great part of it is 

 solid ore, and requires no washing. When it 

 comes to the surface they sort out the big 

 stones from the small and break them, throwing 

 aside the poorer part, which is afterward to be 

 straked and washed. But when the ore rises 

 plentifully, and with little waste, it may be perhaps 

 a loss to wash it, and therefore if it comes 

 moderately dry a person near the shaft where it 

 rises sifts it on a griddle or iron wire sieve. 6 The 

 part that runs through, if not clean enough for 

 sale, is washed, and it is seldom that griddled or 

 small ore is so pure and clean as not to require 

 this. The poorer and smaller part is usually 

 carried to the strakes, sometimes after being 

 griddled, but more often before, and as it comes 

 from the mine. 8 



This strake is made of two boards laid flat for 

 a bottom, fourteen inches in the ground, on an 

 inclined plane, with two sides formed of one deal 

 board each, resembling a narrow, shallow chest 

 without a cover. In it runs a rapid stream. 

 One man throws the foul ore into the strake 

 while another moves and tosses it with a shovel 

 in the stream, and thus the slime, or finer ore, is 

 carried by the water into a pit just below, and 

 the stony, coarse, poor parts settling largely on 

 the lower end of the boards are, at times, divided 

 and cast aside to be stamped. 8 The better ore, 



1 Borlase, Natural History of Cornwall, 203. 

 " Pryce, Minera/ogia Cornubiensis, 243. 



3 Borlase's account is substantiated by an eighteenth- 

 century document of slightly later date. Add. MS. 

 6682, fol. 302-303. 



4 Pryce, Minerahgia Cornubiensis, 236-238. 



4 Ibid. 233. Ibid. 234. 



by its gravity, is deposited at the head of the 

 strake. But if it contains much pure mundic 

 this settles also at the head of the stream because 

 of its weight, and is separated and laid by itself. 

 Moreover, the largest stones, either of ore or of 

 waste, which, by the motion of the shovel, rise 

 uppermost, the dresser throws on one side and 

 women and children pick the good stones from 

 the bad. The rest is laid by to be bucked 

 smaller with flat iron hammers, if the ore is 

 worth it, otherwise it is taken to the stamps. 

 The picked ore, which is rich, is given to girls 

 called cobbers to break on big stones with ham- 

 mers, after which it goes by the name of cobbed 

 ore. It requires no water or further dressing, 

 being fit to mix at once for sale. 



The stony ore being left by the pickers 

 (dredge ore) is carried to the bucking-mill, which 

 is something like a wooden coalscuttle placed on 

 a low hedge, with a hard stone at its lower end, 

 whereon a strong wench with a hammer breaks 

 the ore to the size of small beans. Then it goes 

 to the vat or kieve and is jigged. They fill the 

 kieve half full of water, on the surface of which 

 the jigger holds a coarse wire sieve into which 

 another man throws the unclean ore. The 

 jigger dips it into the water and shakes it there 

 several times until the smaller part falls through 

 to the bottom of the kieve. What remains in 

 the sieve he reserves by itself until there is a 

 quantity. This coarser size made by the sieve 

 is jigged pure and clean if it be well given for 

 ore. If not it is picked and the refuse bucked 

 over again pursuant to its richness or poverty, 

 and the dresser's direction and judgment. 7 When 

 the kieve is almost full they pour off the water 

 and take out the small ore, which, perhaps, they 

 sort again after the same measure in sieves with 

 smaller holes. Being thus divided they dress each 

 sort apart in kieves half full of water with the 

 proper sieves, whose holes are small enough to 

 keep the ore from running through. The 

 jigger has a peculiar movement which he gives 

 the sieve, which causes the light waste to rise 

 uppermost in it, and after that the ore, and 

 then, at the bottom, the heavy mundic. To 

 separate these, he takes a small semi-circular 

 piece of wood, called the limp, with which he 

 skims or rakes off the light refuse to be re-jigged, 

 and then the ore, which he places by for sale, 

 leaving the mundic to be jigged once more. 7 

 The light refuse of the ore is frequently straked 

 again. The slimy fine ore which falls through 

 the fine sieve to the bottom of the kieve is often 

 cleansed by the tye (which is the same as the 

 strake, but with a very slow and small stream of 

 water), or by huddling or framing like tin ore, 

 and, also, by jigging in a small close sieve. 7 

 Another method of dressing very fine and delicate 

 copper and lead ores much speedier than buck- 

 ing them is to give them over to dry stamps. 8 



7 Ibid. 235. 



Ibid. 244. 



566 



