57^ PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1071. 



the coffer, (i. e. a long square box of the firmest timber, three feet long and on6 

 foot and a half over) wherein the three usual lifters, placed between two strong 

 broad lones, having two braces or thwart pieces on each side to keep them 

 steady as a frame, with stamper heads, weigh about 30 or 40lb. a piece, of iron, 

 which serve to break the ore in the said coffer; these lifters, about eight feet 

 long and half a foot square, of heart oak, having as many in-timbcrs or guiders 

 between them, are lifted up in order by double the number of tappets, (fastened 

 to as many arms passing diametrically through a great beam, turned by an over- 

 shoot water wheel on two boulsters) which exactly, but easily, meet with the 

 tongues so placed in the lifters, as that they quickly slide from each other, suf- 

 fering the lifters to fall with great force on the ore, thereby breaking it int 

 small sand, which is washed out by the cock water through a brass grate, holed 

 very thick, placed within two iron bars at one end of the coffer into the launder, 

 (i. e. a trench cut in the floor, eight feet long and ten feet over) stopped at the 

 other end with a turf, so that the water runs away, and the ore sinks to the 

 bottom, which when full is taken up with a shovel. The launder is divided into 

 three parts, i. e. the forehead, the middle, and the tails. That ore which lies 

 in the forehead, i. e. within one foot and a half of the grate, is the best tin, and 

 is taken up in a heap apart. The middle and tails in another, accounted the 

 worst. 



The latter heap is thrown out by the trambling huddle, i. e. a long square tie 

 of boards or slate, about four feet deep, six long, and three over; wherein stands 

 a man bare-footed with a trambling shovel in his hand to cast up the ore, about 

 an inch thick, on a long square board just before him as high as his middle, 

 which is termed the huddle head, who dextrously with the one edge of his sho- 

 vel cuts and divides it longways in respect of himself, about half an inch asun- 

 der, in which little cuts the water coming gently from the edge of an upper plain 

 board carries away the filth and lighter part of the prepared ore first, and then 

 the tin immediately after, all falling down into the huddle, where with his bare 

 foot he strokes and smooths it transversely to make the surface the plainer, that 

 the water and other heterogeneous matter may without let pass away the 

 quicker. 



When this huddle grows full we take it up, here distinguishing again the fore- 

 head from the middle and tails, which are trambled over again ; but the fore- 

 head of this with the forehead of the launder are trambled in a second huddle in 

 like manner; the forehead of this, being likewise separated from the other two 

 parts, is carried to a third, or drawing huddle, whose difference from the rest is 

 only this, that it hath no tie, but only a plain sloping board, whereon it is once 



