XI 



the only living authority. In the principal copper-mine,* as well 

 as in the most ancient and most productive tin-mine,t in Cornwall 

 he was the largest individual shareholder; and in most of the 

 mines in the neighbourhood of both he was also deeply interested. 

 Of his neverfailing bounty to the old and infirm, and of the 

 beneficence — in its best and kindest form — which led him to give 

 thousands of honest, able, and industrious workpeople the means 

 of contributing to the general welfare, and, at the same time, of 

 helping themselves, it is unnecessary to speak here, as they have 

 been eloquently and gratefully acknowledged by every individual 

 of the public press in the Western Counties. 



Mr. Jonathan Couch, F.L.S., our oldest and most constant 

 correspondent, has been taken from us so lately, that the loss we, 

 in common with all cultivators of Natural History, have suffered, 

 can scarcely yet be appreciated. We owe to him the first and 

 second parts of the Cornish Fauna, published by the Institution ; 

 and the History of British Fishes is enriched with so many of his- 

 researches, that we may, perhaps, consider him to have contributed 

 to its distinguished success almost as much as even Mr. Yarrell 

 himself The great work of his life, however, was A History of 

 the Fishes of the British Islands, which, consisting of four thick 

 octavo volumes illustrated by his own sketches, was completed 

 after he had entered his seventy-eighth year. And beside these 

 accurate and voluminous publications, the Transactions, Reports,. 

 Proceedings, and Journals of several metropolitan, as well as of all 

 our local, Societies, and many scientific periodicals, contain 

 memoirs, almost without number, on Geology, History, and 

 Archaeology from his accurate and ready pen ; yet this, together 

 with other equally important, labour — sufficient, it may be thought, 

 to have given a man of letters constant occupation — was performed 

 during intervals of leisure in a busy professional life. 



To Sir William Williams, Major Bickford, and the other 

 members of the Financial Committee, as well as to the Manager 

 and the other Agents of Dolcoath, we were indebted for the kind 

 and hospitable reception we, our Friends of the Pioyal Cornwall 

 Polytechnic Society and our other visitors, met with on our pleasant 

 excursion to that mine and to Cam Bre, in August last. The 

 admirable and instructive lecture with which Captain Thomas 

 favoured us, on the spot, is fully reported in the last number of 

 our Journal. 



•In 1869 the work- \ CZi^ord mines numbered 1,100, and the gross returns 

 people at the ) amounted to £37,764. 



f „ „ Dolcoath „ 1,000, „ £78,413, 



B 2 



