THE MEN "WHO MADE CORNISH MINES. 431 



If you just think over the names of the other parts of a 

 mine, such words as level, floor, tram, count-house, adventurers, 

 dry, sett, bounds, and a score more, betray their English origin, 

 while you will search for the Cornish words in vain. 



Now the fact that the name of any object is derived from 

 a particular language is a proof that that object was first 

 invented or discovered, and christened by people who spoke 

 that language. If the ancient Cornish-speaking people had 

 discovered and worked the tin mines themselves, they would have 

 given names to the objects with which they were dealing in the 

 Ancient Cornish language : they would not have known any 

 others. The fact that all such names, and even those of the 

 earliest kind of workings — 'Streamworks,' 'coffins,' 'shambles,' 

 are English, shows more clearly than any legends that the tin 

 mines were not worked* until the Anglo-Saxon had come into 

 Cornwall ; and it is to them that Cornwall owes her knowledge 

 of her underground wealth. Now, may I endeavour to show 

 that this conclusion agrees with the recorded history which we 

 have. 



According to my view, the Romans never worked the Cornish 

 mines. In other parts of England, in Shropshire, Derby, Mont- 

 gomery, and the Mendips, pigs of lead have been found with 

 Roman inscriptions. Levels driven into the hills as much as 100 

 fathoms, and Roman roads, all show that these lead mines were 

 extensively worked during the Roman occupation of England, 

 and it is very hard to believe that people who knew enough to 

 do these things in one part of England could have lived 500 

 years in the country, and not have developed the mineral wealth 

 of Cornwall if they had known of its existence. But we find 

 nothing of the sortf in Cornwall, no roads, no towns, and only 

 two rough camps, which show undoubtedly the temporary 

 character of the occupation which led to their existence. 



Again, there is no mention of the mines in Domesday, and 

 here again it is very hard to suppose that the commissioners of 

 the Conqueror, whose chief business was to see after the royal 



*t If the stamped block of tin found- at Carnanton dates from the Eoman 

 period, it would seem that at one time some of that race did find tin in Cornwall, 

 but there is no sign that the discovery was ever followed up. 



