318 Reports a7id Proceedings — 



able vessel of pure tin were found amongst the refuse of earlier 

 streamers, within two miles of the ancient entrenchment at Irevelgue 

 Island, where bones, recognized by Professor Owen as of the Bos 

 longifrons, were some years ago discovered by Mr. MchoUs. The 

 fourth district comprises the wild moorlands between Lostwithiel, 

 Bodmin, Camelford, Callington, and Launceston.. Tin-ore, like gold, 

 found in stream-works, is always of superior quality to that afforded 

 by mines. The entire produce of gold from the tin works of Corn- 

 wall during the present century has probably amounted to no more 

 than a very few ounces ; but no district, perhaps no single stream- 

 work, has been utterly destitute of it, and all yet examined has been 

 found of remarkable purity. The masses of " Jews House " tin, and 

 the remains of ancient furnaces still discovered, from time to time, 

 in various parts of Cornwall, have been found more frequently on 

 the outskirts than in the heart of the stream tin districts. Of these 

 a copious, but the writer fears by no means an exhaxistive, list is 

 given. In a conversation which took place at the annual meeting of 

 the Institution in 1867, the writer expressed his belief that the disuse 

 of certain and the substitution of other coinage towns showed that 

 the produce of East Cornwall was much greater, and of West Corn- 

 wall much smaller respectively in past ages than of late. The 

 Stannm-y Boll, Sith Edward I. (1305-6), presented to the Institution 

 in 1870, by Sir John Maclean, and the official returns during the last 

 year in which coinage duties were levied, show that opinion to have 

 been well founded. Thus, from the festival of St. Edmund, 16th of 

 November, 1305, to the Feast of St. Matthew, 21st of September, 

 1306, there were coined at — 

 Lostwithiel, 3,294 blocks of tin, which weighed 176'5 (avoir.) tons. 



„ » 68-6 „ „ 



j> ,-j ob'o „ „ 



6-1 a year, 



Bodmin 



1,505 



Truro 



1,298 



Trynu ? 



694 



Helston 



105 



6,896 „ „ „ 370-5 



or at the rate of about 437 „ 



At that time the blocks weighed, on an average, 1201bs., and the 

 rate of coinage duty levied was forty shillings (£2) sterling per one 

 thousand pounds weight of (metallic) tin. 



From Midsummer, 1837, to Midsummer, 1838 — the last year in 

 which duties were paid to the Duchy of Cornwall on the coinage of 

 tin — the quantities of metal coined at the various privileged towns 

 were, at — 



Calstock, 393 blocks of tin, which weighed some 70 (avoir.) tons. 

 Truro, 10,297 „ „ „ 1,860 



Hayle, 5,452 „ „ „ 980 „ 



Penzance, 12,423 „ „ „ 2,250 



22,565 „ „ „ 5,160 a year. 



Each block weighed at that time rather more than 400 lbs. During 

 many years the Duchy levied a duty of 4s. per 120 lbs. on all tin 



