THE COENISH PENINSULA. 81 



80 inches. At Tavistock it rains almost incessantly, showers accompanying the 

 wind from whatever quarter it blows. 



Many geographers have identified the Scilly Islands with the Cassiterides of 

 the ancients, simj)ly because of their vicinity to the Cornish mines. But these 

 granitic islands in reality contain only feeble traces of metal, while the rocks of 

 the neighbouring mainland abound in underground treasures, which have certainly 

 been explored from a period anterior to Caesar's expedition. Old mines datino- 

 back to that time can still be traced, and the detached, almost insular, rock masses 

 of Cornwall are undoubtedly the Œstrymnides or Cassiterides visited by the 

 traders of Phoenicia and Carthage. During the Roman epoch the tin of Cornwall 

 was sent across Gaul to Marseilles. 



The lodes of Cornwall are principally of copper and tin, sometimes sepa- 

 rately, sometimes in combination. The richest lodes of tin have been discovered 

 in the environs of Penzance, near the extremity of the peninsula, whilst the most 

 productive copper mines are some distance inland, more especially around Redruth. 

 There are a few mines which, after having ceased to yield one metal, are 

 worked for the sake of the other. In some instances the ores are exceedingly rich, 

 and near the coast may be seen rocks dyed green by an efflorescence of copper ; * 

 but as a rule the Cornish ores are very poor, containing scarcely 2 per cent, of 

 tin, or from 3 to 4 per cent, of copper. Their value depended altogether upon 

 the scarcity of the metal they yielded, and since the discovery of rich ores in 

 the United States, Bolivia, Australia, and the Sunda Islands, it has decreased 

 very much. In their search after the precious ores the valiant miners of Corn- 

 wall have sunk pits and excavated galleries which rank amongst the curiosities 

 of England. Powerfvd pumping-engines have been brought into requisition to 

 empty the mines of the water Mhich invades them through fissures in the rocks. 

 But in the case of mines many hundred fathoms in depth artificial means for 

 raising the water do not suffice, and an adit conveys it directly to the sea. 

 The underground workings in the mining districts of Gwennap and Pedruth 

 reach to a depth of 1,750 feet below the surface, the galleries extend 60 

 miles, the adit is 7 miles long, and sixty pumping-engines daily remove 100,000 

 tons of water, being at the rate of more than a ton every second. The timber 

 buried in the mines of Cornwall is supposed to be equivalent to a pine forest a 

 hundred years old, and covering 140 square miles. 



Botallack promontory, near Cape Cornwall, one of the most picturesque rocks 

 on the coast, is more especially curious on account of the copper mine which is 

 hidden in its bowels. Almost severed from the mainland by a wide fissure, that 

 enormous block of rock, 200 feet in height, is reached by narrow bridges 

 constructed at a giddy height. Spiral railways wind round its flanks, and its 

 pinnacles terminate in smoking chimneys. The workings are continued for 1,200 

 feet under the bed of the Atlantic, and the miners can feebly hear the noise made 

 by the pebbles rolling up and down the beach. In the neighbouring mine of 

 Wheal Cock the lode has been followed to the very bed of the sea, and the hole 

 * Carus, " England and Scotland in 1841." 

 113 



