124 Mr. William Phillips on the Veins of Coniwall. 



ing the rod, was followed by him ; and the pegs that were inserted 

 in the places his feet had touched proved the circuit he had made. 

 If a vein actually ran in that direction, it is certainly wholly dif- 

 ferent from that of any known vein. It is almost needless to add, 

 that the discovery of the supposed veins as indicated by the means 

 of the divining rod, was not attempted. 



The ancient mode of shading for tin-veins, consisted in tracing 

 certain stones, of which tin formed a proportion considerable 

 enough to excite attention, and found at or a little below the sur- 

 face, to the vein from which they had been accidentally detached, 

 so as to have passed in a sort of succession down the side of a hill. 

 Another mode of seeking tin veins is by sinking pits through the 

 superincumbent earth down to the solid rock, and driving a trench 

 from one to another, north and south, so as to meet with every 

 vein in the track through which it passed. This method, which is 

 also esteemed to be very old, is called costeen'ing. 



The former of these methods for the discovery of tin veins is now 

 rarely resorted to ; but the second, as well as another which differs 

 not much from it, that of working drifts across the country from 

 north to south, is sometimes practised. Many tracts of the mining 

 part of Cornwall are however so amply stored with veins in the 

 direction of East and West, that there is little occasion to employ 

 either of the above mentioned modes of discovery. There are com- 

 paratively but few mines which are known to have within their 

 boundary only a single vein ; in some there are 5, 6, or even 7. 

 As the driving of an adit home to a vein is one of the first and 

 most important tasks of the miner, he sometimes embraces the opj 

 portunity of so doing from a neighbouring valley along a cross 

 course, or North and South vein, and for two reasons ; the first, that 

 the expense is less than if he were to drive through the solid coun- 



