W6 GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON 



7. In Cornwall, the expenses of the mine are 

 known. The customary wages of the captains of 

 the mines, the pay of the miners, who all work by 

 tribute*, orbytutwork, are accurately calculated ; the 

 price of tools, iron, wood, rope, and all materials is 

 known, and the sale of the ores by public auction 

 gives an immediate and certain return. In South 

 America the expenses of each mine can never be 

 anticipated. The wages of the English captains 

 and miners are very high ; every article, if pur- 

 chased a thousand times, would be the subject of a 

 new bargain, and materials would be perhaps of 

 double or treble cost, according to the people, and 

 the spots from which they were to be obtained. 



* Excepting the levels, which are always driven by tut-vvork 

 (task-work), the mines in Cornwall are all worked by Tributers. 

 These Tributers are the common miners, who take their pitches 

 by public auction, at which they agree to deliver the ore fit for 

 market for different prices, from Gd. to 13a\ 4(1. in the pound, 

 according to the nature of the ground, the ores, &c.&c. The 

 adventurers of the mine, therefore, are tolerably sure of their 

 profit before the work is begun, for the Tributers pay the smith- 

 cost, candles, powder, breaking, wheeling, and drawing. They 

 pay men for spalling and cobbing the large rocks, for separating 

 the prill from the dradge, and they also pay girls for bucking the- 

 ores, and boys for jigging them. 



