O F 
CORNWALL. 
59 
CHAP. VI. 
Of the Earths , viz. the Soils , Clays , and Steatites of Cornwall. 
T HE vegetable Soils may be diftinguifhed into three forts, the sect i 
black and gritty, the fnelfy flatty Soil, and the ftiff reddifh 
Soil, approaching more to the nature of Clay. 
The high eft grounds are covered with the black Soil, and on the sect n 
tops and fides of hills, it is fo lax and cold, and its falts fo difperfed 
by the rain and fnow, that where it is dry at bottom it bears nothing 
but four giafs, mofs, and heath, which is cut up in thin turfs for 
firing, or at beft, fliort, dwarf, commonly called Cornifh Furze; where 
me rains have not liberty to run off, bogs (though in Cornwall none 
dangerous or extenfive) and marlhes are formed : here the Soil is lefs 
gravelly and deeper, but to be rang’d among the black Soils, and of 
little other ufe than that it yields a thick brick turf, full of the matted 
roots of fedge-grafs, the juncur, and other marfli-plants, which, 
when thoroughly dryed, make a ftrong fuel. On the banks of the 
river Heyl, in the parifh of St. Erth, there is a ftrong clofe-grained 
turf, which I have feen cut into glebes, ten inches fquare, and fix 
deep : they were ranged in the ftde of a moorhoufe 8 as regularly, 
and almoft as clofe, as if they had been fquared ftones, and made, 
inftead of a hedge, a moft neat wall, if I may fay fo, the corners of 
the ends, doors, and windows, were fo well turned. This turf has a 
ftiff? white, compact clay under the fpine, which gives it its con- 
fiftence. In crofts, farther down from the hills, this black Soil ferves 
as wintering for horned cattle, bears good potatoes, rye, and pillas, 
the avena nuda of Ray ; in fields, barley and oats, and ferves as paf- 
ture for dairy and fheep, elpecially rearing young bullocks ; but fel- 
Qom turns to any account when fown with wheat. It is more or 
lefs charged with gravel, and therefore called by the Cornifh grouan 
(or gravelly), the earthy parts exceeding light, fo that, in a dry 
fummer, the fun quickly exhales its moifture; and, in a wet 
ftimmer or winter, the tilled grounds of this fort have much of the 
vegetable Soil wafhed away from the grain. 
A great part of the Cornifti Soil, elpecially about the middle of SECT. III. 
the County, is of a fhelfy, flatty earth. This is reckoned to bear Shelf y Soil - 
bettei corn, elpecially wheat ; as alfo a ftronger ipine of grafs than 
A hutt, belonging to a mine, for the ihelter of the workmen, and keeping their implements. 
the 
