SECT. 
Quartz. 
go NATURAL HISTORY 
much as can be afferted in this particular. In a plentiful year 
we may fpare a little quantity for exportation, in a moderate 
year have enough for ourfelves, in a year of fcarcity not near 
a competency. As the ballance is fo even, it is the intereft of 
the Cornifh by no means to flacken or reduce the prefent ffate 
of hufbandry, by withdrawing too great a number of hands 
from it, for working their mines. Hufbandry, it muff be re- 
membred, can employ and fubfift a people without mining, but 
mining can do neither without hufbandry. If mining, tempting 
as it is with the hopes of fudden and immenfe gain, exceeds 
much its prefent limits, agriculture muft decay ; it is beft there- 
fore to encourage both, fo as that the former may promote the 
plenty of money, the latter of food and rayment, and both the 
happinefs of that fpot where they meet aud reciprocally relieve, 
as they do at prefent the deficiencies of each other. It is a 
facetious, but no uninftructive ftory which Plutarch ( de V irtute 
Mulierum ) gives us on this occafion '. “ Pythis a king, having 
“ difeovered rich mines in his kingdom, employed all his people 
“ in digging them, whence tilling was wholly neglected, infomuch 
“ that a great famine enfued. His queen, fenfible of the calamities 
t( of the country, invited the king her hufband to dinner, as he 
« came home hungry from overfeeing his workmen in the mines : 
t£ She fo contrived it that the bread and meat were moft artificially 
“ made of gold, and the king was much delighted with the con- 
“ ceit, till at laft he called for real meat to fatisfy his hunger. 
“ Nay, faid the queen, if you employ all your fubje&s in your 
“ mines, you muff expert to feed upon gold, for nothing elfe can 
“ your kingdom afford you.” 
CHAP. IX. 
Of the Stones in Cornwall. 
I N Cornwall, where there are not only Quarries of flone as in 
other parts for building, but a great number of mines, a variety 
of ftones muff: needs offer itfelf to our examination. They may 
be all ranged under the following general heads. Firft, flones of 
ufe. Secondly, ftones of ornament and curiofity. And thirdly, 
flones of profit ‘. 
Stones of ufe are either of inferiour, or important and necefiary ufe. 
Among thefe of feemingly fmall importance, I muft reckon what 
• Thus englifhed in Fuller’s Holy State, p. 107. ranged by the fyftematical writers, though we 
' W e fhall obferve as we go along the claJJ'es , cannot entirely purfue their method, in a parti- 
orders, genups, and /pecks of the chief ftones, as cular natural hiftory of a county. 
the 
