OF CORNWALL. iyy 
extreme end of Britain, called Belerium f , find, drefs, melt, carry 
and fell their tin, c. Now it would be abfurd to think that thefe 
inhabitants fhould carry in carts their tin near two hundred miles, 
(for fo far diftant is the Ifle of Wight from them) when they had 
at leaft as good ports and harbours on their own fhores as they could 
meet with there ; befides, thefe inhabitants are faid, in the fame 
paragraph, to have been more than ordinarily civilized by converfing 
with ftrangers and merchants. Thofe merchants then muft have 
been very converfant in Cornwall, there trafficked for tin, that is, 
there bought, and thence exported the tin, or they could have no 
bufinefs there, their refidence would have been in fome of the ports 
of Hampfhire, and Cornwall could fcarce have felt the influence of 
their manners, much lefs have been improved and civilized by them 
at that diftance. Again : The Cornifh, after the tin was melted, 
carried it at low- water over to the JCtis in carts ; this will by no 
means fuit the fituation of the Me of Wight, which is at leaft two 
miles diftant from the main land, and never (as far as we can learn) has 
been alternately an ifland and a penmfula , as the tide is in and out. 
The IClis therefore here mentioned muft lye fomewhere near the 
coaft of Cornwall, and muft either have been a general name for 
any penmfula on a creek, (Ik being a common Cornifh word, de- 
noting a Cove, Creek, or Port of trafiick,) or the name of fome 
particular penmfula and common emporium on the fame coaft, 
which has now loft its iftmus, name, and perhaps wholly difappear- 
ed, by means of fome great alterations on the fea-fhore of this 
county. But to return : If this art of manufacturing the tin was 
ever at any great height among the ancients (as this author feems 
to intimate), it has had its rifes and falls like all other arts, for fo 
late as the reign of Elizabeth, the procefs feems to have been in a 
ftate of imperfection, and to have been greatly altered for the better, 
by the then Sir Francis Godolphin of Godolphin, Knight, as Mr. 
Carew informs us (page 13 and 153) ; it has been improved fince 
that time, and is ftill capable, I believe, of farther improvements. 
It will therefore be the more excufable to give a detail of this pro- 
cefs, and fet forth the whole method of ordering the tin -ore, as it 
is praCtifed by the moft fkilful artifts of the prefent time, illuftrating 
the fame with the mill, and the feveral works fubfervient thereto. 
The tin-ore being divided, is then (as every owner’s opportunity sect.xvii. 
ferves) carried to the ftamping-mill, and depofited on the area or The prefent 
floor at C, Plate xix. Fig. hi*. If the ore be very full of clammy Effing or 
flime, it is turned from the area, C, into a pit near by, called ^paring 
a Buddie, L I, to make it ftamp the freer without choaking the the furnace. 
Of ftamp- 
f Now called the Land’s End. * Pao-e 172. ing. 
Z z 
grates, 
