204 NATURAL HISTORY 
moft part of the pit, F, and remains there, and in the fecond pit, 
G, is flimy, and muft be trunked , huddled , and tozed , as the 
flimy tin h . 
This is the prefent method of drefiing copper, which employs many 
hands ; and yet in works which throw up a quantity of ore, it is 
all broken, raifed, fized, wafhed, picked, damped, and forted into 
particular heaps for one tenth part oi the whole produce when fold, 
and fometimes for lefs. 
sect. xii. A quantity being forted, cleaned, and divided into heaps, accord- 
M^od of j n g to the quality of the ores, the agents for the copper-companies 
per in Com- of Wales and Briftol (who refi.de at Truro and Reddruth) upon notice 
given, attend to f ample the ore, and each fampler having taken from 
each pile as much as is fufficient for allaying and alcertaining the value 
of that pile, a day is appointed by joint confent of the feller and buyer, 
at fuch difiance as may give the fampler time to repeat and verify his 
afiays, for the fale of the copper : on the fixed day each of the famplers 
attends, and produces a ticket, or written paper, fealed up, in which 
is exprefied the price which each fampler will give for the ore : he, 
who in his ticket bids moft, has the ore*. This way of felling has 
obtained about thirty years, and muft be a very fair way of dealing 
provided the agents do not in concert coniult one another’s conve- 
niency in buying ( which perhaps is no more than every buyer thinks 
he has a right to do) rather than the juft value of the ore ; provided 
alfo, that they do not divide the parcels occafionally, fo as that no 
buyer may have reafon to complain, and remonftrate ; that they do not 
groundleflly fuggeft an exorbitant fall of the price of copper which 
the owner cannot contradict ; provided alfo, that thefe agents do not 
combine to diftrefs and reduce the copper of a relu&ant and too 
inquifitive miner. Such complaints are muttered, but with what 
grounds I pretend not to decide. If, befides this, the agents for the 
companies fhould combine, and refufe to admit the tickets of any 
perfon whatever, who had a mind to offer for any parcel of copper, 
it would juftly increafe and give weight to thefe fufpicions : neither 
can thefe companies blame the prefent generation, if they be fome- 
what uneafy ; people who have wares to fell, of which they know 
not the value, (which is the cafe of the owners for the moft part) 
have been fufpicious in all ages of their being impofed upon at the 
time of fale : this is no where more evident than in the cafe before 
us. My bufinefs is hiftory, not traffic, and I fhall meddle with the 
h See before, pages 178, 179. 
1 It muft here be obferved, that if the a flayer 
offers only'- according to the product of his affay, 
he offers much Ihort of the real price, “ it being- 
well known from the laws of attraction, that a 
large portion ol ore will yield more in proportion 
than a fmaller quantity.” See Smith’s ftate of the 
county of Kerry. 
latter 
