Earths, 
Salt. 
Vitriol. 
320 NATURAL HISTORY 
determine ; I conjecture, that the inhabitants having their refources 
for the neceflaries of life from the bowels, and not from the furface 
of the earth, neglected the latter out of too conftant an attention 
to the former. The foil and the furface therefore being unculti- 
vated till the laft ages *, inclines me to think that a greater quantity 
of land was requifite to make up an acre, and entitle a man to the 
honour of knighthood in Cornwall than elfewhere. Let it be con- 
fidered in the next place, that the word acre did not always fignify 
a determinate quantity of ground, but <c latiwi quantumvis agrum l£ ,” 
that is, a field or tenement of any fpace ; that whilft the lands lay 
in this coarfe condition there were no divifions but thofe of tene- 
ments, which were ufually granted by the Lords of the Soil in fuch 
dimenfions as contained many of our ffatute-acres, and in any 
quantity which was thought at that time fufficient for the purpofes 
of tillage and pafture ; hence arofe the term of the Cornifh 'acre, 
meaning no more than a Cornifh holding or tenement hide or 
tenure , including more or lefs 1 , according to the degree of 
cultivation m . 
For making porcelain, as well as preparing ochres and other 
painting-earths for the artift, a great many clays and mineral-earths 
may be found in Cornwall n ; water-mills may eafily be procured, 
fuel cheap, and water-carriage to London and Briftol Jlo convenient 
on either fide the county, that a fufficient undertaker might ac lean; 
find as many encouraging circumftances to fet up fuch manufactures 
in Cornwall as any where in England. 
Sea-falt may be made here as well as in French Britany, for the 
materials are the fame, and in equal plenty in both countries, and 
the difference of climate inconfiderable, “ it being found by expe- 
rience, fays a modern author 0 , that bay-falt made in Hampfhire 
(farther within chanel than Cornwall) is not inferior to the bay-falt 
of Britany but fuppofing we could make in Cornwall but two 
thirds of the fea-falt which the Bretons make, this, if I am rightly 
informed, would very well anfwer. There is a place in the parifh 
of Senan, about half a mile north of the Land’s-End, in which 
the traces of falt-works, carried on in the laft age, are ftill to be 
feen ; and tradition fays, that the manufacture mifearried not 
through any deficiency of materials, or incongruity of fituation, 
but through the negleCt and difhonefty of the perfons employed. 
About the year 1 747, a curious foreigner ” fet up a vitriol ma- 
nufacture near Reddruth. The water was collected from places 
where tin was burnt in order to difeharge its mundic, and copper- 
* See page 84. k Spelman, ibid. 
1 In Lacy s Regifter one hundred and twenty, 
in Spelman one hundred and fixty, in Carew two 
hundred and feventy ftatute-acres. 
m See page before, “ Item idem abbas,” &c. 
" See clays, page 63, &c. 
Nat. Hifl: of Cork, vol. II. page 25c. 
p Dr. John James Rouby, now at Plymouth. 
ores 
