104 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
from the enquiring mind at the Stannary Office. Applications for 
searching the documents stored there are refused. 
The examination of the ruins of the blowing-houses on Dartmoor 
is a most interesting study. Some appear to be similar in type, 
whilst others again are quite unlike. It is possible that the 
examination of a number of these ruins and their contents may 
throw considerable light on their probable age. 
At present, my investigations extend over a few only of these 
remains, and this paper must be considered to be but of an intro- 
ductory character to a large and important subject. No attempt 
will be made to come to hasty conclusions, but it is to be hoped 
that patient investigation will ultimately result in very much 
increasing our knowlege of these workings of the " old men." 
With the exception of two short papers by Mr. Thomas Kelly 
and Mr. Amery, and a few allusions by Mr. Spence Bate, no liter 
ature appears to exist on this subject, notwithstanding diligent 
search in quarters likely to contain the same. 
I propose at first to describe two sets of ruins, one situated at 
Week Ford, Huccaby, and the other near Har Tor, Princetown. 
They are similar in construction. Each consists of two ruins ; 
the blowing-house proper, and a habitation and possible storehouse, 
with a pit for an overshot water-wheel running the length of one 
side of this building. The water-wheel worked the bellows for 
the furnace, and might possibly have turned a crazing -mill, or 
worked rude stamps, but not to any great extent, as the wheels 
must have been of small size and power. The low and massive 
doorways are the same, and both have stones mixed up with the 
debris, containing curious circular or oval-shaped cavities, which 
may have been moulds, mortars, the bottom stones of primitive 
stamps, or the cavities formed by crazing-mill spindles, and 
answering to the same description as the foot-brass of the modern 
mill. 
The Week Ford blowing-house, locally known as " Mill," is 
situated about fifty yards south-west of the junction of the West 
Dart with the Wobrook, or, as it was anciently called, the Oke- 
brook, on the slope of the hill running up to Saddle Bridge. 
The ruin is in a most dilapidated condition, choked up with 
debris from the walls, and overgrown with vegetation. The 
