ON THE TRACK OF THE " OLD MEN." 
237 
" 1. The hills where they get Tin Ore, near that place where he 
lived, are called Yelsbarrow* and Woolack.* 
" 2. Black stones that hold Tin, they call Tin-stones and lie 
either in a load, or in a string. 
"3. There is other Tin ore that is softer, and lies in a dun 
stone, and is of a yellowish colour, but will melt neer both alike. 
" 4. Pure ore, which they call Corn Tin, being found in grains, 
and is the hardest to melt. 
" 5. Another place they called Armed Pit (i.e. Erme Head Pit) 
which holds Ore they call Zill Tin, which is as small as grit or 
sand, and needeth nothing but washing, and is the most easily 
melted of all other sorts of Tin Ore, and lieth in chalk and 
clay; and this small Ore, because it is rich, they call it 
fatty Ore. 
" 6. The black stones, if they find them at the top, do continue 
in the whole Mine or Work. Sometimes it is in that they call 
strings, running through earth, or stones, like small twigs or 
strings : and sometimes it is all in one, like a great branch or 
trunk, which they call a Lode. Sometimes it runneth in Spar, 
sometimes in a black stone that will strike fire, sometimes in white 
stones that are soft. 
" 7. Their smelting-houses roofs, after certain years they pull 
down, and find store of Ore in that stuff, that in their former 
meltings was forced from the fire. 
"8. The Corn Ore is found at the bottom of the Hills, being 
there digged into, and lieth sometimes in one sort of earth, and 
sometimes in another. And the Zill Ore is found in the same 
order. 
" 9. The uppermost part of their Work they call Cooping ; and 
if it be good or rich, the Lode or Strings underneath are good : if 
bad or indifferent, those underneath, are sometime good, and 
sometime bad. 
"10. They call that part of the mineral, that is found washed 
down into the valleys, Shoad. 
"11. They have a thing they call Mundick, sometimes found in 
the Ore, which they separate lest it should spoil the Ore ; some 
of it is yellow, which is the worst, and sometimes of other 
colours : and the Mundick after smelting the Ore, is blackish and 
hard. Of it Mr. Boyl saith thus. Mundick I have had of a fine 
golden colour ; but though it be affirmed to hold no metal, yet I 
3 Eylesbarrow in the parish of Sheepstor. 
4 In the Court Roll of May 14, 13 Henry VIII., a.d. 1521, mention is 
made of a rental of 3d. to be paid by Richard Cole and Thomas Hele 
for a mill called Wallack Mill and two acres adjoining in the Forest of 
Dartmoor. This hill is probably Wallabrook Girt. Lake and brook means 
the same thing. Wallabrook probably became Wallalake, and then further 
corrupted to Wallack or Woollack. 
