MINERAL RESOURCES OF DEVON AND CORNWALL. 201 
figures will hardly convey a just idea of quantity; we may be able 
to grasp it by supposing it all laden at once in railway trucks, for 
which nearly 17,000 would be required, forming a train of nearly 
fifty miles in length. With this article there is another raised and 
shipped in the same locality with it in considerable quantities. I 
refer to china stone, of which the production in Cornwall alone in 
1872 amounted to 48,000 tons. 
The principal places of shipment in Cornwall are Par, near 
Fowey, 52,407 tons; Fowey, 19,770 tons ; Charlestown, a very 
small place, near St. Austell, 52,407 tons; Pentuan, in the same 
neighbourhood, 20,671 tons; Falmouth, 29,587 tons; Plymouth, 
17,238 tons. The principal localities from which it is obtained are 
the granite hills of Devon and Cornwall. In Cornwall the largest 
works are in the neighbourhood of St. Austell, not far from 
Burngullow Railway Station, which is essentially a china clay 
station. In passing through it on the Cornwall Railway we may 
always see very large quantities of china clay and china stone 
ready for shipment. 
To show how this valuable material of china clay is obtained, 
I must ask you to accompany me in description to the Lee Moor 
China Clay Works, near Plympton, the largest in Devonshire. 
The first indications of our approach to the works we meet with 
at a bridge crossing the Tory Brook, where we see the rushing 
stream, white as milk. About half to three-quarters of a mile 
farther up the hill we reach the stopes, a sort of amphitheatre, 
surrounding a flat piece of ground of some ten or twelve acres 
or more in extent, through which we find a rapid stream of 
milky water flowing, in a water-course bounded by ridges of coarse 
sand, which have been evidently thrown up from the bed of the 
stream. Indeed we may see the men engaged in this operation 
at the stopes, where they are at work on the slanting faces of 
the low cliff, some thirty or forty feet high, loosening the masses 
with a peculiar form of pickaxe, so as to allow the water which is 
falling over the edge of the cliff to permeate the masses, and to 
wash out the clay from amongst the stones, large and small, consti- 
tuting the cliff. The larger stones, consisting principally of quartz 
and schorl, are thrown aside; but the clay, with the gravel and 
the sand, is carried off in the water. Soon the gravel begins to 
settle, leaving the sand and clay to flow on. As the speed of motion 
of the water is moderated, the sand settles out, and then the fine 
