A HISTORY OF CORNWALL Railway station is within a few yards of the quarry banks where the slates are pitched, and a siding runs into that part. Since the line was opened to Wadebridge and Padstow all the slate sent by water has been conveyed by rail and shipped from one or other of those places. Lanterden Quarry is near Trebarwith Strand, on the north side, in the parish of Tintagel. It was opened more than two hundred years ago, and judging from its size many men were em- ployed when it was first opened, but for the last sixty years only three or four have been working there. A windlass worked by hand is used for raising the slate to the surface, and the top rock and waste are deposited in the old workings. Lambshouse Quarry is also in the parish of Tintagel, on the glebe there, and about half a mile south of King Arthur's Castle. It was opened more than one hundred years ago, and has been worked by different persons with vary- ing success. It was closed for several years. In 1855 it was reopened, and has been worked continuously since that time. The average number of hands employed has been about twenty, but at present the number is forty-two. A steam engine and a horse-whim are used for raising the slate, and the unproductive rock and the waste are thrown over the cliff into the sea. The shipments are made at King Arthur's Castle, but some of the slate is also dispatched from the London and South Western Railway station at Camelford. The methods of raising the rock and preparing the slate for the market are the same as those which are adopted in other quarries. TIN MINING The antiquity of British tin, 1 and the supposed voyages to Cornwall of the Phoenicians, have been too long the subject of antiquarian research 3 to need further elaboration. As the Isles of the Cassiterides, Cornwall appears to have been visited as early as 1000 B.C. 3 by Phoenician or by Iberian or Gallic traders, 4 who acted as dis- tributing agents for its tin throughout the known world, some going even as far as the Indies. 6 Diodorus Siculus describes Britain as triangular. The promontory nearest the mainland was Cantium (Kent), that at the opposite extremity Bolerium, and that turned toward the sea Orca. The inhabitants of Bolerium were hospitable, and, on account of their intercourse with strangers, civilized in habits. They it was who produced tin, which they melted into astraga/i, and carried to an island in front of Britain called Iktin, 6 a peninsula at low tide, where they trans- ported the tin in carts from the shore. Here the traders bought it and carried it into Gaul, 1 ' The Antiquity of Mining in the West of Eng- land,' by R. N. Worth, Journ. Plymouth Inst. v, 133- 135- 2 For the more important treatises see Geo. Smith, The Cassiterides ; R. Edmonds, On the Phoenician Tin Trade with Cornwall ; ' The Tin Trade of Antiquity,' by ' L,' Notes and Queries, 2nd series, v, 101 ; G. C. Lewis, Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, 45-457> 481-482 ; 'The Sources and Supply of Tin for the Bronze Tools and Weapons of An- tiquity,' by J. Crawford, Trans. Ethnological Soc. of London, iii, 350-356. 3 Geo. Smith, The Cassiterides, 43. 4 ' The Tin Trade of Antiquity,' by Hyde Clark, Notes and Queries, 2nd series, v, 287 ; 'The Ancient Cornish Tin Trade/ by C. D. Saunders, Rep. Roy. Cornw. Polytechnic Soc. 1865, 4245. 6 Geo. Smith, The Cassiterides, 23. 6 For the propriety of this name see R. Edmonds, On the Phoenician Tin Trade with Cornwall, 8. across which it was taken on horseback in about thirty days to Marseilles. 7 Of the Romans in Cornwall no written re- cords are extant, and it is doubtful if they meddled with the mines there during their stay. Great variety of opinion, however, exists on this question. It certainly seems strange that the Romans, aware of the richness of the tin mines, and accustomed to dealing with other metals in the same island, 8 should have neglected to exploit the stannaries. But the few Roman remains in Cornwall suggest trading posts only; 9 and although some have professed to see traces of Roman occu- pation in the circular earthworks surrounding some of the old mines, 10 it is far more likely that these were erected by the Cornish to guard their secrets from alien traders. 11 The Anglo-Saxon regime in England was, until Athelstan's conquest of Cornwall in 937, contemporaneous with the existence of an in- dependent Cornish kingdom of native Celts, under which the stannaries, although probably hampered by the three-cornered struggle of Saxon, Dane, and Briton, 12 continued in opera- tion. Saxon ornaments and coins have been 7 Diodorus Siculus, v, c. 21, 22. 8 They are known to have worked the lead mines. W. H. Pulsifer, Notes for a History of Lead, 27, 28 ; Robt. Hunt, British Mining, 27 et seq. 9 ' The Romans in Cornwall,' by Otho Peter, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. xv, 1 1 . 10 ' The State of the Tin Mines at Different Periods before the Eleventh Century,' by J. Hawkins, Trans. Roy. Geo/. Soc. Cornw. iv, 72. 11 'The Romans in Cornwall,' by Otho Peter, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. xv, 1 1 ; ' The Romans in Corn- wall,' by J. B. Cornish, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. xiii, pt. 4, 430-434 ; R. Polwhele, Hist, of Cornwall, , I7S- 11 Lysons, Magna Britannia, iii, pp. xi, xii. 522
