INDUSTRIES from what has already been said, we know that tin gravel might be found at still slighter depths, in fact immediately beneath the surface. With the advent of shaft mining in the rock, however, all this became changed, and pits were sunk 40, 50, and occasionally 60 fathoms. 1 At once the question of drainage assumed the im- portance which has clung to it ever since. 2 In the old stream works, wooden bowls seem to have been used at first for bailing purposes, 3 or the ' level,' a deep trench, running from stream work to river, served to clear it of water. 4 After that came the windlass, as yet turned by human power, and bearing up the water in leathern bags or buckets, 5 and then the use of small hand or force pumps, 6 and, at the same time, in the larger works, the adit, 7 similar to the level, but in the form of a drainage tunnel, driven through the hillside to meet the shaft at its foot. The adit, however, was too expensive an undertaking to be within reach of all, and, even where employed, its usefulness was limited, since when the shaft was driven deeper than the level of free drainage, other devices had to be used to bring the water to the adit head. Mean- while the windlass took various developments as regards application of power, the best-known being the horse whimsey, or whim, in which the rope from the shaft passed around a huge upright drum, turned by a team of horses. 8 In other mines recourse was had to rag-and-chain pumps, each consisting of an endless chain, broadened at intervals by leathern bindings, to fit snugly into a long pipe of from 12 to 22 ft. in length. It was worked by a windlass at the surface, and catching up as it did a series of short columns of water, served quite well to clear a small mine, its chief drawback being the severity of the labour 1 ' The Relation of Tin Mines and the Work- ing of Tin in Cornwall,' by Dr. Merrest, Phllosoph. Trans, xii, 949 ; J. Childrey, Britannia, 8 ; Worth, Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 15. 1 The increased price of materials, added to the ex- pense of drainage, brought about a period of great depression throughout the tin mines (S. P. Dom. Chas. I, cccxxii, i). 3 Worth, Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 28. 4 'Notes on the Remains of Early British Tin Works,' by Robt. Hunt, Gent. Mag. xiii, 696. 4 ' Improvements in Mining,' by Jos. Came, Trans. Roy. Geol. Sac. Cornto. iii, 48. See also ' An Indenture and Ordinance respecting the Working of Silver Mines in Devon and Cornwall,' by E. Smirke, Arch. Journ. xxvii, 37. 6 Worth, Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 30. 7 'An Indenture and Ordinance respecting the Working of Silver Mines in Devon and Cornwall,' by E. Smirke, Arch. Joum. xxvii, 133 ; Del Mar, History of the Precious Metals, 63, 72. b Worth, Historical Notes Concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 30. which it entailed on the men working it. 9 To drain a mine of any depth, a series of these was necessary, and a 4-inch pump drawing 20 ft. employed from twenty to twenty-four men work- ing five or six at a time in six-hour spells. 10 For the introduction of hydraulic drainage engines it is impossible to fix a date. They took the form usually of overshot waterwheels of 10 or 15 ft. diameter, turning in shallow shafts and operating rag-and-chain pumps, or their improve- ments the plate-and-chain and the bucket-and- chain. In deep mines, a half-dozen of these wheels, one above another, might be called into service. It is equally out of the question to attempt to say when each of the above drainage devices came into use, flourished, and disappeared. All have been used side by side. The level, which had probably been familiar from prehistoric times, 11 was practicable only in the most shallow works. The introduction of the adit in the stannaries cannot be traced back beyond the be- ginning of the seventeenth century, 13 although Carew in 1602 refers to it in terms which seem to imply that it was at that time no innovation. 13 Rag-and-chain pumps appear first at a somewhat later period. 14 The typical mine described in Philosophical Transactions in 1671 would seem to have been drained, when on the hillside, by an adit, to which the water was lifted by windlass and buckets, while if it were on a plain the latter arrangements alone could be. relied upon. 16 At the close of the eighteenth century the famous Wherry Mine at Penzance was drained by a rag- and-chain pump, worked by thirty-six men, a mode of drainage still resorted to in shallow pits. 18 Apart from the forms assumed by drainage, certain other features of the early tin mine de- serve mention. For raising the ore and rubbish, buckets or ' kibbles ' were used in Carew's time, 17 and have in some cases been employed ever since. In the older mines a simple windlass lifted and Cf. G. Agricola, De Re Metallica, (ed. 1536), p. 1 3 1 et seq. 10 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 150. 11 Polwhele has found the remains of one at the end of a prehistoric tinwork in the Scilly Isles (Hist, of Corntv. bk. ii, lo,note). " Convoc. Cornw. 12 Chas. I, c. 28, 31. 13 Carew, Surv. of Cornto. 14 Convoc. Cornw. 1687, c. J. Cf. Pryce, Miner- alogia Cornubiensis, 141 ; Polwhele (Hist, of Cornw. bk. iv, 136) makes it a century earlier. 15 ' Mineral Observations on the Mines of Cornwall and Devon,' Philosoph. Trans, vi, 2 107. Cf. Geo. Sin- clair, Hydrostaticks, 298 ; John Houghton, Collections for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, 2 1 April, 1693 ; Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining and the Coal Trade, 71-74, I57-I59- 16 Report on the Stannary Act Amendment Bil/(iSSj), Q. 291. 17 Carew, Surv. of Cornw. (ed. 181 1), p. 1 1. Worth, Historical Notes on the Progress of Mining Skill, 27. ' Mineral Observations on the Mines of Cornwall and Devon,' Philosoph. Trans, vi, 2104. 545 69
