INDUSTRIES Having finally passed into the hands of the smelter, the ore is reduced to metal, says Pryce, in furnaces of four sorts, the calciner, the operation, the roaster, and the refiner. 1 In the calciner, which is reverberatory, the ore is stirred about for twelve hours in such a fire as will not melt it. From two to five hundred- weight is then put with from five to two hun- dredweight of raw ore into an operation furnace, and submitted to an intense heat. The slag is skimmed off, and another like quantity of ore inserted, and finally the molten copper is run into pigs. 2 These last are plunged into cold water, and then carried to a horse-mill and ground to powder, or, as in some places, bucked or broken by women, girls, and boys. The copper is then carried to a furnace called a metal calciner, spread upon the bottom and calcined again, 3 then drawn out, cooled by water, and carried to the metal furnace, where it is melted, skimmed, and run into pigs. It then goes to the roasting furnace for sixteen or eighteen hours, where it is melted and skimmed as before, and this operation of roasting and skimming is repeated three or four times. From there it is taken to the coarse refining furnace, where it is melted, fluxed, 4 skimmed, and put into moulds. Finally, it is sent to the refining furnace and melted and skimmed once more, 3 after which it is ready for market. After every skimming the slag is treated in much the same fashion, and from it is extracted copper of inferior grades. 3 The smelting of tin ore has always been done locally, in the county itself, but copper smelting never had a firm hold in Cornwall, and has long since left it. As early as the sixteenth century, Frosse, the German already mentioned in another connexion, had ascertained the fact that, by having at hand a variety of ores, a smelter might render an ore profitable that would otherwise be useless in other words, that frequently copper can be extracted at less cost by smelting ores in a mixture than by smelting one ore by itself.' Accordingly, although at first he seems to have smelted upon the spot small quantities from the works at Perranza- buloe, of which he was manager, 6 we find him announcing, in 1584, that the ores would be transported out of Cornwall to Neath, in Wales, 7 where a few years later Carew suggests that all Cornish copper was taken. 8 Had the mines been continued throughout the seventeenth century, it is probable that the advantages which Wales possessed, in having a plentiful supply of cheap 1 Pryce, Minerahgia Cornubiensis, 272.
- Ibid. 274. ' Ibid. 275.
4 Ibid. 262-263. 5 Grant Francis, The Smelting of Copper in the Swansea District, 23. 6 Ibid. 5, 23, 24. 7 Ibid. 24. 8 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1 8 1 1), 21. fuel, and in being the centre for copper smelt- ing for other districts, would have thenceforth attracted all Cornish ores. The mines, how- ever, were discontinued throughout this period, and when they were revived the old traditions of a Welsh smelting had apparently been for- gotten. First to discover the value of the ores were a few Bristol gentlemen in 1690, who, buying them at the low price of from 2 ids. to 4 per ton, reaped a considerable profit from their refining operations. 9 Their success having called in other dealers from the same city, about the year 1718 10 an agreement was reached by which the mine owners consented to sell all their copper for a term of years at prices which, although as a rule low, varied considerably with the quality of stock raised from mine to mine. Matters continued thus for about ten years. 10 The huge quantities of copper ore raised in the Huel For- tune, Roskear, and Pool Adit mines were dis- posed of to the Bristol men, who, confederated into the four companies the Brass Wire Com- pany, the English Copper Company, Wayne and Company, and Chambers and Company 10 en- joyed a complete monopoly of purchase, and took the ore at practically their own price. 10 Just at this moment, however, Thomas Costar, a Welsh smelter, visited Cornwall for the pur- pose of improving his business in the same way. Fourteen hundred tons of ore, which for some years had been lying unsold at Roskear and Huel Kitty, were offered him, for which the confederated smelters had been ready to give only 4 5;. per ton. 10 The Welshman took it at jT6 5*., ready money, and yet so compara- tively low was even this price, that he gained 30 per cent, by the transaction. He bought 900 tons more in Roskear, at 7 per ton, and in less than six months before leaving Cornwall had purchased 3,000 tons, and on them realized a profit of 40 per cent. 10 From that day the smelting works at Bristol declined, and the Welsh companies at Swansea secured almost the entire Cornish yield. 11 A few attempts had been made to smelt the copper in Cornwall itself. ' Seventy years ago,' wrote Pryce in 1778, 'Mr. Scobell, at St. Austell, was joined by Sir Talbot Clarke and Mr. Vin- cent, and there was smelted the first piece of copper in Cornwall. 12 After this, John Pollard, of Redruth, and Thomas Worth, of St. Ives, made a second trial, but both these attempts failed, more by reason of the knavery of work- men, ill-management, and the improper situation of the works, than any great cost of fuel.' After these had failed, Gideon Collier, of Perranza- buloe, erected a smelting-house in Phillack, and 9 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 277, 286. 10 Ibid. 287. " Ibid. 277. " Ibid. 278. Carew, Survey of 'Cornwall '(ed. 181 1), 22 note. 567
