A HISTORY OF CORNWALL at his death the work was carried on by Sir William Pendarves and Robert Corker for some years, but after their decease the business was abandoned. 1 In Lenobrey, in St. Agnes, a small beginning was also made, which failed for lack of capital. 1 To prevent this passing of copper ore out of Cornwall, a proposal was made to some of the chief gentlemen of the county, to petition Queen Anne to have the copper mines subjected to the laws of the stannaries in all respects save being under bounds, and to have the copper stamped, like tin, at the proper towns under payment of a duty a proceeding which would have made it necessary to smelt the ores in the county. 3 Fortunately for Cornwall, the sudden death of the queen occurring at this juncture, the insane proposal to burden the grow- ing industry with trammels which the tinners were trying in vain to throw off, was never consummated. In 1754, one Sampson Swayne and a few gentlemen of Camborne erected smelting works at Entral, in Camborne parish, but their situation was too far removed from the coal centres, and so they removed to Hayle. 3 In 1770 another company erected works at Redruth, but later removed to Tregew, 4 where after continuing in business for some years they were obliged to shut down. 6 The Hayle com- pany succeeded in surviving the opposition of the Welsh operators, 3 and in 1820 was smelting 6,000 tons of ore per annum. 6 It closed only in 1832." Friendly relations between the smelters and the mine owners have been maintained for at least a century and a half 7 by the so-called ticketing system of ore purchase. Mr. Pryce writes : ' When dressed and made saleable, the piles of ore are either kept separate for a market, if the quantities are large, or else the different sorts are well mixed together in one pile, very rarely exceeding 180 or zoo tons in a single parcel, and from thence down to 100, 80, 60, 50, 40, 20, 10, 5, or even I per parcel, if the seller pleases, which is seldom the case, and never for his advantage. 8 A dressed parcel of ore, before the day of sampling, is well mixed by several men, who turn it over and over again with shovels. The parcel, if less than 10 tons, is divided in 3 doles or piles, and if over 10 tons, 4 doles; if ever so many more than 19 tons, 6 doles, and then it is at last ready to be sampled. Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 287. Ibid. 279, citing the Tonkin MS. Ibid. 279. Ibid. 280. Lysons, M agna Britannia, iii, p. ccix. Polwhele, History of Cornwall, bk. 4, 137. 6 Worth, Historical Notes on the Origin and Progress of Mining Skill in Devon and Cornw. 51. ^ Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 287. Add. MS. 6682, fol. 303. 3 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 244-245. ' The samplers (who are agents of the smelters) meet at the spot according to appointment, and fix on the third, fourth, or sixth dole of a parcel, according as it is great or small, to take their samples from. The miners then cut or part that dole athwart and across, down to the ground, so that it is divided into quarters by these channels. Then the sampler, with a shovel, pares down a little of the ore from all parts of the channels, to take as equal and regular a sample throughout the whole as he can, to the amount of 200 or 300 pounds. 9 This he carries to a clean floor, and mixes it into a heap by itself, which heap he also cuts into quarters and mixes and quarters again, until he finally gets a small quantity, which, when sifted through a small coarse sieve, he mixes several times, and so quarters and remixes as before, till it is re- duced to a small heap. At last he puts a pound or two in a bag,' 10 which he carries away with him to be assayed in one of several ways. 11 On the basis of his assays, a smelter will make his offer for the ores of different works. The standard of copper, a phrase which one invariably hears used in connexion with ticket- ing, denotes the price of a ton of metal in the ore, from which standard the smelter deducts 2 ioj. per ton, or as much as may be required, according to its richness, to produce a ton of copper, a sum which the smelter considers an equivalent for his expenses. 12 A fortnight after the assaying comes the ticketing, during which interval the smelters' agents receive answers from their principals as to the price they are to offer. The tickets containing the offers from the different companies are produced, founded upon the assays they have made, and the company making the highest offer receives the ore. The internal arrangements of the Cornish copper mines have differed little, if at all, from those of the tin mines. In both we find examples of the familiar cost-book system, 13 and in both the workmen were, and are, either tribute, tut, or day men, the tributer leasing a pitch, or part of a mine, with perhaps one or two partners, excavating, raising, and dressing the ore at his own expense, and receiving as reward a certain percentage of the proceeds, 14 the tut worker contracting, at a certain rate, for the sinking of shafts and winzes and the driving of levels, and the day labourer employed mainly above ground about the engines, or else concerned with the dressing of the ores. The dressers of copper ore sometimes worked for a monthly wage in Pryce's time, or at a fixed rate per ton of pre- pared ore. But these arrangements making it 9 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 245. 10 Ibid. 246. " Ibid. 264. 13 Watson, Compendium of British Mining, 19. 13 Such seems to be Pryce's meaning. Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 188. 14 Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 188. 568
