Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/38

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CORNWALL ugly reftise - heaps of abandoned workings. There was a lack of energy and a clinging to old tradition that in many cases hastened the decline. But still there are a few mines in Cornwall that keep going, and the number of men employed during the year 1900 (6310) shows a slight and welcome increase. This may be owing to the return of many from Africa, in consequence of the war. During the same year, 1900, Cornish mines produced tin, dressed and undressed, to the amount of 8468 tons ; copper ore, 5926 tons ; arsenic and arsenical pyrites, 10,179 tons. In quarries the duchy employs 5672 per- sons, and during 1900 wrought 870, 11 3^ tons of minerals ; of which the larger part was china-clay and china-stone (556,251 tons), and igneous rock, chiefly granite (224,470 tons). The duchy also raised 38,485 tons of slate, chiefly at Delabole. These figures show that Cornish quarrying is prosperous, whatever may be said of its minings. One of the few valuable mines now working is the great Dolcoath, at Cam Brea. In i 746 Borlase spoke of it as a " very considerable mine '" ; and during the past hundred years it has produced metal to the value of over j^6,ooo,ooo. About 75,000 tons per year is the present rate of production. Another in- teresting mine is the Levant, near Land's End, which extends for nearly a mile beneath the Atlantic. There has been a revival of work at the famous Botallack, long disused, which 20