to get rid of the water. This, scientifically, is a fortunate circumstance, for of the earlier workings in the higher part of the valley no good accounts have come down to us.
The river is only a small one and its catchment area is very limited; it has therefore a rapid fall, amounting to 30 feet in the mile between St Austell and the sea. With this fall the valley is still silting up and its alluvium rising, principally through the abnormal amount of sediment and granitic sand sent down by the china-clay works. If we take the fall of the buried channel, this amounts to about 45 feet to the mile, for the rock-floor at Pentuan lies about 60 feet below the sea-level. This rock-floor is composed of hard slates.
The successive deposits met with above the slate were as follows, commencing with the lowest:—
(a) The tin ground, or stratum in which the whole of the stream-tin is found. It lies on the solid rock and is generally from three to six feet thick, sometimes even ten feet. It extends across the valley, except where turned by a projecting hill or rock, when it is found to take the supposed ancient course of the river, which is generally under the steep bank opposite. This last observation (often made by tinners) is important, for it suggests that the heavy tin-ore was brought down by exceptional floods, such as would swing violently to the outer side of the
