A HISTORY OF CORNWALL the prohibition of liveries 1 among tinners, and affording an insight not only into the unscru- pulous practices at times resorted to, but perhaps as well the early forms assumed by capitalistic enterprise. From this sketch of stannary administration we may now turn to the operations of the industry itself, the nature and distribution of the mines, the excavation of the ore, its smelting, and the disposal of the refined product. At the outset, attention should be called to the absolute amounts of tin put upon the market from year to year. Already^ it has been noticed that the yield, judged from modern standpoints, was small ; yet until the reign of Charles II little permanent increase was obtained over the amount produced in 1214. The industry seems to have been subject, in some inexplicable way, to long waves of activity or of depression. Although the story of the wealth which Richard of Cornwall is said to have drawn from his tin-mining prerogatives cannot be confirmed, a decline is evident in the output of tin during the last quarter of the thirteenth century and the first years of the fourteenth. The produc- tion in Devon fell from 87 thousand-weight in lagi, 2 to 38 in I296. 3 That of Cornwall was but 560 thousand-weight in 1301,* and although it had risen to 863 in 1306,' it was far below its level of the previous century. 6 Whether or no it was the economic situation of the miner which gave rise to the charter of 1305, its issue was followed by a mining 'boom,' interrupted only by the Black Death, the amount from Cornwall in 1337,' namely, 1,328 thousand- weight, proving the greatest yield on record. The plague, however, almost ruined Cornwall. Thorold Rogers does not believe that the Black Death extended into the extreme western parts of England. 8 He might have been of another opinion had he seen the stannary tax-rolls for the years immediately before and after 1350. A 1 Prince Arthur's Ordinances of 1495 (Add. MS. 6713, fol. 101). ' Pipe R. 23 Edw. I, Devon. 3 Ibid. 29 Edw. I, Devon. 4 Ibid. Cornw. 5 Exch. K. R. Duchy of Cornw. Accts. port. 5. 6 Due, possibly, to the banishment of the Jews from England in 1290. The question as to the presence of Jews in the tin mines is one which admits of no satis- factory answer. The probabilities, however, seem to point to their playing an important part in the industry. The question as to the derivation of the name ' Marazion ' may be neglected, but the ordin- ances issued by De Wrotham in 1198 are made to apply explicitly to both Christians and Jews. Abra- ham the Tinner in 1342 owned a number of stream works in Cornwall (Smirke, Vice v. Thomas, App. p. 25), and the county as a whole did not lack Hebrew names among its inhabitants in the Middle Ages. ('The Jews in Cornwall,' by J. Baumeister, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. Oct. 1867, 324-331.) 1 Exch. K. R. Duchy of Cornw. Accts. port. I. 8 Hist, of Agriculture and Prices, i, 601-602. single instance will suffice. Tribulage produced in !349 & 'OJ. 3^; 9 in I35O, 15*- 8^. ; 10 and in 1357 only gs. 4</. n The actual amount of tin mined in 1355 from Cornwall was but 496 thousand-weight, 12 nor was it until about 1390 that affairs began to improve. 13 So great, indeed, appear to have been the ravages of disease among the miners, that the Prince of Wales was obliged to make proclama- tion that no tinner or owner of shares in a tin work should neglect to bestow upon it as much labour and expense as had hitherto been usual. 14 A third period of depression began in, and lasted through, the fifteenth century, the produc- tion, which in 1400 had been almost sixteen hundred thousand-weight, 15 falling to eight hun- dred in I455, 16 and not rising much above a thousand until forty years later. 17 In the first half of the sixteenth century the yield slightly increased, averaging over sixteen hundred thou- sand-weight, 18 until Elizabeth's reign, when it fell again to small proportions and so continued 18 until the period of the Commonwealth, dying out completely during the Civil War. 19 Then, for reasons to be named later, began a renewed activity in tin mining, and the annual production mounted steadily, until the maximum was reached some decades ago. What were the conditions under which all this metal was produced ? Cornwall's chief geological features consist of a central ridge of rock which runs longitudinally from east to west, throwing out ramifications that meet the sea, on either side, in the rugged outlines that render the country so attractive to the tourist and the artist. This ridge gives rise to numer- ous streams, flowing, for the most part, from north to south, and traversing small valleys, broadening out at places into moorlands of con- siderable extent. Here it was that tin mining had its birth. Tin ore occurs either in veins in rocks, or in the form of gravel or sand, in alluvium. The detrital tin deposits are easily explained. The lodes have been degraded, and their contents washed out. The specific gravity of tin ore is so high (6'8), that, as the carrying force of the water moderated, it sank to the bottom in beds. 20 9 Mins. Accts. 23 Edw. III. 10 Ibid. 24 Edw. III. " Ibid. 31 Edw. III. 11 Receiver's Roll, 29 Edw. III. In Devon appar- ently every mine shut down. u P.R.O. Exch. K. R. Accts. bdle. 263, Nos. 21, 22. 14 White Bk. of Cornw. 25 Edw. Ill, Feb. 15 Receiver's Roll, I Hen. IV. 16 Ibid. 33 Hen. VI. " Ibid. 1 1 Hen. VII. '" Receiver's Roll. 19 Duchy of Cornw. Audit Accts. 1646-1648. 80 ' The Antiquity of Mining in the West of England,' by R. N. Worth, Journ. Plymouth Inst. v, 126; Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Origin and Progress of Mining Skill, 5, 8 10 ; Pryce, Min- erahgia Cornubiensis, 66. 540
