INDUSTRIES In the infancy of mining only the massive and productive pieces were dealt with before melting. The richest stones were smelted in the block, and the metal disengaged by the direct action of heat. The poorer were subsequently pounded with rocks, and washed. The first improvement upon this method was the working of these stones in something of the fashion of a mortar and pestle. Next came the use of mills to reduce the ore to a still finer state of pulverization. In Loe Pool Valley are still to be seen boulders of hard elvan, with surface indented into deep hol- lows where the tin stone was battered, prepara- tory to its reduction in the furnace, 1 and Pol- whele has left an account of an ancient mill discovered in the Scilly Isles, 2 as well as that of the remains of an old ' buddle,' or washing place. 3 Smelting at its inception was carried on by the miners themselves. A small pit was dug, and a fire kindled in it, close to where the ore was found. Upon this the stones were thrown, and the metal afterwards gathered from among the ashes and sand. 4 Several antiquarian dis- coveries in Cornwall have led Pryce to the con- clusion that this was the form of operation pre- vailing at the time the Phoenicians visited Britain. 8 By the time of Diodorus Siculus, however, an advance had been made. The astragalus block, which figures so prominently in his account, must have been the product of a furnace from which the flow of metal could be directed. Of such there are many remains, vary- ing in character, but passing under the common name of ' Jews' Houses.' Some were built into the shape of inverted cones of hard clay, 6 about three feet broad at the top, and three feet deep. A blast of air, conveyed by common bellows to the lower part of the furnace, served to create an intense heat, and the molten tin was discharged from an opening at the foot. Another fairly advanced but probably excep- tional smelting furnace has been discovered in the Land's End district, near St. Michael's Mount namely, a bronze cauldron, resting upon a layer of charcoal. This specimen has been held to be a Phoenician vessel introduced into the mining districts in the days before Strabo. 7 Still another early type of smelting furnace 1 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 35.
- Polwhele, History of Cornwall, i, Supplement, 64.
- Ibid. 65.
4 Pryce, Minerabgia Cornubiensis, 281. Louis, The Production of Tin, 6. 'Notes on an Ancient Smelting- place for Tin,' by Le Grice, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Corntv. vi, 43, 6 Pryce, Minerahgia Cornubiensis, 281. 6 ' Notes on an Ancient Smelting-place for Tin,' by Le Grice, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornw. vi, 44, 45. 7 ' On the Fragments of a Bronze Furnace dis- covered near St. Michael's Mount,' by R. Edmonds, Proc. Penzance Nat. Hist, and Ant. Soc. i-ii, 347. was of granite, and dome-shaped, and with it have usually been associated the granite moulds, of which many have been discovered on Dart- moor, 8 and other stream-tin fields. 9 No written records exist for the course of smelting operations until we reach the year 1 1 98. 10 De Wrotham's letter of that date in- forms us that there were two smeltings, the first apparently a rude process, taking place near the mine itself ; while the second could not be done except at certain towns designated by the warden, the reason being the connexion of the smelting with stannary taxation. From other sources we learn a few details concerning the preliminary treatment of the ore. Twenty years ago there existed at Retallack Farm, Cornwall, the remains of a mediaeval ' crazing-mill,' in which the tin stones were reduced to sand before being treated with fire. The house measured 20 ft. by 13 ft., and in the gable wall was a rectangular opening, 2 ft. square, where passed the axle of the water-wheel. Within and with- out were granite millstones, three or four feet in diameter, grooved on the face in a circular direc- tion. In the vicinity were also found stones with basin-shaped hollows, similar to many found in different parts of Cornwall and Devon, and probably used for pounding the ore ; and one stone, a rough granite block 4 ft. in length by 14 in. in breadth and depth, which showed, by the regularity of the hollows worn in it, that the pounders were probably worked by machinery, like the present-day stamps. Other stones were found, apparently used for pulverizing the sand by hand ; and also a rough stone buddle, about two feet in diameter. 11 With the advent of improved methods of smelting it became no longer necessary to fuse the tin twice to obtain a proper fineness, and from the first and second smeltings instanced by De Wrotham arose the single blowing-house process known to Beare and to Carew. To set even an approximate date for its introduction is impossible ; but it seems to have been in common use by the middle of the fourteenth century, as we find the Black Prince sharing in the profits of several at Lostwithiel in I359- 12 In 1426 occurs the case of John Aunger of Cornwall, ' husbandman and blower'; 13 and in 1495 the 8 Bate, 'Historical Antiquities of Dartmoor,' Rep. Roy. Corntv. Polytechnic Soc. 1872, 149. 9 Gent. Mag. Ixi, 34. Some time ago, in East Corn- wall was unearthed an entire mining village, containing three of these granite furnaces, in various stages of preservation ; while scattered about were pieces of slag, and occasionally of metallic tin ('Notes on Some Antiquities in East Cornwall,' by R. N. Worth, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. iv, 75, 76). 10 Black Book of the Exchequer, No. 10. 11 ' An Ancient Crazing Mill,' by James Bryant, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. vii, 213-214. 11 White Book of Cornw. 32 Edw. Ill, c. 89^. 13 Cal. of Pat. 14.26, 308. 547
