A HISTORY OF CORNWALL new ordinances put in force by Prince Arthur dealt among other subjects with the entering of blowing-house marks and the swearing in of blowers. 1 The buddle and the crazing-mill, it is safe to say, figured also during this period anterior to the reduction of the ore. The molten metal was cast into slabs and blocks of from 200 to 300 pounds each in weight. 2 During the first half of the sixteenth century many notable improvements were introduced into the Cornish mines from the continent. The English kings at an early period had been impressed with the superior skill of the Germans in mining and metallurgy, and repeated entries are to be found in mediaeval state documents of mineral concessions made to foreign workmen to induce them to immigrate. 3 It may have been the royal patronage given these foreigners, and the report of their great skill, which induced Sir Francis Godolphin, a large tin producer, to send for the person mentioned by Carew as ' a Dutch mineral man,' by whose aid were effected all those important improvements which he notes in the management of the great Godolphin tin works.* These were probably the use of the hydraulic stamp, already considerably employed in the German mines, 8 various improvements in the dressing of tin ore, and possibly the use of charcoal for smelting instead of peat, which is mentioned as the usual fuel in all stannary grants of privilege. 6 The first detailed account of tin dressing is given by Carew. The ore was broken small with hammers, 7 and then carried in carts, or on horses, to a stamp-mill of three, and sometimes six, iron-shod heads, driven by a water-wheel. Previously the practice had been to stamp the tin while dry, but wet stamps had by this time come into use, with the result that only the roughest part of the ore now had to go from stamp to crazing-mill, 8 whereas under the dry method all must go. The next operation was completely distinctive, and no longer has a parallel in Cornwall. The water, after it had left the mill, was made to descend a series of stages, at each of which it fell upon ' green turfe, three or four feet square, and one foot thick.' 9 1 Add. MS. 6713, fols. 101-104. 3 Exch. K. R. Tin Coinage Rolls. 3 'The Germans in the Stannaries,' by J. B. Cor- nish, Journ. Roy. Inst. Cornw. xiii, pt. 4, 430434. Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historic of the Gold Mynes of Scotland, 18-20, 33. Watson, Compendium of Bri- tish Mining, 58. Calvert, Gold Rocks of Great Britain and Ireland, 52, 87, 98, 103, 109, 130, 131, 139, 144. S. P. Dom. Eliz. clxvii, 24 ; clxix, 1 6.
- Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 181 1), 42.
& Reyer, Zinn, 8 1. 6 Chart. R. 36 Hen. Ill, m. 18 ; 33 Edw. I, m. 40, 41. 7 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (cd. 1811), 39. s Ibid. 39, 40.
- Ibid. 40. See also Harl. MS. 6380, f. 106.
Here the sandy ore was laid, and gently tossed to and fro, so that the lighter particles of waste might wash away, and the tin remain entangled in the fibres. Finally the ore was washed ' in a wooden dish, flat and round, being 2 feet over, and having two handles fastened at the sides, by which they softly shogge the same to and fro in the water between their legges, as they sit over it, until whatever of the earthie substance that . was yet left be flitted away." 10 ' Some, of later times,' says Carew, evidently referring to the present practice of huddling, ' with a slighter in- vention, and lighter labour, doe cause certain boyes to stir it up and downe with their feete, which worketh the same effect.' u The blowing-house, at which the smelting of the ore finally took place, was a rude structure, probably of rock and turf, with a thatched roof ; the whole being so inexpensive that every few years it was burned down in order to save the particles of tin which the blast had driven up into the thatch. 12 Here the prepared ore was made into parcels, according to its quality, 13 and then smelted on the hearth of the granite furnace by a charcoal fire fed by a blast from a large pair of bellows worked by a water-wheel. Abundant evidence exists that the white tin produced in this fashion was as pure in quality as that pro- duced by the smelters of to-day. 14 The slight accounts of tinning given by Norden 15 and Childrey 16 substantiate Carew's evidence in most details, and bring our account down to the year 1660, at about which date we may say that the modern period of tin mining begins, as opposed to that of the Middle Ages. In the course of the next few years began a regime of improvements both in mining and in smelting, which, closely following the great impetus given the mines during the Common- wealth by the abolition of the coinage, sent up the production to 2,141 thousand-weight in i6y3, 17 3,133 thousand-weight in i683, 18 4,800 thousand-weight in 1 7 1 o, 19 and by slow advances to nearly double the latter figure in i837, 20 the year in which the stannary system was remodelled. The first manifestation of this movement seems to have been a series of improvements in the dressing and smelting. According to the anonymous writer already quoted, the ore dressing by 1671 was done chiefly by boys. After 10 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 181 1), 40. 11 Ibid. Buddies, moreover, had already been men- tioned in an Act of Henry VIII, to restrain tinners from filling harbours with their silt (Stat. 23 Hen. VIII, c. 8). 11 Fuller, History of the Worthies of England (ed. 1 662), 195. 13 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 107. " Cornish Mining, 13. 15 Norden, Sfeculi Britanniae Pars (Cornwall), 13. 16 Childrey, Britannia, 10. 17 Receiver's View, 1673. '" Ibid. 1683. Ibid. 1710. Hunt, British Mining, 887. 548
