INDUSTRIES powder had been introduced and tamped an iron rod called the ' needle ' was driven through the tamping, and in this aperture was placed a hollow rush filled with powder to act as fuse. Some- times quills were used, in which case the tamp- ing was put around them and the needle not inserted. The iron needle and tamping-bar were the cause of many casualties, but it was not until within the nineteenth century that the safety fuse, and safety tamping-bar, shod with copper, were suggested, and even then it required some time for them to enter into general use. 1 In recent decades the use of dynamite or gun-cotton has driven out that of gunpowder in open workings or wide levels. Rock-borers worked by com- pressed air have likewise made considerable head- way in the larger tin mines, 2 but the primitive methods of the pick and drill are still far from being completely displaced. Contemporaneous with the introduction of the steam-engine, but more rapid in its develop- ments, came the reduction of the ore by the use of pit coal. This problem (and the growing scarcity of wood fuel made it a serious one) had long been a favourite hobby of inventors. As early as 1632 Dr. Jorden had asserted its practicability, 3 and had tried, unsuccessfully, to solve it. 4 At about the same period a similar attempt was made by Sir Bevil Grenville, 6 but this also failing, the matter seems to have dropped from public notice. Meanwhile, with the deca- dence of the steam works came an added impulse toward the supersession of the still primitive charcoal blast. The alluvial ore, occurring in rounded masses and grains in a high state of purity, was especially adapted to this method. The charcoal ashes formed the necessary flux, while the fuel contained no elements capable of injuring the metal. Lode ore was somewhat more refractory, and this fact, added to that of the scarcity of charcoal, resulted in a series of fresh attempts to utilize the cheaper fuel. The invention of the process has usually been ascribed to Beccher, a German chemist residing in Cornwall in the latter years of the seventeenth century, 6 but little, if any, use was made of it for some years, and Beccher's claims, depending merely on his own assertion in the preface to one of his works, 7 are possibly open to question. It was not until 1 705 that a Mr. Liddell obtained a patent for smelting black tin with fossil coal in 1 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of Mining Ski 11, 1 8. s lbid. 19, 20. Hunt, British Mining, 507-528, 537-539. 56i. s Jorden, Discourse of Natural Baths, 50. 4 Galloway, dnnals of Coal Mining and the Coal 'Trade, 215. 4 Pryce, Mineralogla Cornubiensis, p. 282. 6 For an account of his life see ' The State of the Tin Mines at Different Periods,' by J. Hawkins, Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cormc. iv, 87-91. ' dlphabetum Minerale (ed. 1682). iron furnaces. 8 Close upon this patent came the invention of the reverbatory furnace of masonry, in which the finely divided ore could be smelted easily, and at the same time direct contact with the fuel be avoided. 9 This was the origin of the so-called Cornish method of tin-smelting. The ore, mixed with finely crushed anthracite or culm was charged upon the bed of the furnace and heated until reduction was complete. The less fusible and pasty slag was then drawn from the furnace, while the completely melted portion, or ' glass,' was tapped out with the liquid metal. The former was then removed and the metal purified. 10 Pryce described this method in 1778, and in all essential points it was the same as now, except that his furnace charge was but five or six hundredweight of ore, while nowadays a two or three ton charge is preferred. 11 The first reverberatory furnace is said by tradition to have been set up at Treloweth, although, according to another statement, it was established in 1706 at Newham by Monatt, a German, and after a few years transferred to Calenick. 12 Many years were still to elapse before the blowing-house was superseded. Charcoal tin being of a slightly superior grade fetched a higher price, 13 and as long as sufficient stream tin could be found to charge them, blast furnaces still persisted. In 1765 Jars found both methods used side by side. 14 Pryce's testi- mony in 1778 is to the same effect, 15 and it was not until about sixty years ago that the last blowing-house at St. Austell was finally dis- continued. 18 The successive developments in the industry which set it upon a modern footing, namely, im- provements in ore-dressing, drainage by the steam- engine, the introduction of blasting, and smelting with pit coal, need not blind us to smaller im- provements. First we have to note an almost continuous series of improvements in ore-dress- ing, continuing from the first spurt in the seven- teenth century down to the present. Hardly had the eighteenth century begun when the crazing-mill fell into disuse 17 owing to im- provements in stamping and dressing, which rendered it unnecessary. The former process between 1671 and 1778 had undergone great 8 Pryce, Mineralogla Cornubiensis, 282. 9 Louis, Production of Tin, 8. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 9 ; Cornish Mining, 9. 11 Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 50. 13 Borlase, Natural Hist, of Cornwall, 182. "Jars, Voyages Metallurgies, iii, 212-213. 15 He tells us that the blowing-houses smelted from eight to twelve hundredweight of tin in twelve hours, by the use of from eighteen to twenty-four sixty- gallon pecks of charcoal (Mineralogia Cornubiensis, 1 36). 16 Cornish Mining, 13-15 ; Worth, Historical Notes concerning the Progress of Mining Skill, 5 I. 17 Joum. Roy. Inst. Corntv. i, 179. 551
