INDUSTRIES smelter can hardly claim serious consideration, since he buys his black tin on the dry assay, not on the actual metal contents, but on the assumed contents which he will recover by his method of smelting. As, therefore, by his conditions of purchase he has already safe-guarded himself by securing an allowance equal to his probable loss in smelting, he can hardly ask for further con- sideration. Moreover, as he sells his ' ashes ' at prices based on their tin contents, he is actually reimbursed for at least a portion of the loss in smelting, which the miner has already allowed him in full and in kind. 1 The relations between tinner and smelter are a result largely of the apathy of the Cornish mining companies and their slowness to grasp the ordinary principles of business management. At present, however, it would be difficult, in the face of organized opposition on the part of the smelting monopoly, as well as the existence of the present system of leases, under which the tinner is usually debarred from smelting his own tin, to bring about the much needed consolidation of mixing and smelting. Yet, until this takes place, and more chance for profit is given the tinner, it is hard to see much hope for the tin mines of Cornwall. Since the early seventies the discovery of vast and easily worked deposits of stream tin in Australia and Tasmania, to say nothing of a huge increase in the output of the East Indies, have depressed prices so far that although the Cornish lodes are still rich, most of the mines have been forced to close. The present output of about 8,000 tons comes almost entirely from a half-dozen large mines, headed by Dolcoath, while the scores of aban- doned shafts which dot the tin districts point to the fact that a land which once supplied the world with tin, is for the time, at least, hopelessly superseded. COPPER MINING The copper deposits of Cornwall present no such features of historical and economic interest as do the stannaries. Occurring only in lodes, and comparatively deep at a level, they were late in being developed, and in consequence carried for their miners no charters of privilege or codes of mining law, unless we except the fact that in 1837 copper mining in Cornwall and Devon was brought under the operation of the then modified stannary laws and courts.* No trace is to be found of mines or of mining tools 3 among the cupriferous rocks of Cornwall which would lead one to believe in the fact of their having been worked at a period before or contemporaneous with the Romans, 4 although the latter erected several brass foundries in Britain, 6 and probably were acquainted with the copper of Keswick and Anglesey. 6 During the Middle Ages a more or less desultory quest for the metal was carried on in England, but mainly in other counties. Several documents of the period of Henry III refer to the discovery of gold and copper mines in Devon, and the king's claim upon them as mines royal, 7 while the same 1 Cornish Mining, 20. The smelter's profits are subject to wide fluctuations. Thus, in 1900, they were only 3 percent., but in 1899 25. For the period 1883 to 1900, an average of 12^ per cent, was realized. 1 Statutes 6 & 7 Will. IV, c. 106. s ' Copper Mining in Cornwall,' by Jos. Carne, Trans, cf Royal Geol. Soc. Cornw. ii, 37.
- ' Antiquity of Mining in the West of England,' by
R. N. Worth, Journ. Plymouth Inst. v, 127 ; Caesar, De Bella Gallico, bk. v, c. 12. 5 Borlase, Antiquities of Cornwall, bk. iii, c. 15. 6 Pennant, A Tour in Wales, iii, 59. ' Pat. 47 Hen. Ill, m. 12 ; Close, 47 Hen. Ill, m. 15. county figures in a grant of the sole rights of gold, silver, and copper mines, issued by Edward III. 8 At the same time there is evi- dence that copper was worked in the Keswick district in Cumberland. 9 The total amount raised from these several sources must always have been scanty, inasmuch as during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI Parliament pro- hibited the export of brass and copper, the reason given being the small quantity produced. 10 With the Elizabethan period came a revival of mining pursuits, and in particular the re-working of the Newlands and Keswick lodes by the newly incorporated Company of the Mines Royal. 11 Yet it cannot be doubted that most of the copper of this period was imported, and even at a much later date the British yield appears to have been small, as is shown by a memorial to the House of Commons, presented by the brass manufac- turers, to the effect that ' England, by reason of the inexhaustible plenty of calamine (not of cop- per), might become the staple of the brass manu- factory, for itself and foreign parts, and that the continuing of the brass works in England would occasion plenty of rough copper to be brought in. ' ls No records exist of the production of copper in Cornwall until the latter part of the sixteenth century. Camden in 1580, had ventured the 8 Pat. 32 Edw. Ill, m. 4. 9 Phillips and Darlington, Records of Mining and Metallurgy, 19. 10 Stat. 21 Hen. VIII, c. 10 ; 33 Hen. VIII, c. 7 ; 2 & 3 Edw. VI, c. 37. 11 S. P. Dom. Eliz. xx, 103 ; xxxvii, 34 ; cclx.xv, 145. a Printed in Moses Stringer, Of era MineraKa Ex- flicata, 156, 157. 563
