A Book of Cornwall. Baring-Gould Sabine

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      Excavations show that these stone caers are more ancient than the Christian era; they belong to the period of flint weapons and the introduction of bronze. But, as already stated, the conquerors of the rude stone monument builders adopted some of their arts, and some of their camps are much later.

      5. The stone castle, the walls set in mortar, is not earlier in Devon and Cornwall than the Norman Conquest. There are no really stately castles in either county, with the exception of Launceston. Rougemont, Exeter, is eminently unpicturesque; Tiverton, Totnes, Plympton, are almost complete ruins; Lydford-well, as Browne the poet wrote of it in the reign of James I.: -

      "They have a castle on a hill;

      I took it for an old windmill,

      The vanes blown off by weather;

      To lie therein one night, 'tis guessed

      'Twere better to be stoned or pressed

      Or hanged ere you come hither."

      And ruin that has fallen on it has not improved its appearance.

      Okehampton is but a mean relic; Restormel is circular; Trematon is like a pork-pie; Pendennis, S. Mawes, late and insignificant. Tintagel owes everything to its superb situation and to the legend that it was the place where King Arthur was born. The most picturesque of all is Pengersick, near Breage, but that is late. Its story shall be told in the chapter on Penzance.

      CHAPTER V

      TIN MINING

      The granite eruptions in Devon and Cornwall-Elvans-Lodes-Tin passing into copper-Stream-tin-Story of S. Piran and S. Chigwidden-Dartmoor stream-tin-Joseph of Arimathea-The Cassiterides-Jutes-Danish incursions-Tin in King John's time-Richard, Earl of Cornwall-Elizabeth introduces German engineers-Stannary towns-Carew on mining-Blowing-houses-Miners' terms-Stannary Courts-Dr. Borlase on tin mining-Present state.

      I remember being at a ball many years ago at that epoch in the development of woman when her "body" was hooked along her dorsal ridge. Now I learn from competent authorities that it is held together in other fashion.

      There was at the ball a very lusty stout lady in slate-grey satin.

      By nature and age, assisted by victuals, she was unadapted to take violent exercise. Nevertheless dance she would. Dance she did, till there ensued an explosion. Hooks, eyes, buttons, yielded, and there ensued an eruption of subjacent material. In places the fastenings held so that the tumescent under-garments foamed out at intervals in large bulging masses.

      This is precisely what took place with Mother Earth in one of her gambols. Her slate panoply gave way, parted from N.E. to S.W., and out burst the granite, which had been kept under and was not intended for show.

      Her hooks and eyes gave way first of all in South Devon, and out swelled the great mass of Dartmoor. They held for a little space, and then out broke another mass that constitutes the Bodmin moors. It heaved to the surface again north of S. Austell, then was held back as far as Redruth and Camborne. A few more hooks remained firm, and then the garment gave way for the Land's End district, and, finally, out of the sea it shows again in Scilly.

      Or take it in another way. Cornwall is something like a leg. Let it be a leg vested in a grey stocking. That stocking has so many "potatoes" in it, and each "potato" is eruptive granite.

      Granite, however, likewise cracked, formed "faults," as they are called, in parallel lines with the great parent crack to which it owed its appearance, and cracks also formed across these; and through the earlier cracks up gushed later granite in a molten condition, and these are dykes.

      Moreover, the satin body not only gave way down its great line of cleavage, but the satin itself in places yielded, revealing, not now the under-linen which boiled out at the great faults, but some material which, I believe, was the lining. So when the granite broke forth there were subsidiary rifts in the slate, and through these rifts a material was extruded, not exactly granite, but like it, called elvan. These elvan dykes vary from a few feet to as many as four hundred in breadth, and many can be traced for several miles. The younger granite intruded into the older granite is also called elvan.

      But when the secondary fissures occurred, the intrusive matter was not only a bastard granite, but with it came also tin and copper. And these metallic lines, which run on Dartmoor from E. to W., and in Cornwall from E.N.E. to W.S.W., are called lodes.

      The cross-cracks do not contain metal. They are called cross-courses.

      In addition there are some capricious veins that do not run in the normal direction, and these are called counter-lodes. Their usual direction is N.E.

      The cross-courses, although without metal, are of considerable value to the miner, because, as he knows well, the best lodes are those which are thus traversed.

      There is, however, one description of cross-course that is called floocan, and which is packed with clay, and holds back water. These are accordingly not cut through if it can possibly be avoided.

      A very curious feature in the lodes is, that after going down to a variable depth the tin is replaced by copper.

      Percy was the first to establish this, towards the close of last century. He pointed out that many an old tin mine was in his time worked for copper. And it came to be supposed that this would be found to be an unchanging law: Go deep enough after tin, and you come to copper. But this opinion was shaken when it was found that Dolcoath, the profoundest mine in Cornwall, which had for some time been worked for copper, became next rich in tin. What seems to have been the case was this: when a vent offered, there was a scramble between the two minerals which should get through first and out of the confinement under earth's crust, and now a little tin got ahead; then came copper trampling on its heels, but was itself tripped up by more tin.

      Now, when the granite came to the surface, it did not have everything its own way, and hold its nose on high, and lord it over every other rock as being the most ancient of all, though not the earliest to put in an appearance. There was a considerable amount of water about. There is plenty and to spare in the west of England now, but we may feel grateful that we do not exist in such detestable weather, nor exposed to such sousing rains, nor have to stand against such deluges, as those which granite had to encounter. Hot, over-hot, it may have been below, but it was cold and horribly wet above.

      The rains descended; the floods came, and beat on the granite, which, being perhaps at the time warm and soft, and being always very absorbent, began to dissolve.

      As it dissolved, the water swept away all its component parts, and deposited the heaviest near at hand, and took the lightest far away. Now the heaviest of all were the ore from the veins or lodes, and the water swept this down into the valleys and left it there, but it carried off the dissolved feldspar and deposited it where it conveniently could and when it was tired of carrying it. The former is stream-tin; the latter is china clay.

      Now to get at stream-tin very little trouble is needed. The rubble brought down and lodged in the valleys has to be turned over; and the ore is distinguishable by its weight and by a pink tinge, like the rouge ladies were wont (a hundred years ago) to put on their cheeks and lips. There is no tunnelling, no nasty shafts and adits to be made; and shafts and adits were beyond the capacity of primitive man, furnished with bone and oak picks only. Besides, why take the trouble to mine when the tin lay ready to be picked up?

      The story told in Cornwall of the discovery of tin is this: -

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