The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

THE COENISH PENINSULA. 81
80 inches. At Tavistock it rains almost incessanth', showers accompanying the
wind from whatever quarter it blows.
Many geographers have identified the Scilly Islands with the Cassiterides of
the ancients, simply because of their vicinity to the Cornish mines. But these
granitic islands in reality contain only feeble (races of metal, while the rocks of
the neighbouring mainland abound in underground treasures, which have certainly
been explored from a period anterior to Caesar's expedition. Old mines dating
back to that time can still be traced, and the detached, almost insular, rock masses
of Cornwall are undoubtedly the Gilstrymnides or Cassiterides visited by the
traders of Pha3nicia and Carthage. During the Roman epoch the tin of Cornwall
was sent across Graul to Marseilles.
The lodes of Cornwall are principally of copper and tin, sometimes sepa-
rately, sometimes in combination. The richest lodes of tin have been discovered
in the environs of Penzance, near the extremity of the peninsula, whilst the most
productive copper mines are some distance inland, more especially around Redruth.
There are a few mines which, after having ceased to j'ield one metal, are
worked for the sake of the other. In some instances the ores are exceedingly rich,
and near the coast may be seen rocks dyed green by an efHoreseence of copper ;
but as a rule the Cornish ores are very poor, containing scarcely 2 per cent, of
tin, or from 3 to 4 per cent, of copper. Their value depended altogether upon
the scarcity of the metal they yielded, and since the discovery of rich ores in
the United States, Bolivia, Australia, and the Sunda Islands, it has decreased
very much. In their search after the precious ores the valiant miners of Corn-
wall have sunk pits and excavated galleries which rank amongst the curiosities
of England. Powerfvd pumping-engines have been brought into requisition to
empty the mines of the water which invades them through fissures in the rocks.
But in the case of mines many hundred fathoms in depth artificial means for
raising the water do not suffice, and an adit conveys it directly to the sea.
The underground workings in the mining districts of Gwennap and Redruth
reach to a depth of 1,750 feet below the surface, the galleries extend 60
miles, the adit is 7 miles long, and sixty pumping-engines daily remove 100,000
tons of water, being at the rate of more than a ton every second. The timber
buried in the mines of Cornwall is supposed to be equivalent to a pine forest a
hundred years old, and covering 140 square miles.
Botallack promontory, near Cape Cornwall, one of the most picturesque rocks
on the coast, is more especially curious on account of the copper mine which is
hidden in its bowels. Almost severed from the mainland by a wide fissure, that
enormous block of rock, 200 feet in height, is reached by narrow bridges
constructed at a giddy height. Spiral railways wind round its flanks, and its
pinnacles terminate in smoking chimneys. The workings are continued for 1,200
feet under the bed of the Atlantic, and the miners can feebly hear the noise made
by the pebbles rolling up and down the beach. In the neighbouring mine of
Wheal Cock the lode has been followed to the verj' bed of the sea, and the hole
• Carus, '-England and Scotland in ISU."
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