Forty Years of Cornish Mining

Abstract

MY connection with Cornish mining began in the year 1867, when I succeeded the late Sir Clement (then Dr.) Le Neve Foster as lecturer and assistant secretary to Mr. Robert Hunt's Miners' Association of Cornwall and Devon. It was a time of transtion, for copper-mining after a brilliant career of a century or more was rapidly declining, and tin mining which though far more ancient had becom second in importance, was once more in the ascendanty. The man-engine, the employment of which had been greatly assisted a quarter of a century earlier by substantial prizes offered by the Royal Cornwall Poly-technic Society, was in use in a dozen of the principal mines, wire-rope and skip were gradually replacing chain and kibble, and rock-boring machines, thanks to the initiation of my predecessor, had already been practically tested in several parts of the county. These were real advances, but kibble-winding was still common even in the deepest mines; the cobbing hammer, the bucking iron, the hand-jigger, and the wooden shafted stamp were still at work to a large extent; while the stonebreaker, the California and pneumatic stamp, the various forms of pulveriser, the Frue and Luhrig vanners, the Wilfley and Buss tables, the self-acting and round slime frames, the air-compressor, and many other contrivances which are now looked upon as essentials in well-provided mines were only beginning to appear. When one compares the present condition of Cornish mining with its condition forty years ago, it is obvious that a sort of revolution has taken place.