whilst this was being emptied, re-ascends, laden with tin ore. The ore is shovelled into barrows, and wheeled into a heap; then it is broken; and lastly, it is put into little four-wheeled waggons, which run on an inclined railway, to the

STAMPING MILL.

Here again, steam is the main spring; and a third engine, twenty-six inch cylinder, is applied in turning two horizontal barrels, extending fifty feet on each side of an immense double fly-wheel. The barrel is called an Ex; and has knobs projecting from its surface, called Keps. The Stamper is a beam of wood, about ten feet long, and five or six inches wide and thick, and shod with ponderous iron; its total weight being about two hundred-weight and a half. Half way up the stamper is a Lifter projecting from its front side. The stamper is placed perpendicularly, the iron being at the bottom; and its front side being placed against the Ex, with the Lifter over the

1

Kep. As the Ex revolves, the Kep, bearing against the Lifter, raises the Stamper; and when the Stamper has been raised about a foot high, the revolution of the Ex, withdrawing the Kep from under the Lifter, the Stamper falls, with a mighty crash, on the broken tin ore, which has been subjected. These Stampers are placed in a straight line, four together, fronting the Ex; every quadrant of which has Keps projecting from it, which are fixed to that circumference which is opposite to the Stamper which is to be raised. These two long Ex, by every revolution, raise seventytwo Stampers. Each set of four Stampers falls on a plate of metal, to which the broken ore is conveyed, by an inclined gutter, at the rear of the Stampers, called a Pass. The Stampers, by repeated blows, aided by the action of a small stream of water, pulverize the ore; which, when fine enough, is carried by the water, through an iron guard, pierced with small holes, for that purpose. The stream runs

from the Stampers, along an inclined gutter, into the Stamp Pit; wherein the ore sinks to the bottom, and from which the water and some of the waste run off.

The noise produced by these seventytwo stampers, many of which are falling every instant,—and by the rattling of the steam engine, which sets them in motion, beggars description. The water, so troublesome at the bottom of the mine, is very useful, when brought to the top of it; being thus used at the stamping mills,—and also in subsequent lavatory processes, for which purpose it is made to flow, in divers conduits, all over the extensive area of the Wheal Vor, whose Set (or Lease) comprehends a great number of acres.

I request the reader to turn over the leaves of this little volume, till he shall arrive at Carclaze Mine; and to read, under that head, my description of the lavatory utensils in which the tin ore, after pulverization, undergoes the various processes of aqueous mundification; and then to return to this page.

If the courteous reader have thus favoured me, he will have seen how useful water is, in cleansing the powdered ore; which when extracted from the stamp pit, contains but five per cent. of tin; whereas it now contains thirty per cent, at the Wheal Vor: (the per centage varying at different mines.) Useful, however, as is the aqueous element in cleansing the ore, it has only carried off the waste; and the heavy mundick, (a semimetalic compound in which tin is found in the Cornish lode,) is yet to be removed : rendering it needful to call in other aid, to bring to perfection the fruit of the miner's toil. Fire, that fiercer and more searching element, is of indispensable use and necessity to effectuate the mundification of that valuable metal.

The first fiery process is calcination. Over a magnitudinous furnace, stands a large iron funnel; into which is placed the pulverized, washed ore. The floor of the Wheal Vor furnace is a circular iron plate, eight or ten feet in diameter, raised in the

centre, and sloping thence towards the cir. cumferent edge. The revolution of this plate causes the lighter particles, namely the sulphur and baleful arsenic, (parts of the mundick,) to quit the body of the tin; which is now left twice as pure as before, being sixty per cent. There is a flue from the furnace, to carry off the arsenic to a distant high chimney. This flue is cleared out every three months; when much tin is found. The arsenic, I am told, abridges the lives of those who work at the calcining furnace.

I next saw the

SMELTING HOUSE;

which contains four furnaces. The calcined, powdered ore, is put into a vast kettle; into which is thrown a piece of green wood, (generally apple-tree,) which, as soon as the metal fuses, is kept under its surface by appended weights. This green log, moving in the fusion, agitates it; which causes the dross and remaining impurities