Chapter II: Part 2

Penzance ("the Holy Head") has become a great resort of residents for the winter, owing to the mildness of the climate. Marazion or Market Jew does not derive its name from "the Bitter Waters of Zion" as has been absurdly asserted; Marazion has the same significance as Market Jeu (i.e. Jeudi), Thursday Market. Here is a submerged forest. St Michael's Mount is a rock that rises out of the sands and can be reached, when the tide falls, by a causeway. It is incomparably inferior both in elevation and in the dignity of the buildings that crown it to the Mont St Michel in Normandy, but is nevertheless a picturesque adjunct to the scene. Some writers suppose that it is the Ictis to which the natives conveyed the tin and trafficked with the Phoenicians, but it is totally unsuited by nature to serve as a market-site, and there is no certain evidence that the Phoenicians ever came to Cornwall. About Marazion daffodils, narcissus, and violets are cultivated largely for the London market. At Perran Uthnoe the cliffs again appear, and we reach Prussia Cove, once the haunt of smugglers. Inland, Godolphin and Tregonning's granite hills are conspicuous, and near the coast is Pergersick Castle, a picturesque ruin of which strange legends are told. Porthleven is a small fishing village, where the people live on the annual arrival of the pilchards. Loe Pool is a beautiful sheet of water cut off from the sea by a bar of sand. It was when standing on this bar, and watching the wreck of a vessel close in shore when those on the land were unable to communicate with it, that Henry Trengrouse conceived the idea of a rocket apparatus, to be not only employed on land, but also to be carried by every ship. He, of course, met with opposition from the Board of Trade and the Government, and he spent his life and his fortune in experiments, and in endeavours to push his apparatus.

We now reach the superb serpentine cliffs of the Lizard with the beautiful coves of Polurrian, Mullion, and Kynance. At Lizard Point is one of the most famous of all lighthouses, the departure-point or landfall of thousands of ships in the course of the year. The peninsula of the Lizard is interesting, though the land does not rise much above 300 ft., and is monotonous moorland. All its charm is in its coast-line. The terrible Manacles rocks have been the scene of many a wreck. Helford river is a creek running up to Gweek in one arm and nearly to Constantine in another. We now reach Falmouth Bay, into which opens the Carrick Road. A curious peninsula, Roseland, runs to Zoze Point, where there is a lighthouse. Portscatho is a small place at the opening of Gerrans Bay, of which the eastern horn is Nare Point. Carn Beacon is traditionally held to have been the burial-place of Geraint, King of Devon and Cornwall. There were more than one of this name. The cairn has been opened and was found to contain a stone cist of the bronze period, and not, as tradition said, his golden boat with silver oars. Veryan Bay between Nare Point and the Dodman has in it no good harbour. Dodman stands nearly 380 ft. above the sea.

Mevagissey Bay is a shallow hollow between Chapel Point and Black Head, the latter crowned by one of the cliff castles found on almost every headland. Then comes St Austell Bay with that of Tywardreath opening out of it. Charlestown has latterly become of importance, as from thence much china-clay is shipped.

We reach now the narrow estuary of the Fowey river, with Fowey town consisting of one narrow street beside the tidal creek, and with Polruan on the further shore. The coast now becomes very bold, and Polperro, five miles beyond, was once a notorious haunt of smugglers.

At Looe, the two rivers bearing the same name fall into a bay, and seaward stands up Looe Island, crowned by the ruins of a chapel. This island was also a haunt of smugglers, and it was found necessary to establish a coastguard station on it to keep them in control. East Looe and West Looe each sent two members to Parliament before the passing of the Reform Bill.

Between Looe and Rame Head is Whitesand Bay, so called from the whiteness of the sand. The quicksands have made it dangerous for bathers, but the cliff scenery is beautiful and romantic. There is a tiny watering-place at its western end, Downderry. At Tregantle is the most important of the western defences of Plymouth. A peninsula is formed by the Lynher river which discharges into the Hamoaze, and the neck of land between it and the sea is about two miles in breadth. Tregantle stands 400 ft. above the sea and commands every approach to Plymouth Sound.

Rame Head projects into the sea from Maker Heights and is the termination of a range of cliffs from Looe, and from hence a fine view can be had of the Cornish coast as far as the Lizard.

On the east of Penlee Point is Cawsand Bay, once infested with smugglers, sheltered by Rame Head from westerly gales. A rock with a cave in it and a white incrustation is regarded here with some superstitious reverence, and fishermen throw a few pilchards or herrings to it as an oblation when returning from fishing.

=10. The Coast--Gains and Losses.=

At a vastly remote period a valley lay between Britain and Gaul--before ever they were Britain and Gaul--and through this well-wooded valley flowed a river. The coast-line of Britain then lay from one to two hundred miles to the west, where is now the great drop in the ocean depths from 100 fathoms to 300 or 400. Cornwall was a Mesopotamia, a land between two almost parallel rivers, one occupying the bottom of what is now the English Channel, the other being the Severn. At that time the Bristol Channel was another great valley. From Brown Willy to the Scilly Isles ran a lofty mountain range, towering into the sky, of which the present Bodmin moors, Carn Brea, Carn Marth, Tregonning Hill, etc., are but the abraded stumps. Not only were they much higher, but their present roots stood 300 ft. higher than at present.

Then ensued a sinking of the land, and the Atlantic flowed into the valley to the south and joined the North Sea; and at the same time the Bristol Channel was formed. Thus the present coast was approximately outlined.

At some period shortly after, a vast inundation swept over the land from the north, and carried down the degraded granite, depositing the tin beds in the hollows. As early as 1830, Mr Carne noted: "The peculiar situation in which nearly all the stream tin of Cornwall is found is highly illustrative of the direction in which the current of the deluge swept over the surface. All the productive streams are in the valleys which open to the sea on the southern side of the Cornish peninsula; whilst most of the richest veins are situated near the northern coast."

The deposit of tin stone, or tin ground, lies directly on the _shelf_, or primitive surface of rock, and is carried far out in the estuaries, and overlaid by marine deposits.

In 1828, in Carnon Creek, a cairn was discovered 16 to 18 ft. below the surface, and that surface 4 to 5 ft. below low water mark. In it was a crouched skeleton. This shows that there must have been a subsidence of the land of something like 30 ft. at least since the period when man in the late stone or early bronze age inhabited Cornwall.

The submarine forests grew on the top of the tin ground. Of these many have been noted and recorded, not only on the south coast, but on the north as well. The trees were oak and hazel, alder and elm, but they never reached a large size.

Above this bed lie the raised beaches, some 40 or 50 ft. above high water mark. The tin-beds in the Cornish valleys towards the sea do not exhibit such an upheaval. Generally the raised beach rests on the original rock, and consists of rolled stones, frequently of large size, mixed with smaller gravel and sand. The "Head of Rubble," with some intervening perplexing beds of sand, may be noticed on the coast. This Head is from 40 to 50 ft. in depth. It is composed of angular fragments of rock, often large, many of quartz, with no signs of stratification. The Rubble bed in Cornwall has yielded no organic remains, but elsewhere in it have been found the bones of the mammoth, elephant, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, etc. It was not formed by the disintegration of the subjacent rocks, but by aqueous transport. It owes its origin to a powerful force of water, acting violently and rapidly. It caps the heights, and is not in the valleys where the tin ground has been deposited. It has not therefore been found to overlie it. It was due to a sudden and brief overrush of water, and the fragments of stone carried before the flood did not travel sufficiently far to have their angles rubbed down.

As may well be supposed, the action of the sea on the coast-line has been affected largely by the character of the rocks against which the waves have lashed themselves to foam. Where the rocks are of granite or slate, the tide and the waves have very little effect upon the outline of the coast; it is in those places where the softer rocks prevail, and where exposure to the prevalent wind induces breakers of great volume, that the loss of land by the action of the sea is greatest. In fact, the tides rarely run beyond one or two miles per hour, except round headlands, and it is where the rocks are of a yielding character that the coves and bays are formed. This is not always the case. Where the sea has found a fault in the rock it will burrow incessantly till it has bored out for itself a cavern, and the head of this falling in produces a tiny cove. The hard quartzose and trap rocks of Trevose Head, the greenstone rocks of Pentire, near Padstow, the hard slates of St Agnes, the greenstone and hardened schist of the Gurnard's Head, and the granite of the Land's End, defy the action of wave and tide. But it is otherwise where, for instance, the Head of Rubble occurs. "In Gerrans Bay it is plain that the cliffs of Head were at one time much further out than they are now. The tops of the earthy cliffs are split with cracks and miniature chasms, showing that great masses are constantly being detached by atmospheric causes, while the great heaps of earth at the foot of the cliffs show how for centuries masses of earth have rolled down from their tops on to the beach below[1]." As to the kingdom of Lyonesse, which was supposed to extend from the Land's End to beyond Scilly, it never existed in the historic or prehistoric period. Another fable that may be dismissed, is that St Michael's Mount was surrounded by a vast tract of woodland, in which were villages, and where settled hermits. It did rise above a forest, but that was in a prehistoric period. But if the sea gains on the land but imperceptibly in one way, it gains in another on the north coast, by the action of the wind carrying the sand inland, and overwhelming field after field. It is not a little curious to mark, nevertheless, how a small dribble of a stream will arrest the onward march of the sand-dunes.

[1] D.C. Whitley, "The Head of Rubble," in _Journal of the R.
Inst. of Cornwall_, XVII. p. 67.

At Constantine by Padstow as already said the old church is enveloped in sand-hills, so is that of St Enodoc. The Perran Sands have so encroached that they extend over a mile and a half inland and have in process of time swallowed up two churches and a village. The Gear Sands have even climbed a hill to the height of 300 ft. The Godrevy, Upton and Phillack towans have moved inland from St Ives' Bay and engulfed the residence of the ancient kings of Cornwall at Riviere.

The same phenomenon has not taken place in the south, but there the estuaries have been silted up by the wash from the stream tin works. Formerly boats could come up to Tregony. Now the Fal is choked with detritus for miles down. Restronguet creek bore vessels to Perranarworthal. Now it is completely silted up, only a trickle of water running down through desolate morasses and flats resulting from the workings of the miners.

=11. The Coast--Tides, Islands, and Lighthouses.=

Off the mouth of the English Channel the tidal-stream is materially influenced by the indraft and outset of the channel, and is found to run northward and eastward with a falling tide at Dover, and southward and westward with a rising tide at that place. At spring tides the tide rises in Padstow Bay 22 ft., at Bude a foot higher, at the Lizard only 14-1/2 ft., at Scilly 16 ft. Nowhere on the Cornish coast is there the enormous rise seen at St Malo, where ordinary tides rise from 23 to 26 ft., and spring tides 48 ft. above low-water mark.

On account of the varying force with which the channel and spring tides blend south of the Scilly group the stream is incessantly altering, but north of this towards the Bristol Channel, the stream becomes more regular, and while the water is ebbing at Dover, it sets northward turning sharply round Trevose Head into the Bristol Channel, and so when the tide is flowing at Dover, it is running with equal speed in ebb out of the channel and along the coast towards Scilly.

The Scilly Isles are the sole group of any importance around the coast. They are situated 40 miles due west from the Lizard Point and 25 west-south-west from the Land's End, and are reached by steamers from Penzance. There are now but five of the isles inhabited, St Mary's, Tresco, St Agnes, St Martin's, and Bryher. Formerly Sampson was also inhabited, but the inhabitants were removed to St Mary's. The total acreage of the islands is 3560; and the formation is granite. This group is in fact the rubbed-down stump of the last great peak of the chain running south-west from Bodmin moors. The heights in the islands are inconsiderable, but very bold and picturesque scenery is obtained among the many islets, each of which has its special character. At St Mary's is a pier built in 1835-8; and a harbour called the Pool for small craft, while further out between the islands is a good roadstead for large vessels. The Scilly Isles were noted as a resting-place for innumerable birds, some very rare, in their annual migrations, but of late years gun-practice at sea marks has scared a good many away, and they visit the islands in far fewer numbers than formerly.

The coast of Cornwall is remarkably free of shoals. The only dangerous sandbank is the Doom Bar at the mouth of the Bay of Padstow; but there are shallows in Mounts Bay and other places.

Trinity House, the first general lighthouse and pilotage authority in the kingdom, was composed of a body of merchants and seamen founded in 1519 by Sir Thomas Speet, controller of the navy, when it was granted a charter by Henry VIII. Since that period the duty of erecting and maintaining lighthouses and other sea-marks has been entrusted to the Corporation by Royal Charter and Acts of Parliament. Trinity House maintains ten lighthouses about the coast of Cornwall, of which the most important, besides those of the Scilly Isles, are the Longships, white and red occulting; the Wolf rock, white and red group flash; the Lizard, white flash; the Eddystone, white flash.

=12. Climate--Rainfall.=

The climate of a country or district is, briefly, the average weather of that country or district, and it depends upon various factors, all mutually interacting--upon the latitude, the temperature, the direction and strength of the winds, the rainfall, the character of the soil, and the proximity of the district to the sea.

The differences in the climates of the world depend mainly upon latitude, but a scarcely less important factor is this proximity to the sea. Along any great climatic zone there will be found variations in proportion to this proximity, the extremes being "continental" climates in the centres of continents far from the oceans, and "insular" climates in small tracts surrounded by sea. Continental climates show great differences in seasonal temperatures, the winters tending to be unusually cold and the summers unusually warm, while the climate of insular tracts is characterised by equableness and also by greater dampness. Great Britain possesses, by reason of its position, a temperate insular climate, but its average annual temperature is much higher than could be expected from its latitude. The prevalent south-westerly winds cause a drift of the surface-waters of the Atlantic towards our shores, and this warm water current, which we know as the Gulf Stream, is the chief cause of the mildness of our winters.

Most of our weather comes to us from the Atlantic. It would be impossible here within the limits of a short chapter to discuss fully the causes which affect or control weather changes. It must suffice to say that the conditions are in the main either cyclonic or anticyclonic, which terms may be best explained, perhaps, by comparing the air currents to a stream of water. In a stream a chain of eddies may often be seen fringing the more steadily-moving central water. Regarding the general northeasterly moving air from the Atlantic as such a stream, a chain of eddies may be developed in a belt parallel with its general direction. This belt of eddies or cyclones, as they are termed, tends to shift its position, sometimes passing over our islands, sometimes to the north or south of them, and it is to this shifting that most of our weather changes are due. Cyclonic conditions are associated with a greater or less amount of atmospheric disturbance; anticyclonic with calms.

The prevalent Atlantic winds largely affect our island in another way, namely in its rainfall. The air, heavily laden with moisture from its passage over the ocean, meets with elevated land-tracts directly it reaches our shores--the moorland of Devon and Cornwall, the Welsh mountains, or the fells of Cumberland and Westmorland--and blowing up the rising land-surface, parts with this moisture as rain. To how great an extent this occurs is best seen by reference to the accompanying map of the annual rainfall of England, where it will at once be noticed that the heaviest fall is in the west, and that it decreases with remarkable regularity until the least fall is reached on our eastern shores. Thus in 1906, the maximum rainfall for the year occurred at Glaslyn in the Snowdon district, where 205 inches of rain fell; and the lowest was at Boyton in Suffolk, with a record of just under 20 inches. These western highlands, therefore, may not inaptly be compared to an umbrella, sheltering the country further eastward from the rain.

The above causes, then, are those mainly concerned in influencing the weather, but there are other and more local factors which often affect greatly the climate of a place, such, for example, as configuration, position, and soil. The shelter of a range of hills, a southern aspect, a sandy soil, will thus produce conditions which may differ greatly from those of a place--perhaps at no great distance--situated on a wind-swept northern slope with a cold clay soil.

The character of the climate of a country or district influences, as everyone knows, both the cultivation of the soil and the products which it yields, and thus indirectly as well as directly exercises a profound effect upon Man. The banana-nourished dweller in a tropical island who has but to tickle the earth with a hoe for it to laugh a harvest is of different fibre morally and physically from the inhabitant of northern climes who wins a scanty subsistence from the land at the expense of unremitting toil. These are extremes; but even within the limits of a county, perhaps, similar if smaller differences may be noted, and the man of the plain or the valley is often distinct in type from his fellow of the hills.

Very minute records of the climate of our island are kept at numerous stations throughout the country, relating to the temperature, rainfall, force and direction of the wind, hours of sunshine, cloud conditions, and so forth, and are duly collected, tabulated, and averaged by the Meteorological Society. From these we are able to compare and contrast the climatic conditions in various parts.

Cornwall, being so surrounded by the sea, and so peculiarly under the influence of the Gulf Stream, may be looked upon as possessing a local "insular" climate in a marked degree. The south-west wind almost invariably brings rain and warmth together, for the high cold granitic moorlands are naturally calculated to arrest these warm airs and chill them, causing thereby a downfall of the suspended water. But Cornwall does not enjoy the amount of sun heat to ripen fruit that is obtained on the east coast of England, and it is exposed to furious gales from the west. "The gale from the west," says Polwhele, "is here no gentle zephyr; instead of wafting perfume on its wings, it often brings devastation." On the north coast every tree that is exposed to it is dwarfed and bowed like a curling wave, and the foliage in spring is often cut and browned by the salt spray. Even tombstones in the churchyards on the heights have to be backed up with masonry, and the churches are low, as if cowering from the blast. According to a Cornish proverb: "There falls a shower on every week day, and there are two on a Sunday." In Scilly, however, there is more sunshine and less rain than on the mainland. The myrtle, geranium, fuchsia, and hydrangea grow luxuriantly; the red geranium at Penzance will cover the front of a house, and palms and other exotics thrive there and at Falmouth. The fields of narcissus and daffodils cultivated for the market would be more beautiful if the blooms were not systematically picked before fully open, to be sent to London. No gardens in England exhibit such a wealth of exotics as those of Tresco, Carclew, Enys and Penjerrick, and some others in the district of the Fal estuary, which seems peculiarly favourable for the growth of sub-tropical species.

In 1906, the mean temperature of England and Wales was 49.3 deg. Fahr., while that of Cornwall was 51.2. The mean temperature of England in 1907 was 48.5, of Cornwall 50.6. But there exists a considerable difference between north and south. At Redruth it was in 1906, 50.1, whereas at Truro it was nine degrees higher.

The east wind prevails in October and is strong in March, the south-east in June, the south-west is felt in every month save April, but very little in December. The west wind is most prevalent in August, least so in May. The north wind predominates in December and July.

The rainfall chart here given shows that Cornwall lies for the most part in an area where from 40 to 60 inches are annually recorded, though a strip of the north coast from St Ives to Padstow and again from Boscastle to the northern limit of the county shows a fall of less than 40 inches. This is because the uplands have robbed the rainclouds of a considerable portion of their contents, and accordingly it is on these high moorlands that we find the greatest rainfall. Thus on the moors between Launceston and Bodmin from 60 to 80 inches fall, and even this latter figure is exceeded in the neighbourhood of Rough Tor and Brown Willy.

From observations taken at the Royal Institution of Cornwall at Truro, from 1850 to 1881 it appears that the rainiest months are November and December, and next to them January and July; April and May are the least rainy.

=13. People--Race, Dialect, Population.=

The original population of Cornwall would seem to have been what is now commonly called Ivernian, the same as Iberian, the underlying race everywhere in Western Europe from the western isles of Scotland to Gibraltar. When the Romans invaded and conquered Spain, they found there already in the east the Celts and in the west the Iberians, and they designated the more or less fused population, Celtiberians. So in Cornwall, there was this dark-haired, dusky-skinned race, and the Brythons, Celts, of the people of the Dumnonii. There were extensive settlements by Irish in the Land's End district, the Lizard, and along the north coast, in 490-510, owing to the expulsion of the Ossorians and the Bairrche from their lands in Ireland. The Saxon also crossed the Tamar and peaceably settled in East Cornwall.

The language spoken was Brythonic, akin to, and originally identical with Welsh and that spoken in Lower Brittany. It was distinct in some points from the Goidelic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Highlands of Scotland. The main difference was that the _C_ in the latter became _P_ in the former. Thus _Ken_ or _Cen_ in such names as Kenmare and Ciaran would in Cornish become Penmare and Piran.

In the reign of Edward I, Cornish was spoken in the south Hams of Devonshire, but in the sixteenth century it was dying out even in West Cornwall. Norden, writing in 1580, says: "Of late the Cornish men have much conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their English is equal to the beste, especially in the eastern partes.... In the weste parte of the countrye, in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier, the Cornishe tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitants." At Menheniot about 1540 the Creed and the Lord's Prayer were first taught the people in English. In 1678, at Landewednack, the last Cornish sermon on record was preached. In the reign of George III (1777) died Dolly Pentreath, the last to speak the language.

Two modern Cornish dialects exist. That in the east very naturally is assimilated to the Devonshire; but in the west it has formed itself in comparatively recent times. The more common prefixes of names of places are:--_Tre_ an enclosure or homestead, _Lan_ also an enclosure for a church, _Ty_ a dwelling, _Bod_ a habitation, _Chy_ a house, _Pol_ a pool, _Pen_ a head, _Huel_ or _Wheal_ a mine, _Ros_ a moor, _Men_ a stone, _B[=a]l_ a mine, _Bos_ is a corruption of _Bod_ and is sometimes reduced to _Bo_; _Car_ stands for _Caer_ a fortress; _Dun_ has the same signification. _Burn_ stands for _Bron_ a hill, _Camborne_ should be _Cambron_, the crooked hill; _Cara_ is _Carreg_ a rock, and this is often found cut down to _Car_; _Carn_ is a cairn or heap of stones or mass of rock; _Enys_ or _Innis_ an island or peninsula. _Fenter_ occurring in many combinations is _fenten_ a well or spring; _Goon_ is the Welsh _Waun_ a grassy down; _Hal_ is a moor, _Parc_ an enclosure, _Dinas_ a chieftain's castle, _Lis_ a court of justice.

It is possible that certain river names may derive from the original tongue of the earliest race. Some seem to be more akin to Goidelic than Brythonic dialect, as _Fal_ (Gaelic _foill_, slow), and _Fowey_ (Gaelic _fobhaidh_, swift); but there are not sufficient of these to assure us that the Goidels preceded the Brythons in Cornwall.

In East Cornwall there must have been a considerable influx of Saxon settlers, for there we light upon such names of places as are compounded with _ton_ the home-farm, _worth_ and _worthy_ a fortified settlement, _stoke_, _stow_, _sto_ a stockade, an earthwork surmounted by a defence of posts; _ham_ a meadow by the waterside. In West Cornwall such names are few.

The people are courteous and kindly, and very independent. In South Africa, whither many thousand miners have migrated, they are not popular, and are fain to disguise whence they come by pretending to hail from Furness. The reason is that the Cornish cling together and do not care to associate with others, and that they lack that breadth of sympathy which makes men give up their time and devote their energies to the common good. The Cornish miner cares nothing for the country and for those among whom he has placed himself, if only in three years he may have made enough money to return home to his wife and children. He does not go out to settle, and this explains the lack of interest he has in what interests and concerns the colony.

The Cornish are a broad-shouldered race, above the average in stature, and it is stated that west country regiments, when drawn up on parade, cover a greater space of ground than would those of other counties, the numbers being equal.

The census of 1901 gives as the population of the administrative county 322,334 persons, of whom 149,937 were males and 172,397 were females. There had been an increase in the number of males since 1891, and a decrease in the number of females. Of inhabited houses there were 72,660. The population of Cornwall in 1801 was 192,281, and it went on increasing steadily to 1861, but from that date it has been as steadily on the decrease. In military barracks there were 629 officers and men, in naval barracks 90, and on H.M. ships in home waters 2053; in workhouses 1308, in prison 75.

In 1901 there were 21,335 marriages, 88,636 births, and 55,790 deaths. There were 6434 wives whose husbands were absent, either at sea or mining in South Africa or South America. In agriculture 23,671 were engaged, in fishing 3734, in mining 13,426; in building and carpentering 9667. Of the 149,937 males enumerated in the county of Cornwall, 128,184 were natives of the county, 8007 had come from Devonshire, and there were resident in Cornwall 976 foreigners. Of blind there were 447, of deaf and dumb 163, of lunatics 798, of imbeciles 516.

Whereas the number of people to the square mile in England is 558, that in Cornwall is only 230.

It must, however, be born in mind that the Administrative County and the Geographical County are not coextensive. Thus, parts of the Registration County of Cornwall are in the Administrative County of Devon, such are Broadwood Widger, Northcott, North Petherwin, St Giles in the Heath, Virginstow and Werrington, with a total population of 2460 persons; and on the other hand parts of the Administrative County of Cornwall are in the Registration County of Devon; these are Calstock and North Tamerton with a population of 6203 persons.

Thus the population and acreage in 1901 in the Registration County would be, population 318,591, acreage 886,384, but in the Geographical or Administrative County the population would be in the same year 322,334 and the acreage 868,208.

=14. Agriculture--Main Cultivations. Stock.=

The lack of hot sunshine makes Cornwall an unsuitable county for cereals, but the mildness of the climate and the rainfall render it on the other hand favourable for dairy produce and for stock.

A recent writer, Mr W.H. Hudson, in his book on the Land's End, thus describes a Cornish farm. He speaks of the neighbourhood of Penrith, but the description applies to many other parts of the Duchy, though not to East Cornwall, where it is scarcely applicable at all, and is precisely the part where there exists least of the Celtic and most of the English element. "Life on these small farms is incredibly rough. One may guess what it is like from the outward aspect of such places. Each, it is true, has its own individual character, but they are all pretty much alike in their dreary, naked, and almost squalid appearance. Each, too, has its own ancient Cornish name, some of them very fine and pretty, but you are tempted to rename them in your own mind Desolation Farm, Dreary Farm, Stony Farm, etc. The farmhouse is a small, low place, and invariably built of granite, with no garden, or bush, or flower about it. The one I stayed at was a couple of centuries old, but no one had ever thought of growing anything, even a marigold, to soften its bare, harsh aspect. The house itself could hardly be distinguished from the outhouses clustered around it. Several times on coming back to the house in a hurry, and not exercising proper care, I found I had made for a wrong door, and got into the cow-house or pig-house, or a shed of some sort, instead of into the human habitation. The pigs and fowls did not come in, but were otherwise free to go where they liked. The rooms were very low; my hair, when I stood erect, just brushed the beams; but the living room or kitchen was spacious for so small a house, and had the wide old open fireplace still so common in this part of the country. Any other form of fireplace would not be suitable where the fuel consists of furze and turf."

But it must be allowed that the large landed proprietors have everywhere built commodious, though almost invariably ugly, new farmhouses.

Considering the vast extent of grass land there is in Cornwall, and the amount of butter, cream, and milk derived therefrom, it has become more and more clear to thinking farmers that the pasture is becoming exhausted, its feeding powers worn out, and that they must replenish the soil with the lime and phosphates that have been taken out of it to nourish and rear the cattle. The consequence is, that of late years the more intelligent farmers are largely employing artificial, i.e. chemical manures, and the results have been most satisfactory. You cannot eat your cake and have it. If you take so much annually out of the ground you must put in an equivalent annually, or you exhaust the soil; and animal manure is not sufficient. In the country a great deal of turf and furze is burnt, where there is proximity to the moors. The writer just quoted says: "in some parts of Cornwall they have good peat, called 'pudding turves,' which makes a hot and comparatively lasting fire. In the Land's End district they have only the turf taken from the surface, which makes the poorest of all fires, but it has to serve. But to make a blaze and get any warmth furze was burnt. In a few moments the dry stuff would ignite and burn with a tremendous hissing and crackling, the flames springing up to a height of seven or eight feet in the vast hollow chimney. For a minute or two the whole big room would be almost too hot, and lit up as by a flash of lightning. Then the roaring flames would sink and vanish, leaving nothing but a bed of grey ashes, jewelled with innumerable crimson and yellow sparks, rapidly diminishing."

The total acreage under crops and grass in 1908 was 608,691; of these 356,497 acres were arable land, the rest, 252,194 acres, permanent grass: 17,120 acres grew wheat, 30,696 barley, and 66,033 oats; 4441 acres grew potatoes, 15,271 turnips and swedes, 11,528 mangold, 8059 rape, and 1658 small fruit. Of small fruit culture just over 621 acres were devoted to strawberries, nearly 276 to raspberries and nearly 553 to currants and gooseberries. Apples were grown on 4865 acres, cherries on 199, plums on 182.

The number of horses used for agricultural purposes was 25,706. The total of horses, colts and unbroken, was 34,821. Of cattle there were 219,890, and of these 59,298 were cows in milk. The total number of sheep was 410,055, and that of pigs 104,813. Of mountain and heath land used for grazing there were 71,438 acres. In Cornwall there are 9249 acres of coppice and 22,197 of other woods, but no more than 981 of plantations. While 548,787 acres are tended by tenants, only 59,904 acres are occupied by the owners. Whereas in Surrey the percentage of those occupying their own land is 33 per cent., that in Cornwall is 9.7, in Devon 10.9, and in Hampshire 24.4.

In Cornwall, in 1908, the number of agricultural holders above one acre but not exceeding five was 2859; of those above five and not exceeding 50, there were 6810. Of those above 50 and not exceeding 300 acres there were 3682, but of those holding more than 300 acres there were but 118, whereas in Essex there were 564, in Suffolk 540, in Hampshire 595, in Wiltshire 660 and in Northumberland 731.

Of late years, especially in the Scilly Isles, flower gardening, the growth of narcissus, jonquils, daffodils, and various sorts of lilies, also of violets, anemones, and marguerites, has been carried on with great success, and the produce is carried by steamer and train to London and other large towns.

During six months in the year, when and where the flower culture prevails, it forms the staple of conversation in parsonage, manor house, farm, and cottage. From January until May men, women, and children are directly or indirectly engrossed in this one labour. The bulbs are moved at least once in three or four years. Left longer, they decrease in size, and become weakly; the flowers also degenerate. A suitable manure is at hand, the kelp washed up by the sea costing nothing but the labour of gathering and transporting.

Anyone standing in a field which is in full bloom and waiting to be picked over, would think that the men have a hopeless task to face, if they purpose gathering all their flowers. But they move down the beds swiftly, snapping the stems, and throwing the flowers into big baskets, which are carried off to the homestead as they fill, and in an incredibly short time the beds are thinned. When the baskets are brought into the farmhouse they are emptied, and if the weather has been wet and stormy the flowers are packed roughly into pots and pans of every description, and set on shelves to dry off and assume their proper colour. If the weather has been fine this preliminary toilet is dispensed with, and the girls and women bunch and tie at once. Twelve stems go to a bunch always, and the aim is to arrange the flowers so that they shall present a compact lozenge shape, crisp and tight. Varieties are never mixed when tied, the bunches are passed on to another department, where the uneven stems are sliced off, and the flowers set in water to await packing.

Packing the flowers is a serious business. The boxes are lined with paper, little pillows are made for the flowers to rest upon, and then the bunches are deftly laid, so many this way, so many that, and a few in the centre, and behold, stems are altogether hidden, and only a mass of bloom fills the box. The end papers are turned in, a ticket placed on the top, declaring the variety of flower and the number of bunches; the cover is nailed down, and the operation is complete.

=15. Industries and Manufactures.=

Cornwall is too far from the coalfields to be a manufacturing county on a large scale. There are, however, some few industries and manufactures carried on in Cornwall. The wonderful wireless telegraphy installation which Mr Marconi has established at Poldhu does not, perhaps, strictly speaking, come under this head, but it would be impossible to omit mention of it and of the great services it daily renders to vessels crossing the Atlantic.

A considerable industry is in the making of casks, mainly for the exportation of pilchards. Woollen manufacture is carried on in a small way, also the construction of mining and other machinery. Shipbuilding occupies about 870 men. Some brick-making is done, but not to any considerable extent. The real employments supplying the vast majority of the people with bread are mining and quarrying, and agriculture and horticulture.

=16. Minerals and Mining.=

The authentic history of tin-mining in Cornwall begins with the year 1156. It is not mentioned in Domesday, and probably the Conqueror was as ignorant that tin was to be found there as were the Romans. In the year above given the tin mines are mentioned in the Pipe Rolls. In 1198 appears a letter from the Warden of the Stannaries to the Justiciar. In 1156 most of the tin was raised on Dartmoor, but the output now began to rise rapidly. In 1201 King John issued a charter to the Stannaries. In 1305 the Cornish Stannaries were in part dissociated from those in Devon.

As already stated, in the beds of the valleys running down from the central ridge are deposits of tin, brought there from the lodes degraded by weather and flood in the central spinal ridge. The specific gravity of the tin ore is 6.8, and as the water rolled away from the heights, it deposited the tin that it had brought away with it. "The ores of tin," wrote Pryce in 1776, "are shode and stream ... scattered to some distance from the parent lode, and consisting of pebbly and smoothly angular stones of various sizes, from half an ounce to some pounds in weight. Stream tin is the same as shode but smaller in size and arenaceous."

Polwhele describes an early stream work disclosed about a century ago. The ore was of the purest kind and contained two-thirds metal. The pebbles from which the metal was extracted were in size from sand-like grains to that of a small egg. The depth of the primeval bed was 20 ft. This appeared to have been worked at a remote period, and before iron tools were employed, as large pickaxes of oak, holm, and box were found there. But archaeological research at the period when he wrote was carried on in such a haphazard way that we cannot trust the reports then made, and it is quite possible that the workings were comparatively late, possibly of Mediaeval times.

All the early work was in stream tin. The Cornish tin had this disadvantage--that it was not pure like the Dartmoor tin, but was so associated with sulphur that after smelting it had to undergo a second process, and that a delicate one. It had to be "roasted," to get rid of the sulphur, for only thus could the tin be made available. Associated with sulphur it is brittle. We may well doubt whether in early times the double process was understood. Moreover, we know that when we have the first notices of tin in the west, it was Dartmoor and not Cornwall which rendered the largest supply.

Shaft-mining did not come in before 1450, when the stream tin was exhausted. The use of the adit cannot be traced back beyond the beginning of the seventeenth century. The only way of draining the mines was by rag and chain pumps, each consisting of an endless chain, broadened at intervals by leathern bindings, to fit snugly into a pipe from 12 to 22 ft. long, worked by a windlass at the surface. To drain a mine of great depth a series of these pumps was necessary.

When hydraulic draining-engines were first employed is not known, but even so late as the close of the eighteenth century some mines were drained by the rag and chain pump worked by 36 men.

Up to the sixteenth century, wooden shovels and picks are known to have been employed, and shovels were merely iron-shod. There is in the British Museum a MS. calendar of Haroldstone in S. Wales, of the early sixteenth century, in which are representations of the works of the months, and in it the labourers in the fields are shown as using wooden spades shod with metal.

German mining was carried on upon better principles than the English, and Sir Francis Godolphin sent for an experienced German engineer to instruct the miners of Godolphin and Tregonning in the superior systems employed in Saxony. It was then only that the hydraulic stamps were introduced.

In 1742 one steam-engine only was found in the county; but speedily after came a great advance. Savery and Newcomen brought in their steam pump; that of Newcomen was introduced at Chasewater in 1777.

Notwithstanding that the methods of descent into the mines by a series of long ladders had been superseded by the man-engine, first introduced in 1842, it was a long time before the old ladders at different successive stages were abandoned.

Owing to the introduction of tin from the Straits Settlements, where it is found in the condition of stream tin and can be easily worked, the tin mining in Cornwall, necessitating real mining and the following of lodes, has proved unremunerative and has been abandoned, and now but few mines are worked for the metal. Another cause has fatally affected Cornish mining--the fraudulent practice of the promoters of the mines. It was no uncommon practice for the "captains," when a rich lode was struck, to cover it up, and follow false lodes, till the investors in the venture lost heart and refused to advance more money, when the captains would carry on the work in the real lode, if they could raise the capital, but this they often failed to do, the mine having fallen into discredit, or the water having broken in.

But if tin mining be practically dead in Cornwall, another industry has risen with leaps and bounds. It is that of the china-clay and china-stone, employed in the manufacture of porcelain, in the sizing of paper and of cotton materials, in the manufacture of alum, etc. The glazed paper so largely employed in our illustrated papers is made up largely with china-clay. Some years ago the Italian government employed this paper for its official documents, but found that after a few years under the influence of damp weather the records had dissolved into a lump of clay.

China-clay consists of decomposed felspar, quartz and white mica. In 1817 the amount shipped for manufacturing pottery was comparatively small, but of late years it has grown, and employs over 3000 persons. The china-clay is the same as the Chinese _Kaolin_; its value was discovered by a Plymouth Quaker, Mr Cookworthy, in 1745.

Porcelain was introduced into Europe from the East in 1518, when it acquired the name of China. For a long time it was supposed that the kaolin or fine white clay of which it is composed, was found only in the Celestial Empire, and specimens of this brought to Europe fetched a high price. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it was discovered in Saxony in an odd way. A merchant named Schnerr, being on a journey, was struck with the whiteness of some clay near Schneeburg, and collecting some of it used it for powdering his wig. It succeeded, but had this disadvantage, that wigs dressed with this new powder were very heavy. An apothecary named Boetcher noticed the increased weight of the wig, analysed the powder, and discovered that it was identical with Chinese kaolin. He began to make Dresden China in 1709, and the process was carried on with the greatest secrecy, the exportation of the earth being forbidden under heavy penalties.

In 1748 Cookworthy discovered kaolin on Tregonning Hill, more was found at Boconnoc, and Cookworthy and Thomas Pett began to make china in 1768. At present St Austell is the great seat of this industry, and the produce is shipped at Charlestown and Polmear.

The important slate-quarries of the Duchy, of which the Delabole quarry is the most renowned, have already been mentioned.

At Calstock and Gunnislake a few years ago there were numerous miners engaged in the manufacture of arsenic from the waste product of the abandoned copper mines. But now this has become an extinct industry.

Wulfram or tungsten, a metal used as an alloy for hardening steel, was also a waste product from the tin mines, but it is now utilised. At St Ives, pitchblende is now being worked for radium.

=17. Fisheries.=

If mining be a decayed industry in Cornwall, that of fishing shows no diminution. In an old book of natural history published in 1776, the principal fishery of pilchards is described. "Pilchards appear in vast shoals off the Cornish coasts about the middle of July, and disappear at the beginning of winter; though a few of them sometimes return again after Christmas. The fishing employs a great many men on the sea, and men, women, and children on land, in salting, pressing, washing, and cleaning; in making boats, nets, ropes, casks; and all the tradesmen depending on their construction and sale. The usual quantities exported each year, for ten years, from 1746 to 1756 inclusive, on the average is as follows: Fowey has exported 1732 hogsheads annually; Falmouth 14,631; Penzance and Mounts Bay 12,149; St Ives 1282; in all amounting to 29,795 hogsheads." And the same writer thus describes the fish. "The pilchard greatly resembles the herring, but differs from it in some particulars; it is a third less, and the body is proportionably broader: it has a black spot near the upper corner of the gills, and the belly is not so sharp. It has no teeth, either in the jaws, the tongue, or the palate." It is now held that the pilchard is identical with the sardine, but in a different stage of growth.

The pilchards are taken generally from the middle of August to the middle of September, when large "schools" are seen coming up the Channel. Each fishing station generally has two or more companies or clubs of twenty or thirty men; each company owning various boats and generally two of the gigantic seines employed, which cost L250 or more. These nets are about 250 fathoms or more long and about 15 fathoms deep, and three boats go to each seine. The first boat, which is also the largest, is called the seine-boat, as it carries the net and seven men in it; the next is termed the "vollier," or "cock-boat," and carries another seine, called the tuck-seine, which is 100 fathoms long and 18 deep, this boat also carries seven men; the third boat is called the "lurker," and contains three or four men, and in this boat is the master.

The pilchards were at one time supposed to come from the Polar Sea, but it has now been ascertained that the main body retires for the winter into deep water to the westward of the Scilly Isles. About the middle of spring they quit the deep seas and begin to consort in small shoals which gradually increase to the end of July or the beginning of August, when they combine in one mighty host and begin their migration eastward. They strike the land a little north of Cape Cornwall, where they break up into two portions, one following the north coast of Cornwall, the other the south.

When the shoal is approaching, men and boys who have been lying on the cliffs doing nothing start into activity and rush to the boats. The gulls may be seen hovering over the advancing army, and a change appears in the colour of the water. At once the "huers," as the signallers are called, get out their signals--a ball at the end of a stick--and proceed to direct the pursuing boats according to the movements of the school.

The seine-boat leads the way followed by the vollier, and the crew of the foremost boat pass a warp, that is, throw a rope, which is fixed to the end of the seine on board the vollier, and then shoot the net overboard, which, having leaden weights at bottom, sinks, while the top is buoyed up with corks. The seine-boat is rowed in a circular course round where the fish are "stoiting" or jumping, and when they have reached the vollier, the fish are enclosed. They then join the two ends of the seine together with a cord to prevent the fish from breaking out, and whilst this is being done a man is engaged in frightening the fish away from the still open end by means of a stone fastened to a rope. When the two ends of the net are laced together, grapes, i.e. grapples, are let down to keep the net expanded and steady till the fish have been taken up. This latter process is called "tucking the seine." The boat with the tuck-seine on board passes the warp of that seine to one of the other boats and then shoots this net within the big seine. It is then drawn up to the edge of the water, when it is seen to be one quivering mass of silver. The fish are now taken or dipped out with baskets into the boats. When the boats are filled, if more fish remain in the large seine, it is left in the water, till by successive tuckings all the fish have been removed. In addition to seining large numbers of pilchards are taken in drift nets.