FOOTNOTES:
[66] Kenegie became the seat of the younger branch of Harris of Heyne, in about the year 1600.
[67] There is also a very considerable similarity in their mode of migration. The word Herring is derived from the German "Heer," an Army, to express their numbers, and order of array.
[68] The first outfit of a Seine, with its boats, oars, ropes, sails, nets, and a quantity of salt sufficient to cure five hundred hogsheads of fish, if purchased new, cannot be estimated at less than a Thousand pounds. The preparations for the water consists of three boats, i. e. two large ones and a small one; each large boat containing seven men, and in the small one are the master, another man, and two boys. The "Seine Boat" and the "Follower" are the names by which the two large boats are distinguished; and the small one is called the "Lurker."
[69] The whiteness of the sand in the Bay of St. Ives renders the shoals of fish easily distinguishable, and contributes very greatly to the success of the fishery upon this coast.
[70] The Tunny fish in the Archipelago was caught by a similar process, "Ascendebat quidam (Anglice the Huer, Græce Thunnoscopos) in ultum promontorium, unde Thunnorum gregem specularetur, quo viso, signum piscatoribus dabat, qui ratibus totum gregem includebant." Vide Blomfield's Notes on the Persæ of Eschylus, p. 148. The seine was as familiar to the Athenians, as the Pilchard fishery is to the inhabitants of Cornwall; and it is said that Eschylus took great delight in witnessing it.
[71] The boats which attend for the purpose of conveying the fish from the tuck net to the shore are termed "Dippers," the proprietors of which are differently compensated in different places; they either receive a certain proportion of the fish, as from one-fourth to one-sixth, according to the distance from the shore, or else they receive a certain sum of money for each boat load. When the fish are caught in the night, fires are instantly kindled on the nearest shore, as a signal for the boats in the bay to repair to the spot.
[72] These nets are of far greater antiquity than the Seine, the latter having been introduced from Ireland.
[73] These dregs are sold to the curriers, at about sixteen pence per gallon.
[74] The skimmings which float on the water in which the pilchards are washed, bear the name of Garbage, and are sold to the soap-boilers.
[75] In salting, packing, pressing, and preparing the fish for the market, there are at least 5000, 4-5ths of which are women; the rope-makers, blacksmiths, shipwrights, &c. upwards of 400; the twine spinners are women, about 150 in number; the makers and menders of nets are chiefly women and children, in all about 600. Nets are also made during the winter season, by the fishermen and their families. These numbers are of course exclusive of the seamen employed.
[76] One and All,—the motto of the Cornish arms.
[77] Cornwall is exempted from the payment of any duties on coal, so far as it is used for the working of the mines.
[78] All the walls in the neighbourhood are built of the same material; and since these vitreous cubes are so piled upon each other as to leave interstices, it has been facetiously observed that "in Cornwall the walls are built of glass, and that you may distinctly see through them."
[79] The value of this useful rush in checking the progress of sand, has been long known; there was an act of parliament in Scotland, so long ago as the year 1695, to prevent persons who collected this rush (then known by the name of Starre or Bent) for the purpose of making mats, from plucking it up, and thereby loosening the sand. A clause to the same effect was introduced into a multifarious act of parliament in the year 1742. The operation of this clause extends generally to the north-west coast of England; but such persons as claimed prescriptive right of cutting it on the sea coast of Cumberland are exempted from its operation.
[80] A highly illustrative series of this rock is deposited in the Geological Cabinet at Penzance.
[81] Tin appears to have been formerly smelted by the Jews, who in the reign of King John monopolized the tin trade, by merely hollowing out a plot of ground, and fusing the oxide with wood, in an open fire. Many ancient remains of this operation have been discovered in different parts of Cornwall, in which portions of metallic tin embedded in a stratum of charred wood, or charcoal, have been found; and which have given rise to the fallacy respecting the discovery of this metal in a native state. In examining a fragment of this kind which was found under the surface of a low and boggy ground in the parish of Kea, the late eminent chemist, Mr. William Gregor, observed a vein of saline matter running through the mass, which he ascertained to be muriate of tin; a full account of this interesting phenomenon is published in the first volume of the Transactions of the Cornish Society.
[82] Culm. A species of very pure coal containing no sulphur. It is imported from Wales.
[83] It is a favourite custom to dress a beef-steak on the pure Tin in the mould, as soon as the surface becomes sufficiently hard to bear it; and it must be admitted to be very far superior to that which is cooked in the ordinary manner.