Another story of a different character connected with kibble-filling, I may tell you by way of relief to the above sad narrative. A man was employed in this department, who had seen better days, and whose thoughtlessness or ill luck had reduced him to labour thus for his daily bread, but whose humour and ready wit were by no means impaired by his fallen fortunes. One of the agents observing some small stones falling down the shaft, said, “Take care—or you'll have your brains knocked out!” He continued his work, replying coolly, “If I’d ever had any brains, Captain, I shouldn’t have been here!”
PROCESS OF SEPARATION.
And now, having safely returned to this every-day world, you may examine the processes through which the ore has to pass, before it is fit for the market, for, unlike most other mining, one-half of the work is not done when it is brought above ground. Well, first, you perceive, it is thrown from the waggons into a heap, where water runs over it, and by cleaning the lumps, shews more plainly what each piece is made of. Then from the heap it is raked by men to a platform, or long low bench, along which a number of little boys are actively engaged in picking or separating the richer pieces from the poorer, and it is highly amusing to watch the expertness and celerity with which the imps make the selection, and toss each lump into its proper receptacle. The richest portion is carried at once to the crushing mill, the poorer is thrown into another shed below, to be broken up and further picked, and the mere stones are wheeled off to the rubbish heap. The ore being broken small is thrown into the crushing mill, and passed once or twice through it, being returned to the mill by an endless chain of iron buckets, which dip into the heap of crushed ore below, and, carrying it up, empty themselves into the mill. When ground to the size of coarse sand, the ore is carried to the “jigging troughs,” which are large square boxes, filled with water, and having each a smaller box, with a grated bottom, suspended in it from a beam above, and filled with ore, a “jigging” motion being imparted to the grated boxes by water-power. This jigging under water causes the grains of pure ore, which are heavy, to sink and pass through the grating of the inner box, and the particles of spar and rock, which are lighter, to rise to the top, whence they are scooped off and wheeled away to undergo another pounding and washing. The pounding is effected by means of two long rows of stamps or heavy iron-shod pestles, kept incessantly rising and falling in beds fronted with perforated iron plates, and fed with the material, and a flow of water to wash it, when fine enough, through the holed plate. It is, after that, collected to go through the process of “buddling,” which consists of laying it on slanting shelves, at the head of long wooden troughs, also slanting longitudinally, and a limited stream of water being allowed to run through it and wash it slowly off the shelves and down the inclining troughs, the heavier and valuable portion remains at the head, whilst the lighter and worthless portion is washed down to the lower end. All the waste water used in any of the dressing processes is made to flow through a series of large tanks or reservoirs, in which it deposits all the fine particles of ore that may be floating away, and from these tanks some thousands of pounds' worth of ore is collected annually in the form of slime, and looking like bronze, which with all the other ore is shipped to Swansea to be smelted.
ANOTHER WORD FOR MINERS.
An impression is general that the people employed here are more than ordinarily “ignorant and profligate.” Nothing could be farther from the truth than such a supposition. They, doubtless, have their share of the failings of human nature, and many enjoy themselves rather freely at the month’s end, when they receive their pay, but open or obtrusive profligacy is very rare, and their ignorance is certainly not so general as that of the pastoral and agricultural population around them. And I maintain that, in kindness to each other, in the proper discharge of the duties of domestic life, in demonstrative respect for those above them, in real civility to strangers, though accompanied perhaps, in some instances, by gruffness of manner, the mining population of Conistone are not to be surpassed by any other of equal numbers in the world, and are certainly not equalled by any that I have been amongst.
I have now nothing more to say about either mines or miners, but leave you to divest yourself of your miners' habiliments, and cleanse your fingers from the candle grease at your leisure.
CHAPTER IX.
THE OLD MAN.
Ascent from the Mines—The Kernel Crag Ravens—Paddy' End and Simon’ Nick—Leverswater, &c.— The Summit—“Old Man,” unde Derivatur—Enumeration of Objects seen from the Summit—Mountain and Mere—Dale and Down—Sea and Shore—Tower and Town—The Descent.
It were well now to delay no longer the favourite and finest of all Conistonian excursions; therefore again gird your loins with strength, and prepare to ascend the Old Man. For that purpose, I think the pleasantest, though not the nearest route is directly past the Mines; so, leaving on your right the works you have been inspecting, you take a very rough and very steep cart-road winding its weary way up the mountain, and pass between another more elevated and more recent range of works and workings styled Paddy'-end—after the discoverer of the richness of the veins in that direction—and a high precipice of solid stone called Kernel Crag. On this crag, probably for ages, a pair of ravens have annually had their nest, and though their young have again and again been destroyed by the shepherds, they always return to this favourite spot; and frequently, when one of the parents has been shot in the brooding season, the survivor has immediately been provided with another helpmate; and, what is still more extraordinary, and beautifully and literally illustrative of a certain impressive scripture passage—it happened, a year or two since, that both the parent birds were shot, whilst the nest was full of unfledged young, and their duties were immediately undertaken by a couple of strange ravens, who attended assiduously to the wants of the orphan brood, until they were fit to forage for themselves.