"St. Ives plans will be delivered to them on Tuesday, when I expect they will be forwarded to you.
"I hear there is a good course of ore in the adit end at Wheat Providence Mine.
"A Mr. Sheffield, of Cumberland, writes to Mr. Gould that he has turned idle his air-furnaces, and smelted his ores by a blast near a year since.
"His furnace is but 10 feet high and 4 feet diameter, and it melts 28 tons of ore, of from 4 to 5 in the 100 per week, and makes a regel of from 65 to 70 in the 100, and answers beyond what we calculated for them.
"Suppose a furnace 20 feet high and 4 feet diameter, it would smelt eight times the quantity of his, which would be near 900 tons per month, or nearly double the quantity raised by any one mine in the country. The expense of the ... would be very trifling.
"To-morrow Dolcoath account will be held, when I expect to have orders to begin to erect a furnace on the spot.
"This trial of Mr. Sheffield's has put it out of my power to get a patent, and now I do not know how to get paid.
"I should be content with 5 per cent. on the profits gained by this plan, and would conduct the business for the mines without salary. Should you chance to fall on the subject with his Lordship, be pleased to mention something about the mode of my payment, as his Lordship is by far the properest person to begin with about my pay, for after his Lordship has agreed to the sum, and Dolcoath Mine the first to try the experiment, I think all the county will give way to what he might propose. But I wish something to be fixed on before all the agents in the mines know how to be smelters themselves, after which I expect no favour, unless first arranged.
"I remain, Sir,
"Your very humble servant,
"Richard Trevithick.