Excursions in the County of Cornwall / Comprising a Concise Historical and Topographical Delineation of the Principal Towns and Villages, Together With Descriptions of the Residences of the Nobility and Gentry, Remains of Antiquity, and Every Other Interesting Object of Curiosity

by Frederick Wilton Litchfield Stockdale

The Herland Mines are situated about a mile east of Huel Alfred, and are chiefly remarkable for the beautiful specimens of native silver, vitreous silver ore, and black oxide of silver, which they have produced, and which has been noticed in a former part of this work.

After an interval of nearly 20 years, the workings of these mines have lately been resumed, under the management of a London Company; who have had two steam engines erected, with cylinders 80 inches in diameter. The copper ore found in the Herland Mines is extremely rich; but although the lodes are more numerous than in Huel Alfred, they are not so large. All mines are placed under the superintendance of a foreman, called the Captain, who keeps the accounts, and pays, and regulates the workmen; they are in general men of respectability, and get liberally paid. The designation of Captain, however, is very absurd; for in many instances, even strangers are frequently accosted as such by the Cornish people. There are also inferior superintendants, who are employed to superintend the internal operations of the miners.

The miners, in general, are a civil, honest, and active class of beings, and since the extension of the Wesleyan system, have become very religious. The hardships many of them endure is beyond belief, particularly such as have large families; and who, in most cases, live in little huts in the immediate vicinity of the mines. Their mode of living is very hard, as they seldom taste animal food; indeed, the reduced scale of their wages is such as scarcely to allow bread, and that in many instances composed of ground barley only. In some cases, many of the miners work like slaves, and are obliged to wheel barrows a considerable distance, filled with ore to the extent of four cwt.; while on the other hand, those who are employed under ground, have a wretched emaciated appearance, and mostly die at an early age, in pulmonary consumptions.

The Iron Foundries at Hayle are well deserving of notice, and here some of the largest engines used in the mines were cast. The Water Dam which was constructed about 30 years ago, (near the house where the copper was formerly smelted,) for scouring out the sand from the harbour, has been attended with the most beneficial effects. It is now in contemplation to have a causeway built across the Hayle, the estimate for which amounts to about £5,000; and which, if accomplished, will be highly beneficial.

The singular and desolate appearance of the whole surface of the country in this neighbourhood, which, with few exceptions, extends even as far as Padstow, excites the attention of every stranger. The immense banks of sand which have been thrown up on the coast, have been a great injury; and in some instances, many dwellings have even been buried by the shifting of the sands; here human bones have also been frequently discovered, supposed to have belonged to cemeteries which have been inundated during violent hurricanes.

Many of the above particulars were obligingly communicated by Sir Christopher Hawkins, Bart., M.P., and Recorder for St. Ives; and who also has a seat, called Trewinnard, in this part of the county.

Tredea, which is near to Trewinnard, is the property of Davies Gilbert, Esq., M.P. for Bodmin, and President of the Royal Geological Society at Penzance.

With the view to enable mineralogists to prosecute their endeavours, it is necessary on their proceeding into Cornwall, that they should visit the most interesting collections in the county. Of these may be ranked the valuable collection belonging to William Rashleigh, Esq., at Menabilly, near Fowey, which has been noticed in a former part of this work. In this splendid collection are some very magnificent oxide of tin, fluors, melachite, and some very rare varieties of sulphuret of copper; wood tin forming a vein in a matrix of quartz, to one side of which adheres a fragment of rock. An account is given in the first volume of the transactions of the Penzance Geological Society. Here are also some fine specimens of yellow copper ore, with opal; triple sulphuret of antimony; copper and lead in various forms; ruby copper in cubes; quartz with water in globules; topazes of beautiful lustre; and green fluor, in crystals with 24 sides. Many of the specimens above enumerated are of considerable value and scarcity, besides which there are also many others highly interesting. They are contained in a spacious apartment, which has been fitted up in the most elegant manner, with glass cases to prevent them from being injured. Mr. Rashleigh takes great pleasure in allowing strangers to visit his collection, and is entitled to every mark of commendation for his politeness on such occasions.

In the collection of Joseph Carne, Esq. at Penzance, may be seen prehnite in a variety of forms, axinite in its usual form, stilbite in flat four-sided prisms terminated by pyramids, mesotype radiated, garnets in 12 and 24 sided, crystals, pirite in six and 12 sided prisms, uranite in quadrangular tables with the angles in some cases truncated, and also in forms much resembling cubes and octohedrons, uranochre, native bismuth, and specular iron ore, very simular to that found at Elba; grey sulphuret of copper, the best defined crystals of which are very obtuse dodecahedrons, and six-sided prisms; in some specimens the dodecahedrons are so placed upon the summit of the prisms, as to resemble a nail: this is one of the most rare specimens ever found in Cornwall, and is much sought after by mineralogists. Here are also two very rare and curious specimens of yellow and grey sulphuret of copper, in forms resembling a cube, the latter being pseudomorphous.

The Royal Geological Society at Penzance possessed many valuable and rare specimens; among the earthy species may be enumerated, calcedony, sodalite, haiiyne, petalite, colophonite, vesuvian, &c. In the metallic branch, is carbonate of lead, specular iron, arseniate of iron, the oxide, carbonate, arseniate and phosphate of copper, native gold, found in the Cornish Tin Stream Works; arsenical pyrites, uranite, uran ochre, native nickel, &c. besides a mineral but little known, viz. subcarburet of iron, and which was analyzed by the late Rev. W. Gregor.