THE BOTALLACK MINE, CORNWALL.
The bluff promontory of Botallack, not far from Cape Cornwall, conceals in its rocky entrails a copper mine, the most singularly placed, probably, of any mine in the world, for nowhere do the triumphs of industry appear in more picturesque connection with the magnificent scenery of the ocean. The metalliferous veins running along the cliffs into the sea vainly concealed themselves beneath the swelling surge; in vain a huge barrier of rocks seemed to render them inaccessible to the miner, as soon as it became known that here, buried under the ocean, lay treasures that would amply repay the cost and labour expended, and the danger encountered in seeking for them.
To those who stand below the cliff and look up from the sea, the view is fearfully grand, and remarkable for the combination of the wonders of art with the wonders of nature. The separate parts of an enormous steam-engine had to be lowered 200 feet down the almost perpendicular precipice, and a tram-road runs right up the face of the cliff. Lofty chimneys, pouring out dense volumes of black smoke, are seen perched on the verge and even on the ledges of a tremendous precipice, and the miner has built his hut over the sea-bird’s roost. All these constructions seem at the mercy of every storm, and to the beholder from beneath they almost appear suspended in the air and tottering to their fall.
On one side of the cliff tall ladders scale the rock; but he must have strong nerves who can tread them fearlessly, the sea roaring under him and flinging its raging spray after him as he ascends, while in other parts mules and their riders may be seen trotting up and down the rocky tracks which the pedestrian visitor would scarcely dare to pass. A strange and restless life pervades a scene which nature seemed to have for ever removed far from the busy haunts of man.
A visit to this remarkable mine leaves an ineradicable impression on the mind. Descending ladder after ladder, and passing on from gallery to gallery, stepping over rough stones and awkward holes, now stooping down under masses of overhanging rock, and now climbing over stony projections beneath your feet, you are at length informed that you are vertically 120 feet below the sea-level, and horizontally 480 feet under the bottom of the ocean or beyond low-water mark, while still deeper down human beings are hewing the hard rock. The brine oozes through the metallic ceiling, and the sound of distant waters falls faintly upon the ear.
There are other submarine mines in the neighbourhood of Botallack. In Little Bounds and Wheal Cock the hardihood of the miners tempted them to follow the ore upwards, even to the sea; but the openings made were very small, and, the rock being extremely hard, a covering of wood and cement in the former, and a small plug in the latter mine, sufficed to exclude the water, and protected the workmen from the fatal consequences of their rashness. ‘In all these, and in Wheal Edward and Levant,’ says Mr. Henwood,[[47]] ‘I have heard the dashing of the billows and the grating of the shingle overhead even in calm weather. I was once, however, underground in Wheal Cock during a storm. At the extremity of the level seaward, some eighty or one hundred fathoms from the shore, little could be heard of its effects, except at intervals, when the reflux of some unusually large wave projected a pebble outward, bounding and rolling over the rocky bottom. But when standing beneath the base of the cliff, and in that part of the mine where but nine feet of the rock stood between us and the ocean, the heavy roll of the large boulders, the ceaseless grinding of the pebbles, the fierce thundering of the billows, with the crackling and boiling as they rebounded, placed a tempest in its most appalling form too vividly before me ever to be forgotten. More than once, doubting the protection of our working shield, we retreated in affright, and it was only after repeated trials that we had confidence to pursue our investigations.’
It seems that at times of great storms, even the miners, accustomed for years to these submarine caverns, have been terrified by the roaring of the sea. They have heard, as it were, mountain dashing against mountain, or as if all the artillery of England was booming over their heads. Yet their roof of rock, thin as it is in some parts, has hitherto shielded them against the sea, and will no doubt continue to defend them against it. On leaving these wonderful submarine excavations, the scenery of the upper world appears doubly beautiful.
The ‘Traveller Underground’[[48]] tells us a remarkable story of a blind man who once worked in Botallack, and continued his perilous toils underground for a long period, from the dread of being compelled to accept parish relief. By the fruits of his labour he supported a family of nine children, and such was his marvellous recollection of every turning and winding of the mine that he became a guide to his fellow-labourers if by any accident their lights were extinguished. On being discharged from this employment (and they must truly have had rocky hearts who did discharge him), this poor blind man soon afterwards met his death in a melancholy manner. Being engaged as attendant on some brick-layers, who were building a house at St. Ives, he had to carry the hods of mortar up to the scaffolding. Stepping too far back from a platform, he fell, and died almost immediately.
The chief copper ores of Cornwall are the bisulphuret (containing nearly equal parts of copper, sulphur, and iron), the sulphuret, or grey ore of the miners (containing more than 79 per cent. of copper), and the black ore, an almost pure oxide; but when extracted from the mine, these ores are generally so mixed up with impurities that their average contents do not amount to more than 2½ or 3½ per cent. They have consequently to undergo various processes of picking, crushing, sorting, and washing, before they are rendered saleable and fit for export to the smelting works of Swansea, the grand emporium for copper. The reason why they are not smelted on the spot is that the fuel needed is more bulky than the ore, and it is cheaper to bring the copper of Cornwall to the coal of South Wales than to take the coal to the copper. In Swansea—but half a century ago a mere hamlet, and now a flourishing town of 36,000 inhabitants—we find all the conditions needed for the development of a vast industry. Coal and water-power in inexhaustible abundance, excellent roads and railroads, the nearness of the sea, canals which allow vessels of considerable burden to load and unload close to the smelting huts, so that their high masts rise alongside of the towering chimneys—these are the natural and artificial advantages to which Swansea owes its rank as the first copper manufacturing town in the world.
For, not satisfied with the abundant ores of Great Britain, its smelting works seek their materials in almost every copper-producing country of the globe. The rich ores of Chili and Australia, of Cuba and North America, of Norway and Tuscany, all find their way to Swansea, which re-exports the metal to every part of the world.