The pinaster loses all its beauty when it gets beyond the dimensions of a shrub: its wood in this climate is almost useless, and no tree ceases to live after so short a period; but it grows rapidly at first in all situations, and almost in any ground, so that mixed with deciduous trees, and planted round the exterior, it acts as a nurse, and the office is fully performed long before the termination of its short existence.
By this use of the pinaster fir, Cornwall is now acquiring valuable and decorative plantations of the best timber trees, for all which it is indebted to the example given by Mr. Praed.
Lelant measures 3,279 statute acres.
| £. | s. | d. | |
| Annual value of the Real Property, as returned to Parliament in 1815 | 3165 | 0 | 0 |
| Poor Rate in 1831 | 462 | 15 | 0 |
| Population,— | |||
| in 1801, 1083 | in 1811, 1180 | in 1821, 1271 | in 1831, 1602 |
giving an increase of 48 per cent. in 30 years.
GEOLOGY, BY DOCTOR BOASE.
The western part of this parish rests on granite, which is generally coarse-grained and crystalline, often with large porphyritic crystals of felspar; here and there it contains beds of porphyry (elvan courses), and also of shorl rock, sometimes in masses, but more frequently in the form of large and irregular veins. This granite has been productive of metallic ores, and more particularly of tin. The eastern part is composed of rocks belonging to the porphyritic series. The principal varieties are felspar rock, both massive and schistose, and green-stone. The soil derived from these rocks, as is often the case near granite, is on some spots very fertile. Some land near
the entrance into Hayle is covered with testaceous sand, so common in the vicinity of all the bays and inlets of the sea on the north coast of Cornwall, and which, whenever it is unprotected by vegetation, is drifted by the winds over the uncultivated lands. Nature has pointed out the remedy for this evil to be the diffusion and increase of arenaceous plants.
The Editor.—Whele Reath, a mine on the extreme western border of this parish, where it joins Towednack, has proved more productive of tin than any other mine except Whele Vor; and it has been prosecuted to a depth unexampled till within these few years, even in mines of copper.