before been rent in the bridge; and so forth. Lidford | indications of long-extinguished volcanic action. On itself, though now merely a pretty little village, was its very summit is a tiny church, one of the smallest once an important place, sending members to Parlia- in England; it is only 37 feet by 15 wide; it consists ment, coining money, and having a substantial castle. of a single aisle, with an oak ceiling, and a peal of Within this castle (a few vestiges of which still remain) three bells. On a tablet is the inscription "And upon a court of justice was once held the judgment-seat this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell having been last occupied by one who is always named shall not prevail against it." It is not known when in England as having been the least worthy among or by whom the church was built; but there is a traiudges-Jefferies. Browne, a Tavistock poet of the dition that it was erected by a merchant who, being early part of the seventeenth century, gives the follow- overtaken by a storm at sea, vowed that, if preserved, ing picture of the judicial proceedings at the castle : he would build a church on the first land he might be permitted to see; Brent Tor was the first land he saw: "I've ofttimes heard of Lidford law, Where in the morn they hang and draw, he entered Plymouth Sound, and built the church soon afterwards. And sit in judgment after." Within the castle was the prison for offenders against To lie therein one night, 'tis guess'd, The banks of the Tavy, from Tavistock to the junction with the Tamar, are full of interest. Cromdale, the birthplace of Sir Francis Drake; Buckland Abbey, the favourite residence of the great navigator; the valley of Grenofen; the junction of the Walkden with the Tavy-all are points for the artist to select. Of Buckland Abbey very little is left, although a few relics of Drake are preserved; the building has been almost rebuilt in modern times. THE TAMAR; THE FLOATING Bridge. The Tamar flows down southward almost from the promontory of Hartland Point in the Bristol Channel. It follows a moderately direct route, accompanied in a good part of its course to Launceston by the Bude Canal, and receiving a few small rivers in its way. After passing Endsleigh the Tamar becomes more tortuous in its course; and this circumstance gives rise to those bends which form so important a feature in river scenery. It is at Morwellham, where the Tavistock Canal joins the Tamar, that the finest part of the river begins; this canal is short, but its engineering is of a bold character, owing to the varied levels of the country through which it has been formed. Most of the valuable minerals worked near Tavistock are brought down to the Tamar by this canal, and thence to Plymouth Sound. One of the most beautiful scenes between the Tavy and the Tamar is that which is presented by the Morwell Rocks. A tolerably straight road of three miles leads from Tavistock on the Tavy to Newbridge on the Tamar; and just northward of the last named village, on the left or eastern bank of the Tamar, is a lovely assemblage of woods and downs, bearing the general name of Morwell. Through this scene the Duke of Bedford has cut a new road, so planned as to render accessible all the chief beauties of the place. The Duke's Road, as it is called, leads over the summits of all the loftiest portions of the rocks; and on every side are very varied combinations of wood, rock, down, valley, and verdure-the Tamar marking with its silvery thread a tortuous course between the rocks. About a quarter of a mile from Morwell Rocks is Old Morwell House; it was anciently the hunting seat of the abbots of Tavistock, in the days when abbots went hunting; but it is now a farm-house -so much of it, at least, as is left: and there are many venerable scraps of architecture about its ruins. A little northward, but still in the immediate neigh-in the Tamar, as to afford numberless picturesque tourhood of Morwell, is Endsleigh Cottage-a very ducal cottage truly. The skill of Sir Jeffrey Wyattville was brought into requisition in its construction; and what with natural beauty and princely fortune, a result has been produced which gives to the word 'cottage' a meaning somewhat tantalising to folks to whom the stars have been less propitious. The walks and rides about it are so varied and pleasant that, independent of the cottage itself, it is quite a holiday place for visitors. The Duke has cut no less than forty miles of roads and paths around the grounds. The dairy and the alpine garden of Endsleigh are celebrated far and wide. One of the most striking objects in this neighbourhood is Brent Tor, supposed to mean the Burnt Mountain. It has a conical shape, and its mass shows From Morwellham to Cothele there is so deep a bend scenes: now a pretty headland, now a deeply embayed recess; here a bald and bold rocky height, there a gentle slope clothed with trees or verdure to the summit. Harewood, the house and grounds of Sir William Trelawny, occupies a charming spot here; and the pretty village of Calstock, with its church standing on the summit of a high hill overlooking the Tamar, is well situate. The finest spot in this neighbourhood, perhaps, is Cothele House, owned by the noble proprietor of Mount Edgcumbe. The building is composed chiefly of granite and was erected by Sir Richard Edgcumbe in the reign of Henry VII.; it presents somewhat the appearance of a feudal castle, with its embattled walls and massive archways. On passing through the bold gateways we find ourselves in a large quadrangular and was court, surrounded by buildings. The hall is in true | side of the Hamoaze, are Trematon Castle, Anthony baronial style, decked with implements of war, spoils House, Shillingham House, the domain of Ince, the of hunting, and armorial bearings; while the various old church of St. Germains, and Port Eliot House. state apartments are kept up as nearly as may be in Trematon Castle is supposed to have some Roman accordance with their original character, with tapestry work about it; at any rate it is exceedingly ancient, and massive old furniture. In one of the rooms, one of the former seats of the Earls of Charles II. passed several nights. At some short dis- Cornwall. The massive embattled circular wall; the tance from the house, on the banks of the Tamar, is a donjon keep on a lofty mound; the ivy-covered walls small Gothic chapel, the history of which is given by of the keep; the three stone arches of the gateway, Carew as follows:-"Sir Richard Edgcumbe was driven and the square tower over the gateway-all point this to hide himself in those his thick woods, which overlook out as a worthy specimen of Cornish feudal archithe river, at that time being suspected of favouring the tecture. Anthony House, Shillingham House, and Earl of Richmond's party against King Richard the Port Eliot House, are modern mansions. In the Third; he was hotly pursued and narrowly searched midst of the Lynher is a small island called Beggar's for, which extremity taught him a sudden policy-to Island, which tradition connects with the history of the put a stone in his cap, and tumble the same into the notorious Bamfylde Moore Carew. The domain of water, while these rangers were fast at his heels; who Ince was garrisoned by the Royalists during the civil looking down after the noise, and seeing his cap war, and was taken by the Parliamentarians. St. swimming thereon, supposed that he had desperately Germains, once an influential borough, but now a drowned himself, gave over their further hunting, and very small and unimportant place, contains one of the left him liberty to shift away, and ship over into oldest churches in the west of England. It is said to Brittany; for a grateful remembrance of which have been built by King Athelstan; by which we delivery he afterwards builded in the place of his must understand probably that the present structure lurking a chapel." The mansion of Cothele is far succeeded one erected by that Saxon monarch. It was more interesting than that of Mount Edgcumbe; and once the cathedral of the western diocese; but on the the grounds are only a little less beautiful. removal of the seat of the bishopric to Exeter, the manor was divided between the bishop and the prior of the convent of St. Germains. The most interesting features of the old church are the Norman doorways at the entrance, and the western towers. A little lower down the Tamar, the Gothic pinnacles of Pentillie Castle meet the view; but this will not stand the test of examination: it is a modern castle, built in our own days, and therefore, however correct as an imitation, must be regarded as a pretender-no rightful claimant to our regard. We do not live in times when battlemented private houses are wanted; and we must content ourselves with admiring the grounds of Pentillie, but not the castle. Between Cothele and Pentillie is the loveliest part of the Tamar; there are few spots even on the Wye to excel it. Still farther down, the mansions of Moditonham and Maristow, and the villages of Cargreen, Botus, Fleming, Beer Ferris, Warleigh, Tamerton, and St. Budeaux, give diversity to the banks of the river. At Saltash the river suddenly contracts to a width much less than that which it has maintained below the junction of the Tavy; and at this point a ferry is established. Saltash is an ancient borough-town; and the corporation still possess considerable privileges in respect to the Hamoaze and the Sound. Some of the buildings in Saltash are very ancient; and the steep slope of the street towards the river, gives to the town considerable boldness of effect. Below Saltash, the Tamar widens to such magnificent dimensions, that we may consider the Hamoaze or harbour to commence here. The eastern or Devonshire side of the Hamoaze is not marked by many attractive spots; but the western or Cornwall side has many deep inlets, bounded by scenes of great freshness and beauty. The largest of these inlets is called the Lynher, or St. Germain's Creek, up which many boating parties take a trip in the proper season. Among the many objects within a short distance of this Towards the lower part of the Hamoaze, just before reaching the dockyard of Devonport, we encounter the Steam Ferry Bridge a curious and ingenious arrangement, due to the skill of Mr. Rendel. More than half a century ago a ferry was established over the Hamoaze at this spot, from New Passage to Torpoint; but in 1843 this was superseded by the twin-steamboat. As the Hamoaze is half a mile wide at high water, no fixed structure was permissible; while on the other hand the strong tide and current rendered it desirable to have some kind of check to the lateral disturbance of a steamboat. On a subsequent page the reader will find a description of a similar steam bridge at Portsmouth, constructed after this at the Hamoaze. The same description, in its main characters, will apply to both. Mails, stage-coaches, omnibuses, market-carts, horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, peers, peasants-all float over by its means, and mayhap at the same time; and a more easy, more economical, and less dangerous mode of crossing a wide æstuary, we can hardly conceive. CARADON MINES; THE CHEESEWRING. If we had promised ourselves, or the reader, anything like an extensive tour in Cornwall, our limited space would look sadly. But it is only a trip across the Hamoaze, to visit one of the nearest of the cop per-mines of that interesting county, that we shall attempt. 1 Devonshire is itself by no means without its mineral riches. Were it not for its more famed neighbour Cornwall, it would present important claims to attention. Dartmoor abounds in lodes or veins of copper and tin. Several of the tin lodes have been productive from time immemorial. It is said that grains of gold used in former times to be occasionally met with in the Dartmoor streams; and that it was not uncommon for the miner to carry in his pocket a quill in which to deposit them. There are met with, in particular spots, remains which some of the Devonshire archæologists do not scruple to affirm are the last vestiges of Phoenician smelting-houses; the Moorlanders call them Jews' houses; and in one of them, near the source of the Dart, was found in 1832 a block of smelted tin, supposed (if the Phoenician theory be correct) to be the most ancient in existence. One of the most celebrated of the Dartmoor mines is Huel Friendship, near Mary Tavy; its riches are copper ores, and fine steam-worked machinery has been applied to their extraction. Near Calstock, on the Cornish side of the Tamar, is the 'Gunnis Lake Mine;' near Brent Tor, a manganese mine; near Beer, silver and lead mines; near Buckland, the Virtuous Lady's' mine; and many others are strewed over the wide expanse of the moor. It was related a few years ago, on the authority of Mr. Pearce, a surgeon of Tavistock, that the superstition of the divining rod has not yet died out from among the Dartmoor miners. This divining rod is a means whereby, through the occult powers of some unmentionable spirit, the existence of metallic veins can be predicted or discovered. Some thinkers, preserving a middle state between scepticism and credulity, advance an opinion that there really may be some kind of magnetic influence developed, when a pointed rod is directed towards a mass of buried metal; but be this as it may, in 1829 a dowser,' or diviner, was brought from the west of Cornwall to Stickelpath, near Oakhampton, by a party of mining adventurers, for the purpose of determining whether there was a rich lode beneath. His auguries were favourable; but, unfortunately, they failed of realisation. When we have crossed the Tamar into Cornwall, the copper and tin treasures become exhibited more abundantly. From Callington in the east, to St. Just in the west, the copper and tin mines are spotted nearly all over the county. Let us take one of the nearest mines to Devonshire, that of South Caradon, and see what is going on there. The steam floating bridge carries us across the Hamoaze from New Passage to Tor Point, and we thus set foot on Cornwall. Tor Point has nothing to attract; but when we get beyond the limits of the village, towards the west, some very pretty scenery speedily presents itself, deriving its chief charms from the deep inlets on the west bank of the Tamar. Sometimes the road winds along close to the beach; sometimes it takes a higher level and sweeps round the brow of a hill at a considerable elevation. The road passes through a few villages; and at a distance of eighteen. miles from Devonport we find ourselves in Liskeard, an old-fashioned town which was once a place of considerable importance. It once had its castle, of which the site only now remains; it had once, too, its nunnery of the sisters of St. Clare, but this has been converted into dwelling-houses. Altogether, Liskeard is not a place that we could willingly devote much time to. All its present importance depends on its vicinity to the mines, of which those of Caradon are the chief. Southward, the country declines gradually to the sea at East and West Looe; eastward a distance of eight or ten miles brings us to Callington, itself the centre of a mining district; westward we have the high road leading to Bodmin and Lostwithiel. But it is in a northern direction that the points of interest lie with which we have to do; and thither the reader will accompany us. Immediately northward of Liskeard the ground begins to rise, until we reach the vast granite quarries of the Cheesewring, and the copper mines of Caradon. Villages are few and far between, but some of them are remarkable. St. Neots, four or five miles from Liskeard, contains one of the finest parish churches in Cornwall; it was built of granite, about the year 1480, and its nave, arches, its windows, and its carved roof, are all elegant. It is said to occupy the site of a monastery which existed so far back as the time of Edward the Confessor. A railway leads upwards from the sea-side at Looe, past Liskeard to Caradon and the Cheesewring, serving as a means of conveyance for the copper of the one and the granite of the other. This railway has no locomotives: horse traction in some parts, and ropetraction in others, suffice; but still it is a very good specimen of a mining railway; and as we ascend the slope of the hills by its means, we obtain a commanding view over the neighbouring country, which exhibits granite summits in every direction. Caradon comes into view first, and after we have passed this, the railway takes us on towards the Cheesewring. The This Cheesewring is in every respect a singular spot. It is a granite hill of considerable elevation, with a summit as wild as can well be conceived. Huge fragments of granite are strewed about in every direction-sharp and shapeless. It is the same with Kilmarth Tor, Sharp Point Tor, and the Cheesewring: all near each other. The most reasonable conjectures respecting these rude clusters is, that they were used in some way as Druidical temples: but that their formation and position are due to natural causes. hills being rocky, and the storms of ages having washed the earth from their crevices on the summit, have left them to stand alone, piled up into fantastic shapes. Besides many other singular groups, the one which has given the name of Cheesewring to the granite hill on which it stands, is shown in Cut p. 405. It is about twenty-four feet high; and seems to have presented itself to the eyes of the Moorlanders as if a number of cheeses had been placed one on another. Some of the stones overhang the base many feet. There are first three or four stones resting one on another; then one of smaller size: then one of enormous dimensions, ten or twelve feet in diameter; and three or four other large masses above it. It is difficult at first to reconcile us to the idea of this being a natural arrangement; but as this granite is of the earliest and hardest kind, and as we know the power of air and water in gradually crumbling all except the excessively hard rocks, the theory becomes credible. The clink of the quarryman's tools is almost the only sound heard in this wild region. The eastern slope of the hill has been extensively quarried, and fragments of granite are scattered far and wide. The stone is of beautiful texture, and glitters brightly in the sunshine. It is curious to see how the quarrymen separate huge blocks. Three or four of them stand in a row, each provided with a long sharp-pointed pick. With these picks they make holes, an inch or two in depth in the surface of the stone; this is done by a long continued series of blows, the men following with their blows in exact succession, so as to keep up a musical rhythmical ringing, by the contact of the hard steel with the hard granite each pick yields its own musical note. When several holes are thus made in a row, a few inches apart, strong thick nails or wedges are forcibly driven in by means of heavy hammers; and in a few minutes a fissure is formed along the line of holes, extending down to the bottom of the layer into which the granite naturally divides; for there are horizontal planes of cleavage which greatly facilitate the separation of the granite into blocks and slabs. But to return to Caradon. There are two lofty hills, West and South Caradon, between which a small stream flows into a deep and beautiful valley. In the depth of this valley, and on the slopes and summits of the two hills, are the banks of the Caradon Mines; and a singular scene it presents. The buildings are scattered about in all directions; the stream is diverted so as to supply water-power to the works; and the 'above-ground' workpeople are speckling the scene here and there. The women and girls have such a love for bright red and yellow handkerchiefs, shawls, and gowns, that their dresses give quite a liveliness to the picture. True, it is not pleasant to see females hammering lumps of ore, and grubbing about in a stooping posture among stones and dirt; but if lots of finery can make amends, here we certainly find it. THE MINES AND THE MINERS. As far as a few short paragraphs can explain the mode of working these mines, we will attempt it. The copper ore extends beneath the valley from side to side, and is richest at the deepest part. There are several lodes or veins of ore; and the shafts for descending to them are situated on the hill side. In some districts of Cornwall there are improved modes of descending the mines; but at Caradon the old and fatiguing method by a succession of nearly vertical ladders is adopted: a method which almost bailles the courage and endurance of a stranger visitor. The underground works consist of numerous excavated passages, vertical, horizontal, and inclined; some for getting access to the lodes. some for wheeling out and drawing up the ore, and some for pumping out water from the mine. The miner's tools are such as will enable him to penetrate the hardest rock-the gad, the pick, the sledge-hammer, the borer, the claying-bar, the needle, the scraper, the tamping-bar, the shovel these are his chief tools, together with the cartridge tool for blasting with powder. His powder-horn, fusees, slow-match, kibble or corve, and wheelbarrow, complete his apparatus. When, by the observation of the mining engineer, it is pretty well known where copper may be found, the miner perforates the granite or other hard stony mass, in various directions, until he arrives at the lode. Those who dig all the shafts and galleries are called tut-workers; those who extract the ore are styled tributers. The tut-workers are paid so much a cubic-fathom for the rock which they excavate, according to agreement, which is based on the hardness of the rock and the depth of the working. The tributers are paid by a certain share of the ore which is raised; many of them club together to form a working gang; they thoroughly examine the work to be done, and agree with the proprietor as to what share of the produce they will be content with, in payment for the whole labour of bringing the ore to light. Sometimes when the lode turns out worse than they expected, the money value of their share is miserably inadequate to the labour bestowed; but sometimes it is so rich, that their earnings become much larger than those of any other body of operatives in the kingdom. This system gives wonderful acuteness both to the proprietors and to miners; because it is to the interest of both parties to obtain as exact a knowledge as possible of the true richness of the lode to be worked. Many well-wishers to the working-classes have asked whether something like this tributer system might not be introduced in other branches of industry: its effect on the Cornish miner is generally considered to be beneficial. The ore is dug out of the vein in any sizes which it may happen to attain, and is brought up to the surface in baskets. At the surface or above-ground works, various processes are carried on for bringing the ore to as clean and fine a state as possible. It presents a somewhat brassy hue, being composed of a small per centage of copper with a great variety of earths in mixture. No heat is employed in any of the surface operations, so that nothing like smelting is carried on. The ore is broken, first by hammers and then by stampers worked by water power; it is sorted into different qualities; it is thoroughly washed, to free it from all earthy impurities which water can remove. Men, women, boys, and girls, are all employed in this work. Children of four or five years of age have tact enough to separate the small bits of ore into heaps of different qualities; women break the ore; boys sift and wash it; while men undertake the work which requires either greater strength or greater skill. The agreement between the proprietor and the tributers is so strictly understood, that disputes seldom Most of the boys and girls are employed and occur. paid by the tributers, as their undertaking is to bring the ore into a certain saleable state and most of the portable working tools are provided by them; the heavier works and the fixed machinery being furnished by the proprietors. The mode of disposing of the copper ore is curious. Almost the whole product of the county is purchased by six or eight firms, whose operations are on a scale of great magnitude. These firms have for the most part smelting-works near Swansea in South Wales. Cornwall yields no coal, and it would be too costly to bring coals from Wales to smelt the ore. Instead, therefore, of bringing the coals to the ore, they take the ore to the coals; and it is thus that almost every fragment of Cornish copper ore is smelted in Wales. There are four great outbursts of granite in Cornwall, which determine the localities of the great mining districts, and these again determine the market towns where the ore is sold. We may call these districts the Caradon, the St. Austell, the Redruth, and the Penzance districts. The principal markets for the copper ores are at Truro, Redruth, and Poole. There are certain days, called ticketing days, on which the agents from the several mines meet the agents from the eight or ten smelting firms; the ores are sampled and assayed, and the parties agree upon a price which depends on the richness of the ore. The ships belonging to the smelters convey the ore to Swansea, and bring back coals for the use of the steam-engines and for smelting tin. As the number of purchasers is limited, there is no great amount of competition. The quality varies so greatly that the price varies from £2 to £20 per ton. At about £5 per ton, the ore may contain say one-twelfth of its weight of pure copper. The arrangements on these ticketing days are so systematic that £20,000 worth of ore may be sold in an hour or two. The average quantity of copper ore sold at the Cornwall ticketings during the last sixteen years has been about 150,000 tons per annum ; and the average price during that period has been somewhat under £6 per ton. Cornwall was celebrated for its tin long before its copper ores were known; but now the copper is of far more commercial importance than the tin. There are, we believe, about seventy to eighty tin mines, and ninety or a hundred copper mines. A rough estimate has been made, which gives an average value to the tin raised of £400,000, and to copper of £900,000 ; but the quantity and the quality of the ores vary so greatly, that these estimates are of little importance. In the tin mines, the tin ore is found in lodes or veins, in horizontal layers, and in large isolated bunches; but the richest stores are in the stream works, as they are called; here the tin is found among the alluvial deposits from the hills, through which a stream generally takes its course. In a stream-work the soil is washed, and the ore taken from it; but in the lode or vein tin, the ore is subjected to processes very similar to those applied to copper ore. The tin ores raised in Cornwall are always reduced or smelted on the spot |