Cornwall

Bude Breakwater

This noble coast—so terrible to sailors—begins with the fine Henna Cliff at Morwenstow. Morwenstow Church contains an early font and has fine Norman arches. Here is Tonacombe, an interesting early Tudor house quite unspoiled. At Morwenstow lived the Rev. Robert Hawker, a poet and character. Bude Haven is a growing seaside place, with golf-links and tolerable bathing. Stratton, of which parish it actually forms or did form a part, has a fine well-cared for church, and above the town is Stamford Hill, where was fought a battle in the Civil War, on May 16, 1643. Sir Bevil Grenville and Hopton commanded the Royalist Army, and the Earl of Stamford the Parliamentarians. The latter were defeated with the loss of 300 men killed and 1700 taken prisoners. One of the old guns marks the site, and an inscription in commemoration of the battle is affixed to the Tree Inn. Widemouth Bay has good sands and promises at some future day to become a sea-bathing place superior to Bude. At Dazard the cliffs are fine; at St Gennys is Crackington Cove with a small beach. Beyond this, High Cliff (705 ft.) is reached, the loftiest headland on the coast. The coast is magnificent to Boscastle. Near this is Pentargon, a beautiful bay into which a little stream leaps in a waterfall. Boscastle is a narrow creek into which only in calm weather can small vessels enter. It is sheltered by a headland in which is a blow-hole. In a lovely valley is the towerless church of Minster. In caves about Willapark seals breed. From hence to Tintagel the cliffs are of slate and are quarried, the slate being let down into boats in the water, when weather permits. Before reaching Tintagel we come to St Neighton's (Nectan's) Kieve, a small waterfall in a glen, where maidenhair fern once abounded.

Tintagel village is separated from the church by a deep glen. The church is on a windy height, and is interesting for its antiquity. Tintagel castle stands on a headland, once an island, but the cliff and a portion of the castle have fallen into the narrow gulf and choked it. The sea has bored a tunnel through the headland, and very little of the castle remains. The walls were of the local slate-stone set in mortar made of sea-shells. In this castle, traditionally, King Arthur was born. There are slate quarries in the neighbourhood, and further inland are the Delabole quarries, from which slate is conveyed to all parts of England.

King Arthur's Castle, Tintagel

The small Trebarwith Cove is passed and then we reach Port Isaac Bay, which takes its name, not from the patriarch, but from a Cornish word that signifies a port for corn.

Bodruthan Steps

Porthqueen has its pilchard cellars cut out of the rocks; and at the western end of its bay Pentire Head stands out boldly into the Atlantic with a cliff castle at its extreme point. Pentire to some extent shelters Padstow Bay, but the entrance to the harbour is made dangerous by the Doom Bar lying across it. Here the rounded, sand-powdered Bray Hill is supposed to have buried under the drift sand the remains of a Roman town, but that there was such a Roman settlement is very doubtful. Further inland is the church of St Enodoc recently dug out of the sand, and the path to the porch has singular "Lord's Measures" that have been collected and are here planted. They were measures for grain. Of Padstow something shall be said elsewhere. Before reaching Trevose Head is Harlyn Bay, where from under the sand has been dug out a cemetery of the iron age, the skeletons crouching with their chins to their knees, in slate kists or coffins, with bronze ornaments, glass and amber beads, and iron instruments. Here also by the falling of the earth or sand some gold ornaments of the Celtic period were laid bare. On Trevose Head is a lighthouse. In Constantine Bay are the remains of a church half buried in sand, and with bones strewn about it. The font from this abandoned church has been transferred to St Merryn. It is of black Catacluse stone, as are the piers and arches of the church, giving it a sombre look. Passing the little Porthcothan we come to the noble cliffs of Bodruthan Steps, perhaps the finest bit of the north-coast scenery, and then reach Mawgan Porth, the estuary of the tiny stream that waters the vale of Lanherne. Here is the ancient mansion of the Arundells, dating from 1580, granted by Lord Arundell to Carmelite nuns, who came to England, at the outbreak of the French Revolution, in 1794. They have remained here ever since in seclusion. Near the door into their chapel is an old cross with inscription and interlaced work. The church has a beautifully proportioned tower, a good rood-screen, and many monuments of the Arundells, as well as a remarkable Gothic cross. A grove of Cornish elms like whips occupies the bottom of the valley. The church and parish are St Mawgan in Pyder.

Newquay Harbour

Newquay with its sands is a rapidly growing watering-place, with staring hotels. Crantock church, which once had its canons, is interesting; it has been carefully restored and has a fine rood-screen and loft. On the stalls is carved a dove with a chip of wood in its beak, and the story goes that St Carantoc—who assisted St Patrick in drawing up the Senchus Môr, the code of laws for Christian Ireland—was guided to the site for his church by seeing a dove carry off the shavings of his staff which he was cutting. Perran Bay has sent its sands flying inland, causing a widespread extent of towans or dunes, which have overwhelmed first of all the old church of St Piran or Cieran of Saighir in Ireland, who was buried in it, and then a second church built further inland, which also in turn had to be abandoned. These sand-dunes are a rabbit warren. The old church of St Piran, extremely rude in construction, has been excavated, but the only carved work found has been removed to the museum at Truro. The church resembles one of the early Christian chapels in Ireland. Bones are scattered about around it.

St Agnes—or St Aun's Head as it is locally termed—is but 617 ft. high, but it stands boldly above the sea.

Portreath is a busy little place to which coal-barges come from Cardiff with coal for the Camborne and Redruth mines. Tehidy Park, which stands above it, is an old seat of the Bassets. After passing Navax Point the broad Bay of St Ives opens out, with a lighthouse at each horn, and here again begin the towans or sand-dunes. Hayle is at the mouth of a small stream of the same name, and signifies "saltings." We come now to the town of St Ives, with an interesting church and an old cross. St Ives till about 1410 was but a tiny fishing village and was in the parish of Lelant. Perkin Warbeck landed near here in 1497.

Near this is the Knill monument erected in 1782 by the eccentric John Knill, who left money for an annual procession to it, and a dance of children around it. He intended it to have been his mausoleum, but he died and was buried in London.

The Wharf, St Ives

Zennor has a curious little church with carved bench ends, on one of which is represented a mermaid, and Zennor "quoit" is thought to be the largest cromlech in England.

The Gurnard's Head has sheer cliffs on east and west, composed of slaty felspar, horneblende and greenstone, whereas the rocks of Zennor are of granite and slate in juxtaposition, and with dykes of granite penetrating the slate. Hills of rock and heather and furze bend round in a crescent terminating on one side at Carnminnis, on the other at Carn Galva, enclosing a great basin that reaches to the cliffs. On the isthmus connecting the headland with the mainland is a ruined chapel, with the altar-stone entire. Three miles westward is Morvah with the interesting Chûn Castle above it, of rude stone forming three concentric rings, and not far off is Chûn cromlech.

We come now to Botallack with its famous mine, carried to a depth of a thousand feet and extending a considerable distance under the sea. In time of storm the booming of the waves overhead and the clashing of stones rolled by the billows is so great that the bravest miners are driven from their work. Tin mining is now but languidly carried on. Although the heights are not great, yet this portion of coast is remarkably fine.

Cape Cornwall exhibits the junction of the slate with the granite. Here also extensive mining has been carried on, and Boswedden, like Botallack, burrowed far under the sea. Near the church of St Just is one of the circles or amphitheatres in which miracle plays were performed. The "Merry Maidens" is a prehistoric stone circle in the neighbourhood with ten stones erect and five fallen.

Whitesand Bay enjoys some slight shelter from the S. and E. winds. It is said that this bay was the landing-place of Athelstan after his conquest of Scilly, of King Stephen in 1135, and of King John when he returned from Ireland. In Sennen Cove is a cluster of fishermen's cottages.

Land's End is the end of Penwith, the "chief headland," and the Bolerium of the ancients. It commands a magnificent view, extending to Cape Cornwall over Whitesand Bay, of the Longships rocks with their lighthouse, and in clear weather of the Scilly Isles. The Wolf lighthouse is planted on a dangerous rock of felspathic porphyry some eight miles S.W. from the shore. The Land's End bristles with sharp fangs of rock, and somewhat resembles the back of an alligator.

Land's End

The south coast-line of Cornwall presents a great contrast to that of the north, except for the portion from the Land's End to Mounts Bay and the Lizard. We have no more the wind-swept background of heights, barren and often tortured by miners, turned into a waste of heaps of rubble and studded with ruined engine-houses. We find instead a gentler sea-board, pierced by long estuaries, and with valleys of rich vegetation running down to the sea. We speedily leave the granite and the culm measures, and are among the rocks of the Devonian series, less stern and forbidding in colour. In St Levan parish at Trereen Point is the Logan Rock, a block of granite weighing over 65 tons, once so nicely balanced that it could be made to rock by the finger of a child. In 1874 a young naval officer, with the assistance of a boat's crew, upset it. This raised a storm of indignation in Cornwall, and the Admiralty ordered him to replace it, which he did, at great expense.

Newlyn Pier

Mousehole is a village of fishermen and boatmen, and was the residence of Dolly Pentreath, the last person in Cornwall who spoke the Cornish language, as also of some of the unfortunate sailors who joined Captain Allan Gardner in 1850 in his ill-fated missionary expedition to South America. All the members of the mission died of starvation in Tierra del Fuego.

St Michael's Mount

Newlyn has become noted as a place of residence of a school of artists. It is on the wide and beautiful Mounts Bay over against St Michael's Mount.

Kynance Cove and the Lizard

Penzance ("the Holy Head") has become a great resort of residents for the winter, owing to the mildness of the climate. Marazion or Market Jew does not derive its name from "the Bitter Waters of Zion" as has been absurdly asserted; Marazion has the same significance as Market Jeu (i.e. Jeudi), Thursday Market. Here is a submerged forest. St Michael's Mount is a rock that rises out of the sands and can be reached, when the tide falls, by a causeway. It is incomparably inferior both in elevation and in the dignity of the buildings that crown it to the Mont St Michel in Normandy, but is nevertheless a picturesque adjunct to the scene. Some writers suppose that it is the Ictis to which the natives conveyed the tin and trafficked with the Phoenicians, but it is totally unsuited by nature to serve as a market-site, and there is no certain evidence that the Phoenicians ever came to Cornwall. About Marazion daffodils, narcissus, and violets are cultivated largely for the London market. At Perran Uthnoe the cliffs again appear, and we reach Prussia Cove, once the haunt of smugglers. Inland, Godolphin and Tregonning's granite hills are conspicuous, and near the coast is Pergersick Castle, a picturesque ruin of which strange legends are told. Porthleven is a small fishing village, where the people live on the annual arrival of the pilchards. Loe Pool is a beautiful sheet of water cut off from the sea by a bar of sand. It was when standing on this bar, and watching the wreck of a vessel close in shore when those on the land were unable to communicate with it, that Henry Trengrouse conceived the idea of a rocket apparatus, to be not only employed on land, but also to be carried by every ship. He, of course, met with opposition from the Board of Trade and the Government, and he spent his life and his fortune in experiments, and in endeavours to push his apparatus.

Mullion Cove

We now reach the superb serpentine cliffs of the Lizard with the beautiful coves of Polurrian, Mullion, and Kynance. At Lizard Point is one of the most famous of all lighthouses, the departure-point or landfall of thousands of ships in the course of the year. The peninsula of the Lizard is interesting, though the land does not rise much above 300 ft., and is monotonous moorland. All its charm is in its coast-line. The terrible Manacles rocks have been the scene of many a wreck. Helford river is a creek running up to Gweek in one arm and nearly to Constantine in another. We now reach Falmouth Bay, into which opens the Carrick Road. A curious peninsula, Roseland, runs to Zoze Point, where there is a lighthouse. Portscatho is a small place at the opening of Gerrans Bay, of which the eastern horn is Nare Point. Carn Beacon is traditionally held to have been the burial-place of Geraint, King of Devon and Cornwall. There were more than one of this name. The cairn has been opened and was found to contain a stone cist of the bronze period, and not, as tradition said, his golden boat with silver oars. Veryan Bay between Nare Point and the Dodman has in it no good harbour. Dodman stands nearly 380 ft. above the sea.

Falmouth, from Flushing

Mevagissey Bay is a shallow hollow between Chapel Point and Black Head, the latter crowned by one of the cliff castles found on almost every headland. Then comes St Austell Bay with that of Tywardreath opening out of it. Charlestown has latterly become of importance, as from thence much china-clay is shipped.

We reach now the narrow estuary of the Fowey river, with Fowey town consisting of one narrow street beside the tidal creek, and with Polruan on the further shore. The coast now becomes very bold, and Polperro, five miles beyond, was once a notorious haunt of smugglers.

Polperro

At Looe, the two rivers bearing the same name fall into a bay, and seaward stands up Looe Island, crowned by the ruins of a chapel. This island was also a haunt of smugglers, and it was found necessary to establish a coastguard station on it to keep them in control. East Looe and West Looe each sent two members to Parliament before the passing of the Reform Bill.

Looe

Between Looe and Rame Head is Whitesand Bay, so called from the whiteness of the sand. The quicksands have made it dangerous for bathers, but the cliff scenery is beautiful and romantic. There is a tiny watering-place at its western end, Downderry. At Tregantle is the most important of the western defences of Plymouth. A peninsula is formed by the Lynher river which discharges into the Hamoaze, and the neck of land between it and the sea is about two miles in breadth. Tregantle stands 400 ft. above the sea and commands every approach to Plymouth Sound.

Rame Head projects into the sea from Maker Heights and is the termination of a range of cliffs from Looe, and from hence a fine view can be had of the Cornish coast as far as the Lizard.

On the east of Penlee Point is Cawsand Bay, once infested with smugglers, sheltered by Rame Head from westerly gales. A rock with a cave in it and a white incrustation is regarded here with some superstitious reverence, and fishermen throw a few pilchards or herrings to it as an oblation when returning from fishing.

At a vastly remote period a valley lay between Britain and Gaul—before ever they were Britain and Gaul—and through this well-wooded valley flowed a river. The coast-line of Britain then lay from one to two hundred miles to the west, where is now the great drop in the ocean depths from 100 fathoms to 300 or 400. Cornwall was a Mesopotamia, a land between two almost parallel rivers, one occupying the bottom of what is now the English Channel, the other being the Severn. At that time the Bristol Channel was another great valley. From Brown Willy to the Scilly Isles ran a lofty mountain range, towering into the sky, of which the present Bodmin moors, Carn Brea, Carn Marth, Tregonning Hill, etc., are but the abraded stumps. Not only were they much higher, but their present roots stood 300 ft. higher than at present.

Then ensued a sinking of the land, and the Atlantic flowed into the valley to the south and joined the North Sea; and at the same time the Bristol Channel was formed. Thus the present coast was approximately outlined.

At some period shortly after, a vast inundation swept over the land from the north, and carried down the degraded granite, depositing the tin beds in the hollows. As early as 1830, Mr Carne noted: "The peculiar situation in which nearly all the stream tin of Cornwall is found is highly illustrative of the direction in which the current of the deluge swept over the surface. All the productive streams are in the valleys which open to the sea on the southern side of the Cornish peninsula; whilst most of the richest veins are situated near the northern coast."

The deposit of tin stone, or tin ground, lies directly on the shelf, or primitive surface of rock, and is carried far out in the estuaries, and overlaid by marine deposits.

In 1828, in Carnon Creek, a cairn was discovered 16 to 18 ft. below the surface, and that surface 4 to 5 ft. below low water mark. In it was a crouched skeleton. This shows that there must have been a subsidence of the land of something like 30 ft. at least since the period when man in the late stone or early bronze age inhabited Cornwall.

The submarine forests grew on the top of the tin ground. Of these many have been noted and recorded, not only on the south coast, but on the north as well. The trees were oak and hazel, alder and elm, but they never reached a large size.

Above this bed lie the raised beaches, some 40 or 50 ft. above high water mark. The tin-beds in the Cornish valleys towards the sea do not exhibit such an upheaval. Generally the raised beach rests on the original rock, and consists of rolled stones, frequently of large size, mixed with smaller gravel and sand. The "Head of Rubble," with some intervening perplexing beds of sand, may be noticed on the coast. This Head is from 40 to 50 ft. in depth. It is composed of angular fragments of rock, often large, many of quartz, with no signs of stratification. The Rubble bed in Cornwall has yielded no organic remains, but elsewhere in it have been found the bones of the mammoth, elephant, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, etc. It was not formed by the disintegration of the subjacent rocks, but by aqueous transport. It owes its origin to a powerful force of water, acting violently and rapidly. It caps the heights, and is not in the valleys where the tin ground has been deposited. It has not therefore been found to overlie it. It was due to a sudden and brief overrush of water, and the fragments of stone carried before the flood did not travel sufficiently far to have their angles rubbed down.

Perranporth Rocks

Off the mouth of the English Channel the tidal-stream is materially influenced by the indraft and outset of the channel, and is found to run northward and eastward with a falling tide at Dover, and southward and westward with a rising tide at that place. At spring tides the tide rises in Padstow Bay 22 ft., at Bude a foot higher, at the Lizard only 14½ ft., at Scilly 16 ft. Nowhere on the Cornish coast is there the enormous rise seen at St Malo, where ordinary tides rise from 23 to 26 ft., and spring tides 48 ft. above low-water mark.

On account of the varying force with which the channel and spring tides blend south of the Scilly group the stream is incessantly altering, but north of this towards the Bristol Channel, the stream becomes more regular, and while the water is ebbing at Dover, it sets northward turning sharply round Trevose Head into the Bristol Channel, and so when the tide is flowing at Dover, it is running with equal speed in ebb out of the channel and along the coast towards Scilly.

Round Island, Scilly

The Scilly Isles are the sole group of any importance around the coast. They are situated 40 miles due west from the Lizard Point and 25 west-south-west from the Land's End, and are reached by steamers from Penzance. There are now but five of the isles inhabited, St Mary's, Tresco, St Agnes, St Martin's, and Bryher. Formerly Sampson was also inhabited, but the inhabitants were removed to St Mary's. The total acreage of the islands is 3560; and the formation is granite. This group is in fact the rubbed-down stump of the last great peak of the chain running south-west from Bodmin moors. The heights in the islands are inconsiderable, but very bold and picturesque scenery is obtained among the many islets, each of which has its special character. At St Mary's is a pier built in 1835-8; and a harbour called the Pool for small craft, while further out between the islands is a good roadstead for large vessels. The Scilly Isles were noted as a resting-place for innumerable birds, some very rare, in their annual migrations, but of late years gun-practice at sea marks has scared a good many away, and they visit the islands in far fewer numbers than formerly.

The Longships Lighthouse

The coast of Cornwall is remarkably free of shoals. The only dangerous sandbank is the Doom Bar at the mouth of the Bay of Padstow; but there are shallows in Mounts Bay and other places.

Eddystone Lighthouse

Trinity House, the first general lighthouse and pilotage authority in the kingdom, was composed of a body of merchants and seamen founded in 1519 by Sir Thomas Speet, controller of the navy, when it was granted a charter by Henry VIII. Since that period the duty of erecting and maintaining lighthouses and other sea-marks has been entrusted to the Corporation by Royal Charter and Acts of Parliament. Trinity House maintains ten lighthouses about the coast of Cornwall, of which the most important, besides those of the Scilly Isles, are the Longships, white and red occulting; the Wolf rock, white and red group flash; the Lizard, white flash; the Eddystone, white flash.

The climate of a country or district is, briefly, the average weather of that country or district, and it depends upon various factors, all mutually interacting—upon the latitude, the temperature, the direction and strength of the winds, the rainfall, the character of the soil, and the proximity of the district to the sea.

The differences in the climates of the world depend mainly upon latitude, but a scarcely less important factor is this proximity to the sea. Along any great climatic zone there will be found variations in proportion to this proximity, the extremes being "continental" climates in the centres of continents far from the oceans, and "insular" climates in small tracts surrounded by sea. Continental climates show great differences in seasonal temperatures, the winters tending to be unusually cold and the summers unusually warm, while the climate of insular tracts is characterised by equableness and also by greater dampness. Great Britain possesses, by reason of its position, a temperate insular climate, but its average annual temperature is much higher than could be expected from its latitude. The prevalent south-westerly winds cause a drift of the surface-waters of the Atlantic towards our shores, and this warm water current, which we know as the Gulf Stream, is the chief cause of the mildness of our winters.

Most of our weather comes to us from the Atlantic. It would be impossible here within the limits of a short chapter to discuss fully the causes which affect or control weather changes. It must suffice to say that the conditions are in the main either cyclonic or anticyclonic, which terms may be best explained, perhaps, by comparing the air currents to a stream of water. In a stream a chain of eddies may often be seen fringing the more steadily-moving central water. Regarding the general northeasterly moving air from the Atlantic as such a stream, a chain of eddies may be developed in a belt parallel with its general direction. This belt of eddies or cyclones, as they are termed, tends to shift its position, sometimes passing over our islands, sometimes to the north or south of them, and it is to this shifting that most of our weather changes are due. Cyclonic conditions are associated with a greater or less amount of atmospheric disturbance; anticyclonic with calms.

The prevalent Atlantic winds largely affect our island in another way, namely in its rainfall. The air, heavily laden with moisture from its passage over the ocean, meets with elevated land-tracts directly it reaches our shores—the moorland of Devon and Cornwall, the Welsh mountains, or the fells of Cumberland and Westmorland—and blowing up the rising land-surface, parts with this moisture as rain. To how great an extent this occurs is best seen by reference to the accompanying map of the annual rainfall of England, where it will at once be noticed that the heaviest fall is in the west, and that it decreases with remarkable regularity until the least fall is reached on our eastern shores. Thus in 1906, the maximum rainfall for the year occurred at Glaslyn in the Snowdon district, where 205 inches of rain fell; and the lowest was at Boyton in Suffolk, with a record of just under 20 inches. These western highlands, therefore, may not inaptly be compared to an umbrella, sheltering the country further eastward from the rain.

The above causes, then, are those mainly concerned in influencing the weather, but there are other and more local factors which often affect greatly the climate of a place, such, for example, as configuration, position, and soil. The shelter of a range of hills, a southern aspect, a sandy soil, will thus produce conditions which may differ greatly from those of a place—perhaps at no great distance—situated on a wind-swept northern slope with a cold clay soil.

The character of the climate of a country or district influences, as everyone knows, both the cultivation of the soil and the products which it yields, and thus indirectly as well as directly exercises a profound effect upon Man. The banana-nourished dweller in a tropical island who has but to tickle the earth with a hoe for it to laugh a harvest is of different fibre morally and physically from the inhabitant of northern climes who wins a scanty subsistence from the land at the expense of unremitting toil. These are extremes; but even within the limits of a county, perhaps, similar if smaller differences may be noted, and the man of the plain or the valley is often distinct in type from his fellow of the hills.

Very minute records of the climate of our island are kept at numerous stations throughout the country, relating to the temperature, rainfall, force and direction of the wind, hours of sunshine, cloud conditions, and so forth, and are duly collected, tabulated, and averaged by the Meteorological Society. From these we are able to compare and contrast the climatic conditions in various parts.

Cornwall, being so surrounded by the sea, and so peculiarly under the influence of the Gulf Stream, may be looked upon as possessing a local "insular" climate in a marked degree. The south-west wind almost invariably brings rain and warmth together, for the high cold granitic moorlands are naturally calculated to arrest these warm airs and chill them, causing thereby a downfall of the suspended water. But Cornwall does not enjoy the amount of sun heat to ripen fruit that is obtained on the east coast of England, and it is exposed to furious gales from the west. "The gale from the west," says Polwhele, "is here no gentle zephyr; instead of wafting perfume on its wings, it often brings devastation." On the north coast every tree that is exposed to it is dwarfed and bowed like a curling wave, and the foliage in spring is often cut and browned by the salt spray. Even tombstones in the churchyards on the heights have to be backed up with masonry, and the churches are low, as if cowering from the blast. According to a Cornish proverb: "There falls a shower on every week day, and there are two on a Sunday." In Scilly, however, there is more sunshine and less rain than on the mainland. The myrtle, geranium, fuchsia, and hydrangea grow luxuriantly; the red geranium at Penzance will cover the front of a house, and palms and other exotics thrive there and at Falmouth. The fields of narcissus and daffodils cultivated for the market would be more beautiful if the blooms were not systematically picked before fully open, to be sent to London. No gardens in England exhibit such a wealth of exotics as those of Tresco, Carclew, Enys and Penjerrick, and some others in the district of the Fal estuary, which seems peculiarly favourable for the growth of sub-tropical species.

In 1906, the mean temperature of England and Wales was 49·3° Fahr., while that of Cornwall was 51·2. The mean temperature of England in 1907 was 48·5, of Cornwall 50·6. But there exists a considerable difference between north and south. At Redruth it was in 1906, 50·1, whereas at Truro it was nine degrees higher.

The east wind prevails in October and is strong in March, the south-east in June, the south-west is felt in every month save April, but very little in December. The west wind is most prevalent in August, least so in May. The north wind predominates in December and July.

The rainfall chart here given shows that Cornwall lies for the most part in an area where from 40 to 60 inches are annually recorded, though a strip of the north coast from St Ives to Padstow and again from Boscastle to the northern limit of the county shows a fall of less than 40 inches. This is because the uplands have robbed the rainclouds of a considerable portion of their contents, and accordingly it is on these high moorlands that we find the greatest rainfall. Thus on the moors between Launceston and Bodmin from 60 to 80 inches fall, and even this latter figure is exceeded in the neighbourhood of Rough Tor and Brown Willy.

From observations taken at the Royal Institution of Cornwall at Truro, from 1850 to 1881 it appears that the rainiest months are November and December, and next to them January and July; April and May are the least rainy.

The original population of Cornwall would seem to have been what is now commonly called Ivernian, the same as Iberian, the underlying race everywhere in Western Europe from the western isles of Scotland to Gibraltar. When the Romans invaded and conquered Spain, they found there already in the east the Celts and in the west the Iberians, and they designated the more or less fused population, Celtiberians. So in Cornwall, there was this dark-haired, dusky-skinned race, and the Brythons, Celts, of the people of the Dumnonii. There were extensive settlements by Irish in the Land's End district, the Lizard, and along the north coast, in 490-510, owing to the expulsion of the Ossorians and the Bairrche from their lands in Ireland. The Saxon also crossed the Tamar and peaceably settled in East Cornwall.

The language spoken was Brythonic, akin to, and originally identical with Welsh and that spoken in Lower Brittany. It was distinct in some points from the Goidelic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Highlands of Scotland. The main difference was that the C in the latter became P in the former. Thus Ken or Cen in such names as Kenmare and Ciaran would in Cornish become Penmare and Piran.

In the reign of Edward I, Cornish was spoken in the south Hams of Devonshire, but in the sixteenth century it was dying out even in West Cornwall. Norden, writing in 1580, says: "Of late the Cornish men have much conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their English is equal to the beste, especially in the eastern partes.... In the weste parte of the countrye, in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier, the Cornishe tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitants." At Menheniot about 1540 the Creed and the Lord's Prayer were first taught the people in English. In 1678, at Landewednack, the last Cornish sermon on record was preached. In the reign of George III (1777) died Dolly Pentreath, the last to speak the language.

Two modern Cornish dialects exist. That in the east very naturally is assimilated to the Devonshire; but in the west it has formed itself in comparatively recent times. The more common prefixes of names of places are: — Tre an enclosure or homestead, Lan also an enclosure for a church, Ty a dwelling, Bod a habitation, Chy a house, Pol a pool, Pen a head, Huel or Wheal a mine, Ros a moor, Men a stone, B[=a]l a mine, Bos is a corruption of Bod and is sometimes reduced to Bo; Car stands for Caer a fortress; Dun has the same signification. Burn stands for Bron a hill, Camborne should be Cambron, the crooked hill; Cara is Carreg a rock, and this is often found cut down to Car; Carn is a cairn or heap of stones or mass of rock; Enys or Innis an island or peninsula. Fenter occurring in many combinations is fenten a well or spring; Goon is the Welsh Waun a grassy down; Hal is a moor, Parc an enclosure, Dinas a chieftain's castle, Lis a court of justice.

It is possible that certain river names may derive from the original tongue of the earliest race. Some seem to be more akin to Goidelic than Brythonic dialect, as Fal (Gaelic foill, slow), and Fowey (Gaelic fobhaidh, swift); but there are not sufficient of these to assure us that the Goidels preceded the Brythons in Cornwall.

In East Cornwall there must have been a considerable influx of Saxon settlers, for there we light upon such names of places as are compounded with ton the home-farm, worth and worthy a fortified settlement, stoke, stow, sto a stockade, an earthwork surmounted by a defence of posts; ham a meadow by the waterside. In West Cornwall such names are few.

Miners: Camborne

The people are courteous and kindly, and very independent. In South Africa, whither many thousand miners have migrated, they are not popular, and are fain to disguise whence they come by pretending to hail from Furness. The reason is that the Cornish cling together and do not care to associate with others, and that they lack that breadth of sympathy which makes men give up their time and devote their energies to the common good. The Cornish miner cares nothing for the country and for those among whom he has placed himself, if only in three years he may have made enough money to return home to his wife and children. He does not go out to settle, and this explains the lack of interest he has in what interests and concerns the colony.

The Cornish are a broad-shouldered race, above the average in stature, and it is stated that west country regiments, when drawn up on parade, cover a greater space of ground than would those of other counties, the numbers being equal.

The census of 1901 gives as the population of the administrative county 322,334 persons, of whom 149,937 were males and 172,397 were females. There had been an increase in the number of males since 1891, and a decrease in the number of females. Of inhabited houses there were 72,660. The population of Cornwall in 1801 was 192,281, and it went on increasing steadily to 1861, but from that date it has been as steadily on the decrease. In military barracks there were 629 officers and men, in naval barracks 90, and on H.M. ships in home waters 2053; in workhouses 1308, in prison 75.

In 1901 there were 21,335 marriages, 88,636 births, and 55,790 deaths. There were 6434 wives whose husbands were absent, either at sea or mining in South Africa or South America. In agriculture 23,671 were engaged, in fishing 3734, in mining 13,426; in building and carpentering 9667. Of the 149,937 males enumerated in the county of Cornwall, 128,184 were natives of the county, 8007 had come from Devonshire, and there were resident in Cornwall 976 foreigners. Of blind there were 447, of deaf and dumb 163, of lunatics 798, of imbeciles 516.

Whereas the number of people to the square mile in England is 558, that in Cornwall is only 230.

It must, however, be born in mind that the Administrative County and the Geographical County are not coextensive. Thus, parts of the Registration County of Cornwall are in the Administrative County of Devon, such are Broadwood Widger, Northcott, North Petherwin, St Giles in the Heath, Virginstow and Werrington, with a total population of 2460 persons; and on the other hand parts of the Administrative County of Cornwall are in the Registration County of Devon; these are Calstock and North Tamerton with a population of 6203 persons.

Thus the population and acreage in 1901 in the Registration County would be, population 318,591, acreage 886,384, but in the Geographical or Administrative County the population would be in the same year 322,334 and the acreage 868,208.

The lack of hot sunshine makes Cornwall an unsuitable county for cereals, but the mildness of the climate and the rainfall render it on the other hand favourable for dairy produce and for stock.

"First and Last House", Land's End

A recent writer, Mr W.H. Hudson, in his book on the Land's End, thus describes a Cornish farm. He speaks of the neighbourhood of Penrith, but the description applies to many other parts of the Duchy, though not to East Cornwall, where it is scarcely applicable at all, and is precisely the part where there exists least of the Celtic and most of the English element. "Life on these small farms is incredibly rough. One may guess what it is like from the outward aspect of such places. Each, it is true, has its own individual character, but they are all pretty much alike in their dreary, naked, and almost squalid appearance. Each, too, has its own ancient Cornish name, some of them very fine and pretty, but you are tempted to rename them in your own mind Desolation Farm, Dreary Farm, Stony Farm, etc. The farmhouse is a small, low place, and invariably built of granite, with no garden, or bush, or flower about it. The one I stayed at was a couple of centuries old, but no one had ever thought of growing anything, even a marigold, to soften its bare, harsh aspect. The house itself could hardly be distinguished from the outhouses clustered around it. Several times on coming back to the house in a hurry, and not exercising proper care, I found I had made for a wrong door, and got into the cow-house or pig-house, or a shed of some sort, instead of into the human habitation. The pigs and fowls did not come in, but were otherwise free to go where they liked. The rooms were very low; my hair, when I stood erect, just brushed the beams; but the living room or kitchen was spacious for so small a house, and had the wide old open fireplace still so common in this part of the country. Any other form of fireplace would not be suitable where the fuel consists of furze and turf."

But it must be allowed that the large landed proprietors have everywhere built commodious, though almost invariably ugly, new farmhouses.

Considering the vast extent of grass land there is in Cornwall, and the amount of butter, cream, and milk derived therefrom, it has become more and more clear to thinking farmers that the pasture is becoming exhausted, its feeding powers worn out, and that they must replenish the soil with the lime and phosphates that have been taken out of it to nourish and rear the cattle. The consequence is, that of late years the more intelligent farmers are largely employing artificial, i.e. chemical manures, and the results have been most satisfactory. You cannot eat your cake and have it. If you take so much annually out of the ground you must put in an equivalent annually, or you exhaust the soil; and animal manure is not sufficient. In the country a great deal of turf and furze is burnt, where there is proximity to the moors. The writer just quoted says: "in some parts of Cornwall they have good peat, called 'pudding turves,' which makes a hot and comparatively lasting fire. In the Land's End district they have only the turf taken from the surface, which makes the poorest of all fires, but it has to serve. But to make a blaze and get any warmth furze was burnt. In a few moments the dry stuff would ignite and burn with a tremendous hissing and crackling, the flames springing up to a height of seven or eight feet in the vast hollow chimney. For a minute or two the whole big room would be almost too hot, and lit up as by a flash of lightning. Then the roaring flames would sink and vanish, leaving nothing but a bed of grey ashes, jewelled with innumerable crimson and yellow sparks, rapidly diminishing."

The total acreage under crops and grass in 1908 was 608,691; of these 356,497 acres were arable land, the rest, 252,194 acres, permanent grass: 17,120 acres grew wheat, 30,696 barley, and 66,033 oats; 4441 acres grew potatoes, 15,271 turnips and swedes, 11,528 mangold, 8059 rape, and 1658 small fruit. Of small fruit culture just over 621 acres were devoted to strawberries, nearly 276 to raspberries and nearly 553 to currants and gooseberries. Apples were grown on 4865 acres, cherries on 199, plums on 182.

The number of horses used for agricultural purposes was 25,706. The total of horses, colts and unbroken, was 34,821. Of cattle there were 219,890, and of these 59,298 were cows in milk. The total number of sheep was 410,055, and that of pigs 104,813. Of mountain and heath land used for grazing there were 71,438 acres. In Cornwall there are 9249 acres of coppice and 22,197 of other woods, but no more than 981 of plantations. While 548,787 acres are tended by tenants, only 59,904 acres are occupied by the owners. Whereas in Surrey the percentage of those occupying their own land is 33 per cent., that in Cornwall is 9·7, in Devon 10·9, and in Hampshire 24·4.

In Cornwall, in 1908, the number of agricultural holders above one acre but not exceeding five was 2859; of those above five and not exceeding 50, there were 6810. Of those above 50 and not exceeding 300 acres there were 3682, but of those holding more than 300 acres there were but 118, whereas in Essex there were 564, in Suffolk 540, in Hampshire 595, in Wiltshire 660 and in Northumberland 731.

Of late years, especially in the Scilly Isles, flower gardening, the growth of narcissus, jonquils, daffodils, and various sorts of lilies, also of violets, anemones, and marguerites, has been carried on with great success, and the produce is carried by steamer and train to London and other large towns.

During six months in the year, when and where the flower culture prevails, it forms the staple of conversation in parsonage, manor house, farm, and cottage. From January until May men, women, and children are directly or indirectly engrossed in this one labour. The bulbs are moved at least once in three or four years. Left longer, they decrease in size, and become weakly; the flowers also degenerate. A suitable manure is at hand, the kelp washed up by the sea costing nothing but the labour of gathering and transporting.

Flower Farming, Scilly

Anyone standing in a field which is in full bloom and waiting to be picked over, would think that the men have a hopeless task to face, if they purpose gathering all their flowers. But they move down the beds swiftly, snapping the stems, and throwing the flowers into big baskets, which are carried off to the homestead as they fill, and in an incredibly short time the beds are thinned. When the baskets are brought into the farmhouse they are emptied, and if the weather has been wet and stormy the flowers are packed roughly into pots and pans of every description, and set on shelves to dry off and assume their proper colour. If the weather has been fine this preliminary toilet is dispensed with, and the girls and women bunch and tie at once. Twelve stems go to a bunch always, and the aim is to arrange the flowers so that they shall present a compact lozenge shape, crisp and tight. Varieties are never mixed when tied, the bunches are passed on to another department, where the uneven stems are sliced off, and the flowers set in water to await packing.

Packing the flowers is a serious business. The boxes are lined with paper, little pillows are made for the flowers to rest upon, and then the bunches are deftly laid, so many this way, so many that, and a few in the centre, and behold, stems are altogether hidden, and only a mass of bloom fills the box. The end papers are turned in, a ticket placed on the top, declaring the variety of flower and the number of bunches; the cover is nailed down, and the operation is complete.

Cornwall is too far from the coalfields to be a manufacturing county on a large scale. There are, however, some few industries and manufactures carried on in Cornwall. The wonderful wireless telegraphy installation which Mr Marconi has established at Poldhu does not, perhaps, strictly speaking, come under this head, but it would be impossible to omit mention of it and of the great services it daily renders to vessels crossing the Atlantic.

Poldhu Hotel and the Marconi Station

A considerable industry is in the making of casks, mainly for the exportation of pilchards. Woollen manufacture is carried on in a small way, also the construction of mining and other machinery. Shipbuilding occupies about 870 men. Some brick-making is done, but not to any considerable extent. The real employments supplying the vast majority of the people with bread are mining and quarrying, and agriculture and horticulture.

The authentic history of tin-mining in Cornwall begins with the year 1156. It is not mentioned in Domesday, and probably the Conqueror was as ignorant that tin was to be found there as were the Romans. In the year above given the tin mines are mentioned in the Pipe Rolls. In 1198 appears a letter from the Warden of the Stannaries to the Justiciar. In 1156 most of the tin was raised on Dartmoor, but the output now began to rise rapidly. In 1201 King John issued a charter to the Stannaries. In 1305 the Cornish Stannaries were in part dissociated from those in Devon.

As already stated, in the beds of the valleys running down from the central ridge are deposits of tin, brought there from the lodes degraded by weather and flood in the central spinal ridge. The specific gravity of the tin ore is 6.8, and as the water rolled away from the heights, it deposited the tin that it had brought away with it. "The ores of tin," wrote Pryce in 1776, "are shode and stream ... scattered to some distance from the parent lode, and consisting of pebbly and smoothly angular stones of various sizes, from half an ounce to some pounds in weight. Stream tin is the same as shode but smaller in size and arenaceous."

King Edward Mine, Camborne

Polwhele describes an early stream work disclosed about a century ago. The ore was of the purest kind and contained two-thirds metal. The pebbles from which the metal was extracted were in size from sand-like grains to that of a small egg. The depth of the primeval bed was 20 ft. This appeared to have been worked at a remote period, and before iron tools were employed, as large pickaxes of oak, holm, and box were found there. But archaeological research at the period when he wrote was carried on in such a haphazard way that we cannot trust the reports then made, and it is quite possible that the workings were comparatively late, possibly of Mediaeval times.

All the early work was in stream tin. The Cornish tin had this disadvantage—that it was not pure like the Dartmoor tin, but was so associated with sulphur that after smelting it had to undergo a second process, and that a delicate one. It had to be "roasted," to get rid of the sulphur, for only thus could the tin be made available. Associated with sulphur it is brittle. We may well doubt whether in early times the double process was understood. Moreover, we know that when we have the first notices of tin in the west, it was Dartmoor and not Cornwall which rendered the largest supply.

Shaft-mining did not come in before 1450, when the stream tin was exhausted. The use of the adit cannot be traced back beyond the beginning of the seventeenth century. The only way of draining the mines was by rag and chain pumps, each consisting of an endless chain, broadened at intervals by leathern bindings, to fit snugly into a pipe from 12 to 22 ft. long, worked by a windlass at the surface. To drain a mine of great depth a series of these pumps was necessary.

When hydraulic draining-engines were first employed is not known, but even so late as the close of the eighteenth century some mines were drained by the rag and chain pump worked by 36 men.

Up to the sixteenth century, wooden shovels and picks are known to have been employed, and shovels were merely iron-shod. There is in the British Museum a MS. calendar of Haroldstone in S. Wales, of the early sixteenth century, in which are representations of the works of the months, and in it the labourers in the fields are shown as using wooden spades shod with metal.

German mining was carried on upon better principles than the English, and Sir Francis Godolphin sent for an experienced German engineer to instruct the miners of Godolphin and Tregonning in the superior systems employed in Saxony. It was then only that the hydraulic stamps were introduced.

In 1742 one steam-engine only was found in the county; but speedily after came a great advance. Savery and Newcomen brought in their steam pump; that of Newcomen was introduced at Chasewater in 1777.

Notwithstanding that the methods of descent into the mines by a series of long ladders had been superseded by the man-engine, first introduced in 1842, it was a long time before the old ladders at different successive stages were abandoned.

Owing to the introduction of tin from the Straits Settlements, where it is found in the condition of stream tin and can be easily worked, the tin mining in Cornwall, necessitating real mining and the following of lodes, has proved unremunerative and has been abandoned, and now but few mines are worked for the metal. Another cause has fatally affected Cornish mining—the fraudulent practice of the promoters of the mines. It was no uncommon practice for the "captains," when a rich lode was struck, to cover it up, and follow false lodes, till the investors in the venture lost heart and refused to advance more money, when the captains would carry on the work in the real lode, if they could raise the capital, but this they often failed to do, the mine having fallen into discredit, or the water having broken in.

But if tin mining be practically dead in Cornwall, another industry has risen with leaps and bounds. It is that of the china-clay and china-stone, employed in the manufacture of porcelain, in the sizing of paper and of cotton materials, in the manufacture of alum, etc. The glazed paper so largely employed in our illustrated papers is made up largely with china-clay. Some years ago the Italian government employed this paper for its official documents, but found that after a few years under the influence of damp weather the records had dissolved into a lump of clay.

China Clay Quarries

China-clay consists of decomposed felspar, quartz and white mica. In 1817 the amount shipped for manufacturing pottery was comparatively small, but of late years it has grown, and employs over 3000 persons. The china-clay is the same as the Chinese Kaolin; its value was discovered by a Plymouth Quaker, Mr Cookworthy, in 1745.

Porcelain was introduced into Europe from the East in 1518, when it acquired the name of China. For a long time it was supposed that the kaolin or fine white clay of which it is composed, was found only in the Celestial Empire, and specimens of this brought to Europe fetched a high price. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it was discovered in Saxony in an odd way. A merchant named Schnerr, being on a journey, was struck with the whiteness of some clay near Schneeburg, and collecting some of it used it for powdering his wig. It succeeded, but had this disadvantage, that wigs dressed with this new powder were very heavy. An apothecary named Bötcher noticed the increased weight of the wig, analysed the powder, and discovered that it was identical with Chinese kaolin. He began to make Dresden China in 1709, and the process was carried on with the greatest secrecy, the exportation of the earth being forbidden under heavy penalties.

In 1748 Cookworthy discovered kaolin on Tregonning Hill, more was found at Boconnoc, and Cookworthy and Thomas Pett began to make china in 1768. At present St Austell is the great seat of this industry, and the produce is shipped at Charlestown and Polmear.

Delabole Slate Quarries

The important slate-quarries of the Duchy, of which the Delabole quarry is the most renowned, have already been mentioned.

At Calstock and Gunnislake a few years ago there were numerous miners engaged in the manufacture of arsenic from the waste product of the abandoned copper mines. But now this has become an extinct industry.

Shipping Slate, Port Gavin

Wulfram or tungsten, a metal used as an alloy for hardening steel, was also a waste product from the tin mines, but it is now utilised. At St Ives, pitchblende is now being worked for radium.