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 deg. 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.
=13. People--Race, Dialect, Population.=
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.
[Illustration: 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.
=14. Agriculture--Main Cultivations. Stock.=
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.
[Illustration: "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.
[Illustration: 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.
=15. Industries and Manufactures.=
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.
[Illustration: 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.
=16. Minerals and Mining.=
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."
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: China Clay Quarries, Porthpean]
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.