By this time, I prefume, the reader has a pretty clear conception of the affair, and that each share of the £215 stands 3 thus: 77 15 11 £215 And the Adventurers net part 106 9 IOJ The spirit of adventure hath many times fo prevailed among the lower people, that very large fums have been won and loft by this kind of gaming, much to the injury of the cashiers, who can have no recompence from poverty and rags. It is a method that will always answer for the adventurers, provided the Takers upon tribute will execute their part and fulfil their articles of agreement, which it is difficult for the adventurers to compel them to perform. These reasons have induced the adventurers in fome Mines, to fet their Tin and Copper Ore to break by the fathom; and I believe it is productive of more certain wages to the men, and larger quantity of Ore to the owners; which is of confiderable importance to a Mine, obliged to fupport a monthly charge of eighteen hundred or two thousand pounds. It would be well if the Takers of Pitches on tribute, would allow fo much in their calculations for the decay of a Lode; for it is generally known thofe people commonly take a rich bunch of Tin or Copper Ore upon tribute according to its full value in sight, not confidering, perhaps, that it is almost impoffible for such to be richer; and that it is great odds whether it may continue half fo rich for the limited time. This want of precaution plunges them into many difficulties, when an alteration of the Lode happens from riches to poverty and, indeed, any perfon may conclude, that little more than common wages can be gained, by working a Pitch for twelvepence in the pound. Nevertheless, I have known feveral wrought at that value; and many score tons of Copper Ore raised out of North-Downs Mine at tenpence, for which a shaft in that Mine bears the name of Tenpenny-Shaft (fee North-Downs plate). But my readers will wonder more when I declare, that I have known feveral hundred tons of Copper Ore wrought, and dressed for fivepence halfpenny in the pound, at Huel-Virgin Mine: this, however, must be understood to have been the cafe, when the commodity brought a better price by thirty cent. than it now bears: which obfervation fuits with the decreased value of Tin as well or more fo; for it is equally true, that where I have been formerly concerned, as part owner of a Tin Mine, we have fet a Pitch to be wrought for for three fixty-fourths of the whole, or three-eighths of oneeighth in the stone, before it was made merchantable, by the additional expence of carriage, ftamping, and dreffling. With refpect to the plan laid down by Miners for calculating the charge, at which they can work this or that Pitch, it is much the fame as that for stoping of ground by the fathom. For inftance: if a Tin Lode is a three feet Gunnies wide, a fathom in depth and length of that bignefs will produce fifty kibbals of Lode, which when spaled may amount to one hundred facks of Tin-stuff fit for the ftamping mill. This, when dreffed, fhall produce three hundred weight of white Tin, which they call "being worth three hundred weight of Tin a "hundred;" that is, for every hundred facks of Tin-stuff, it will yield three hundred weight of Tin-metal, worth, we will fay, three pounds hundred weight, that is, nine pounds. The Tin in the leavings of which (a term that will be more eafily comprehended, by turning to the chapter upon dreffing of Tin) at five fhillings hundred weight, or more commonly expreffed "at fifty fhillings thousand" or half ton, is fifteeen fhillings. The Lord's part, dues, or land-dole, is one-fifteenth of the whole, that is to fay, fix two-thirds facks; the Bounder's or toll part is one-tenth of the remainder nine one-third sacks— these fixteen facks being taken from the hundred, the refidue becomes eighty-four; worth, at the above calculation, seven pounds eleven fhillings and threepence, and the leavings at fifty Thillings thousand twelve fhillings and fourpence-in all for eighty-four facks eight pounds three fhillings and feven Now the charge of working the fathom, is Filling the facks and loading the horses which is different as the Mine is more or lefs distant from the mill) we will allow to be only Carriage to fmelting-house and expence pence. In all 2 90 So that the Tributor must have two Doles and three quarters out of nine Doles, to get wages; which two Doles and three quarters are worth two pounds nine fhillings, according to the above calculation. Again, if a Tin Lode is only fix inches big or wide, one fathom may produce twenty facks of Tin-ftuff, worth fix pounds, at the rate of "a thousand Tin a hundred ;" that is, at the affignable quantity of ten hundred weight of Tin-metal for every hundred facks of Tin-stuff. The Land-dole, or Lord's part, being one-fifteenth, is one sack and one-third; the toll or Bounder's fhare, is one-tenth of the remainder, which is one fack two-thirds and one-fifth. Thefe three facks and one-fifth taken from twenty, the remainder is fixteen and four-fifths of a fack, value five pounds and ninepence. The leavings at forty fhillings for ten hundred weight of white Tin (the richest Tin generally yields the pooreft leavings, which will be fhewn hereafter) will give fix fhillings and threepence, which added to five pounds and ninepence make five pounds feven fhillings. The expence of working the fathom will be LI IO O Raifing, Spaling, and dividing Filling the facks, loading the horfes, carriage, ftamping, dreffing, and fmelting-house expences о I 8 0 26 In all I 14 2 The Taker or Tributor must, therefore, have three doles out of nine, to get a livelihood. On the other hand, if a Copper Lode is wrought a three feet Gunnies wide, one foot of which is worth faving for Ore; allowing the whole Gunnies to turn up fifty kibbals of stuff, fixteen of them may produce one ton of Copper Ore worth fix pounds. Now the expence of working the fathom of Lode would be Drawing or raifing the broken stuff or Lode Which divided by fix, the quotient will be fix fhillings and tenpence, the money the Tributor ought to have in the pound fterling to gain bare wages. Again, Again, fuppofing the Lode to be fix inches big or wide, the Gunnies must be two feet big, and one fathom in length and depth of the Lode, to make a ton of Copper Ore worth twelve pounds. The expence of digging the fathom Drawing the broken ftuff thirty-four kibbals 753 0 3 In all I 15 O Which being divided by twelve, the quotient will be two fhillings and eleven pence, the money the Tributor ought to have in the pound to earn a living. CHAP. V. Of Damps in Mines, and of Levelling and Dialling Mines, Adits, &c. Na treatife on the wholesomeness and unwholesomeness of air, Mr. Boyle makes it appear, that they depend principally on the impregnation received from fubterraneous effluvia, a cause generally overlooked; and it is probable, that most of the diseases which physicians call new, are caused by subterraneous fteams. In general, though the wholesomeness of the air in fome places may arise chiefly from the falubrious expirations of fubterraneous bodies, yet is the air depraved in far more places than it is improved, by being impregnated with Mineral emiflions. Indeed among the Minerals known to us, there are many more noxious than wholefome; and the and the power of the former to do mifchief, is more efficacious than of the latter to do good, as we may guess by the small benefit men receive in point of health by the effluvia of any Mineral or other known Foffil, in comparison of the great and fudden damage that is often done by the fumes of Mundick, Arfenick, Vitriol, Sulphur, and other deleterious Minerals. (Boyle, Boerhaave). And though these Minerals are moftly found in Mines, pits, and other places deep under-ground, yet they are commonly fcattered on the banks of thofe Mines at the furface, in all places productive of Minerals as our county is. Hence Hence it may, perhaps, be no difficult matter to shew, that an alteration of the common air by an unctuous vapour of the vitriolick kind, raised by an unfeasonable warmth, and too great a proportion of watery and other groffer particles mixed with it, may be the cause of those epidemick diseases, which are usually called Nervous and Malignant, Bilious and Putrid. The Mineral effluvium then, acting on the fluids in a degree fhort of extinguishing life, is absorbed into the habit, infects the blood, and from that minute the whole frame becomes more and more feeble: whence it will be eafy to deduce all the symptoms which accompany a flow continual nervous fever. (Huxham). It is well known, that this contagion in the blood and animal spirits will produce in different perfons very different disorders, though they may justly be attributed to one and the fame caufe; nay, in the fame conftitution, by length of time, and the folution of the red blood globules, a flow nervous fever will terminate in the highly putrid and malignant : yet the latter may be immediately derived from the fame spring, and fhall vary only in a vigorous conftitution with rich blood, or in a weak lax habit and very incompact craffamentum. Upon the whole, then, it is not strange that those different disorders are frequently confounded, as the same constitution of the atmosphere contributes to both. I was drawn into the particular confideration of these matters, by our endemick fevers in the fpring of the year 1773, and my peculiar lot to fall in with thofe of the worst kinds: fo prevalent were they indeed, that I may venture to affirm out of three thousand inhabitants here, not lefs than half the number were manifestly affected in a greater or lefs degree with febrile fymptoms of the nervous, bilious, or malignant kind; and though not above fourteen perfons died, yet we have many who may lament the effects of those disorders to the latest day of their lives. In the year 1752, nervous and malignant fevers were reckoned mortal in this parish, and particularly in families where a fimilarity of conftitution equally favoured the production of one diforder. I then knew three brothers to have died of a putrid malignant fever, out of four which had the disease ; yet these men all lived in feparate houses, at a quarter of a mile's distance; and had the leaft intercourfe with each other that ever I observed in perfons fo nearly allied: I take this to be |