A Book of Cornwall - Baring-Gould Sabine

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know that the Gauls built stone camps-Cæsar calls them their oppida-but they employed beams of timber along with the stone to tie the walls together. The wood has everywhere rotted away, and the enclosing walls of the Gaulish camps now present the same appearance precisely as do the similar stone camps in Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall. When the timber decayed the stones fell into heaps. In Arran and Anglesey there was no timber; consequently stones were employed as ties, and there the walls remain comparatively intact.

      Within the caer were circular stone beehive huts; also chambers that were circular were contrived in the thickness of the walls. These "sentry boxes" have been noticed in Wales, and also in Cornwall and Devon.

      The account of Castel-an-Dinas, before it was robbed for the erection of a tower, is precisely such as might be given of one of those in Ireland or Wales: -

      "It consisted of two stone walls, one within the other, in a circular form, surrounding the area of the hill. The ruins are now fallen on each side of the walls, and show the work to have been of great height and thickness. There was also a third or outer wall built more than half-way round. Within these walls are many little enclosures of a circular form, about seven yards in diameter, with little walls round them of two or three feet high; they appear to have been so many huts for the shelter of the garrison."

      In fact, this was a royal dinas. Not only had it the requisite double wall, but also the drecht gialnai, or dyke of the hostages. Every king retained about him pledges from the under-chiefs that they would be faithful.

      There are several of these stone camps in Devon and Cornwall. In Somersetshire Whorlebury is very interesting; in Devon are Whit Tor and Cranbrook; in Cornwall the Cheesewring camp, Carn Brea, Chun Castle, the camp of Caer Conan on Tregonning Hill, Helborough, beside Castel-an-Dinas in Ludgvan.

      The heroic legends of Ireland attribute these stone camps to the Firbolgs, the non-Aryan dusky race that was in possession previous to the arrival of the Celts. But that the Milesians learned from them the art of constructing such castles is very certain, for in Christian times the monks imitated them in some of their settlements.

      Lord Dunraven, who has photographed these stone duns, says: -

      "The legends of the early builders are preserved in the compilations of Irish scribes and bardic writers dating from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. The story, which is said by these writers to have been handed down orally during the earliest centuries of the Christian era, and committed to writing when that art first became known in Ireland, is the history of the wanderings and final destruction of a hunted and persecuted race, whose fate would seem to have been mournful and strange as the ruined fortresses of the lost tribe which now stand before us. Coming to Ireland through Britain, they seem to have been long beaten hither and thither, till, flying still westward, they were protected by Ailill and Maeve, who are said to have reigned in Connaught about the first century of the Christian era. From these monarchs they obtained a grant of lands along the western coast of Galway, as well as the islands of Arran, where they remained till their final expulsion. Thus their forms seem to pass across the deep abyss of time, like the white flakes of foam that are seen drifted by the hurrying wind over the wild and wasted ruins of their fortresses."

      Excavations show that these stone caers are more ancient than the Christian era; they belong to the period of flint weapons and the introduction of bronze. But, as already stated, the conquerors of the rude stone monument builders adopted some of their arts, and some of their camps are much later.

      5. The stone castle, the walls set in mortar, is not earlier in Devon and Cornwall than the Norman Conquest. There are no really stately castles in either county, with the exception of Launceston. Rougemont, Exeter, is eminently unpicturesque; Tiverton, Totnes, Plympton, are almost complete ruins; Lydford-well, as Browne the poet wrote of it in the reign of James I.: -

      "They have a castle on a hill;

      I took it for an old windmill,

      The vanes blown off by weather;

      To lie therein one night, 'tis guessed

      'Twere better to be stoned or pressed

      Or hanged ere you come hither."

      And ruin that has fallen on it has not improved its appearance.

      Okehampton is but a mean relic; Restormel is circular; Trematon is like a pork-pie; Pendennis, S. Mawes, late and insignificant. Tintagel owes everything to its superb situation and to the legend that it was the place where King Arthur was born. The most picturesque of all is Pengersick, near Breage, but that is late. Its story shall be told in the chapter on Penzance.

      CHAPTER V

      TIN MINING

      The granite eruptions in Devon and Cornwall-Elvans-Lodes-Tin passing into copper-Stream-tin-Story of S. Piran and S. Chigwidden-Dartmoor stream-tin-Joseph of Arimathea-The Cassiterides-Jutes-Danish incursions-Tin in King John's time-Richard, Earl of Cornwall-Elizabeth introduces German engineers-Stannary towns-Carew on mining-Blowing-houses-Miners' terms-Stannary Courts-Dr. Borlase on tin mining-Present state.

      I remember being at a ball many years ago at that epoch in the development of woman when her "body" was hooked along her dorsal ridge. Now I learn from competent authorities that it is held together in other fashion.

      There was at the ball a very lusty stout lady in slate-grey satin.

      By nature and age, assisted by victuals, she was unadapted to take violent exercise. Nevertheless dance she would. Dance she did, till there ensued an explosion. Hooks, eyes, buttons, yielded, and there ensued an eruption of subjacent material. In places the fastenings held so that the tumescent under-garments foamed out at intervals in large bulging masses.

      This is precisely what took place with Mother Earth in one of her gambols. Her slate panoply gave way, parted from N.E. to S.W., and out burst the granite, which had been kept under and was not intended for show.

      Her hooks and eyes gave way first of all in South Devon, and out swelled the great mass of Dartmoor. They held for a little space, and then out broke another mass that constitutes the Bodmin moors. It heaved to the surface again north of S. Austell, then was held back as far as Redruth and Camborne. A few more hooks remained firm, and then the garment gave way for the Land's End district, and, finally, out of the sea it shows again in Scilly.

      Or take it in another way. Cornwall is something like a leg. Let it be a leg vested in a grey stocking. That stocking has so many "potatoes" in it, and each "potato" is eruptive granite.

      Granite, however, likewise cracked, formed "faults," as they are called, in parallel lines with the great parent crack to which it owed its appearance, and cracks also formed across these; and through the earlier cracks up gushed later granite in a molten condition, and these are dykes.

      Moreover, the satin body not only gave way down its great line of cleavage, but the satin itself in places yielded, revealing, not now the under-linen which boiled out at the great faults, but some material which, I believe, was the lining. So when the granite broke forth there were subsidiary rifts in the slate, and through these rifts a material was extruded, not exactly granite, but like it, called elvan. These elvan dykes vary from a few feet to as many as four hundred in breadth, and many can be traced for several miles. The younger granite intruded into the older granite is also called elvan.

      But when the secondary fissures occurred, the intrusive matter was not only a bastard granite, but with it came also tin and copper. And these metallic lines, which run on Dartmoor from E. to W., and in Cornwall from E.N.E. to W.S.W., are called lodes.

      The cross-cracks do not contain metal. They are called cross-courses.

      In addition there are some capricious veins that do not run in the normal direction, and these are called counter-lodes. Their usual direction is N.E.

      The cross-courses, although without metal, are of considerable value to the miner, because, as he knows well, the best lodes are those which are thus traversed.

      There

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