Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/37

 MINING of them being so placed as to balance each other. It is thought extremely probable, therefore, that tin was carried on pack-horses in the early days when the roads of Cornwall were merely narrow and steep tracts unsuitable for the passage of wheeled vehicles. From the fact that an ingot of tin bearing a Roman stamp and inscription has been found in Cornwall, and is now preserved in the Museum at Truro, we know that tin was in use by the Romans, and it seems pretty clear that Cornish tin-mining was an industry of definite official cognisance in the fourth century of the Christian era. Roman coins have been discovered in ancient Cornish tin workings, and from the evidence they afford as well as for other reasons it has been concluded that the Roman occupation of Cornwall, never perhaps very extensive, grew in importance after about a.d. 270. Of present-day mining little can be said that is pleasant to say. One chief cause of depression is the local absence of fuel. It has been cheaper to send ore to the Welsh coal districts than to bring coal to the ore ; this caused the decay of smelting. It was followed by competition as regarded the ore itself. Many old-fashioned and expensively worked pits could not stand the strain ; one by one they closed. Cornishmen are still expert miners, but they do most of their mining in America and South Africa. The duchy is scattered with disused mines, and with the 19