Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/406

364 There is a vault belonging to the family of Hawkins; and Mr. Christopher Hawkins, in 1767, and his widow, Mrs. Mary Hawkins, in 1780, are laid in it, I believe with some of their children; but there is not any inscription.

Perthcolumb presents some appearance of antiquity. There is a tradition of its once having given a sheriff to the county. The place now belongs to Mr. Andrew Hoskin, descended from a very ancient family in the adjoining parish of Lelant.

Gear has a good house, once the seat of another branch of the Davieses, but bought by the Editor's father.

Tregethes belonged for several descents to the Penroses. It is now the property of Mr. Ellis, who resides in it.

About the year 1782, a mill was constructed on a part of Trewinnard, for rolling copper and iron, by a company established at Hayle thirty years before, on the supposed patriotic principle of smelting our own copper ore; but, after many years of competition against the smelting-works in Wales, it was discovered that one shipload of copper ore required three shiploads of coal, and that by importing coal from Swansea to work the steam-engine, and by exporting the ores to be smelted there, vessels were enabled to obtain cargoes in both directions; and, in consequence, the works at Trewinnard and at Hayle are no longer employed for their original purposes.

The rage for importing coals to reduce our own ores at home, which was epidemic about the middle of the last century, seems to have originated from a confusion of ideas in the application of analogies, the most abundant source of error. It would be absurd to send our food across the seas to be roasted or boiled; therefore the same principle was extended to copper ore.

These establishments were, however, maintained for some considerable time by the genius and the abilities of one man. Mr. John Edwards had been taken as a clerk for general business by Mr. Hawkins, just at the time when he