Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/407

Rh and other Cornish gentlemen set on the copper-works. Mr. Edwards soon forced himself into the chief management, became a partner, and continued the works during the whole of his life; not being distinguished merely as a merchant or manufacturer, but as a scholar and a gentleman.

Gurlyn is said by Mr. Lysons to have been the residence of various considerable families. It has, for perhaps a century, been the joint property of Messrs. Gregor and Harris. About the year 1760, Mr, John Millett, possessing a lease of this place for lives, built an entirely new house there; but the lease has been bought in by the gentleman seised of the freehold, and the house taken down.

Treloweth is a manor heretofore the property of the Tredreas. On a part of this manor stands a tin-smelting house. Tin, by the laws of the Stannaries, must be reduced to the metallic state in Cornwall; and much less quantities of coal are required than in the case of copper. Till about the commencement of the last century, all the tin ores of Cornwall were smelted in small blast furnaces, by means of charcoal or of peat. At that period some Germans introduced the reverberatory furnace, and with it the use of coal. Several smelting-houses were immediately constructed by the gentlemen of the county, and although not among the first, that at Treloweth. I have ascertained the exact period of its building, from this circumstance, that the workmen were interrupted by the total eclipse of the sun, which happened about 15 minutes before nine on the 22d of April, 1715, O.S.

Mr. Henry Davies, the Editor's great-uncle, was among those who contributed to the building, and the crest of his arms, a lamb carrying a flag, was adopted as a mark to distinguish the slabs of this house; all the different smelting and blowing houses having always used specific marks. The crest, had, I presume, been originally taken in allusion to the Welch and Cornish sound, at least of his name; davas being Cornish for a sheep, or perhaps a shepherd. This mark, however, conveyed to the minds of persons in