h others'
heads, slight temporary platforms alone preserving them from certain
death, and the candles of those highest above you twinkling like stars
in a black sky.

In these underground regions of Botallack, above three hundred men and
boys are employed, some of whom work occasionally by night as well as by
day. On the surface about two hundred men, women, and boys are employed
"dressing" the ore, etcetera.

Other mines there are in the great mining centres of Cornwall--Redruth,
St. Just, St. Austell, and Helston, which are well worthy of note--some
of them a little deeper, and some richer than Botallack. But we profess
not to treat of all the Cornish mines; our object is to describe one as
a type of many, if not all, and as this one runs farthest out beneath
the sea, is deeper than most of the others, and richer than many,
besides having interesting associations, and being of venerable
antiquity, we hold it to be the one most worthy of selection.

With a few briefly stated facts we shall take final leave of statistics.

As we have said, the Boscawen shaft measures 245 fathoms. The
ladder-way by which the men ascend and descend daily extends to 205
fathoms. It takes a man half an hour to reach the bottom, and fully an
hour to climb to the surface. There are three pumping and seven winding
engines at work--the largest being of 70 horse-power. The tin raised is
from 33 to 35 tons a month. The price of tin has varied from 55 pounds
to 90 pounds per ton. In time past, when Botallack was more of a copper
than a tin-mine, a fathom has been known to yield 100 pounds worth of
ore, and a miner has sometimes broken out as much as 300 pounds worth in
one month.

The mine has been worked from time immemorial. It is known to have been
wrought a hundred years before it was taken by the present company, who
have had it between thirty and forty years, and, under the able
direction of the present manager and purser, Mr Stephen Harvey James,
it has paid the shareholders more than 100,000 pounds. The profit in
the year 1844 was 24,000 pounds. At the termination of one period of
working it left a profit of 300,000 pounds. It has experienced many
vicissitudes of fortune. Formerly it was worked for tin, and at one
period (1841) was doing so badly that it was about to be abandoned, when
an unlooked for discovery of copper was made, and a period of great
prosperity again set in, during which many shareholders and miners mad