ngredients contained in the stream,
falls at once to the bottom, and is therefore, deposited on the head or
centre of the table; iron, being a shade lighter, is found to lodge in a
circle beyond; while all other substances are either spread over the
outer rim or washed entirely away. When the tables are full--that is,
coated with what appears to be an earthy substance up wards of a foot in
depth--the rich tin in the centre is carefully cut out with shovels and
placed in tubs, while the rest is rewashed in order that the tin still
mingled with it may be captured--a process involving much difficulty,
for tin is so very little heavier than iron that the lighter particles
can scarcely be separated even after repeated and careful washings.

In old times the tin was collected in large pits, whence it was
transferred to the hands of balmaidens (or mine-girls) to be washed by
them in wooden troughs called "frames," which somewhat resembled a
billiard table in form. Indeed, the frames are still largely employed
in the mines, but these and the modern table perform exactly the same
office--they wash the refuse from the tin.

Being finally cleansed from all its impurities, our mass of tin bears
more resemblance to brown snuff than to metal. An ignorant man would
suppose it to be an ordinary earthy substance, until he took some of it
in his hand and felt its weight. It contains, however, comparatively
little foreign substance. About seventy per cent of it is pure tin, but
this seventy per cent is still locked up in the tight embrace of thirty
per cent, of refuse, from which nothing but intense fire can set it
free.

At this point in the process, our mass of tin leaves the rough hand of
the miner. In former days it was divided among the shareholders in this
form--each receiving, instead of cash, so many sacks of tin ore,
according to the number of his shares or "doles," and carrying it off on
mule or horse back from the mine, to be smelted where or by whom he
pleased. But whether treated in this way, or, as in the present day,
sold by the manager at the market value, it all comes at last to the
tin-smelter, whose further proceedings we shall now follow, in company
with Oliver and his friend.

The agent of the smelting company--a stout, intelligent man, who
evidently did "knaw tin"--conducted them first to the furnaces, in the
neighbourhood of which were ranged a number of large wooden troughs or
bins, all more or less fill