This parish takes its name from a female Saint, to whom the church is dedicated, Sancta Felicitas, by corruption Phillack. [Query, who or whence was she? I apprehend the Saint to be the same with that of Philly or Philleigh in the next article.] It is a rectory, valued in the King’s Book at £45. 10_s._ 8_d._ The patronage in the heirs of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne. The incumbent Mr. Edward Collins, who succeeded Mr. Jasper Philips. In anno 1291, 20 Edward I. this church was valued at (Tax. Benef.) £6. 8_s._ 4_d._ having never been appropriated. THE EDITOR. The church is neat but small, and very inadequate to the increased number of inhabitants in the parish: the tower, like most others in this part of Cornwall, is of granite. Phillack stands near the eastern branch of Hayle River, and towards the sea, from whence comminuted shell sand is continually brought inland by the wind, threatening to overwhelm the whole village. Notice has been taken under Lelant of this ordinary incroachment of the sand, and of the inundations which have occurred at different periods remote from each other. Very considerable parts of Phillack, and of Gwithian the adjoining parish, are covered with sand formed into hillocks of twenty or thirty feet high, representing in miniature one of the most uneven districts that can any where be found. Under these are frequently discovered fences, inclosures, and the walls of houses; and the high valuation of the living in Wolsey’s Survey seems to prove that much land must have been covered with sand since that time, and converted into what is named _Towan_. Notwithstanding this loss, however great it may have been, the parish has flourished in recent times, far beyond all former example or expectation, by the extension of trade, and by the consequent improvement of the harbour. The progress in both has been greatly accelerated by the successful working of various mines in the immediate neighbourhood; but the first step was taken when a copper smelting establishment was made there, soon after the middle of the last century. An opinion, or rather a feeling, had prevailed in Cornwall that the copper ores should be smelted at home, and not sent to the opposite coast of Wales. Nothing could be more erroneous. About three times the quantity of coal is required to smelt any given weight of the copper ore; and the importation of coal from Swansea being very large, the conveyance of copper ore there produced alternate cargos. The whole scheme seems to have originated in mistaken analogies drawn from ordinary operations.