The walls of this vast hollow or crater are almost perpendicular, and the view from the ridge of the precipice, into which but few footpaths descend, is rendered interesting by the fantastic shape of the rocks, worn or hewn into a thousand grotesque forms by the action of the waters or the pickaxe of the miner; by the enormous number of holes and hollows resulting from ancient excavations; by the white colour of the granite, veined with the darker metalliferous streaks; by the water-wheels at the bottom, which, worked by streams from the neighbouring commons, propel the machinery for crushing the stones, loosened by the water as it flows down the sides of the cavity; and by the men, women, and children, scattered over the works. The ore is obtained without much difficulty, and is easily separated from the friable and decomposed granite, in which it is embedded, by repeated washings in the streams that are made to flow out at the bottom of the mine through a channel or tunnel, and which carry away the soft _growan_ or granite by their rapid current, while the heavier metalliferous substances are precipitated. As the ores are very poor, not even containing one per cent. of tin, Carclaze, which has been already worked for many centuries, would long since have been abandoned but for the abundance of the ores and the comparatively small expense of their extraction. The dressing of the tin ores, or the process by which they are separated as far as possible from the earthy impurities which are mixed up with them, and are generally much lighter, begins with cleaning and sorting, and then goes on to washing and stamping, and finally to calcination in the burning-house and to smelting. The tin ores of Cornwall and Devonshire are all reduced within the counties where they are mined, as the law prohibits their exportation—a most absurd and antiquated regulation, which, however, in this case is not injurious to private interests, as the vessels which bring the fuel from Wales for the smelting furnaces return to Swansea and Neath laden with copper ores. The smelting works, not exceeding seven or eight in number, belong generally not to the proprietors of the mines, but to other parties, who purchase the ore from the proprietors.