The smelting is effected by two different methods, which may be briefly described by stating that, by the first and most common, the ore, mixed with culm, is exposed to heat upon the hearth of a reverberating furnace, in which pit coal is used as fuel; while by the second method, which is applied merely to stream-tin, and which is followed in order to obtain tin of the finest quality, the ore is fused in a blast-furnace called a blowing-house, in which wood fuel or charcoal is used. The melted tin runs off from the furnace into an open basin, whence it flows into a large vessel, where it is allowed to settle. The scoriæ are skimmed off, and the subsequent operations consist of refining by allowing the mass of the metal to rest, then submitting the upper and pure portion to the refining basin, and remelting the lower part. In order to convert the blocks into _grain-tin_, they are heated until they become brittle, and made to fall from a considerable height in a semi- fluid state, thus producing an agglomerated mass of elongated grains. The number of persons that find occupation in and about the Cornish and Devonian tin mines may amount to about 20,000. The wages are, on an average, much inferior to those of the pitmen and pitlads in the northern coal-fields; but, on the other hand, the Cornish miner is exempt from many evils to which the northern miners are subject. He has not to fear the fatal fire-damp, and can sit at ease and hear or read of explosions that have destroyed hundreds in a few minutes. His intellectual superiority to the agricultural labourer may be at once inferred from the nature of his pursuits. The latter plods on through life like a mere human machine, and, as he is never thrown on his own resources in the progress of his monotonous occupations, his stock of ideas remains scanty and confined. But the Cornish miner is the reverse of all this. He is engaged mostly in work requiring the exercise of the mind. He is constantly taking a new ‘pitch’[55] in a new situation, where his judgment is called into action. His wages are not the stinted recompense of half-emancipated serfdom; but they arise from contract, and depend upon some degree of skill and knowledge. In fact the chances of the lode keep expectation constantly awake, and thus:— ‘Hope reigns triumphant in the _miner’s_ breast, Who never is, but always to be blest.’ Footnote 55: