John, I have been looking into a statement in R. Rees's book, 'King Copper'
which I am not happy with: 'Copper lodes, unlike tin are seldom near the
surface' I thought it a bit too general, the tin zone tin is often below the
copper, and what about the Bronze age and Roman copper mines.
Anyway, I digress. While looking I came across the following in 'The
Statistics of the Copper Mines of Cornwall' written by Sir Charles Lemon in
1838 (reprinted in 'Cornish Mining' edited by Roger Burt, 1969). Lemon uses
the 1799 report, reproducing some of the statistics in tables.
He also writes; 'In a report on the state of the copper mines, drawn up in
the year 1799, it is stated that "it was not until the latter end of the last
century that copper ore was first discovered in Great Britain".' He then
went on to say that he thought this incorrect.
As well he might. As I said, Lemon used other parts of the report but then
went on 'I believe, however, that the accuracy of these tables cannot be
entirely relied upon - many sources of error exist, and some omissions; and
it must be borne in mind that the tables were constructed to meet an attempt
by the manufacturers of Birmingham to fix a maximum price for copper.'.
I hope that this is of use to you. I will go back to trying to answer my own
question now!
Richard Amies
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