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Updated: May 8, 2025
Archelaus and the child had been found wandering on the moor by Botallack mine, now long disused; Jim was crying with hunger and alarm and the old man babbling of the days when he had worked there. He was trying to find one particular shaft to show the child, he said.
You know, there's no one I'm really friends with, only Vassie and you, and I shan't see her any more now. And you never come near me...." Ishmael felt a guilty pang as he realised this was true; he cast about to lead the talk elsewhere. "You were great friends with Archelaus while he was at Botallack last autumn, I've heard," he said teasingly.
Formerly it was worked for tin, and at one period was doing so badly that it was about to be abandoned, when an unlooked for discovery of copper was made, and a period of great prosperity again set in, during which many shareholders and miners made their fortunes out of Botallack. Thus much, with a humble apology, we present to the reader, and now resume the thread of our narrative.
Take, for example, the progress of a mass of tin from Botallack. Watch yonder stalwart miner at work, deep in the bowels of the mine. Slowly, with powerful blows, he bores a hole in the hard rock. After one, two, or three hours of incessant toil, it is ready for the powder.
From whatever point viewed, the aspect of Botallack mine is grand in the extreme. On the rocky point that stretches out into the sea, engines with all their fantastic machinery and buildings have been erected.
The tin raised is from 33 to 35 tons a month. The price of tin has varied from 55 pounds to 90 pounds per ton. In time past, when Botallack was more of a copper than a tin-mine, a fathom has been known to yield 100 pounds worth of ore, and a miner has sometimes broken out as much as 300 pounds worth in one month. The mine has been worked from time immemorial.
The men stand in the narrow chasm between the granite walls above each others' heads, slight temporary platforms alone preserving them from certain death, and the candles of those highest above you twinkling like stars in a black sky. In these underground regions of Botallack, above three hundred men and boys are employed, some of whom work occasionally by night as well as by day.
For many years a blind man worked in the Botallack Mine, and supported a large family by his labour. So complete was his recollection of every turning and winding, that he became a guide to his fellow-labourers, when by any accident their lights were extinguished. He being afterwards cruelly discharged, engaged himself as an attendant to some bricklayers.
"Are you going to work?" inquired Oliver of David Trevarrow, observing that the man was about to quit the cottage. "Iss, sur to Botallack." "Then I will accompany you. Captain Dan is going to show me over part of the mine to-day. Good-morning, Mrs Maggot, and remember my directions if this should happen to the little fellow again."
Also Botallack mine was then in full work and swallowing young men, though for poor enough wage. One way and another, managing the farm was none too easy, and so John-James had found. He looked with as much interest as his stolid mind could compass to the return of Ishmael, with the power of the purse-strings and the expenses of his own education at an end, to work something of a miracle at Cloom.
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