The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1928-10-26

society, washington. ID. CD
Y TIE WHO has travelled the roads
~ through Cornwall, England's
southernmost county, recalls
the vast moors, dull, dun, and
bare, on which the only interruption
TO the eyes range is an occasional
ruined pithOuse, through the gaps in
which one glimpses the blue sky; or
tumbled heap of earth where once
Phoenician tin miners, perhaps, sought
the metal which a Cornish historian
once declared near as fyn as sylver.''
At long intervals a cottage is en-
countered of dour gray granite, rooted
with granite, breaStplated against the
driving rains with slate, in granite
walled Enclosure, with never a shrub
or tree to vary the cold monotony with
touch of green.
But Cornwall has charm and 1t Is
a charm of enchantment. Its moOrs
are broken by hidden valleys, the ex-
istence of which one does not suspect
until their lips are reached, filled with
the greenest grass, from which great
trees tower. The hedges that rim in
the roads, worn down by centuries of
traffic, glow with the purple of fox
glove and the yellow of the furze. In
an hours drive one passes from cliffs
of savage, sheer hostility, at whose
feet break the most dangerous seas In
England, TO smiling estuaries amid
rolling hills on which the green of
English oak alternate with glowing
fields.
History and tradition play their
parts in creating Cornwall's charm. 1t
was on Cornish shores that galleys
landed in search of tin long before the
Roman rule in England. Local tradi-
ton holds that Jewish traders gave
its name to the little village of Mara
Zion-Bitter Zion-which is at least
as often called Market Jew by the
country people as by its own name.
1t is a pity that Psychologists laugh at
this fanciful etymology.
Offshore the Land of Lyonesse lies
sunken with its 40 parish churches,
whose bells, the fishermen say, may
still be heard on days Of onshore
storms.
Wreckers and Smueglers.
1t Is not many years since wrecking
was an established industry there, and
the parsons lame mare, with a ships
lantern tied under her neck, was set
TO hobble of an evening along the
sands, to toll bewildered shipmen on
the rocks. Cottagers drop pins in the
holy wells and read their fortunes in
the bubbling of the disturbed waters.
The county names are an ever
changing delight. Can there be more
charming title for church than St.
Just in Roseland? One crosses by
Slaughter bridge straight into remote
and furious past.
Almost every little seacoast town
has its smugglers' cave with a well
authenticated history. From the Liz
ard the Spanish Armada was sighted
and alarm fires were lighted. During
CORVALLIS all too intermittent spells
of prosperity, miners emerge from
workings beneath the sea and climb
ladders pinned to gigantic cliffs, sing
ing as they mount. Oranges and
lemons and exotic palms grow in the
balmy air.
1t was in Cornwall that George Fox.
Quaker, was chained in q noisome
dungeon for months. Here John Wes-
ley preached to congregations of So
900, in an amphitheater, built, per-
haps, by the heather.
1t was on the border of Cornwall
that girt Jan Ridd rode against the
Doones, and John Ridd is still war
den in the very church In which Lorna
Doone was shot down at the altar.
Clovelly is just across the line in De-
Won, and Clovelly is one of the love-
Hest villages i'm England.
Cornwall furnished and still fur
nishes the best handbook miners In
the world. They despise coal mining,
do these men whose ancestors have
for generations searched for tin and
copper in mines that, are at once
among the deepest and the most mea-
gerly equipped in the industry. Where
gold or silver or copper is to be bur-
rowed for under mountains, they are
TO be found as leaders in their craft
However, because of their extraordi-
nary clannishness and their strongly
marked racial and individual idiosyn-
crasies, they often do not Impress
themselves on the popular affection.
One recalls them In our Western
states, in an environment at once for
eign and hostile, as harsh and silent
men, who put high estimate on them
selves and were candid, and perhaps
justified. in their doubts of the rest
of mankind. Their more sociable mo-
ments seemed devoted in almost Ma
sonic secrecy to the discussion OF an
iron-bound religion.