Riches of Cornwall...

[TiggerToo]

I was recently gifted a map of SW England, which turns out to be a page from Mercator's Atlas first released in 1585.

Looking at the details of my beloved S Cornish coast, with the toponyms from 450 years ago, is great fun. But it made me overlook the (brief) description of the county (see attached) on the reverse of the page.

Overall, it seems quite accurate (Cornwall has not changed much in the intervening centuries, it seems). Not surprisingly, is preeminent as a significant resource. Much more surprisingly are the mentions of silver (well, ok, I had heard of that), gold (!) and .... diamonds.

I must definitively look more carefully, next time I go paddling on the beaches, and see something sparkling in between the pebbles.

 

[johnalison]

Can you help me with Landstuphadon? Ah. Maybe it's Launceston.

 

[RivalRedwing]

Diamonds... no; tin copper, arsenic, lead, zinc, spot of uranium & some silver, yes; gold only in very small quantity.

 

[GEM43]

Can you help me with Landstuphadon? Ah. Maybe it's Launceston.

That's interesting as the local spoken vernacular here for Launceston is "Lanson"

 

[LittleSister]

It just so happens that I looked up the origins of the name 'Launceston' not long ago. According to Wikipedia -

'The Cornish name of "Launceston", Lannstevan, means the "church enclosure of St Stephen" and is derived from the former monastery at St Stephen's a few miles north-west (the castle and town were originally named Dunheved) and the Common Brittonic placename element lan-. Dunheved was the Southwestern Brittonic name for the town in the West Saxon period.'

 

[TiggerToo]

Can you help me with Landstuphadon? Ah. Maybe it's Launceston.

I reckon that's it....

 

[TiggerToo]

Diamonds... no; tin copper, arsenic, lead, zinc, spot of uranium & some silver, yes; gold only in very small quantity.

It was the diamonds which surprised me.

Funnily enough, he writes of diamonds in other parts of Southern England, in the next column.

Interesting how myths are created.

(ps, there is also lithium, deep deep down, but at concentrations that are currently just about too low to make it worth extracting. That may change, at some point)

 

[capnsensible]

Anything there on whether the jam or the cream goes on a scone first?

 

[TiggerToo]

Anything there on whether the jam or the cream goes on a scone first?

no, but on a Mercator Projection

 

[johnalison]

Anything there on whether the jam or the cream goes on a scone first?

Not scones. Splits.

 

[Blue Seas]

Fair bit of silver under Liskeard back in the day, and a whole treasure trove of riches stored in Carnglaze Caverns during WW2 apparently.

 

[sarabande]

Plenty of small silver and lead mines on Exmoor, and one gold mine too. I think one if the Royal Family has a ring from it.

Local church has a chalice made from the nearest silver mine, which is about 50 metres from where I work.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Diamonds are highly unlikely - the geological conditions for them aren't there. Diamonds form very deep in the earth, near the crust/mantle boundary, and it requires a particular, rare, form of vulcanism to bring them to the surface. Alluvial deposits are possible, but there's no source anywhere near Cornwall. You might find tiny (microscopic) diamonds in a few places in the Highlands, in eclogites, but not in England or Wales.

 

[Stemar]

Darn it, so that shiny crystal an inch across isn't going to fund my millionaire's lifestyle and boat.

Another dream bites the dust ...

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Darn it, so that shiny crystal an inch across isn't going to fund my millionaire's lifestyle and boat.

Another dream bites the dust ...

Plenty shiny crystals, but none that'll make you a millionaire. Quartz is most likely; calcite maybe. Assorted other things in mineral veins.

 

[DFL1010]

Diamonds are highly unlikely - the geological conditions for them aren't there. Diamonds form very deep in the earth, near the crust/mantle boundary, and it requires a particular, rare, form of vulcanism to bring them to the surface. Alluvial deposits are possible, but there's no source anywhere near Cornwall. You might find tiny (microscopic) diamonds in a few places in the Highlands, in eclogites, but not in England or Wales.

We're talking about Cornwall, not England.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

We're talking about Cornwall, not England.

Like it or not Cornwall is part of England.

 

[TiggerToo]

Plenty shiny crystals, but none that'll make you a millionaire. Quartz is most likely; calcite maybe. Assorted other things in mineral veins.

The joys of sailing in and around Cornwall make you a millionaire... not in ££ or $$ terms, but in happiness and wonder.

(keeping this boaty, as we are in Scuttlebutt).

 

[Stemar]

Go into one or two places, and you'll be helping to make someone else a millionaire

 

[DanTribe]

Diamonds... no; tin copper, arsenic, lead, zinc, spot of uranium & some silver, yes; gold only in very small quantity.

Wasn't wolfram [tungsten] also once mined?