Riches of Cornwall...

[oldmanofthehills]

Which makes the general economic misery of the local population all the more of a shocking reality.

The Duchy takes but never gives, any more than the rest of the old money does. Trickledown??? No not really

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Further musings about the original post. We tend to forget that before modern understanding of gemstones etc. that "diamond" merely meant "hard, white, transparent stone", and didn't distinguish the allotrope of carbon from other things like quartz. Also, diamond couldn't be facetted until post Renaissance times, so the modern "sparkle" (which depends on the precise facetting of modern cuts) wasn't evident - diamonds were rather dull by comparison with gems like garnet. So the text saying 'diamond' might just mean quartz.

 

[TiggerToo]

Further musings about the original post. We tend to forget that before modern understanding of gemstones etc. that "diamond" merely meant "hard, white, transparent stone", and didn't distinguish the allotrope of carbon from other things like quartz. Also, diamond couldn't be facetted until post Renaissance times, so the modern "sparkle" (which depends on the precise facetting of modern cuts) wasn't evident - diamonds were rather dull by comparison with gems like garnet. So the text saying 'diamond' might just mean quartz.

Given that this was rather simple text printed in Mercator's Atlas, I suspect it was very much based on "hearsay" rather than in-depth research. The reference to tin was probably based on hard data (centuries long mining), the rest on a vague twinkle in the travellers' eyes.

Fake news, bluster and imagination did not start with the events of the late 2010s... ;-)

 

[Malish]

Given that this was rather simple text printed in Mercator's Atlas, I suspect it was very much based on "hearsay" rather than in-depth research. The reference to tin was probably based on hard data (centuries long mining), the rest on a vague twinkle in the travellers' eyes.

Fake news, bluster and imagination did not start with the events of the late 2010s... ;-)

always a feature of the mining industry