The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0077/00773.txt

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$Title{Description Of Elizabethan England
Chapter XI}
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$Author{Harrison, William}
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$Subject{like
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$Date{1577}
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Title:       Description Of Elizabethan England
Author:      Harrison, William
Date:        1577

Chapter XI

Of Sundry Minerals And Metals
[1577, Book III., Chapters 16 and 18; 1587, Book III., Chapters 10 and 11.]

     With how great benefits this island of ours hath been endued from the
beginning I hope there is no godly man but will readily confess, and yield
unto the Lord God his due honour for the same. For we are blessed every way,
and there is no temporal commodity necessary to be had or craved by any nation
at God's hand that he hath not in most abundant manner bestowed upon us
Englishmen, if we could see to use it, and be thankful for the same. But alas!
(as I said in the chapter precedent) we love to enrich them that care not for
us, but for our great commodities: and one trifling toy not worth the
carriage, coming (as the proverb saith) in three ships from beyond the sea, is
more worth with us than a right good jewel easy to be had at home. They have
also the cast to teach us to neglect our own things; for, if they see that we
begin to make any account of our commodities (if it be so that they have also
the like in their own countries) they will suddenly abase the same to so low a
price that our gain not being worthy our travel, and the same commodity with
less cost ready to be had at home from other countries (though but for a
while), it causeth us to give over our endeavours and as it were by-and-by to
forget the matter whereabout we went before, to obtain them at their hands.
And this is the only cause wherefore our commodities are oft so little
esteemed of. Some of them can say, without any teacher, that they will buy the
case of a fox of an Englishman for a groat, and make him afterwards give
twelve pence for the tail. Would to God we might once wax wiser, and each one
endeavour that the commonwealth of England may flourish again in her old rate,
and that our commodities may be fully wrought at home (as cloth if you will
for an example) and not carried out to be shorn and dressed abroad, while our
clothworkers here do starve and beg their bread, and for lack of daily
practice utterly neglect to be skilful in this science! But to my purpose.

     We have in England great plenty of quicksilver, antimony, sulphur, black
lead, and orpiment red and yellow. We have also the finest alum (wherein the
diligence of one of the greatest favourers of the commonwealth of England of a
subject ^1 hath been of late egregriousl abused, and even almost with
barbarous incivility) and of no less force against fire, if it were used in
our parietings, than that of Lipari, which only was in use sometime amongst
the Asians and Romans and whereof Sylla had such trial that when he meant to
have burned a tower of wood erected by Archelaus, the lieutenant of
Mithridates, he could by no means set it on fire in a long time, because it
was washed over with alum, as were also the gates of the temple of Jerusalem
with like effect, and perceived when Titus commanded fire to be put unto the
same. Besides this, we have also the natural cinnabarum or vermillion, the
sulphurous glebe called bitumen in old time, for mortar, and yet burned in
lamps where oil is scant and geson; the chrysocolla, copperas, and mineral
stone, whereof petrolium is made, and that which is most strange, the mineral
pearl, which as they are for greatness and colour most excellent of all other,
so are they digged out of the main land and in sundry places far distant from
the shore. Certes the western part of the land hath in times past greatly
abounded with these and many other rare and excellent commodities, but now
they are washed away by the violence of the sea, which hath devoured the
greatest part of Cornwall and Devonshire on either side; and it doth appear
yet by good record that, whereas now there is a great distance between the
Scilly Isles and the point of the Land's End, there was of late years to speak
of scarcely a brook or drain of one fathom water between them, if so much, as
by those evidences appeareth, and are yet to be seen in the hands of the lord
and chief owner of those isles. But to proceed.

[Footnote 1: The Lord Mountjoy. - H.]

     Of coal-mines we have such plenty in the north and western parts of our
island as may suffice for all the realm of England; and so must they do
hereafter indeed, if wood be not better cherished than it is at this present.
And so say the truth, notwithstanding that very many of them are carried into
other countries of the main, yet their greatest trade beginneth now to grow
from the forge into the kitchen and hall, as may appear already in most cities
and towns that lie about the coast, where they have but little other fuel
except it be turf and hassock. I marvel not a little that there is no trade of
these into Sussex and Southamptonshire, for want thereof the smiths do work
their iron with charcoal. I think that far carriage be the only cause, which
is but a slender excuse to enforce us to carry them into the main from hence.

     Besides our coal-mines, we have pits in like sort of white plaster, and
of fat and white and other coloured marble, wherewith in many places the
inhabitors do compest their soil, and which doth benefit their land in ample
manner for many years to come. We have sallpetre for our ordinance and salt
soda for our glass, and thereto in one place a kind of earth (in Southery; as
I ween, hard by Codington, and sometime in the tenure of one Croxton of
London) which is so fine to make moulds for goldsmiths and casters of metal,
that a load of it was worth five shillings thirty years ago; none such again
they say in England. But whether there be or not, let us not be unthankful to
God, for these and other his benefits bestowed upon us, whereby he sheweth
himself a loving and merciful father unto us, which contrariwise return unto
him in lieu of humility and obedience nothing but wickedness, avarice, mere
contempt of his will, pride, excess, atheism, and no less than Jewish
ingratitude. ^2

[Footnote 2: Here ends the chapter entitled "Minerals," and the one on
"Metals" begins. - W.]

     All metals receive their beginning of quicksilver and sulphur, which are
as mother and father to them. And such is the purpose of nature in their
generations that she tendeth always to the procreation of gold; nevertheless
she seldom reacheth unto that her end, because of the unequal mixture and
proportion of these two in the substance engendered, whereby impediment and
corruption is induced, which as it is more or less doth shew itself in the
metal that is produced. . . .

     And albeit that we have no such abundance of these (as some other
countries do yield), yet have my rich countrymen store enough of both in their
purses, where in time past they were wont to have least, because the
garnishing of our churches, tabernacles, images, shrines, and apparel of the
priests consumed the greatest part, as experience hath confirmed.

     Of late my countrymen have found out I wot not what voyage into the West
Indies, from whence they have brought some gold, whereby our country is
enriched; but of all that ever adventured into those parts, none have sped
better than Sir Francis Drake, whose success (1582) hath far passed even his
own expectation. One John Frobisher in like manner, attempting to seek out a
shorter cut by the northerly regions into the peaceable sea and kingdom of
Cathay, happened (1577) upon certain islands by the way, wherein great plenty
of much gold appeared, and so much that some letted not to give out for
certainty that Solomon had his gold from thence, wherewith he builded the
temple. This golden shew made him so desirous also of like success that he
left off his former voyage and returned home to bring news of such things as
he had seen. But, when af