There was also a very hard variety of granite much used
by sculptors called porphyry, a very hard and variegated rock of a mixed
purple-and-white colour. When the Duke of Wellington died, the Continent
was searched for the most durable stone for his sepulchre, sufficiently
grand and durable to cover his remains, but none could be found to excel
that at Luxulyan. A huge boulder of porphyry, nearly all of it above
ground, lying in a field where it had lain from time immemorial, was
selected. It was estimated to weigh over seventy tons, and was wrought
and polished near the spot where it was found. When complete it was
conveyed thence to St. Paul's Cathedral, and now forms the sarcophagus
of the famous Iron Duke. The total cost was about L1,100.
We had now to walk all the way to Land's End through a tin-mining
country, which really extended farther than that, as some of the mines
were under the sea. But the industry was showing signs of decay, for
Cornwall had no coal and very little peat, and the native-grown timber
had been practically exhausted. She had therefore to depend on the coal
from South Wales to smelt the ore, and it was becoming a question
whether it was cheaper to take the ore to the coal or the coal to the
ore, the cost being about equal in either case.
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