ABSTRACT
William Pryce, antiquary, surgeon, apothecary, and owner of part of a copper mine, was the first writer to publish the prices of copper ore in Cornwall. Schumpeter provides quinquennial quantity figures for wrought copper exports in the eighteenth century to eight geographical regions of the world. Ancient Britain was, with Spain, the chief supplier of tin to the Phoenicians and the Romans. In recent times, Britain's tin mines were worked only with moderate vigor until the eighteenth century. Unlike the copper and tin mines, the lead mines were scattered across Britain, with the northern English counties and Wales producing the greatest amounts; Scotland and Ireland produced only negligible quantities. Since the sixteenth century, with the growing scarcity and resulting high price of timber, coal had been the primary commercial and domestic fuel used by Englishmen. The proportion of Sunderland's to Newcastle's coal trade increased rather regularly: from one-fourth the size of Newcastle's trade in 1690, to one-half in 1750.
