I have been reading in David Temple's book The Collieries of Durham, Volume 2, of the discovery in 1932 of witherite (barium carbonate) in Morrisn North pit, in County Durham, in sufficient quantities to be economically mined. The following year a new shaft was sunk at Morrison for the purpose of riding the men who were to extract the witherite.
Temple says that this made the Morrison pit and Settlingstones in Northumberland as the only two pits in Britain to have discovered workable reserves of witherite.
Can any list member tell me what witherite was used for?
Alan.
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