>Lead smelting boles were traditionally sited on the west facing upper
>slopes of hills. One school of thought has it that this was to maximise
>draught another that it was so that the poisonous fumes would blow over the
>wastes of the hill tops and not over beneficial land. Is there a consensus
>view?
Michael,
I doubt there is a consensus - we really know too little about bole
smelting. No all boles are on high ground - I was looking at one the other
day which was located in a river valley bottom, on a ridge of an alluvial
fan orientated to face west and take advantage of the wind channelled up the
valley. Any boles which was to be effective would be orientated to take
advantage of the prevailing wind, frequently in an exposed scarp location
and that had the advantage, to some extent, of protecting lowland pasture.
However, there are plenty of examples of boles in south Devon located in
good agricultural land but, unfortunately, no documented disputes over
poisoning.
Peter
______________________________________________
Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, Rosebush, Clynderwen,
Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE.
Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 07831 427599
University of Exeter - School of Historical, Political and Sociological Studies
(Centre for South Western Historical Studies)
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Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.
See http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/mining-history/ for details.
Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/
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