Dear Mike,
A bit of a digression from the theme, but Stephen Eddy was certainly recommending buying N Wales ore. From memory, Maesysafn was one source he mentioned. Seen no evidence it happened though - records of the period are sparse. For what purpose he wanted to buy it is not clear.
The smelter flues both at Pontesford & the new Snailbeach smelter were scraped for the flue dust generally, which was resmelted and sold as "flue dust". Never seen any mention of further separation. Snailbeach ore yielded lead which was almost 100% pure ("Snailbeach Best"). I published a C19th analysis showing this in "Below" (SC&MC) a few years back.
Olive oil was bought for the men at Pontesford, and was especially needed when they were scraping the flues, said the Agent, Robert Rogers.
Best wishes,
Andy Cuckson
Michael Shaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Thanks for the responses so far. To be worth scraping arsenic from flues etc
and then separating it from the lead and zinc would require more than blip
ores I suspect. There was much coming and going between N Wales and
Shropshire though the references I have seen are of ore going to Minera or
Penyclun for smelting rather than ore coming into Shropshire.
I suspect that the arsenic story began with John W Warter's 'An Old
Shropshire Oak' where some process he saw or heard of at Pontesford reminded
him of similar operations perhaps in Cornwall and he jumped to this
conclusion, he also suggested that the operatives drank oil to counteract
the arsenic, other sources agree about the consumption of oil but saw it as
protection against the lead fumes.
Mike Shaw
----- Original Message -----
From: John Mason
To:
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [MINING-HISTORY] arsenic
> Hi Mike,
>
> I agree with Rob on this.
>
> The snailbeach mineralisation is not particularly exciting with regard
> to "exotic" elements.
>
> The only arsenic "blips" I have seen are in "chalcocite" ores from the
> Habberley area.
>
> Was the smelter dedicated purely to Snailbeach ores or did they process
> stuff from other areas, such as North Wales???
>
> Cheers - John
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