The spar at this site was almost certainly barytes, which the mine was
worked for at a later date & I have not heard of fluorspar occuring in this
area - although I think some was obtained from Snailbeach.
Your mention of early use of fluorspar in lead smelting is of interest; the
earliest large scale use I am aware of was in the Swansea copper smelting
industry from about 1815 or so. Large quantities were obtained from the
Gwennap & Bere Alston mines, which may have produced several hunderd
thousand tons in total (most works state the production from SW England was
insignificant, which is clearly incorrect). At the conference in Exeter
last year I asked if anyone was aware of other metallurgical use of
fluorspar before the late 19th C, with no response apart from the
suggestion it was not used in lead smelting as most lead ores (at least
from Pennine areas) would contain fluorspar anyway. It would be interesting
to hear more about the 1680's ref to its use in lead smelting you mention.
There is a reference in the Boulton & Watt papers at Truro to using
fluorspar as a flux for copper smelting, but only on an experimental scale.
Alasdair Neill.
On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 14:30:02 -0000, Peter King
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>John Wilkinson ironmaster is of course a well-known figure, with several
>coke ironworks in the west Midlands and Denbighshire. He also had lead
>mining interests, I think at Minera. The late Janet Butler got close to
>completing a doctoral thesis on him, but died before doing so. Her papers
>are in the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Library; I am not sure whether it is
>necessary to have permission to see them.
>
>Spar might be fluorspar, which was amongst other things a known flux for
>smelting lead by the 1680s.
>
>Peter King
>49, Stourbridge Road,
>Hagley,
>Stourbridge
>West Midlands
>DY9 0QS
>01562-720368
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
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