 |
 |
At 16:17 13/09/2010, Trevor Dunkerley wrote: >When speaking of 'old man' mines, I am thinking in terms of those that were >driven from the Roman period through to the late Medieval period. You would >have a hard job to show me any such mine from this period, (that has not >been interfered with by later mining), not only in Derbyshire, but also >throughout the country, which systematically brought gangue to the surface >unless they had a specific use for it. Trevor, I would agree that it is difficult, if impossible, to think of an example in Britain but there are examples in France. The one that comes to mind is the lead-silver working at Brandes, Alpes-de-Huez, to the east of Grenoble (at about 1,800 metres OD ). The mines were abandoned in the 14th century and up until the 1950s there were massive heaps of barytes on the site of the dressing floors. The commune saw those heaps of gangue as an economic asset and sold them but there are smaller mines of the same period, higher up the mountain at Lac Blanc, where the heaps of gangue still survive in situ. Peter Dr Peter Claughton, Blaenpant Morfil, nr. Rosebush, Clynderwen, Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE. Tel. +44 (0)1437 532578; Fax. +44 (0)1437 532921; Mobile +44 (0)7831 427599 Hon. University Fellow - College of Humanities, University of Exeter http://huss.exeter.ac.uk/archaeology/staff/claughton.shtml E-mail: [log in to unmask] Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list. See http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/mining-history/ for details. Mining History Pages - http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/pfclaugh/mhinf/ _____________________________________________