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I find Dave's comments about 'sludgy' deposits interesting. Some of the deposits in the dales were from karst features. I once took two small samples of clay (handfuls) from a vertical fissure in Faggergill/Stang Mine, I had noticed a few nuggets of ore which were probably too few for the miners to have bothered with; but I wondered what else was in the clay. I wet sieved the clay (fairly granular but still with lumps of fine clay) through a 75 um sieve and found that there had been about 5% galena (separated by panning) in the range 600 um to 75 um (not including what had been washed through the 75 um sieve. I wonder how effective buddling at the time might have been with such deposits. Regards Ian Spensley In a message dated 18/01/2011 18:32:00 GMT Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: The buddle dams that Mike refers to are the result of a particular set of circumstances. Vol. 3 of Jim's book that Mike was reviewing is the section that stretches from Youlgreave to Matlock (approx.) The veins in this part of the orefield largely tend to be of a "sludgy" character and often did not require crushing - hence, by and large, our horse crushers are to the north of the River Wye. In addition, in this part of the orefield, there is quite a considerable amount of what might be described as alluvial lead deposits. These occur in both Ice Age and much older karst features. For example, in Millclose Mine, you can still find water-worn galena nuggets in cave sediments. Also many of the tips had been reworked previously (certainly in the 17th century). This leads to the reworking of very low grade deposits and the generation of these buddle dams particularly around Winster and Wensley (but elsewhere). One of the interests of these is that all the water to carry out the buddling has to be fetched from underground - there being very little surface water. For this reason we have no hushing, as far as I'm aware of, in Derbyshire. Cheers, Dave Williams -----Original Message----- From: mining-history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Gill Sent: 15 January 2011 15:09 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Buddle Dams While reviewing the latest volume of Jim Rieuwerts series on Derbyshire Mining recently I was struck by a photograph of a landscape dominated by buddle dams.These features are described as mainly mid C19th earth dams into which the sludge etc from buddling was placed. I cannot remember seeing a non-Derbyshire example, can anyone on the list provide one please. Mike Gill