Random Mine of the Day : South Bedford Mine

[bunn]

What, you thought I'd run out of mines?  Hahaha. no.

South Bedford mine was a relatively unsuccessful coppermine on the Devon side of the River Tamar,  the little sister of North Bedford Mines, aka Devon Great Consols, just up the river.  The Heritage Gateway is unsure whether this chimney was for arsenic refining, or whether it was connected to a

Comments

[ningloreth]

That top picture is amazing! I love low-key colours and intricate textures in photographs. I couldn't work out the scale at first. It's definitely the home of some sort of troll, but a much smaller troll than I first thought.

Did the miners suffer from arsenic poisoning? I've heard (from Dorothy L Sayers, LOL) that you can build up a tolerance to arsenic if you do it slowly (and it makes your hair sleek!).

[wellinghall]

Dorothy L Sayers, teaching people chemistry since 1930.

[bunn]

And much more memorable than anything in my chemistry O level, I must say.

[bunn]

It would be a very small troll. Like the little trolls you get in some scandinavian stories..

I'm sure they suffered from arsenic poisoning to some extent - like at Luckett mine, they had to close the school and build new chimneys because of the fumes.

The form in which it's found in the rocks, the mispickel, is apparently not very soluble (I have a feeling there's something about that in Sayers too!) But we are still told that we aren't supposed to eat too much food grown in the garden, although really that's such a small amount of total diet, it's not a big worry.