John Lawson
9 years ago
jim, theoretically this photograph could be of any of the Carrock Fell Mine veins.
i.e. Emmerson, Harding, Smith or Waterfall, since they all contain a mixture of minerals, which is a mixture of Arsenopyrite, Apatite, Calcite, Gilbertite Mica, Pyrite,Quartz, Scheelite, and Wolframite.
I must add in my personal opinion it is probably, Harding.

Photograph:

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Jim MacPherson
9 years ago
Hi John,

Thanks for the comment, I'll add them later today, mispickel is a fine (if obscure) name! -beyond being of German origin (which is the best Agricola has to offer) maybe Yorkshireman knows?

Again I'm reliant on John's annotations, I have recently found another which looks a bit clearer anyway, I'm fairly sure it's of a surface outcrop and The Harding Vein attribution was a bit of (dampened finger in air) guesswork. With luck some dynamic mine sleuth has been fieldwalking the area and will recognise the outcrop, though possibly not from this photo. John used it for a lecture he gave but Richard didn't find any notes when he was finishing off the house clearance so that remains all the info we have.
Minegeo
9 years ago
With that greenish carbonatized kersantite I suspect it is from the gorge on Brandy Ghyll where the Waterfall Vein outcrops. That's my best guess anyway.
Yorkshireman
9 years ago
Hi,

Pickel generally means spot (as in skin conditions) or a spike as in a Pickelhaube helmet.

It can also mean hump or lump (old German PĂĽckel or new German Buckel), a humpback is said to be buckelig, which can also mean crooked.

In a mining and mountaineering context a pickel is an axe or pick (e.g. an ice-axe is an Eispickel).
#
In Old German Mies or Miss can also mean moss.

If Mispickel covers other rocks like a spotty moss:), we may be getting closer to its meaning, though that is only a guess on my part.

BTW: Mis or mius comes from Yiddish and means bad, nasty, ugly, adverse, unpleasant, vile, vulgar - what a useful word!! Could very well be interpreted as poisonous
Jim MacPherson
9 years ago
Thanks both,

I'll add bits to the photo's description, what a font if information lies within the fine folk of AditNow.
Yorkshireman
9 years ago
BTW: Agricola calls it "Mistpuckel"

This puts a whole new light on it, as that translates from new German as a - wait for it - LOAD, PILE or LUMP OF SHITE!

Personally, I don’t believe it - but what does mispickel actually look like? (a spiky crystalline form could explain the pickel part of it)

Further research reveals that Mistpuckel (dung heap) refers to some forms of its occurrence in crystals (Kristallstöcke) also quoted as "not containing even the tiniest eyes of metal".

So I can imagine that miners out for silver would call it a load of shite.:)
Jim MacPherson
9 years ago
I'm indebted again, Yorkshireman, for your erudition.

We're almost into a Susie Dent naughty Dictionary Corner area, but yet again very interesting generally and specifically in terms of tracing the impact of 15th/16thC "German" miners in England, add that to all the Scandinavian loan words and much on the northern England dialect must have been nearly incomprehensible to the southern chappies:)
AR
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9 years ago
"Yorkshireman" wrote:

BTW: Agricola calls it "Mistpuckel"

Personally, I don’t believe it - but what does mispickel actually look like? (a spiky crystalline form could explain the pickel part of it)



The arsenopyrite I recall seeing on the dumps at Wetherlam took the form of a silver-grey fine crystal crust IIRC?
Follow the horses, Johnny my laddie, follow the horses canny lad-oh!
Yorkshireman
9 years ago
"AR" wrote:

"Yorkshireman" wrote:

BTW: Agricola calls it "Mistpuckel"

Personally, I don’t believe it - but what does mispickel actually look like? (a spiky crystalline form could explain the pickel part of it)



The arsenopyrite I recall seeing on the dumps at Wetherlam took the form of a silver-grey fine crystal crust IIRC?



Thanks - That seems to point to the "moss" theory.
Minegeo
9 years ago
At Carrock arsenopyrite usually occurs in flattened orthorhombic bi-pyramids and is bright silvery grey and metallic. At Carrock it occurs both as small perfect millimetric crystals in the Greisen as well as in compact masses intergrown with black sphalerite (variety marmatite), pyrite and other subordinate sulphides and sulphosalts in the quartz veinstuff. On surface it weathers to scorodite, a pale grey green encrustation.

Trying not to be boring but probably failed !
Yorkshireman
9 years ago
That sounds as if a couple of chunks of what I always thought was Galena may turn out to be mispickel..

I have an excuse - I worked over 30 years as a geophysicist, not as a geologist;)

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