Just happened to upload this today. Can't imagine South Wales in the 19th century.
Copper mining section between Ducktown and Copperhill, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper for sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land.
🔗Ducktown-Copper-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-004[linkphoto]Ducktown-Copper-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-004[/linkphoto][/link]

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Interesting. I would have thought that a sulphuric acid plant would have recovered the SOx as a byproduct from the copper oxide. The method which would have been used would have been to get the flue gas in close contact with water to effectively remove the acid. Power stations make acid as a byproduct of cleaning up their flue gases.

I would have thought that roasting sulphides would have caused this problem precisely. Most certainly in Wales.

I wonder if the rainfall was too high to actually cause much concentration of the acid...

Interesting point though.....

There were days in Kalgoorlie down the opencut when we couldnt breathe, and our faces were raw - the roaster was only hundreds of yards from the pit - the fumes were horrendous. In later years they made sulphuric acid for fertiliser, and the fumes stopped..

Pete

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Brings to mind the dreadful late C19th pollution at Rio Tinto, Andalucia, Spain, caused by open air calcination of ore that created sulphur dioxide which blighted the lives of the miners and inhabitants of Minas de Rio Tinto.

Discontent over working practices and pay had been brewing at the British-owned Rio Tinto Company for many years, with a particular bone of contention being the prohibition of roasting ore outdoors. The company refused to yeild on the question of calcining which was fundamental to its operations, and this resulted in a strike in 1888 which left many people dead or injured who had gathered to demonstrate against the company in the plaza of Minas de Rio Tinto. The crowd rioted and Spanish civil guards opened fire. The events are captured in the film, El Corazón de la Tierra (The Heart of the Earth).

The heavily polluted, stark landscape of Rio Tinto bears the scars of industrial activity covering around 5000 years of mining activity.

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The calcination of sulphides for arsenic in the Carnon Valley at Bissoe produced similar complaints from farmers. Dying crops bad milk from weak and sickly cattle brought the works up before the courts. From what I remember reading, the wealthy owners of the operations recieved a telling off and very little else. Was it Barton that mentioned this in his Essays in Cornish Mining History?
I must dig them out again, they are a good read.
Mercury production in China also played havoc with the land and the inhabitants.
I will post an article about this written in 1900 and delivered by Frank Trythall of St.Ives Consols, to a meeting of the Cornish Institute of Mining, Mechanical and Metallurgical Engineers in February 1921.
It's as interesting as it is shocking in places, especially when they talk of the miners suffering mump like swellings, salivating and suffering loose teeth as a result.
Nasty!

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There are a lot of records of court cases both in Cornwall & S. Wales relating to damage to adjoining property where the owners probably had no interest in the works/mine producing fumes, & therfore there was some incentive to prevent damage. In the US & other cases there may often not have been any neighbours to affect, but I think there was eventually Federal legislation in the US to prevent such discharge. The quotes about burning houses at Dolcath in Allen Buckleys's "Princes of the Working Valley" are worth reading.

By coincidence Roy there is an article in this years Trevithick Society Journal by Roger Langley on the life of Richard Thomas of Falmouth, surveyor, civil engineer, mathematician and author.
The relevance of this is he inherited the freehold of 'Mellingye'a large house with two cottages and 13 acres of land at Perran-ar-Worthal. Unfortunately the 'Mellingey Arsenic Works' were next door. This wasn't a problem as they produced little and eventually closed down in 1835. But they were re-opened in 1840 by Thomas Grundy and he increased output significantly.

Cutting a long story short Thomas was forced to live with his daughter in Falmouth and instigate proceedings against Garland. The matter was considered so important that the case was taken out of his hands and it was as 'Crown v Garland' when the case was heard at the 1851 Bodmin Assizes. Skipping all the evidence of cattle dying, etc, it took the jury only five minutes to reach a verdict in favour of the crown and Garland was instructed to close down the arsenic works.

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There is an interesting paper on the subject written by Dr. Edmund Newell Atmospheric Pollution and the British Copper Industry, 1690-1920.
Unfortunately as CP mentioned elsewhere, often these days these articles are found in obscure academic journals. This one is in 'Technology and Culture. (Society for the History of Technology). !997 Vol. 38 PT3, PP 655-689. University of Chicago Press. ::)

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Mr Copperopolis' paper is indeed worth a read if you can get hold of a copy!

Rummaging through my memory sack ( :confused: ) I recall that in the late C19th Tresavean had encountered problems with their calciner due to hot noxious gases blighting fields surrounding the mine which had led to claims for damages by local farmers. The problem was that the calciner did not have a long enough flue to cool the heated gases which were hotter than usual due to the presence of a high percentage of sulphur pyrites in the ore.

When the mine reopened in 1908, the problem remained. A new mill was installed in 1914, including a Merton calciner. The mine management, mindfull of the previous problems with local farmers, were also aware that Merton would demand the arsenic be removed before the witts were treated, so the old flue was lengthened and a new chimney was constructed on the top of the hill. This solved the contamination problem.

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