What about Scotland too? I have some books on Scottish mining but there is little information on remains worth seeing.

Scotland is already fulled covered; AFAICR all the Landranger sheets for Scotland are available on here for assigning mines/quarries to.

There is already a country_id stored against everything it the database; Europe would be entirely possible, but one I want to get this surface remains albums issue resolved first!

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I like surfcace remains mixed in with underground. Maybe quarries should be in a separate category though?

I've always throught that a mine involved underground working and a quarry was generally an open pit working

Er ... what about Box Freestone Quarry (which is an underground quarry) and the various opencast coal mines (or should that be collieries?) which aren't underground?

Besides which, if we have a slate 'mine' underground, which is then untopped, does it turn into a quarry?

Besides which, to complicate things further I've just remembered that clay, sand and gravel are generally won from 'pits'.

I don't think there are any easy answers on this topic?

Dave

I am much impressed with Aditnow. I found it quite by accident while researching what, at the time, I considered quite obscure.
The home page used to appeal for explorers, photographers and historians to contribute. Two of those appellations apply and I contribute on that basis, although the home page seems, now, to only address mine exploration.
I take the definitions contained in Chambers Dictionary of Science and Technology ISBN 0 550 14110 3 as being the agreed standard.
All the photographs I have submitted to the Penrhyn album relate to the quarry,although maybe not directly enough for some. I would be happy to explain their relevance if challenged. On this basis, it is useful to have all Penrhyn images in one area, it makes for easier viewing!
May I suggest that:-
Y Llyr Enwau. D.G.Lewis. Gomer.2007. ISBN 978 1 84323 735 8. be taken as another source of standard definition?

Er ... what about Box Freestone Quarry (which is an underground quarry) and the various opencast coal mines (or should that be collieries?) which aren't underground?

...

I don't think there are any easy answers on this topic?

Exactly!

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I've always throught that a mine involved underground working and a quarry was generally an open pit working

Vanoord, shame on you :lol: Go and write out 1,000 times:

Cwmorthin Slate Quarry

Or any underground slate quarry for that matter 😉

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Here we go again!
If its underground it is a mine, all atempts to call them quarries were simply an atempt to circumvent mine regulations.
Hence the regs were altered to encompass mines and quarries.
It can be an opencast mine working if the material extracted is beneath a substantial overburden which has to be removed 1st (meaning that the target material is deep underground so it is mined, just by the expedient and relatively modern method of removing the ground above it)
Slate and limestone mines were only renamed as quarries by their owners in an atempt to cheat the system.
If its underground, its a mine 😉

After my previous post on this matter, I had a first time, perusal of the Aditnow Mining Dictionary. I found it telling!
I am happy to input definitions based on Chambers but can we, please, have some form of concensus? ie. look at the dictionary and agree that it's a fair and, not unreasonable definition. The legal definition is not the primary, linguistic/etymilogical definition, but is an interesting secondary aspect.
I've just spent many hours looking at the idiomatic, aspired, variations of Ffestiniog in spoken Welsh; this is small beer by comparison!
It properly belongs on another thread, but the "furthest out" spoken mutation/corruption that I have observed and seems reproducable, is 'Tiniog, although 'Iniog has been reported.

Hello All

Just logged in what a responce i am quite pleased with what is being said here. a couple of the points i noted where about diffrent parts of mines being in diffrent albams i dont like this realy unless the seperate parts of the mines where worked as sperate mines at one time and later joined up aslong as there is a link between the mines and some reference made to the connection. there was another one about there already being lots of trials in the database, yea there is i have added lots myself this is some thing that annoyes me because i think we need some way to tell between what has been something which has worked as a mine and something which was an attenpt to find something. there was allso mention of just adding seperate surface features to say the closest mine because it would be easy to do what about the smelt mills in the pennines which have taken ore from mines over an area of hundreds of square miles. i did like simonrl and vanoords ideas about altering the site. simon you did say about you would not expect to see mills ect in a list with mines would it be possble for the mills etc to appear in a diffrent color text when you search the site?

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My apologies. The home page does still appeal for explorers, photographers and historians. Mea culpa!
There seem, maybe, to be two issues here:-
1. Semantic definitions, such as mine, quarry, pit etc. This, to a great extent, could/should be defined by the Aditnow Dictionary.
2. Site structure, useability etc. This, methinks, is ultimately up to Simon, if only because, he will have to implement and service any site upgrades. This is an area in which I profess to profound ignorance and great admiration! On that basis, I tread lightly!
It would be very helpful, within the present album structure, if all contributors were to annotate their pictures, if only with key/search words and a cross reference, if req'd. If done, might this allow keyword searches?
I don't know how many visit the site and what/why they do but I suspect it could be large. Are we, registered site users, actually in quite a minority?!

Sorting out some of the mines in Cornwall can be a minefield. Same everwhere I suppose. RM and RF know far more about this than I do but a smalll example. The early 19th century copper boom.

According to Hamilton Jenkins (1964 X1: 17) at the same time as this there was mine in Porthtowan called Wheal Basset which operated until 1833 when it amalgamated with it’s neighbor Wheal music and became Wheal Ellen. It seems clear that when Lady Basset granted a new lease to the mine at Carnkie in 1832 Wheal Basset was still an operational mine so the lease was renewed under the name South Wheal Basset. This state of affairs lasted until 1851 when a new twenty one year lease was negotiated and the mine formally became Wheal Basset. To add to the confusion Wheal Basset appears to have been worked as a north and south mine and in 1857 a separate set, near the hill top at Four Lanes, was worked and called South Wheal Basset. (Morrison 1983: 294-296). This is not to be confused with the original South Wheal Basset and any future reference will be to this mine and similarly any future reference to Wheal Basset will include the original South Wheal Basset. The nomenclature of Cornish mines can be somewhat confusing which is slightly unfortunate because Wheal Basset was one of the great Cornish mines.

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As a matter of interest I wonder where tin streaming fits into all this. :confused:

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What's tin streaming, please.

It's simple really, a mine is a hole in the ground with a Cornishman at the bottom!

I know one thing, my head is now beginning to hurt! This started off, I thought, a fairly simple subject, but hell, it is now so complicated!

Help!!!!!!!

What's tin streaming, please.

Put simply it's the recovery of tin that has been washed down by errosion. This might help, something I wrote some time ago.

This brief history cannot be concluded without a few words about the methods of mining. Essentially there were three types of mining. Pryce in 1778 described the ores as, “shode, stream, and mine (lode). (Lewis 1908: 2). Shode and stream are very similar and vary only in the size of the stones being washed down. Shode stones being larger and the stream much smaller and sandy in nature. These were washed down from the original lode and formed alluvial deposits in the valleys which were then accessible to the tinners. For centuries alluvial workings continued to be the main source of tin but from the 15th. Century onwards there was a significant move towards lode mine working and by the middle of the century underground mining was well established. (Buckley 2005: 47).
The earlier ways of working the lodes consisted of sinking pits upon them, by driving tunnels along their course from the outcrop, or else exposing them in open trenches known as “coffins” or “goffens”. These could be fifty or sixty feet deep. (Jenkins 1927: 43). By the end of the century shafts were being sunk and groups of tin bounds known as “bals” were being exploited. In the Penwith-Kerrier stannary there were eleven such bals including Carnkie, which many years later was to become the centre of the Basset mines. (Buckley 2005: 48, 50).


It didn't mean streaming had stopped but most of it was from the tailings of the mines.

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What's tin streaming, please.

Just to add to my previous answer I've uploaded a short extract from "English Tin Production and Trade before 1550"
by John Hatcher. It's the best book around on the subject. Well, in my opinion anyway. 🙂

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Thank you for that, Carnkie.
Semantics and etymology are subjects of mine.
Sorry if this gives any offence or headaches.
I have made some initial definitions in the Aditnow dictionary.
I am working from modern dictionaries.
I would most respectfully suggest that if the appelation (eg.mine, when it is clearly a quarry) is incorrect by way of varience to "standard definition" (the above dictionary?) then reason for this should be appended to the image and/or another place directly relating to the workings. These exceptions are of interest, if only from a legal point of view!
A careful and conscientious use of keywords appended to photographs, works wonders! Might this be part of any solution? Far too little attention seems payed to this as well as looking at personal albums.
Other than this, I'm happy with MessrsSrl & V's ideas.

gall, wunrick and dawegard mentioned by Hatcher should be interesting then Gwyn.


Malcolm

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If its underground, its a mine

Could we not just stick to this, the way the site works has been fine until now, I'm sure 95% of people are happy.