Whiteworks was a great shame, sadly one I didn't get to see. There is a footway shaft which is about the same distance to the left (on the screen) as the distance between Whiteworks No1 Shaft (with ladders) and the vent shaft. I think it could possibly be in the undergrowth the other side of the track and is capped by some means. It's on the plan. We tried getting to it up the adit and the timbering was pretty horrible, however, a subsequent trip up the adit (with particularly low water levels) got past the timber and a fair way to a collapse. It's quite difficult to make sense of the adit in that area, as it's hell of a windy and the Carharrack mine adit is not on any of the newer or older plans.

Oddly enough, the united branch of the adit (which appears to have the branch into Whiteworks seems to dip towards united, which is the reverse of what you'd expect. I wonder if it has something to do with Elgin's little engine which was used to pump water up to the surface for the big engines. However, I would have expected them to have used a dam, rather than dipping the whole adit.

The alternative is that West Virgin was drained through United via that branch and then when County adit was driven into it they somehow used that branch to pump upwards, unless they were pumping out of another branch. (Unlikely to be through Squire/Tingtang/Damsel).

Another interest you've hit on there 🙂

Finding the tin is not that much of a problem once you've seen it in its many guises.
If it's bound up in rock you need to do some primary crushing, such as a sledgehammer on an anvil. I use a piece of 1" plate steel in the bottom of a wooden box to contain the flying shards and just use the sledge hammer as an African would do crushing corn. Once it's been reduced to bits from .50" to dust it can then be transferred to a cement mixer with a good handfull of heavy nuts and bolts and a slow water feed to wash off the detritus. You would be mighty surprised at just how efficient this is.
As for smelting, I used activated charcoal, but only because i had access to a large bag of it at the time, and that worked a treat in an electric muffle furnace set to 1200C.
Recovery was extremely good, but like Mike I too was using Whiteworks ore. There's some to be had at Cligga if you don't mind a short dangle. 😉

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Fascinating stuff. I will be having a go at this.

I'll also have a go at Zinc and Lead in due course. Cobalt is the holy grail!

It all seems moderately straight forward, apart from the separation of tin from the associated gangue. It's all very well reading about it, but doing it is a whole different matter.

Thanks for your input chaps, I'll give it a go and see how I get on.

I did find a big block of tin ore, almost pure judging by the weight of it at Metal Work near Porthtowan and as I had no pockets, I put it on top of a big rock......and walked right past it on the way back! I gather the area turns up such stones from time to time.

You could always copy Brian Earl Stuey when he replicated Bronze Age smelting at the Oriental Institute in 1994.
http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Personal-Album-272/Tin-Smelting-at-the-Oriental-Institute.pdf 

Just a thought.

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