TonyK
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The artist formerly known as Four Track, Now!
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« on: October 31, 2024, 15:58:43 » |
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Given that Cornwall is the county that in some ways gave the world hard rock engineering & mining, it's surprising that an underpass wasn't a contender for that one. Heights there are somewhat in favour and its something that would have offered a straightforward high throughput walking route between the new down side car park and the bay platform.
Mark
I can tell you that an underpass was seriously considered but ruled out quite a long time ago now. As a former (long time back) tin miner, I consider another worry would have been stopping the digging if evidence of copper, tin or worst of all lithium had been found.
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Now, please!
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Mark A
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« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2024, 18:19:41 » |
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This put me in mind of the sight of that mineshaft, informally capped with lengths of old rail line, nestling close alongside one of the piers of the viaduct at Barrepta Cove.
Mark
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TonyK
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« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2024, 19:01:00 » |
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Haha! The first self-funding underpass.
Mark
380 fathoms deep...
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Oxonhutch
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« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2024, 20:06:03 » |
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380 fathoms deep...
Yes old mines used to measure themselves in fathoms. One I worked on, (1.5 miles down: 1320 fathoms)) spanned the metrication change-over, and the older production figures were quoted in square fathoms. I imagined this to be 6 foot by 6 foot, but no: it was a square yard! Three squared is not 3 + 3
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TonyK
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The artist formerly known as Four Track, Now!
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« Reply #4 on: November 04, 2024, 17:26:38 » |
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380 fathoms deep...
Yes old mines used to measure themselves in fathoms. One I worked on, (1.5 miles down: 1320 fathoms)) spanned the metrication change-over, and the older production figures were quoted in square fathoms. I imagined this to be 6 foot by 6 foot, but no: it was a square yard! Three squared is not 3 + 3 Levels at South Crofty were still fathoms when I was there, the ones still in use being from 212 to 380 at the time. It seems the levels continued to as low as 470 fathoms after that, until closure in 1998. The mine is in the process of being reopened. I still have my helmet (issued 1974) but will not be asking for my job back.
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Chris from Nailsea
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« Reply #5 on: November 04, 2024, 17:57:49 » |
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Well done, both of you: I couldn't have coped with that - claustrophobia.
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William Huskisson MP▸ was the first person to be killed by a train while crossing the tracks, in 1830. Many more have died in the same way since then. Don't take a chance: stop, look, listen.
"Level crossings are safe, unless they are used in an unsafe manner." Discuss.
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TonyK
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The artist formerly known as Four Track, Now!
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« Reply #6 on: November 04, 2024, 20:26:43 » |
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Well done, both of you: I couldn't have coped with that - claustrophobia. Most of the underground workings were reasonably spacious apart from anything newly drilled and blasted - I'm over 6' (or one fathom if measured from top down), but seldom had to stoop. The stopes were wide enough for a railway, battery powered apart from the very lowest level, which was diesel. On afternoon shifts, I used to drive the electric locos back to the cage for return to surface for a change of batteries and deliver them back where I had found them - if I could remember where that was. I believe that dumper trucks will be used instead of rail when the mine reopens. I found some pictures in a local news report - this would definitely add interest to St Erth station.
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« Last Edit: November 10, 2024, 19:45:11 by TonyK »
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Oxonhutch
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« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2024, 21:49:02 » |
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Well done, both of you: I couldn't have coped with that - claustrophobia. Most of the underground workings were reasonably spacious apart from anything newly drilled and blasted - I'm over 6', but seldom had to stoop. Like TonyK, I never had to stoop so had no feeling of ill-ease on my job. I used to travel further to work than my father - and he travelled horizontally. Invited down the father-in-law's coal mine, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish. Slithering along the 2 foot high muddy stope like a serpent, I felt the weight of the mountain pressing upon my back - I think he had sent me to the thinnest coalseam on the pit! I had to lie on my back in the warm slime and close my eyes - and breathe steadily - to regain my composure. If you drive a steam engine, think of the poor b****r digging your fuel!!
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« Last Edit: November 04, 2024, 21:54:33 by Oxonhutch »
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Noggin
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« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2024, 16:10:57 » |
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380 fathoms deep...
Yes old mines used to measure themselves in fathoms. One I worked on, (1.5 miles down: 1320 fathoms)) spanned the metrication change-over, and the older production figures were quoted in square fathoms. I imagined this to be 6 foot by 6 foot, but no: it was a square yard! Three squared is not 3 + 3 At the risk of being pedantic, is it not four square yards or 36 square feet?
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TonyK
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« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2024, 17:43:25 » |
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Yes old mines used to measure themselves in fathoms. One I worked on, (1.5 miles down: 1320 fathoms)) spanned the metrication change-over, and the older production figures were quoted in square fathoms. I imagined this to be 6 foot by 6 foot, but no: it was a square yard! Three squared is not 3 + 3 At the risk of being pedantic, is it not four square yards or 36 square feet? One of the mine captains gave me a requisition chit for "Oylskin jaquette", and another gave up on trying to spell "corrugated" and ordered "wiggly steel" instead. Either could look at a blank wall or rock at the end of a level in the mine and tell you instantly how long it would take to drill, how much explosive would be needed, how much rock would result and so on, and if I ever found myself stuck on Bodmin Moor in bad weather, I would rather have one of them with me than my accountant. Ask them about a square fathom, though, and my guess is they would use an obscure Cornish expression not usually heard in polite company, then get on with something else.
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stuving
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« Reply #10 on: November 06, 2024, 18:17:51 » |
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380 fathoms deep...
Yes old mines used to measure themselves in fathoms. One I worked on, (1.5 miles down: 1320 fathoms)) spanned the metrication change-over, and the older production figures were quoted in square fathoms. I imagined this to be 6 foot by 6 foot, but no: it was a square yard! Three squared is not 3 + 3 At the risk of being pedantic, is it not four square yards or 36 square feet? I fear it's worse than that - and that a square fathom is in fact a volume measure: 8 cubic yards. After all, isn't a cube a square sort of thing?
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Mark A
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« Reply #11 on: November 06, 2024, 18:41:58 » |
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Well done, both of you: I couldn't have coped with that - claustrophobia. Most of the underground workings were reasonably spacious apart from anything newly drilled and blasted - I'm over 6', but seldom had to stoop. The stopes were wide enough for a railway, battery powered apart from the very lowest level, which was diesel. On afternoon shifts, I used to drive the electric locos back to the cage for return to surface for a change of batteries and deliver them back where I had found them - if I could remember where that was. I believe that dumper trucks will be used instead of rail when the mine reopens. I found some pictures in a local news report - this would definitely add interest to St Erth station. Thanks for the link to the photos. I was lucky enough to go on an underground tour of Geevor, though in sad circumstances as the mine was selling underground tours in an unsuccessful attempt to raise money to keep the pumps running. Much to see, and a strong sense, underground, of the warmth and the sense of space (plenty of headroom helped with that, and the rock was very competent, there was no sense of vast weights of strata needing to be handled carefully...) Mark
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Oxonhutch
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« Reply #12 on: November 06, 2024, 20:21:27 » |
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At the risk of being pedantic, is it not four square yards or 36 square feet?
Indeed! I am as pedantic as you in this matter hence my disquiet at the inappropriate terminology used to describe the actual unit of area. To address Stuving's comments: my mine was a gold mine in old sedimentary rocks, with gold bearing 'reefs' of variable thickness. Mining contracts (that determine pay) were on the basis of area irrespective of thickness. The metric 'contract' unit was the centare - one hundredth of an are (pronounced 'air' - it being 10 by 10 metres or 100 square metres): i.e. one centare being one square metre. The hectare of today's field measurements being a hundred ares, or 10,000 square metres. Now, I had inherited a mine publication on imperial to metric conversions dating from the early 1970s. There it gave the area conversion from square fathoms to centares. The square fathom turned to to be smaller than the square metre (centare) and a calculator showed that irrespective of what the unit was called, it was in fact a square yard. I reckon the miners of old took 3 x 3 feet to be 3 and 3 - hence six - and therefore a square fathom. Bit like an "Oylskin jaquette".
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stuving
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« Reply #13 on: November 06, 2024, 23:49:37 » |
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I take it the source of this usage was the need to measure how much material had been mined, for estimating the amounts of useful ore and recovered metal, and also for workers' payments. For that, you multiply the width worked by the distance, and they might customarily both be in fathoms. To get a true volume you would multiply by the height of the working as well, but that's not going to vary so was left out. As it happens, for a lot of mines this height is about six feet! From the comments above that was so in Cornish mines, and I think in South Africa too. If you cut a greater height than that you just didn't get paid for doing it, but that's your problem.
While other meanings may have come in more recently, here's an older example. In reports of the flooding at Porkellis United Mines on 24th August 1858, I found the volume of water and "slime and refuse from the stamps" that entered the mine given in square fathoms. Here, a real volume is called for, and there is no obvious value of working height to assume. And the number given does look very like length x breadth x depth in fathoms.
If you want an even bigger puzzle, I have come across a few references to square cubic fathoms ...
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Mark A
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« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2024, 08:09:58 » |
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I'd forgotten the length of a fathom. Reminded of it by the discovery that the name comes from an old word meaning 'Outstretched arms'.
Mark
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