mining-msg - 5/12/00
Medieval mining techniques.
NOTE: See also the files: salt-msg, salt-comm-art, occupations-msg, coins-msg, charcoal-msg, metals-msg, metalworking-msg, blacksmithing-msg.
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From: kuijt at alv (David Kuijt)
Date: 22 Oct 91 14:40:14 GMT
Organization: Center for Automation Research, Univ. of Md., College Park, MD 20742
Cariadoc started a thread (with the aid of NicMaoilan) on things thought to
be period that aren't, and things thought not to be period that are.
Deep mining. This summer, when I was in North Wales, I came upon the Great
Orme mines, an archeological dig (with guided tours). I very highly
recommend the tour. Anyway, the mine is Bronze Age, and they have so far
dug only a fraction of it out. The fraction they have dug out extends
under more than 200 acres of land, to depths of more than 200 feet below
the surface. And this is all without pumped air, pumped drainage, or any
metal tools. It was a copper mine, and the tools they have found are
stone and horn and bone.
Master Dafydd ap Gwystl David Kuijt
Barony of Storvik kuijt at alv.umd.edu
Kingdom of Atlantia (MD,DC,VA,NC,SC)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 12:55:43 MST
From: Mark Hinkle <mhinkle at rocketmail.com>
Subject: BG - Ye Olde Pollution
To: bryn-gwlad at Ansteorra.ORG
Taken from http://www.newscientist.com/ns/20000108/nshorts.html#16
YE OLDE POLLUTION | BLAME for Europe's lead pollution lies as much with
medieval metalworkers as with 20th-century polluters, a study of
Swedish lake sediments has revealed. Ingemar Renber and his colleagues
at Ume University in Sweden identified periods of heavy lead pollution
by measuring relative amounts of lead-206 and lead-207 in mud from four
Swedish lakes. The ratio of these two isotopes has steadily declined
over the years, enabling the researchers to date the deposits. The
heaviest pollution tallied with the heyday of smelting in the Middle
Ages, beginning about AD 960 and peaking at 1530.
Renber and his colleagues conclude that half of Europe's existing lead
pollution pre-dates the industrial revolution, and that today's
antipollution laws are working well, turning back the clock
(Environmental Science & Technology, vol 33, p 4391). "We are now
probably below the 1530 level, and approaching 1200," he says.
---
The more things change, the more they stay the same. As I recall, the
Romans had enacted laws that prevented smelters from operating within a
certain distance of the cities (or something like that). And some
people think the problems we are face in the world are new...
-Markov
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Mark Hinkle IEEE SCA
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