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. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ 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 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 ---------------------------------------------------------- Mark Hinkle IEEE SCA Edited by Mark S. Harris mining-msg 2