User:Lycas fc/sandbox

Ore was brought to the surface up a winding shaft outside the coe. The miners' equipment included picks, hammers and wedges to split the rock, wiskets or baskets to contain it, corves or sledges to drag it to the shaft bottom, and windlasses or stows, to lift it to the surface. In later years underground transport was improved by replacing corves by wagons, often running on wooden or metal rails. A good example of 18th century wooden railway can be found in the Merry Tom mine, near Via Gellia[12] The miners avoided the need to excavate hard rock whenever they could and where it was unavoidable sometimes resorted to fire-setting.[13] A fire was built against the rock face after mining had finished for the day and allowed to burn through the night. Fragmentation of the heated rock was increased by throwing water on to it. The rule about fire-setting only after the end of the day's work was important because in the confined mines the smoke was deadly. Fire-setting was a skilled technique and was used sparingly for that reason as well as because of the disruption caused by the smoke and the danger from splintering rock.

[edit]