Mining Processes
Argerdhow Balweyth
Do you know how a bal maiden bucked? Or what worked a whim? Or where you’d find the dressing floor? Discover how much more there is to mining than just digging a huge hole in the ground.
Mining Processes
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Glossary
Do you know what a bal maid did? What a whim was? Or what you would use a jig for? Find brief descriptions of all the mining terms used on this website.
Key Stages in the Mining Process
From finding the right location to dressing and smelting the ore, there was much more to mining than just what happened underground.
Breaking Ore Underground
A miner’s job was to extract the ore that contained valuable metals from deep underground. To get to the lodes containing the ore, they first had to dig shafts or tunnels to reach it.
Haulage to the Surface and Transportation
Once the miners had broken the ore from the rock, the next challenge was to get it to the surface. Ore was heavy and mines were usually hundreds, and in some instances thousands, of feet deep.
Dressing the Ore
Getting the ore out of the ground was only the first part of the process. Once it had been brought it up the surface, the time-consuming, labour-intensive job of processing it began.
Extracting Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element which can be found in many minerals, usually combined with metals or sulphur. It was a valuable by-product of tin and copper mining in Cornwall and was widely used in a variety of industries.
