went to the bung amung other places to day and there was no water going down it yes no water i had never rialied how fake it was the back of it is intilely fake. but more importantly roll on the drout of 2005 things are looking up.

Henry,

I can only assume you are marvelling at the skill of the miners in building such a good dam to hold the water back in the level! Yes the bung is "fake" - it's not natural! If you look under the wall you can still see the "bung" that holds the water in. Originally the miners regulated the water level by raising and lowering the bung as a sluice, in combination with the overflow into the "Bottomless Pit". They could drain the whole lot if they wanted to. The bung is the most important part of the whole engineering feat that was/is Speedwell. In dry weather the water actually sinks somewhere upstream from pit props and then reappears to the right of the bung as you look upstream. If the water is that low it's a good time to spot the miners original way in from Pilkingtons series - look underwater just upstream from the bung on the right and you can see the downstream end of the passage that is sumped in Pilkingtons. Basically what the miners did was blast the roof off the original stream passage in an upstream direction from the bung to the whirlpool until they ended up with the level in the roof and the stream in the floor. They then built the "bung" and dammed the water back to the level of the whirlpool to flood the canals. The original way in would have been a roof level inlet in a streamway. Hope this makes sense.

Dan

yes some sence. i was mavaling at the enginiring of it
the water is not that low but it is the lowest i have seem it by 3 or 4 inches.

henry

Damn - its been raining here on and off all evening - seems to be getting heavier.

It seems like all the hope valley digging teams are praying for a dry summer.
Bagshawe upstream digs, The Rasp diggers in peak and Becky with his calf pingle cartgate.

still, keep you eye on this

http://www.metoffice.com/climate/uk/2005/rainfall.html

copared with the last real drought we had

http://www.metoffice.com/climate/uk/2003/rainfall.html

looks promising - especially when you see november and december of 2004

http://www.metoffice.com/climate/uk/2004/rainfall.html

1) Henry. when you say you didn't know it was fake. what do you mean?

2) as for droughts. my definition of a drought is where you can get through to sump 4 of P8. that didn't happen in 2003 AFAIK

well i now the bung was not natral but i did not realis it was that unatral i not we are not ther yet but we can hope cant we

I was there in 198whatsit when ever it was. Great trip that was - all the way to that plug hole style sump with the ladder dissapearing in the water.

No it didnt drop that much in 2003 - but namread sump in baggers completely dried up which people I know have said has never happened (to their knowlege) and the resurgence stopped flowing so I'd say it was a pretty dry august.

fingers crossed for this year.

Right - nobody mention droughts again :evil:

anytime anybody ever does - it rains solid for the next week. :cuss:

sorry

The P8 upstream sump is down about 20 feet at the moment! Need to get a trip in P7 soon to see whats happening to the levels in there.

Superb news. Look forward to having a peek - what you doing tomorrow evening Dan?

I was thinking of going in on Wednesday but can probably rearrange if necessary.

Went in P7 last night with The Boys. Both sumps had dropped about
-









-this much. I think you owe us a beer now Dan...

It wasn't a copmletely wasted trip through. Removed almost all the digging equipment from P7 ready to be used in P6. Speaking of which, does anybody know who dug in P6 years back? I managed to squeeze through a gap at the end of their dig and stumbed into a pristine 6m x 4m x 3m chamber with nice mud formations, a draughting easily dug tube on and a shovel in the corner . Would be nice to know how the other guys got there...

I'm biding my time - ask anyone who was there about the howling draught that was blowing out of the wormhole two years ago. It definitely wasn't a circular draught. We'll see! At least it's early in the season and water levels are already falling.

I'll do some research but I seem to remember a chap called Richard Gibson was digging in P6 and found a chamber similar to what you're describing. Not sure when this was but it was a few years ago now. He was all set to keep going but lost the extension he made to flooding, the usual story down there.

P7 is not finished yet!!!

Dan . p7 must be finished as
1) Rob's taken all the digging kit out
2) he says...

come on who do you think you are? anyone would think you were digging it since before he passed his GCSEs

I never said it was finished. Just letting you know that the guys who've been digging down there for the past 2 years have stopped.

Dan - I take it there's not much point in going down tonight then....

Rob - it'll be a circular draught in P6 :tom:

mudmonkey said:

Rob - it'll be a circular draught in P6 :tom:

Click to expand...

Quite possibly. However I don't think so because you have to go up a tube to get to this chamber and the draught comes down it towards you, so if it is circular then it's powered by something other than body heat. There are old accounts of a passage in there 200 yards long that has been lost, which would be nice...

Rob said:

I managed to squeeze through a gap at the end of their dig and stumbed into a pristine 6m x 4m x 3m chamber with nice mud formations, a draughting easily dug tube on and a shovel in the corner . Would be nice to know how the other guys got there...

Click to expand...

They probably squeezed through a gap at the end of their dig :roll:

.

I remember Nick and Eddie in P6 last year harping on about some old survey they had. Surely they are the guys to speak to.

Didnt they do some digging in there and discover the top of a ladder or sommat.