Stal for sale
- Thread starter Bob
- Start date
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Clive G
Guest
Bob said:. . .
All allegedly from a road widening project in China?
This makes collecting birds' nests look like a vicarage soup party.
If the stal really has come from China (who knows for sure, it might be a supplier's ruse? - can the crystals be analysed for mineral content, magnetic field and probable source?), then you can't stop the Chinese (or whoever) doing whatever they want to do in their own country.
BUT, if the stal really has come from China . . .
Have we been telling the Chinese where all the best stuff is out there, through our various caving expeditions to China over the years? Have we been surveying their caves, marking down where the best formations are to be found?
Unless some agreement
can be reached with the government - wherever this stuff has come from - about this sort of pillage :read:, perhaps it is now time for Europeans to start making caving discoveries and carrying out exchanges of scientific knowledge elsewhere in the world? :-\
exsumper
New member
Re your comments on stal from china
I think you'll find most of them are calcite
I very much doubt that European expeditions are responsible for the trade. When the BEC used to go to the Phillipines in the nineties, several members came across a yard full of speleothem confiscated by the environment agency, they even had two large stalagmites as gate posts. The trade was in full operation before the arrival of expeditions and I suspect it's still going on now. When you're up against poverty stricken locals simply trying to earn a crust, the only way you'll stop it is by offering them an alternative way of making a living and by trying to knock some sense into (educate), the wealthy tw*ts who buy this stuff.
You certainly won't stop it by writing bizarre and alarmist posts
I think you'll find most of them are calcite
I very much doubt that European expeditions are responsible for the trade. When the BEC used to go to the Phillipines in the nineties, several members came across a yard full of speleothem confiscated by the environment agency, they even had two large stalagmites as gate posts. The trade was in full operation before the arrival of expeditions and I suspect it's still going on now. When you're up against poverty stricken locals simply trying to earn a crust, the only way you'll stop it is by offering them an alternative way of making a living and by trying to knock some sense into (educate), the wealthy tw*ts who buy this stuff.
You certainly won't stop it by writing bizarre and alarmist posts
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Clive G
Guest
exsumper said:
So, the BEC are responsible and the stal might have come from the Phillipines instead of China?!
Who knows? What was that about alarmist posts?
Yes, we really shouldn't be jumping to conclusions and blaming any one country in particular at present, unless the shipping documentation can be seen - called 'bills of lading' and 'importation licence'.
Might be worth risking a 'bunch of fives'? Anyone up for it? Bear in mind that the owner of the shop has probably been signposted to these postings by now . . . The pictures are quite explicit as to the location. He/she may even have been considering advertising such 'valuable treasures' for sale on UKCaving?
On the other hand, are there not inspectors who do checkups for a living, when goods of a sensitive nature are imported (eg. tropical fish, animals, ivory, etc.) - such as this 'collection' would appear to be - anyway?
:chair:
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Clive G
Guest
martinr said:owd git said:Couldn't some b' stard put some official yellow (way Out) arrows on them? :tease:
I do, of course jest!
Owd Git
Should they be taped off?
With red & white motorway marker tape or the orange stuff, which costs quite a bit more? Perhaps the former mite be a trite on the brite side? :yucky:
But, wait a minute . . . I've just had a thought . . . :ang:
What about Abu Simbel? When the Aswan High Dam was proposed certain ancient Egyptian Nubian monuments lay in the path of the new lake which would form. So, Abu Simbel was cut up into pieces, apparently averaging 20 tons in weight each, and completely rebuilt at a higher elevation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Simbel#Relocation
Suppose these stals have come from a cave which was going to be permanently flooded for some dam project or other? Underwater they would have started to dissolve and go back to amorphous solution form again.
So, all that is needed now is a new home for the stals at a higher elevation! But where? :-\
. . . Rod's Pot, Knotlow, Porth yr Ogof or Wookey Hole (to replace the ones that got shot down a couple of centuries back c.1745 for Pope-the-poet's grotto at Twickenham) . . . ?
Anyone have any suggestions?! 8)
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Clive G
Guest
graham said:
:
It wasn't supposed to be taken literally . . .It was, er, a . . . palindrome!
Cave_Troll
Active member
Are people who buy stal really evil and/or stupid?
how about fossil collectors or people with collections of small samples of minerals?
how about people who build their house from cement produced in the Hope Valley cement works from limestone?
how about fossil collectors or people with collections of small samples of minerals?
how about people who build their house from cement produced in the Hope Valley cement works from limestone?
graham
New member
exsumper said:
apropos the matter in hand, I remember sitting in O.Connor's bar many years ago when a BEC party, including Stuart Macanus, joined us. We asked were they had been:
Pol an Ionain they said.
The Big Stal's really good isn't it they said.
Yes we said.
Bloody hard getting it out the entrance they said.
Boycott nearly spilt his beer ...
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