The Mine Shafts Project. Hydrology.

[The Old Ruminator]

I might have missed this, but what is byrite?

Chris.

Other spellings. For it. Mine is probably not quite the norm so I will call it barite in future. Yes all right I spelled it wrong.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

The ladder ( bridge ) fits perfectly and is braced in the centre.



B J makes the first crossing.



He secures the end.



Adds the traverse line.



We all wait patiently to move onwards to the caverns.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Yes well you all know where this is going ---


The doc comes across but I have bagged the best video slot.



BJ climbs fallen lode. Onward to glory.



We are 50m from Shaft One and still going.

At 70m we pass a small natural chamber.

We race on.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Darn and triple darn. The excitement got to me. A double post. You cant delete single code on this forum and have to delete the whole post and start again. The reason why I mainly do small uploads.

Anyway here is the correct image.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

We are surging on behind with the video running. Any minute now --

 

[The Old Ruminator]

The miners wheelbarrow track.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

News from the front.

" Its a dead end "

Cant be . Where are the caverns ?

At 83m from Shaft One this -



There is sobbing from behind me.

Just a narrow shaft ( winze ) down to water.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Thats digging for you. Anyway that was a while back and with narrower options we are carrying on.

Nice bit of mine though.



That phone again.







Investigating cavities. Perhaps I will chuck the TG6 away and buy a phone.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Porifera in a natural vugh.



The doc sniffs em out. Note the 200 year old timber as it was left.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

The natural bit with silty fill but its not a cavern.



Like I said a lovely bit of passage.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Slate bed collapse. The miners called this killis.



We remove the lode collapse.



High above the bridge is an overhand stope with a hole going off. A three section ladder comes in ( its mine ).

 

[The Old Ruminator]

All of the caverns were found above adit level so perhaps they are up the stope.

You know where this is going ---



Photo stitch showing the hole at the top.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Another stitch. B J at the top.



A sensible person on the life line.



Caverns ? Er no. More sobbing. There is another very big hole going up beyond the stope. Sod to get to.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Better use the big selfie stick.



Yes a very big hole. In fact an unrecorded shaft. ( with caverns ? ).

You know where this is going -----

 

[The Old Ruminator]

This requires great bravery, vision and climbing skills.

None of which I have.

Brian !

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Looks fine to me Brian.





A base jack and horizontal pole will go in to carry a vertical ladder. The first ladder sits on a crumbly knob. Ooo er .

 

[The Old Ruminator]

They get my 7m tubular ladder clamped to the pole.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

The silliness recorded as a collage.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

Brian climbs the tubular ladder which is bending horribly. He sees the shaft cap but no caverns.

The sobbing increases in volume.

 

[The Old Ruminator]

All parts of the high overhand stope are investigated.

The tubular 7m ladder works well though.





The caverns are nowhere north of the main shaft. We have some fine features and another shaft but attention can now focus on the south. ( where we thought the caverns might be in the first place.)