Brunton Calciner Cornwall
by Terri Waters
Title
Brunton Calciner Cornwall
Artist
Terri Waters
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Botallack's arsenic tunnels have been decontaminated and made structurally safe for visitors. But in 1906 this industrial complex was designed to collect a deadly greyish-white crust from the walls of the zig-zag flue (known as a labyrinth). The tunnels would have been completely enclosed with iron doors at the sides, the temperature inside would have been 600 degrees centigrade. The gases were sucked from the oven, which was known as a calciner, and the fumes were drawn out of the tall chimney stack. When the furnaces were shut down and the tunnels had cooled men and boys scraped almost pure arsenic from the walls, their noses plugged with cotton wool, faces tied with handkerchiefs and arms smeared with clay.
The square building with an open archway at the far side is an oven where the sandy tin ore was slowly roasted. It is known as the brunton calciner, named after its inventor William Brunton.
The ore was spread on a round iron bed, or hearth, which slowly revolved over a fire so that the core could be heated evenly to a dull-red heat. Arsenic and sulphur were driven off as a gas, the arsenic crystallising on the walls of the labyrinth as the temperature dropped, leaving clean tin ore in the calciner.
Uploaded
November 9th, 2013
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