Sunset Clouds at Botallack Cornwall
by Terri Waters
Title
Sunset Clouds at Botallack Cornwall
Artist
Terri Waters
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The sun sets into the Atlantic Ocean at Botallack.
Botallack North Cornwall is wild and romantic, especially beautiful as the sun sets into the Atlantic Ocean behind the ruins of the old mine buildings which cling to the cliffs.
The stunning coastline of north Cornwall is spectacular at any time of the day but sunset is magical. It hard to believe that it wasn't that long ago that St Just was home to what was once the world’s largest concentration of undersea tin and copper mines.
Working deep under the Atlantic, at times up to a mile out beneath the waves, 19th century Cornish miners went to extreme lengths to extract the valuable hidden copper and tin deposits.
The archway is what remains of 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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