"Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:

> "Richard Smith" wrote in message news:ly5y6un6ji.fsf@void.com...
>
> ...having just cycled home
> from Portreath in the sunset on the old mineral tramway,
>
> ---------------------
>
> Do you know when tin mining in that area began? I was wondering to
> what extent it might have enabled the advance into the Bronze Age.

It is thought that getting tin in Britain is almost as old as all
recounting of "civilisation".
I think you are a much better historian than me.
Cornish tin has been found across Europe and the Middle East which is
proven by scientific measurements (? which? Isotopes? Impurities?) to
be from Cornwall.
It is speculated that Jesus (yes that poor sod whose parents came up
with that cock-and-bull story to cover-up that they had been shagging
behind the bicycle shed) might have come to The West Country of
England for tin, given his Uncle had a ship. No evidence of, but a
plausibility. Apparently the Celtic Cornish were known to be
cosmopolitan in their outlook and traders were welcomed.
Own observation - there seem to be a disproportion of caves which just
so happen to align with a mineral lode. Notably by the sea shore.

At one cove, if you swim out to it and go into this cave, their are
copper stains at the back. Towanroath Vugga (seemingly a cave) - seen
on at least one YouTube video - which is accessed from the beach at
low tide far beneath the iconic Towanroath engine-house, aligns with a
lode.

These could have been mined in historic times say 2thousand or
3thousand years ago, and nature has smoothed them over so you cannot
tell whether they are a mine or a cave...

By the way, yesterday walked along the coastal path to a clear view of
Cligga Head. Where green - copper - can be seen leaking from the
cliff-face. Bit of a hint of metalliferous mineralisation...
Suggestion of ancient (Roman and before) era mining at Cligga Head.

Something better commented...
During "the middle ages" tin was obtained by "streaming" - guessing
where the dense tin ore freed by erosion in geological time had
accumulated and going gathering it from not-very-deep trenches.
Mining to 1850's concentrated on copper.
Price of copper falling on other reserves found elsewhere in the
World, the Cornish miners knew there was tin deeper-down and went for
that, with the copper mines already being deep down the big lodes.
So the copper mining industry became what is now thought of - the
Cornish tin miners.

Okay, confession - I am not much of a geologist.
I need to make amends.
If anyone knows of a "geology quickly explained to scientists in other
fields" introduction let me know.

"Richard Smith" wrote in message news:lyfs5wn22y.fsf@void.com...

"Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:

> "Richard Smith" wrote in message news:ly5y6un6ji.fsf@void.com...
>
> ...having just cycled home
> from Portreath in the sunset on the old mineral tramway,
>
> ---------------------
>
> Do you know when tin mining in that area began? I was wondering to
> what extent it might have enabled the advance into the Bronze Age.

It is thought that getting tin in Britain is almost as old as all
recounting of "civilisation".
I think you are a much better historian than me.
Cornish tin has been found across Europe and the Middle East which is
proven by scientific measurements (? which? Isotopes? Impurities?) to
be from Cornwall.
It is speculated that Jesus (yes that poor sod whose parents came up
with that cock-and-bull story to cover-up that they had been shagging
behind the bicycle shed) might have come to The West Country of
England for tin, given his Uncle had a ship. No evidence of, but a
plausibility. Apparently the Celtic Cornish were known to be
cosmopolitan in their outlook and traders were welcomed.
Own observation - there seem to be a disproportion of caves which just
so happen to align with a mineral lode. Notably by the sea shore.

At one cove, if you swim out to it and go into this cave, their are
copper stains at the back. Towanroath Vugga (seemingly a cave) - seen
on at least one YouTube video - which is accessed from the beach at
low tide far beneath the iconic Towanroath engine-house, aligns with a
lode.

These could have been mined in historic times say 2thousand or
3thousand years ago, and nature has smoothed them over so you cannot
tell whether they are a mine or a cave...

By the way, yesterday walked along the coastal path to a clear view of
Cligga Head. Where green - copper - can be seen leaking from the
cliff-face. Bit of a hint of metalliferous mineralisation...
Suggestion of ancient (Roman and before) era mining at Cligga Head.

Something better commented...
During "the middle ages" tin was obtained by "streaming" - guessing
where the dense tin ore freed by erosion in geological time had
accumulated and going gathering it from not-very-deep trenches.
Mining to 1850's concentrated on copper.
Price of copper falling on other reserves found elsewhere in the
World, the Cornish miners knew there was tin deeper-down and went for
that, with the copper mines already being deep down the big lodes.
So the copper mining industry became what is now thought of - the
Cornish tin miners.

Okay, confession - I am not much of a geologist.
I need to make amends.
If anyone knows of a "geology quickly explained to scientists in other
fields" introduction let me know.

----------------------

Aha!, both copper and tin in one place, easy to combine into bronze
accidentally. Maybe your (or my Welsh) ancestors first brought us out of the
Stone Age.

Those who study ancient history rarely appear to have any practical hands-on
knowledge of the basic crafts and trades and make guesses I can't agree
with. The oldest books I have by people who have actually done what they
wrote about are from the last thousand years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_Presbyter

A PBS show on King Arthur and Tintagel mentioned that the town appears to
have been a major Roman era trading port. I was disappointed to learn that
the ruined castle was an ancient fake tourist attraction.

"Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:

> "Richard Smith" wrote in message news:lyfs5wn22y.fsf@void.com...
>
> "Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> "Richard Smith" wrote in message news:ly5y6un6ji.fsf@void.com...
>>
>> ...having just cycled home
>> from Portreath in the sunset on the old mineral tramway,
>>
>> ---------------------
>>
>> Do you know when tin mining in that area began? I was wondering to
>> what extent it might have enabled the advance into the Bronze Age.
>
> It is thought that getting tin in Britain is almost as old as all
> recounting of "civilisation".
> I think you are a much better historian than me.
> Cornish tin has been found across Europe and the Middle East which is
> proven by scientific measurements (? which? Isotopes? Impurities?) to
> be from Cornwall.
> It is speculated that Jesus (yes that poor sod whose parents came up
> with that cock-and-bull story to cover-up that they had been shagging
> behind the bicycle shed) might have come to The West Country of
> England for tin, given his Uncle had a ship. No evidence of, but a
> plausibility. Apparently the Celtic Cornish were known to be
> cosmopolitan in their outlook and traders were welcomed.
> Own observation - there seem to be a disproportion of caves which just
> so happen to align with a mineral lode. Notably by the sea shore.
>
> At one cove, if you swim out to it and go into this cave, their are
> copper stains at the back. Towanroath Vugga (seemingly a cave) - seen
> on at least one YouTube video - which is accessed from the beach at
> low tide far beneath the iconic Towanroath engine-house, aligns with a
> lode.
>
> These could have been mined in historic times say 2thousand or
> 3thousand years ago, and nature has smoothed them over so you cannot
> tell whether they are a mine or a cave...
>
> By the way, yesterday walked along the coastal path to a clear view of
> Cligga Head. Where green - copper - can be seen leaking from the
> cliff-face. Bit of a hint of metalliferous mineralisation...
> Suggestion of ancient (Roman and before) era mining at Cligga Head.
>
> Something better commented...
> During "the middle ages" tin was obtained by "streaming" - guessing
> where the dense tin ore freed by erosion in geological time had
> accumulated and going gathering it from not-very-deep trenches.
> Mining to 1850's concentrated on copper.
> Price of copper falling on other reserves found elsewhere in the
> World, the Cornish miners knew there was tin deeper-down and went for
> that, with the copper mines already being deep down the big lodes.
> So the copper mining industry became what is now thought of - the
> Cornish tin miners.
>
> Okay, confession - I am not much of a geologist.
> I need to make amends.
> If anyone knows of a "geology quickly explained to scientists in other
> fields" introduction let me know.
>
> ----------------------
>
> Aha!, both copper and tin in one place, easy to combine into bronze
> accidentally. Maybe your (or my Welsh) ancestors first brought us out
> of the Stone Age.
>
> Those who study ancient history rarely appear to have any practical
> hands-on knowledge of the basic crafts and trades and make guesses I
> can't agree with. The oldest books I have by people who have actually
> done what they wrote about are from the last thousand years.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_Presbyter
>
> A PBS show on King Arthur and Tintagel mentioned that the town appears
> to have been a major Roman era trading port. I was disappointed to
> learn that the ruined castle was an ancient fake tourist attraction.

We could open a thread on geology if anyone would like.
Tintagel - amusing thought.

I have managed to leave the "Contact Form" for several days now.

I rue the late evening I wended my way back on the bus from the
Skinners Brewery somewhat the better for the new batch of "Betty
Stoggs" beer, and decided the years-parked thought that my website
must have a "Contact form" needed "un-parking" and activating
at that particular moment...

The thought, like others, was "parked" because of the inevitability
the thing would be a "project". Involving learning a lot of principles
and skills which are "Level 101" to specialists but major
time-consumers to me.

Anyway, 'tis done.
Can see some psychological need.
What with one thing and another, I had a job interview where I
deliberately removed and put to one side any filter between what I
thought and what I said. Could see them reeling on the
video-conference, but between those moments the interaction was more
convivial than I have known in job interviews.
With the benefit of four decades of participation - you get a feel for
what's real and what's not and you know which way things have to go
for anything worthwhile to happen.

Upshot - "Contact form" so if more potential job interactions, can be
contacted.

Didn't know of job Services background Jim.
I'm reading
"On the Psychology of Military Incompetence"
by Norman F. Dixon

It is "unexpected". There are a few blatant imbeciles in it. But
that is not the main story. What is emerging as the main culprit in
the opinion of Dixon, a psychologist, is not what I expected.

Anyway, I'm left thinking "I've seen this in my research" and "I've
seen this when there in indication of something with enormous
commercial significance which we need to be 'first off the starting
blocks' with".

New thread - military competence and incompetence? And generality to
people in the overall economy.
My concern is that "The service economy", much vaunted for its
economic miracle effect 40 years ago, has become "People being paid
handsomely for doing nothing", surveying the burgeoning managerial
class.

I suppose the American equivalent of "now is that junture to do that
'Contact form' is... To come back from a most delightful afternoon at
a neighbours barbecue with a few beers. And have the inspiration "Now
is the time to get that 44 Magnum which has been unused at the back of
the gun-cabinet for a few years and go down their range. Next morning
having to ruefully run through the chiropracter's previous suggestions
of good exercises to ease joint and muscle pains when they have their
job to go to.

On Sun, 9 Jul 2023 17:18:45 -0400
"Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> wrote:

>"Jim Wilkins" wrote in message news:u8e39m$243s9$1@dont-email.me...
>
>https://www.businessinsider.com/slang-terms-canada-2018-4
>
>https://blog.lingoda.com/en/american-words-british-dont-understand/
>

One I've used for awhile now:

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/

Have quite a few slang books and unabridged dictionaries on hand but
nowadays it's faster to search online...

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI

"Richard Smith" wrote in message news:lyo7kkfckc.fsf@void.com...

New thread - military competence and incompetence? And generality to
people in the overall economy.

------------------------

I had some personal exposure to that in Germany. I was in the Signal Corps
which had a relatively high percentage of teachable personnel, without much
to do in quiet areas except during infrequent field exercises. We were
starved of funding and thus activity to keep war costs down. As Vietnam
wound down the focus of agitation moved to civil rights, specifically those
of blacks as other minorities were generally more motivated, better behaved
and less visible, really decent and responsible people I have to say,
including some blacks.

Whenever a black soldier was charged with some offense the civil rights
lawyers would converge and effectively kill the career of any officers
involved, so the response was to ignore their drug offenses, and that soon
spread to everyone, military discipline vanished. I felt sorry for black
sergeants who were briefly put in the impossible position of enforcing order
without support from above. Barracks inspections ceased so the inspectors
wouldn't have to ignore the punchbowls of hashish. It was almost like
university in the 60's again, with much cheaper drugs.

You couldn't quit but you could essentially drop out in place. One man kept
his heroin works prominently in his shirt pocket so no one would ask him to
do anything. For a week after I inherited the battalion's photo lab there
was a steady stream of knocks on the door. When I opened it the black would
realize his old dealer was gone and silently walk away. The room was packed
with empty cabinets. I received the noncritical assignments like that that
could be dropped to go on a repair mission.

One of my room mates was assigned to run the USO crafts shop to keep his
drug dealing out of the communications center where he should have worked,
and he proved to be a pretty good crafts instructor. I drove him around
searching for briar roots to carve into hash pipes.

The effect was surprisingly minimal. The few of us NCOs who normally kept
everything going continued to and the rest stayed quietly buzzed and didn't
slow us with their usual friction. There were jokes to the effect that
Sergeants and Corporals (office clerks) were the only ones who knew how
everything got done and they alone kept things running smoothly, and I
suspect they were largely true although the pilots who flew me around on
service calls were all officers, chauffeuring an enlisted repairman. One
joke was what should a Lieutenant do when ordered to install a flagpole. The
correct answer was to order a Sergeant to install it and then stay out of
his way.

After beer vending machines were installed I kept an eye on them and noticed
that the milk dispensers always emptied first. Canned German beer was no
better than canned American and in Milwaukee I found that American draft
could be as good as German draft.

The question on tin mining is relevant in that I suspect only a tiny handful
are responsible for initiating all advances, for example it was mainly
Maudslay's apprentices who created your Industrial Revolution. My choice was
to acquire the knowledge and skills to help the more theoretical innovators
develop their ideas into functional hardware.

https://www.amazon.com/English-American-Builders-Joseph-Wickham/dp/1298599474
I've seen some of the important early machines the book shows in the
American Precision Museum in Vermont and the Springfield Armory in Mass.
https://americanprecision.org/

Personally I tend to find solutions so simple they aren't patentable, like
replacing the shower head with an extended sink spray that shuts off when
released to not waste expensively heated water. Garden bug sprayers refitted
with sink sprays let me shower with water heated in kettles on the wood
stove. I bent up metal gutter brackets stiff enough to not need an
obstructing upper cross brace so the gutters can be cleaned from the ground
with a scoop on a pole. The rain cap on my chimney tilts open by pulling a
cord to clean it with a weighted brush on a cable, all from the ground. The
thin metal structures up there are painted to disappear into the background
of tree trunks and branches, as is the chimney itself. Wood frames stained
to match the trim and covered with clear polyester film give my house's
original wooden windows 4 layer insulation. Weatherstripping around the
edges holds them in place like a cork. Apparently your houses don't usually
have storm windows with screens on the outside, as ours don't have Rolladen.
My solar power UPS idea is apparently already a product in India, prompted
by their unreliable power grid.

"Leon Fisk" wrote in message news:u8gtuf$2h8h7$1@dont-email.me...

One I've used for awhile now:

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/

------------------

Bookmarked, thanks.

These are amazing insights.
Something I've wondered...

British servicemen - wartime "for the duration" soldiers - returned
home from Burma (grim(?)) and lived normal lives. I met one - he was
a friend of my grandmother. Used to come around on his bicycle. She
told me - idea of respect. Not otherwise mentioned.
The Lockerbie aircraft crash after the bombing - "PanAm whatever" -
one "old boy" in whose garden several of the deceased fell was able to
receive grieving American relatives knocking at the door (by
arrangement) who came to see where their loved ones fell and were
found - and he was courteously able to do it and show them the garden
and the places because he had been in Burma... Just to give some idea
of immediacy to American interests. They were going to re-house him
but he said it wasn't necessary - explained he'd been in Burma and
seen it all.

American servicement returning from Vietnam - often struggled to
assimilate back into society. I've met at least one, working in the
US.

So - how / why / what the difference?

I'm going to do a shameless plug on a new thread.
Something made possible because of "Contact Form".
What I posted on "LinkedIn" ...

"Richard Smith" wrote in message news:lya5w33j1d.fsf@void.com...

These are amazing insights.
Something I've wondered...

British servicemen - wartime "for the duration" soldiers - returned
home from Burma (grim(?)) and lived normal lives. I met one - he was
a friend of my grandmother. Used to come around on his bicycle. She
told me - idea of respect. Not otherwise mentioned.
The Lockerbie aircraft crash after the bombing - "PanAm whatever" -
one "old boy" in whose garden several of the deceased fell was able to
receive grieving American relatives knocking at the door (by
arrangement) who came to see where their loved ones fell and were
found - and he was courteously able to do it and show them the garden
and the places because he had been in Burma... Just to give some idea
of immediacy to American interests. They were going to re-house him
but he said it wasn't necessary - explained he'd been in Burma and
seen it all.

American servicement returning from Vietnam - often struggled to
assimilate back into society. I've met at least one, working in the
US.

So - how / why / what the difference?

----------------------

I was never in combat and my father and uncle served in an Air Corps
ordnance company as CO and 1st Sergeant and didn't see it up close either.
My only exposure to mangled, decaying corpses has been roadkill and cleaning
up human blood after the body was removed.

"The Red Badge of Courage" is claimed to be very realistic although the
author didn't have first-hand experience. "Storms of Steel" which I'm part
way through is first hand experience of WW1 trench warfare by a capable
writer. I'm glad he didn't show photos of the mangled human roadkill he
described.
https://www.ww2incolor.com/api/image/188bdb31-5dd4-4201-b4f7-c6de7d57ac71.jpeg

"Richard Smith" wrote in message news:lya5w33j1d.fsf@void.com...

They were going to re-house him
but he said it wasn't necessary - explained he'd been in Burma and
seen it all.

American servicement returning from Vietnam - often struggled to
assimilate back into society. I've met at least one, working in the
US.

So - how / why / what the difference?

---------------------
In the memoirs I've read noncombatants were either absent or not hostile,
the casualties were armed troops. Perhaps the reason for the difference is
that we tried to impose Peace on civilian populations that sought Justice
(revenge) instead.

Like Ulster and Palestine.

An illustrative tale is a GI arriving in Vietnam and being driven to his new
unit in a Jeep, accompanied by a guard with a shotgun. He noticed a young
couple on a motorbike pull up beside the Jeep, whereupon the guard blew the
guy's head off and they swerved into the ditch.
1 2
3 He was frozen in horror until the girl's grenade exploded and he realized
why.

"Jim Wilkins" <muratlanne@gmail.com> writes:

> "Richard Smith" wrote in message news:lya5w33j1d.fsf@void.com...
>
> They were going to re-house him
> but he said it wasn't necessary - explained he'd been in Burma and
> seen it all.
>
> American servicement returning from Vietnam - often struggled to
> assimilate back into society. I've met at least one, working in the
> US.
>
> So - how / why / what the difference?
>
> ---------------------
> In the memoirs I've read noncombatants were either absent or not
> hostile, the casualties were armed troops. Perhaps the reason for the
> difference is that we tried to impose Peace on civilian populations
> that sought Justice (revenge) instead.
>
> Like Ulster and Palestine.
>
> An illustrative tale is a GI arriving in Vietnam and being driven to
> his new unit in a Jeep, accompanied by a guard with a shotgun. He
> noticed a young couple on a motorbike pull up beside the Jeep,
> whereupon the guard blew the guy's head off and they swerved into the
> ditch.
> 1
> 2
> 3
> He was frozen in horror until the girl's grenade exploded and he
> realized why.

Fair hypothesis for the difference...