Mill Foundation

Remarkable capture!

Admired in:
www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance

Thanks!

Makes sense, the site of Blaenavon Ironworks was chosen for the same reason; the calcining ovens were also placed at the tops of the furnaces so everything could just be dropped in.

I think the design idea must go back at least to medieval times. It was particularly difficult to move bulk materials when all you had was animal power! By the latter 19th century, of course, you had steam, but typically a locomotive just hauled the ore carts to the top and dumped them in there.

Interesting old mining relics. At least everything other than the concrete was removed. Any idea what they would have been mining?

This district was nearly all precious metal--gold and silver, with significant mercury--"precious" until quite recently! As a rule in the American west, the mines in the latter 19th century were all for precious metals, because distances were too large and transportation too difficult for anything else to pay. The heyday of industrial metals (copper, tungsten, moly, etc.) was the first part of the 20th century. Ironically, beginning in the latter 20th century and continuing up to the present, it's precious metals again! The environmental and labor costs are usually too high for anything else to be economic. Imports are just too cheap! E.g., the largest tungsten mine in the US, outside Bishop, California in the Sierra Nevada, finally shut down around 2000--it just couldn't compete with China. I have an album on that mine as well: www.ipernity.com/doc/289859/album/431275?with=22512713

Edit: another note: the materials other than the concrete were probably salvaged and carried to the next strike! Building materials, especially lumber, were too valuable to just abandon back in the day.