As I posted yesterday's blog covering Roger's venture into Scottish gold panning I decided to share it into the excellent Facebook group Collectors of British Minerals - also known as COBM.
I am sure I have mentioned this before; COBM is an excellent common interest group specifically as the title suggests for British minerals, administrated by Matt Wall. There are lots of interesting threads and pictures to see there, including a popular "Mineral of the Week" feature. I believe because of Matt's busy academic schedule this is currently "Mineral of the Month".
As Roger's blog was applicable to the COBM genre I shared it through to this page.
I am glad I did as it provided Barbara Sutcliffe with the opportunity to remind us that there is a book published by the Northern Mine Research Society covering the Scottish Gold Rush of 1869.
"The Scottish Gold Rush of 1869"
Written by R.M. Callender & P.F. Reeson with help from Alan Bladen, Phil Cox, Hilary Davies, Sue Higginbotham, Annie Tindley and Ron Wilkinson.
From the NMRS website the contents of the book comprises "topographical and archaeological surveys of the site together with excavation and examination of the finds. In particular, the application of different photographic techniques makes this account unique. The team have reconstructed and equipped a miner’s hut based on photographs from the shanty town of Baile an Or – the Town of Gold. They have built and evaluated a ‘rocker’ or ‘cradle’ similar to those used by the prospectors to recover gold and have worked a small sample into jewellery.
With illustrations from the period, together with photographs and drawings of the project activities, the monograph is a comprehensive record of this little known event."
Available through the publications section of the NMRS website - link listed below.
If you dont know anything bout the NMRS it is well worth checking out their website. As an organisation they have been around since 1960 and have long since been invloved with the recording and preservation of mining history.
Of course there are significant crossovers between industrial archaeology, social history, mine exploration, and mineralogy (both science and collecting).
The NMRS website has tons of free information to support most sections of these interests, plus offers a number of publications such as the one featured above.
Timing is everything! The NMRS website has only just made available an excellent searchable database of some 76,000 mining localities. This has a very thorough coverage of UK & Ireland plus localities worldwide.
