What did real medieval mines look like?

[Treebore]

There are coalmines in America that have been burning for decades, too.

What a mine looks like depends upon what is being mined, and where.

If the mineral being mined is something found in veins, the mines will follow the veins. They will be cramped, but orderly.

If the mineral is something found in small amounts, you might get a honeycomb type effect, still quite cramped, but not as orderly. Cave ins are frequent.

Minerals found in great quantities may be quarried or pit mined. You'll find great holes left over from these types of mine. This is typical of building materials like marble, granite, and limestone, but also salt and many metals are pit mined as well.

Some gemstones are "mined" by panning, because flowing water does such a good job of seperating the desirable mineral from its matrix. Gold was commonly "panned" this way in California in the 1840's, but river mining was part of the source of the worlds greatest crown jewels in history: the Persian crown jewels. The "River of Blood" from Arab legends is thought to be a particular river that was so full of ruby that the river appeared red.

Note that almost any mineral may be mined in any way, depending on the particular deposit. In parts of Brazil and Columbia, you'll find Emeralds being recovered from small pit mines.

Coober Peady, a famous opal mine in Australia, has sections in which the miners (Dwarf-like) live underground, plucking the opals from the "walls" of their homes- and some are quite normal looking (except that there aren't any windows...). Its one of the few places on Earth in which expanding your house pays for itself.

There's a salt mine in America where the tunnels are tens of yards across, and the vehicles they drive in them are the size of bulldozers...but Venice (or one of the other Mediterranean economic/military powers) "mined" salt from the sea with salt-trap ponds.

Aside: Treebore- are you a DeBeers diamond buyer?

No, I am just a general buyer: www.lundr.com

I am trying to sell off my inventory at a high end auction in Phoenix on August 7th, I believe is the date.

But I own very few diamonds. Like I always say, if diamonds are truly rare why does everyone have one? I am more about Alexandrite, untreated sapphires, tourmalines, opals, untreated topaz, imperial topaz, untreated Emeralds, etc... Stuff collectors look for, not your general customer.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Treebore- nice site- you are my kind of buyer! Are you getting out of the biz entirely? If not, and you ever do the Intergem show in Dallas, let me know! I like my gemstones to have character rather than mere sparkle.

I'm an amateur jeweler by hobby. My collection is heavy on opals, tourmalines, and high-grade turquoise, but I have a little bit of everything- color change garnets, tourmalines & sapphires, gold-in-quartz, chalcedonies, sunstone, druze...you get the picture.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

There's a salt mine in America where the tunnels are tens of yards across, and the vehicles they drive in them are the size of bulldozers...

Do you mean the ones under Lake Erie, near Cleveland? They get coverage in the local papers at times. The pictures I've seen do look impressive.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't remember where it is- heck, there may even be more than one. America is pretty blessed with mineral wealth (except oil). The only countries better situated with non-fuel mineral wealth are South Africa and Russia.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I don't remember where it is- heck, there may even be more than one. America is pretty blessed with mineral wealth (except oil). The only countries better situated with non-fuel mineral wealth are South Africa and Russia.

I grew up in the Cleveland area, and I'm pretty sure they're the ones you mean. Here is a link to a site that explores the mines; the page I link to is where there are some good pictures, but go to the main page for the stats on the mine:

http://www.wcpn.org/news/2001/01-03/0301salt-mine-3.html

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Here are some pics from that link; check all of 'em out, very atmospheric:

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Here is a bit of info about the mines from the site I linked to above:

To get to their jobs, workers at the Cleveland Salt Mine make a daily descent nearly 2,000 feet straight down.

Deep beneath the earth lies a bed of salt 60-feet thick. It was formed 400 million years ago by the drying of an ancient sea. Limestone and shale deposits later buried the bed. Retreating glaciers left the Great Lakes on top and the salt remained a hidden asset until the 1950's. That's when miners dug a 1,750-foot shaft down into the salt from an island in the city's harbor. From here, a vast honeycomb of underground rooms stretches three and a half miles out under Lake Erie...

You can stack the tallest building in Cleveland in here twice and still have extra room. So that kind of gives you an idea of how far you're going down beneath the surface...

It's a world most people will never see. More than 400 miles of underground roads link rooms of salt where giant machines lumber in near darkness. It would be easy to get lost in this city of salt...

The Cleveland salt mine produces almost 2 1/2 million tons of salt a year...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's similar, but it doesn't quite match up with what I remember. The machines I recall were kinda brick-shaped- broad & boxy...of course, my memory could very well be faulty.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

This is the part that I find the most intriguing:

More than 400 miles of underground roads link rooms of salt where giant machines lumber in near darkness. It would be easy to get lost in this city of salt...

 

[Tewligan]

Like I always say, if diamonds are truly rare why does everyone have one?

At the risk of being almost totally irrelevant, there was an author on NPR last week who was talking about the diamond industry. He said that diamonds aren't actually very rare, but DeBeers only "releases" so many diamonds from their vaults every year to keep the rarity and therefore the prices artificially high. He also talked about how diamonds, because of their size and value, have often been used to fund rebels in war-torn areas. I'm not super-clear on details, but that seems like it could be interesting to port over to a fantasy setting.