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Continued:
Access to the adit is by a
locked and gated entrance beside the buildings and wheelpit. The first
section is quite large enough to walk down though waist deep in water, which
shallows out to about ankle deep at a crosscut. Directly ahead the adit
continues for only 20 feet before ending in a fall of deads. However there
are 2 marvelous supporting timbers which have rotted away to little more
than thin fingers, not exactly confidence inspiring.
To the left of the crosscut there is a short passage which is big enough to
walk along to where it makes a sharp right turn. The passage is then filled
by a fall of deads but a bit of a squeeze and a crawl took us up into the
stope above. This still has a number of cross members but the majority of
the planks have fallen away. At the far end of the stope is about 8 feet of
hanging chain with 3 inch links and at the near end there is another short
passage that leads back over the main adit. A piece of rock from the floor
despite being very dense contained only traces of pyrite and arsenopyrite
and appeared to have been heavily altered suggesting the Hingston Down
granite surface must be very close at hand.
Back at the crosscut we crawled over the pile of deads into the other side
passage. The crawl goes for about 20 feet before opening out again but here
the adit is flooded with chilly, waist deep, orchrous water. The water
shallowed out after about 15 yards and the passage ran on for a further
yards ending in an ochrous pool of thick red water overhung with red
formations. There is no stopeing on the passage, though there were a few
short side passages. The lode was exposed in the roof in places as a lose
quartz filled fissure mixed with grey fluccan and some rock pieces. In other
places it had a thinly layered appearance suggesting multi-phase infill of
an extensional fault. Where they were exposed the hanging and footwalls had
a dip of about 10 degrees north towards the river; concentric to Hingston
Down.
Back at the crosscut the decision was made to head out and call it a day as
we were all pretty cold, rather than looking in the other adit. This of
course meant wading back through the flood just inside the adit entrance
which seemed to now be much colder than when we originally entered.
Luckily the river hadn't washed the cars away so it was back into the fog
and off to Chip Shop to get warm.
Write up by Chris P
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