Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Day Dream Mine

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On our trip back from Silverton and a very funny ride on a camel, we drove about 30 km off road to visit an old Silver mine. It was about 35 degrees (it was a cool day by usual standards) and we went on a surface tour. In its hey day this mine had a police station, bakery general store and 500 people living there. The ratio of men to women was about 1:50!!
The life that these miners lived was incredible. All rock was moved by hand and the yield of silver was only a few grams for every tonne.
Because the work was so hard the miners often lived in constant pain. To assist this they often smoked opium to dull their pain however this ultimately caused their lungs to breakdown and for them to die early from respiratory failure. The photo of the hole is where the explosives was kept due to the fact that it had to be kept at a cool temperature.this was also where women kept their babies - in with the explosives.
There were boys as young as eight working claims in this area.