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PhotosCassiterite - Beacon Hill Mine, Sancreed, St Just District, Cornwall, England, UK

3rd May 2016 09:43 UTCDale Foster Manager

Cassiterite

Beacon, Camborne, Cornwall, England, UK

I think this specimen has been mis-located when the image was uploaded to Mindat.

Looking at the nature of the material I would rather suspect that the 'Beacon' listed on the label relates to the village of Beacon that lies between Camborne and Troon and lies on the junction of the mine setts of Great Condurrow Mine, Wheal Harriet Mine, Carn Camborne Mine and Wheal Tryphena Mine.

The material does not look consistent to that found in the Sancreed district that I am familiar with.

3rd May 2016 10:47 UTCPaul De Bondt Manager

Hi Dale,

Thank you for the message.

It's good to have a regional expert aboard.

I know the village of Beacon. When in the center, you take the road up left ( Condurrow Road ), you will see the Woolf's shaft a little further on the hill.

I will contact the uploader and explain him your comment.

Best regards from Belgium.

Paul.

3rd May 2016 12:07 UTCDale Foster Manager

Hi Paul,

Yes, Condurrow Road would be on the left if you are coming up from Camborne heading towards Troon.

I think the problem may have arisen as Beacon isn't listed as a location or sublocality and the uploader has picked the next location in Cornwall that features the name.

That specimen looks more consistent with material from the Camborne district.

3rd May 2016 13:13 UTCPaul De Bondt Manager

Hi Dale,

Thank you for the reply.

Yes I noticed that Beacon is not listed, except for the Beacon near Sancreed.

This is most probably what confused the uploader.

Is it an option to upload Beacon ? It seems the village has been absorbed by Camborne.

But which mines where located in Beacon ?

Cheers.

Paul.

3rd May 2016 13:25 UTCDale Foster Manager

Hi Paul,

As to which mines are at Beacon - see my first post.

In this instance, it is probably safer to just call it Cornwall.

Another case of an interesting specimen relegated to near uselessness by inadequate location data.

3rd May 2016 13:38 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

"Is it an option to upload Beacon ? It seems the village has been absorbed by Camborne."

In that case we should probably add Beacon as a sublocality of Camborne. Easily locatable under that name on Google Earth, even though administratively absorbed by Camborne.

3rd May 2016 14:37 UTCPaul De Bondt Manager

Thanks for joining Alfredo.

This is what I found on Camborne from Wicki : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camborne

Here it's obvious that Beacon is part of Camborne.

But if we ad Beacon to Camborne, we need to do this for the whole city and I do not have enough information to do this on my own.

Peter Haas used to record almost all the Cornish localities.

I would like to have his concentment before changing his classment.

There is also the question when a mine sit on 2 or 3 civil parishes. Lode's dont follow civil parishes:-D

Dale, yes that's a pity. Numerous fine specimens are labeled just " Cornwall ". Here the collector has the luck he has a label mentionning Beacon. But there are several Beacon's in Cornwall and here the misery begins.

Cheers.

Paul.

3rd May 2016 14:51 UTCDale Foster Manager

Paul De Bondt Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

There is also the question when a mine sit on 2 or 3 civil parishes.

This is a reason that I do not use, nor will I ever refer to civil parishes in my locations, nor do I use the bloody awful districts that Dines (hardly a fountain of accuracy) used either as they do not make for a good geographical reference for sites.

That is one of my few dislikes of Mindat is how the Cornish locality listings have been set up. To someone who lives in Cornwall full time they seem overly cumbersome and lacking in an easy reference to true positions of many sites.

Going back to the specimen in question, I still think the best option in this case is to say it is from Cornwall and add our speculation to the description. Adding 'Beacon' as a sub-locality offers nothing beneficial to Mindat, given we don't know which of the mines at Beacon it would have come from.

As you say there are a number of 'Beacon(s)', but a bit of local intuition can go a good way to making an informed judgment.

4th May 2016 00:34 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

"Adding 'Beacon' as a sub-locality offers nothing beneficial to Mindat, given we don't know which of the mines at Beacon it would have come from."

Dale, I'm not wanting to add Beacon to the locality hierarchy just for this one photo, but rather in order to show future uploaders what "Beacon" means in Cornwall and that there are more than one of them. And if you had a specimen that came from one of the mines in Beacon, wouldn't you want to know it was from one of those few mines (even if you never find out exactly which one), as opposed to knowing it was from somewhere in Cornwall? More information is always better than less information, even if we never get all of the information.

4th May 2016 07:36 UTCDale Foster Manager

Dale Foster Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------
Going back to the specimen in question, I still think the best option in this case is to say it is from Cornwall and add our speculation to the description.

Alfredo, I refer you back to the part of what I said that you didn't bother to quote.

4th May 2016 08:07 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

I didn't quote it, Dale, because I'm on a different topic. I'm talking about inserting Beacon into Mindat's geographic hierarchy, not about what to do with that one photo.

4th May 2016 09:14 UTCDale Foster Manager

Paul De Bondt Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

But if we ad Beacon to Camborne, we need to do this for the whole city and I do not have enough information to do this on my own.

Not sure what information you felt you needed, so I have added it along with a scan of an old mining district map

4th May 2016 09:46 UTCPaul De Bondt Manager

Good morning Gentlemen,

I looked at Camborne ( on Mindat unfortunately ) this morning and filtered this list : http://www.mindat.org/loc-871.html

Here we can see that some sublocalities are already added like Killivose, Barripper, Bolenowe etc ....

It should be logic if we ad Beacon too then.

I don't know why Mindat choosed for the locality listing as they do. But that's the way it is.

Or we have to live with it or we change it.

How would you do it Dale ?

Alfredo has a point here, it's better to have a closer locality than just Cornwall, even without an exact mine in the town.

Looking forward for your answer.

Cheers, Paul.

4th May 2016 09:55 UTCDale Foster Manager

How would I do it?

Already done it! ;-)

4th May 2016 11:29 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Thank you, gentlemen. Looks much better now. :)-D

10th May 2016 09:23 UTCDale Foster Manager

So, as the trouble has been gone through to input a locality to match the labelling on this specimen, any likelihood of it being assigned to the correct locality soon?

10th May 2016 10:22 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

done :)-D

10th May 2016 10:46 UTCDale Foster Manager

Ideal. (tu)

10th May 2016 11:14 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

No rest for the wicked. Get to work finding more things to correct in Cornwall! :-D

13th May 2016 11:02 UTCBruce Grant

I concur with the comments by Dale foster and note that the photo title now indicates the Camborne/Redruth area. However, when one looks at the Sancreed area entry, the photo still appears in that site. This may well be a cache clearance issue in which case I apologise for raising the matter. If however it is not a cache issue could the Sancreed site be corrected by the removal of the photo. Thanks. As an aside, there is of course another Beacon Hill Mine in Cornwall and that is the one close to the hamlet of Edgcumbe.

3rd Sep 2016 07:39 UTCBernie Millington

Hi all,

a bit late coming into this discussion but also consider Wheal Dora in the Parish of Roche on the slopes of Belowda Beacon. This mine was also known as Beacon Hill Mine and I believe good crystallised Cassiterite may have come from this mine though I do tend to concur with Dale about his thoughts re Beacon Camborne and the proximity of so many mines to that locality that produced extremely fine crystallised specimens of Cassiterite.

Bernie Millington

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