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Hard rock miners spread across this untamed land, digging anything from coal to mercury - like at the New Almaden quicksilver mine in California. |
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The South African gold and diamond
mine drew miners from Cornwall as it did from across the world. The emigration to South Africa took place later than that to America and Australia/New Zealand. It was in the 1880s and 1890s that new mineral discoveries were drawing miners to the Cape. The diamond fields of Kimberley and the gold fields of the Transvaal were a big draw for the miners from Cornwall who had already riddled America and Australia with holes. The difference in South Africa was that |
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For more than 10 years at the start of the 1800s, Cornwall's most famous inventor Richard Trevithick wandered South America bringing his engineering genius to the continent. After failing to find fame and fortune in London, the inventor of the high pressure steam engine was persuaded to bring steam power to the silver mines of Peru. Silver was first thought found in Peru in the Andes by a lucky shepherd around 1630. Prospectors and miners flooded to the area dubbed 'Discovadora'. This spawned the mining town of Cerro de Pasco, a badly built hellhole high in the mountains, perpetually swept by snow and wind at 14,200 ft. A Swiss called Uville came to England, the world centre of steam development, to find engines to mine the rich seam. |
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