Jim's 2 cents, or should I say Pence

Don't look for a lot of pictures here, Von has the camera, there is one with my Blackberry, but I don't know how to get them off.  So I'll use words. [I also never asked for a camera from Von.]

Slate Mine

We had two tours, one down to a deep mine accessed via a funicular {sp} rail train.  The other on a ground level rail car.  Both were electric driven.  The  miners bid on a cavern and then it was theirs until the slate ran out, maybe 10 to 50 years. A team of four, usually from the same family, worked each cavern, two in the mine mining the slate, two on the surface cutting it into roof tiles. They were paid for each tile produced.  The miners used a long metal bar, like a pry bar about 5 feet long to drill holes.  A 3 foot hole could take 3 to 4 hours to drill by hand.  They would fill it with gunpowder, light it and then leave.  The fuses were string dipped in wax and gunpowder, very unreliable and not predicable of when will it go off or has it burned out. The men worked 6 am  to 6 pm Monday to Friday, and from 6 to Noon on Saturdays.    In between each cavern were sections of good slate, but it was left behind to hold up the roof. The mines were 24 levels deep.  Surveyors had to determine where the walls were so they were always directly above/below one another, otherwise the mine would collapse.  Pretty amazing how successful they were since they only had a few candles to see by.  

To day, underground mining is no longer used.  They strip mine--getting the columns between chambers that used to be needed to hold up the ceilings.  A Miner would start working at are 10 to 12 and would be finished in their mid thirties.  The slate dust affected them much line black lung disease did our coal miners.

Snowdon

Bummer that we did not get to hike.  There were four tickets available when we got there, but by the time we figured out to buy them, 2 were sold at another gate so we have to wait an hour. The men's rest rooms were cool.  The stall doors were 4 panel wooden doors, the walls were  plaster, and the toilets flushed via a pull chain that opened a value for the water tank 5 feet off the ground. I thought about taking a picture, but did not want to get in trouble taking one in a men's room,  what would the locals think?