Cornish Mine Terms
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Term Definition Examples
Back The Part of a lode nearest the surface.Due the leaching caused by rainwater this normally consists of Gossan.The rock in the back was normally softened by weathering and early mineral working often involved digging out this part of lode. "working the backs" or "Lode back working".
Bal A Cornish term for a mine.A Bal originally was the name for a collection of tin works grouped together in a Sett.
Bal Maidens  The woman working on the dressing floors. Bal maidens normally undertook processes such as spalling,cobbing and bucking.
Bob  The large engine beam used to transmit power from the cylinder to the pump rods or sweep rods.The bob pivots on a a trunnion mounted on the bob wall
Bob Plat  The wooden balcony projecting from the top of the bob wall of an engine house alongside the beam. It was used to give maintenance access to the bearings at the beams nose. 
Bob Wall  The strongest wall of an engine house which supported the bob (beam). It formed part of the engines framing and sometimes is the only wall standing of a collapsed engine house. In a pump Engine it will be the wall next to the shaft and in a winding engine the wall next to the loadings.
Boiler House  The structure attached to an engine house  containing the horizontal boilers for a steam engine. Its chimney stack may be attached to this structure or built into the corner of the engine house. Boiler houses were less substantial structures then the engine houses they served and often none of their remains exists. To keep the boiler below the level of the Cylinder the floor of the house is often sunk below ground level and the low walls dividing the individual boilers can often still be made out. 
Bornite  Cu5FeS4 A Copper ore, Sometimes called Purple copper. 
Bornite is a sulphide of Copper and Iron and contains 55 to 70% of copper. Named after an Australian  mineralogist von Born 
Features: 
Colour: lustrous brownish-bronze tarnishes to  an iridescent purple when exposed to air. 
 
Bucking An ore processing term. Bucking is the crushing of ore after spalling and cobbing. It was originally a manual process undertaken by Bal Maidens using large flat faced hammers against iron slabs. 
I later years Bucking was sometimes mechanised using a crusher. 
After Bucking the ore was then sent for jigging.
Buddle 
Click for diagram and picture of a buddle		 An ore processing device used on fine ore. A buddle was used to concentrate the ore by washing the impurities off with water. 
The main types were: 
    Square 
    Used up to the mid 1800's when round buddles replaced them. Normally manually operated with a boy using his feet or a shovel. 

    Round Convex 
    Introduced in the 1850s these buddles had circular pits with rotating brushes. The ore was sent to the centre of the pit and gravity graded it leaving the heavier ore at the centre. The brushes spread the ore to avoid channels being formed by the flowing water  
    This was the most common type of buddle, the earlier examples had wooden decking in the pit and later built ones left with a cement faced on concrete. The finer the slimes the larger the buddles with the sizes ranging from 14 foot to 25 foot. 
    .  
    Round Concave 
    In these the ore was fed in from the circumference. Convex buddles were used for finer material than concave and sometimes to treat the ore after it had passed through a convex buddle.

Remains of buddles can be found on many sites and are easily identifiable.
 
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