Scottish Mining Museum:
Most of Scotland's coal in the sixteenth century was mined close to the Firth of Forth and transported by sea. Shipping the coal from the Moat pit at Culross, Fife, was easy because one of its shafts emerged on an artificial island on the foreshore. Boats could come alongside to load directly from it.
This remarkable innovation was developed by Sir George Bruce of Carnock in 1590. Sea water, which leaked constantly into the pit, was drained by a horse-driven chain of buckets and emptied back into the sea. The pit was flooded in a violent storm in 1625 and abandoned.
The pit isn't really visible on Google Maps. It looks like there are a bunch of rocks just under the water. hard to say just where it is.
1 comment:
If the horses are bailing out water how does the coal get to the island? The illustration makes it look like the customers are buying a few buckets of coal not shiploads.
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