United Kingdom · Mining craft; Material extraction; Cornwall heritage
Cornish Tin Streaming — Streaming Works Tradition
The tin streaming tradition of Cornwall — the extraction of alluvial cassiterite (tin ore) from stream gravels by washing and gravity separation, the oldest documented mining craft in Britain (Bronze Age tin was exported from Cornwall across prehistoric Europe) and the precursor to the hard-rock tin mining that defined Cornish industrial heritage. The streamer reads the correct cassiterite concentrate quality through a pan-and-swirl assessment of the washed concentrate in the streaming trough — reading the specific heavy-dense character of cassiterite against the lighter gangue materials through visual density sorting.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Not listed; the Cornish Mining Landscape is UNESCO World Heritage (2006)
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