Geology and Mining
Barf is a part of the Loweswater Formation of Ordovician rocks. This is composed of Greywacke sandstone turbidities. The lower eastern slopes show outcropping of the Kirkstile Formation, the typical rock of the Skiddaw group.
There is evidence of historic mining activity on the north bank of Beckstones Gill, below the east face and also near Woodend. Small amounts of lead and zinc were raised between 1532 and 1891, the principal ores being blende, cerussite and galena.
Read more about this topic: Barf (Lake District)
Famous quotes containing the word mining:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)