Geology and Mining
The summit rocks are of the Birker Fell Formation, plagioclase-phyric andesite lavas. Interbeds of volcaniclastic sandstone and lapilli-tuff also appear. Seat is an outcrop of the flow banded andesite lavas of the Haystacks Member, shot through with quartz-feldspar phyric microgranite.
There was small scale mining activity in the late nineteenth century beneath Low Wax Knott, adjacent to the Scarth Gap path. Two men worked the operation, living on the fellside in a hut. A search was organised after their regular visits to the local hostelry abruptly ceased, and one was found dead in a pool at Warnscale. It was suspected that the other had killed him.
Read more about this topic: High Crag
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)