1886 - The Blockhouse site was seized by the sheriff and sold due to the company being in arrears in royalty payments. The mine was almost lost in March to due a break at surface near Hugh MacDonald brook. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
In August 1886 the mine was sold to Mr. C. Belloni and production continued but the lower workings were permitted to flood.
1888 – Production ceased at the Blockhouse Colliery. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
1893 – The Gowrie Mine, main shaft at Morien Junction, was taken over by the Dominion Coal Company, which built a coal wash plant along the Sydney-Louisbourg railway, approximately 2-kilometres south of Morien Junction. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
1897 – The Gowrie Mine was closed and it is believed the wash plant was as well.
1899 – A new sub-sea colliery was started by the Gowrie & Blockhouse Mining Company in the Gowrie Seam with the main shafts adjacent to the site of the present-day Port Morien Legion. #nspoli#cbpoli
1907 - North Atlantic Collieries Ltd., took over the sub-sea Gowrie Mine and started sinking a shaft on the shore at Long Beach with the intention of working both the Blockhouse and Gowrie seams offshore. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
1910 – The Dominion Coal Company opened the No. 21 Colliery by driving two slopes to the South from the outcrop at Tower Road. Ultimately the slopes extended to the outcrop on the road to John Allen Lake. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
1912 – The sub-sea Gowrie seam workings extended almost 3 kilometres out under Morien Bay when production ceased.
The Dominion Coal Company initiated construction of the Dominion No. 22 Slopes at the East end of Birch Grove. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
1920 – The Hiawatha Coal Company re-opened the Mira Bay Colliery at Waddens Cove, but it closes after only 6-months.
1922 – Dominion Coal’s No. 22 Colliery and the No. 21 continued mining but both had water issues associated with ground water seepage due to surface subsidence.
1925 – Dominion Coal’s No. 21 Colliery was closed.
1926 – The easterly extent of the No. 21 Colliery was connected to the old Gowrie Colliery by a level driven through a fault. Again, water problems due to surface subsidence plagued operations. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton
1928 – A slope was sunk just north of the Gowrie mine dump on the Spencer Seam. The slope reached a depth of 200 feet before being abandoned due to what was considered inferior coal. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
Also in 1928, a test shaft was sunk on the same seam, approximately 2 kilometres to the West, near the present-day sewage treatment facility, but no development was initiated due to what was deemed inferior coal.
1930 – The No. 22 Colliery was closed. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton
1956 – 800 tons was reclaimed from coal fines along the shoreline about 1 kilometre south of Port Morien Beach. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
The work is conducted by the Crystal Coal Company and the fines were conveyed, via a sluice and stream, to the shore during the operation of the old Gowrie wash plant dump, approximately 1 kilometre to the west. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
1962 – Operations of the Crystal Coal Company ceased. Over the course of the 7-year reclamation project, 16,000+ tons of coal were recovered.
1967 – The Wadden Cove Coal Company re-opened the old Mira Bay Colliery but abandoned the operation in the same year. #nspoli#cbpoli
Coal still provides over half of Nova Scotia's power. Mining it here creates jobs, government revenues to help pay for health and education, and keeps power bills down because local coal is cheaper than imported. #nspoli#cbpoli#capebreton#novascotia
For example, an e-car has 183 pounds of copper wiring in it because copper is used in every major component from the motor to the inverter and the electrical wiring. There is about four times more copper in an e-car than in a car with an internal combustion engine.
There are about 400 electric cars on Nova Scotia roads - a total of over 73,000 pounds of copper!
An electric car uses 25-50 grams of silver, so Nova Scotia’s 400 e-cars contain about 15,000 grams of it.
Concrete is a mixture of aggregates and paste. The aggregates are sand and gravel or crushed stone; the paste is water and portland cement. (The terms cement and concrete are often used interchangeably, but cement is actually an ingredient of concrete... #nspoli
...Cement is the glue that holds concrete together.)
Reinforced concrete means the concrete is poured over a frame, usually steel bars, that give the structure greater strength. #nspoli
The short answer is yes, sinkholes are real but no, they are not a major risk and should not prevent you from enjoying outdoor activities.
Most natural sinkholes are caused by groundwater naturally eroding rocks like gypsum, salt and limestone which are water-soluble. #nspoli
The water erodes the rock, leaving an underground cavern. Eventually, the weight of the rock and earth above the cavern causes the sinkhole to form. Sinkholes can form either gradually (i.e. a small depression appears and perhaps grows larger over time) or by sudden collapse.
The New Campbellton coal mine was opened in 1862 by Charles J. Campbell, a former Member of Parliament, Member of the Legislative Assembly and executive council member. The community had been named Kelly’s Cove but was changed to New Campbellton in 1862 in honour of Mr. Campbell.
A sample of New Campbellton’s coal was sent to the 1865 Dublin Exhibition and “was very favorably noticed by the Judges,” according to a report. #nspoli#cbpoli#novascotia#capebreton#nshistory
Mining built #NovaScotia! #Halifax was founded in 1749 and its first court house is reported to have been built by 1754 on the northeastern corner of Buckingham + Argyle streets. After the building burned in 1789, the courts were temporarily housed in various buildings. #nspoli
In April 1851 a bill to provide Halifax with a county court house was passed. Mr. H.G. Hill, a prominent #Halifax architect, prepared a plan for a wooden building.
However, since the records of the county, wills, deeds and other papers of public office were... #nspoli#novascotia
...to be stored in the court house, it was important that the building be fire-proof. Also, a number of serious fires in #Halifax in 1857 led to the passage of a bylaw that required large buildings be made of stone or brick, so Hill's plans for a wooden building were abandoned.
The Sullivan Creek #coal mine, before and after!
It's one of several mines reclaimed around #AlderPoint#CapeBreton in the late 1900s/early 2000s - examples of how mining makes temporary use of land and then land can be used other ways. #nspoli#cbpoli#novascotia@JaimeBattiste
The first mine in the area was the Scotia Mine, or #NovaScotia Steel & Coal Company No. 4 Colliery, on Toronto Road, which operated on the Sydney Main (Harbour) Seam from 1915 to 1921. #nspoli#cbpoli#novascotia@JaimeBattiste
Coal quality and structural issues (including water inflow) plague the Harbour Seam west of Florence so upon closure of the colliery, production on the Harbour Seam was limited to the Company’s No. 3 Colliery in Florence, which had opened in 1902... #nspoli#cbpoli#novascotia