Posted by Jock on October 19, 2007 at 16:27:25 from 87.105.81.146 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Mrs Tyson posted by Ed Kiser on October 19, 2007 at 14:44:23:
that land, and its mineral value, belongs to SOMEONE... yet our friends seem to think they can just go up there and start digging out this copper.
Nancy whose plan this was, had not researched the question of mineral rights. If they had found gold. Captain Flint would have needed a licence from the Crown, as well as an agreement from the landowner for any surface facilities that were needed, before he could start mining it. Since they had actually found copper, and presumably CF and Timothy had already a verbal agreement with the Lord of the Manor for their prospecting work, the SA&Ds prospecting was 'covered' without their realising it! There is a long history of copper extraction in the Coniston area and Ransome's real life model for Squashy Hat, Oscar Gnosspelius, actually financed the cutting of a trial level in the hillside but without finding workable ore.
where does Beckfoot get its water, especially during the very dry spell in Pigeon Post, as the Amazon River did not have hardly any flow at all, and certainly not enough to power any ram pump.
As for that ram pump, it really just needs a head of water rather than a flow, and perhaps there was a small reservoir that supplied Beckfoot higher up the Amazon valley. Note it would only need to be about 30 ft above the ground floor of Beckfoot to provide a perfectly adequate head of water with no need for a ram pump. Beckfoot also had a well as a back up supply.