InsaneJournal

:P
So the shale/slag/culm piles I've been taking pictures of are from a mine that ran from 1872-1953--which is right about the time my house was built.

So the mine's still right there. I've walked past it and around it and over it a number of times. I might even be living on top of it.

Suddenly my crooked floor and sad, still-cracking cement porch make a little more sense.


And the tons of cement things with manhole covers on top, that are all over the place on the other side of the tracks? I thought they were for the sewers. They're for methane, to keep the mine underneath from blowing up.


I started link-hopping and found citations of how this mine's helping nuke the local water supply (with acidic mine runoff) and then found a citation from the early 1900s about how mines legally need to have two entryways. wingedrivers and I may have found this other entryway last week while we were lost wandering. (Look familiar, wingedrivers?)


I have a day off tomorrow. I'm supposed to finish writing out my summary of the current book project for my crit group for tomorrow afternoon . . . But expect a massive picpost anyway. :D



I hope my house doesn't fall in. D: