Furnace brick
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Fact sheet

Furnace brick

Ok so its not a rock, but its close...

This specimen was found on the beach at Par near St Blazey, Cornwall. We think its a furnace brick covered with a layer of slag. Look how similar it is to the vesicular basalts in the UK Virtual Microscope Collection. Note also the thin white layer in contact with the brick. What is it, and why is it there? Answers on a postcard please!

Par was a hive of activity during the industrial revolution because of its harbour. With many mines in the area, Par became an important focus for industry, and St Blazey also played its part with mineral railways, a canal, engineering works and William West's Foundry (1848-1890). We would like to think our specimen came from West's foundry, but have yet to confirm this.

Map
50.347651, -4.702492
About this collection

Cabinets of curiosities were personal collections of natural and man-made objects displayed in a single cabinet.

It was a fashion that reached its peak in the seventeenth Century, but something that is returning in modern times as uncategorised virtual or travelling physical exhibits, sometimes crowd sourced and changing. The original cabinets of curiosities were the personal and often idiosyncratic collections of wealthy owners, and their main function was to provoke a sense of curiosity and wonder in the viewer. Our Cabinet of Curiosities is a collection of curious things that we came across in museums, and a few things we've found in mineral shows. There isn't a learning objective – they're just interesting.

Sample details

Type
other
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
Refers to any word or phrase that appears anywhere in the descriptions of the specimens
Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: