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Water Drainage
Surface working did not meet with problems of water accumulation. Short horizontal drifts could also act as drains.
Deeper shafts, however, pierced the water table and acted like wells, with water gathering at their bases.
From the 17th century, flood water was lifted by chain pumps with tipping buckets, powered by horse gins. In later
workings, the water was itself put to good use driving waterwheels, some of which were very large, as at Killhope.
Steam engines were only rarely used in lead-mining, because it was expensive to transport coal to the mines.
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