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A gunnies, gunnis, or gunniss is the space left in a mine after the extraction by stoping of a vertical or near vertical ore-bearing lode. The term is also used when this space breaks the surface of the ground, but it can then be known as a coffin or goffen. It can also be used to describe the deep trenches that were dug by early miners in following the ore-bearing lode downwards from the surface – in this case they are often called open-works; their existence can provide the earliest evidence of mining in an area. William Pryce, writing in 1778, also used the term as a measure of width, a single gunnies being equal to three feet.〔Pryce (1778) (p. 181. )〕 ==History== That the gunnis was an element of mining in ancient times has been shown by archaeological investigation, such as that performed in the 1990s at Bir Umm Fawakhir, an ancient gold mine in Egypt. The exploration revealed that some 20th-century drives had broken into ancient gunnises which were filled in by rocks that had fractured off the hanging wall, or fallen from above. It was discovered that a wall had been built around one of the gunnises in Roman or Byzantine times to stop material from falling in. Some gunnies〔From the literature, the plural of ''gunnies'' appears also to be ''gunnies'', so that is the spelling adopted here.〕 can be very large: in 1901 a warning was issued in ''The Cornishman'' about the "immense gunnies" in Dolcoath mine where there had been a big collapse in 1828 and "ominous slow movement" for the last 27 years; a 1934 article in ''The Western Morning News'' related a trip to the cliffs at St Agnes: where after entering a narrow hole, about 150 feet in there was a "huge excavation ... the top or 'back' (which ) could not be seen, and the depth must have been about 150 to 200 feet, as we could hear the sea roaring away down there () This huge "gunnies" could have contained a decent sized cathedral." The writer recommended that it be made accessible so that the public could admire "the works of the men () whose enterprise, energy, daring and skill are unsurpassed in the history of our country". The name of the village of Gunnislake in east Cornwall, England, UK, is partly derived from the term: the first record of the name in 1485 is as ''Gonellake'' from a personal name "Gunna" and the local word "lake" for a stream, but by 1796 the name had changed to its present form as a result of the mining that took place in the area. An 18th-century gunnis at Poldark Mine is mentioned as a notable feature in the successful Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site nomination document of 2004.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gunnies」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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