Editing Gunnies (section)

===A house of water===
Another problem caused to later mining was if a gunnies became flooded, when it would sometimes be called "a gunnies of water", but more often "a house of water".<ref>{{cite book
| last=Wright| first=Joseph| author-link=Joseph Wright (linguist)
| title=[[English Dialect Dictionary]] Vol. II
| year=1900| page= 764
}}</ref> In his ''Mineralogia Cornubiensis'' of 1778, William Pryce talks of the care taken by miners when they thought they might be digging an adit towards a house of water: they ensured that they used an iron rod to bore a small hole several feet ahead of their main pickaxe excavation; by so doing they received advance warning of breaking into a huge volume of water.<ref name=P168>Pryce (1778) [https://archive.org/stream/mineralogiacorn00prycgoog#page/n222/mode/1up p. 168.]</ref> Despite this care, Pryce reported that the water pressure could quickly enlarge the small hole and uncontrollably flood the mine; he also stated that men were paid extra money for working in such dangerous areas and that he was aware of miners being killed when doing this.<ref name=P168 />

The Victorian author [[R. M. Ballantyne]]'s novel ''Deep Down; a Tale of the Cornish Mines'' includes a chapter entitled "Describes 'holing to a house of water' and its terrible consequences."<ref>{{cite book
| last=Ballantyne| first=R. M.| author-link=R. M. Ballantyne
| title=Deep Down; a Tale of the Cornish Mines
| publisher=J. B. Lippincott & Co| location=Philadelphia
| year=1883 |orig-year=1868| pages=200–218
| url=https://archive.org/stream/deepdownataleco00ballgoog#page/n221/mode/2up
}}</ref> In his later book of personal reminiscences entitled ''An Author's Adventures'', Ballantyne states that his visits to the mines of the [[St Just in Penwith|St Just]] area of Cornwall in 1868 were an inspiration for his novel. His reminiscences include a mine captain named Jan telling him about a house of water that was discovered in [[Botallack Mine]] and how it was cleared.<ref>{{cite book
| last=Ballantyne| first=R. M.| author-link=R. M. Ballantyne
| title=An Author's Adventures, or Personal Reminiscences in Book-making
| publisher=James Nisbet| location=London
| year=1893| pages=90–91
| isbn=978-0-665-50418-1| url=https://archive.org/stream/cihm_50418#page/n107/mode/2up}}</ref>

The greatest loss of life in Cornwall caused by "holing into a house of water" occurred at [[Wheal Owles]] in January 1893. Twenty miners were drowned when the flooded workings of the disused [[Wheal Drea]] were breached. This occurred because of former errors in "dialling" (the only means of underground surveying available at that time): according to the records, the level in which the breach occurred was being driven ''away'' from the old workings. The Wheal Owles mine was said to have filled from the 120-fathom sump to the 30-fathom sea level in only 20 minutes.<ref group=lower-alpha>A fathom is six feet, and depths are measured from "grass" or the ground level at the top of the mine shaft. So ground level at Wheal Owles was 180 feet (30 fathoms) above sea-level, at which depth there would have been a drainage adit, to keep the mine free of water to as great a depth as possible. A pumping engine was necessary to drain the workings that extended another 540 feet (90 fathoms) below sea-level to the sump, the deepest part of the mine. The breach occurred at the 65-fathom level (390 feet below the surface).</ref> After the accident, the only [[Beam engine|pumping engine]] on the site was not powerful enough to drain the mine and attempts at fund-raising to install a better one were unsuccessful, so the bodies of those who drowned were never recovered.<ref>{{cite book
| last=Barton| first=D. B.
| title=A History of Tin Mining and Smelting in Cornwall
| publisher=Cornwall Books| year=1989 |orig-year=1965| location=Exeter
| pages=209–10
| isbn=1-871060-09-5}}</ref>