I took five days getting another few goblins trained on how to use the rest of the lead furnaces before spending another month and some ge w on the zinc furnabsp; sidering everything else was built in this area, I decided to go ahead and build the zinc processing area here too.

  For Zinc refining, there are a few steps. First, we take the zinc oxide we made by roasting the sphalerite, and crush it. Then, we mix the crushed zinc oxide with charcoal. Then, we heat that mixture to a detly high temperature, though the temperature is still quite a bit below the melting point of iron, so it's not that difficult. The mixture then reduces the zinc oxide down to onoxide and zial vapors, both of which would be incredibly toxic to inhale. So, the furnaeeds to have a eled air supply, which goes through a cooling chamber where the zial dense and reform into a metal.

  In Konkur's design, the remaining onoxide is just left to go to atmosphere, but I didn't feel that fortable with the safety of that, so I put a small sed furna li the end. I'm sure that quite a bit of it burns before it actually reaches the sed furnace, but I'd rather not have any acts, and sidering onoxide is fmmable, it wouldn't just be a poisoning .

  That said, after getting the zinc process finished, spring was just about over, so I took a few days once again to train some goblins on the process before moving the crystal back to the coastal bathhouse. The sea wall is slowly making progress in this valley now as well, but it'll probably take a bit lohan the first wall. The coast here is a bit wider, and I expect that the new artificial tide pool they've been digging out over here will actually be pleted before this sea wall, which means they'd need a new source of stone for stru, which will slow stru further.

  At the end of spring, I took awo months finishing growing the new crystal for the au ter this year. Given my growing with our total crystal supply, I only grew the rge crystal, and didn't mess with increasing any more intermediates. I still have a few of the 4 foot crystals, which should be enough to st us through the current crystal deposits for produ.

  Since I had to spend a lot of idle time in the crystal growing b, I took to refining more lightstone while I waited, something I used to do quite a bit while I worked in the b. We've taken to usial for a lot of different things, due to differences in properties, but lightstoill has quite a few desirable properties so I find uses for it here and there. If we had more uses for it, I'd sider finishing the vibration stack separator project, so we could produce more lightstohrough meical bor, but for most stru, just about any stone from the isnd works fine, so there aren't that many projects that use it anymore.

  In the off hours, while everyone else was asleep on the mountain, I spent most of my time reag the remaining crystal deposits that I could find with teise, but I did che the ore deposit that the miners have been w on. It's quite deep, and I tell from the rocks and the existing mine shafts that most of the deposit is already depleted, and that the quality of ore they're produg now is already below what I would have sidered worth their time previously. I've been busy with my own projects though, so I haven't really had time to give them new orders.

  If I include the gypsum and quartz, then they've extracted hundreds of thousands of tons of useful material from this deposit. Though as the quality of ores has deed, we're only getting fraal yields of useful output, but it's still a signifit achievement for a few years worth of work.

  I decided to shut this mine down now though. The yields would only get worse from here, and as the yields get worse, we waste more and more fuel in the refining process. Our current fuel supply isn't unlimited, we only have so much isnd that we cut trees down on to make charcoal, so I'd rather be building up fuel stockpiles in preparation fher quality ores than using that limited fuel in this manner.

  With that in mind, I've decided to knock out two birds with oone moving forward by creating a new source of stone for stru, and a new mineral exploration tunnel into the mountain. Based on Konkur's notes, ore deposits are more likely to be found in deeper portions of volos like this, and closer to where water would have had an easier time iing with the volo. Deeper stone in the volo be found in two ways though, one is by digging downward, but the sed is by digging inward.

  What I'm pnning is to have the mining crew start digging a rge turaight through the mountain. The entrao the tunnel will be not far from the city walls, which means it'll only be about a hundred feet above sea level. Initially, it'll be like the mining tunnels on the mountain, wide enough to run a cart through, with a little extra wiggle room. Ultimately, I'd like that tuo run through the entire length of the isnd, to the far beabsp; Then, down the road, the tunnel be expanded and widened, which should cut travel time from one side of the isnd to the other down to less than a day.

  There are a few problems that they're likely to run into with the tuhough. The first issue is water. Other tunnels have run into aquifers throughout the isnd, and I fully expect that to be an issue with this tuoo. So, the tunnel will be dug with a gentle upward slope until it's he middle of the isnd. A el will o be dug for the water to colled run out from the tunnel.

  The sed problem is that at some point, we'll have to do quite a bit of detailed work to figure out our exact position, then dig in from the other side to finish the tuhough that'll be years from now. While the mining team digs the small scouting tunnel, looking for ore deposits, a stru team eventually begin expanding the tunnel when they need a new source of stoer the sed tide pool is pleted. This could result in some logistical issues if an ore deposit overps with the stru team's pnned work, but hopefully those instances would be separated by enough time that they never intersebsp; If they do, then the stru teams always resort to expanding the dam's reservoir for stone like they used to.

  Before they start any stru though, I want to make a bunch of tools for them, to reduce stru error as much as possible, so that wheime es to join the eventual two tunnels, it be doively easily. With that in mind, I'll probably o take quite a few days to make everything.

  While I worked on their ools, I gave the mining team a vacation. As I thought about the various things I needed, I realized it was going to take a while to prepare everything for them and that I o do a lot of math before they could start w, and they deserved a reward for excavating the previous deposit to pletion. There were a handful of tools I needed. First, I ools to find the midpoint of the tunnel we pn on digging, then I'll ools for the minio use fging the tunnel with precision.

  For finding the midpoint, I could use a rope of knowh, a water level, a plumb bob, and a protractor. Of course, saying I could do so, and the practice of doing so was quite different. I had two ropes of 100 feet, with a loop that fit on a stake tied oher end. The stakes also have measurements on them, so I could tell how high the rope stands above the ground. Then, I'd drive a stake into the side of the road, 's height, and then, 100 feet away, I'd put the stake somewhere on the opposite side of the road, drive it in, and mark the height, then drive the third stake, mark it's height, and thehe plumb bob and protractor to measure it's rising angle, and the protractain at the middle angle.

  After taking those notes, I had to go back, unloop the rope from the first stake, and move the whole thing to the 100 feet. In doing so, I could dory to make a geometric measurement for the midpoiween two sides of the isnd along the road. I left the marked stake in the ground where I had driven it, and made a marking on it to indicate whiumber the stake was, in case I o return to it ter.

  Ultimately, going 100 feet at a time meant it would take about fifty-two measurements to travel a mile. I became quite disced as I worked due to the pace I moved at. If I had o sleep, it would have been even worse, but thanks to my ability to work while half asleep, I traveled and measured the length of our road around the isnd in thirty-six days. The total number of measurements I took was 1,864, meaning the road runs a little over thirty five miles, not fact in that I alternated sides of the road with each measurement to avoid any pnt life iing with the rope. I decided then that if I o do something like this iure, I'm hiring and training someone else to do it.

  I then had to actually calcute everything, which was just as tedious. I'd have to work using oria a time to get the rise and run of a segment, and put those into a new n with their marked points eabsp; Then, with that new information, I could calcute the height differential between any two stakes, which ultimately let me know that my starting stake and ending stake were about 35 feet different i from each other, with the far beach's road being lower.

  Then, using the projected length of run for each rope, and the ahat was formed betweewo ropes, I could calcute a hypoteween them, along with the new aween the hypotenuse and the segment. Ultimately, the calcutions were plicated enough that I couldn't do them while half asleep, so all the math ended up taking awenty days, but I had the tral lih calcuted. The distaweewo points that I wao start digging the tu was a whopping 17.63 miles. I made sure to repce the smaller stakes at the two points with rger stone markers, so that my work wouldn't be wasted.

  There is still a lot of work to do before any digging be done, but winter is about a month away, so I o finalize everything for the au before I tinue work on this projebsp; The mining team has been on vacation for more than enough time already now, so I'm going to have them assist in excavating the artificial tide pool area until I'm ready for them to start ounnel.