New Galilee, Pennsylvania
Clay was an abundant resource in Beaver county. According to the 1955 circular of the Pennsylvania Geological Survey, In 1955 Beaver County produced 13.7% of Pennsylvania's total clay output. There were 13 companies that mined clay in Beaver county at that time. Two of these companies, The Negley Fire Clay Co. and Ralph A. Veon, Inc. mined fire clay of the plastic variety from open pits and marketed the output for use in manufacturing fire brick and block, foundries, and heavy clay products. In addition, Ralph A. Veon, Inc., mined and sold fire clay of the burley variety. In 1955, New Castle Refractories mined stoneware clay from an underground mine near New Galilee for use locally in manufacturing pouring channels
Slate industry in Wales
In Blaenau Ffestiniog, the Llechwedd Slate Caverns have been converted into a visitor attraction. Visitors can travel on the Miners' Tramway or descend into the Deep Mine, via a funicular railway which uses an old incline, to explore this former slate mine and learn how slate was extracted and processed and about the lives of the miners. The Deep Mine, opened in 1979, is accessed by Britain's steepest passenger railway, with a gradient of 1:1.8 or 30°. In the chambers, formed by slate extraction, sound and light is used to tell the story of the mine and mining. The Braichgoch slate mines at Corris have been converted into a tourist attraction named "King Arthur's Labyrinth" where visitors are taken underground by boat along a subterranean river. They then walk through the caverns to see audiovisual presentations of the Arthurian legends and stories from the Mabinogion and the tales of Taliesin. The Llwyngwern slate quarry near Machynlleth is now the site of the Centre for Alternative Technology. A number of the railways which carried the slates to the ports have been restored as tourist attractions, for example the Ffestiniog Railway and the Talyllyn Railway.