New track made with some samples of galena from Wheal Clinton in Flushing, this was a small mine that was only worked for a couple of years. It was closed in 1858 after being flooded and not considered economically viable. Occasional lumps of mineralised rock can still be found here and there on the beach - where they presumably fell from the shaft now situated in someone's garden overlooking the Fal estuary.
One galena specimen, used here for triangle wave shaping, is a bright well crystallised inclusion in very pale siderite. It acts very similarly to a silicon diode (with variable voltage drops). The other, used here in the square wave fm voice is more grainy, and is mixed with pyrite and sphalerite. Composite intergrown natural semiconductors are a whole other world of possibilities yet to be explored.
https://soundcloud.com/cornish_semiconductor/flooded-crosscut-galena-experiments
https://archive.org/details/cornish-semiconductor-flooded-crosscut
#SynthDIY #DIYSemiconductors #Fossicking #Cornwall