Top Of The Works

From the top of the works at Ashio Copper Mine, the plant drops away in a staircase of concrete and corrugated iron down the mountainside, ending at the Watarase River valley below. The mine head is at the highest point, where ore came out of the Tsūdō shaft and the other working faces. From there, the milling and flotation plant steps down level by level toward the refinery and dispatch areas near the valley floor. The mountain across the valley is bare in patches still, the recovery from a century of smelter fumes uneven across the slopes. Cloud sits in the valley at this elevation. The roofs below run in a continuous corrugated-iron stretch, with the access stairs and conveyor lines linking each level.

The Ashio works was built into the mountainside so that gravity could carry the ore through the processing stages. From the mine head at the top, ore moved down through crushers, mills, flotation cells, and refinery levels to the river below where the product was loaded for transport. The plant was rebuilt and extended several times across the Furukawa modernisation that began in 1877. The Excavation Department closed in 1973, and the works have stood as photographed since. Parts of the site are now open as a tourist attraction; the broader plant is largely inaccessible.