Quote Originally Posted by Bart View Post
It's true that Maurice Celis manages to keep his business profitable by selling almost everything else he quarries in order to get to the coticule. Slate is not among it. They produce natural building stones made from the blue schiste in which coticule layers are embedded. (It 's the same material as the Belgian Blue Whetstone) He also sells clay with bery high mangane content to the brick baking industry for the production of black bricks. And he sells most of the other debris to a firm that produces "gres" drainage pipes. Even so, I sounds disrespectful to call coticule the side product. Historically there were many slate mines and quarries in that same region. But as far as I know, those and the coticule mines always were separate things. Putting all the other stuff to use, is an idea of Celis. It's a good thing he thought of that. Otherwise, the only coticule available would be what one can shovel up on the spot.

Bart.
Hi Bart,

Thanks for your input. Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. I always thought schist and slate are the same.