After explaining the geology of the Argyll region and why mining minerals there proved so frustrating for the landowners and prospectors who complained that they never made a plack (a four-penny piece) from the mines, Marian Pallister’s history of Argyll mining for coal, lead, copper, zinc, silver, nickel and gold, silica and strontium, looks at the working conditions and the lives of the miners and their families, the decline of the mines and their legacy to the region.