{"id":2252,"date":"2021-04-03T15:49:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T15:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/?p=2252"},"modified":"2021-04-03T15:49:24","modified_gmt":"2021-04-03T15:49:24","slug":"cei-ballast-ballast-quay-a-transnational-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/2021\/04\/03\/cei-ballast-ballast-quay-a-transnational-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Cei Ballast (Ballast Quay) : A Transnational Island"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"blob:https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/7a76eb12-4c09-4b00-8c01-6c22d1770b05\" alt=\"A group of boats in a body of water\n\nDescription automatically generated with low confidence\" width=\"517\" height=\"247\"\/><figcaption>Cei Ballast in Porthmadog Harbour (c.1890-1901)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Over spiring break I felt I might mix up my blog posts a bit and write about something a bit different (although it is still related to Welsh history I\u2019m afraid!). This is a story which I heard about a couple of weeks ago and wanted to share it on the blog. Although it has absolutely nothing to to with my project I found it really interesting and I hope you do too.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Porthmadog, there is a small island which sits just outside the tourist port. At first glance it appears rather in unremarkable. However, once you take a closer look, it becomes much more interesting.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Slate from he nearby Blaenau Ffestiniog quarry was transported to Porthmadog whereby it would be shipped all over the world. Like most shipping operations these ships would pick up additional cargo along the way and transport it to wherever it needed to go.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the return journey back to Porthmadog the ships were loaded with Ballast from the ship\u2019s trading destination to provide balance and stability. Upon returning to Porthmadog, the ballast was dumped in the harbour which over the course of a century created an island. Thus, this manmade island creates a picture of the global reach of the North Wales slate industry. For example, on Cei Ballast one finds a large collection of eclectic rocks such as altered mudstone from Portugal and marble from Italy as well as rocks native to Greece, Scandinavia, Canada and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So how does this relate to transnational history?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This collection of rocks brings together material from all over the world and tells us about the nature and scale of trade that occurred. This is a fascinating example of a physical reminder of the transnational flows and transfers which have taken place and in this case have left a physical monument of these connections. Thus, perhaps we should look for alternate sources to consider when doing transnational history. This may offer an alternative way of looking at the world around us to try and spot any potential transnational links. Perhaps, then we could look out for similar ballast islands and compare them to Cei Ballast to learn more about the global shipping of materials and the transfer of goods.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over spiring break I felt I might mix up my blog posts a bit and write about something a bit different (although it is still related to Welsh history I\u2019m afraid!). This is a story which I heard about a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-Ak","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2253,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2252\/revisions\/2253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}