Mountain Mining

Mountain Mining Mining is the process by which minerals of various different kinds are taken out of the earth. As a general practice, a hole is dug into the ground, from where the minerals are harvested. These may be metals like gold or silver or copper, or they may be coal and salt and other like minerals, and they can be diamonds and other precious stones as well.

It must be noted that most substances that are obtained form the earth are mined and mining also provides metal that can be used for steel making, and for other industrial purposes, and the gold and precious stones obtained from the earth can be used for the production of jewelry. The stones mined from the earth are used for building purposes, and they are also used for making the gravel that is used on highways.

(The Topic: Mining, the basics) There are in fact several different methods of mining, and the method depends on where the mineral or the coal deposits have been found, and how it has been found.

While some minerals can be found very near the earth's surface, some others are only found very deep inside the bowels of the earth, and when they are closer to the surface, they are cheaper because they are easier to obtain, and when they are deeper inside, the are relatively more difficult to obtain, and therefore, dearer.

When these minerals are to be obtained, the methods generally used are tunneling, wherein a hole is dug deep through the earth, and pumping, where the minerals are located under vast masses of water like for example, under the ocean. (The Topic: Mining, the basics) It must be remembered that mining as an activity has been in existence for many years now, and the methods that were used at that time are no longer used today.

Records of mining date back to as early as the sixteenth century, when there is in existence a picture of the copper mining and the metallurgy that was used at that time. An important fact is that in the older times, people who were involved in mining and in guilding would more often than not keep their affairs and methods a complete secret and not share it with the general public.

Therefore, when Georgius Agricola in Freiburg, Germany, wrote his first book on mining and on metallurgy practices during the sixteenth century, named 'De Re Metallica', in the year 1556, and it was indeed a treasure for the people who wanted to acquire a deeper knowledge on the subject.

(Copper in the middle Ages and Renaissance) All his writings were based on his own personal observations, and he has detailed mining techniques, the various kinds of equipment that was used in those days, the mine surveying methods used at that time, the mining laws that existed, and the vein deposits and their recognition, the technique known as 'assay' which was used to determine the amount of copper in an ore rock, the methods that were used to 'smelt' the mined copper into cakes, and how to purify it.

After reading this work it becomes obvious that mining was an industry that had seen very little progress from the time of the Romans, and that rocks were, even at that time, being plucked from the mountain sides and tunnels with shovels and with picks, in the absence of explosives. Tunnels that had been dug out were in general supported with timber; this is practiced even today, and the miners and the ore were raised or lowered into the shafts using winches.

There were certain techniques used at that time, wherein water was drained away from deep shafts, and fresh air was pumped back in. In Italy, Vanoccio Biringuccio, of Sienna published the book 'Pirotechnica' in the year 1540, and this work was also equally valuable and was a treatise on the metallurgic practices and the mining of those days.

(Copper in the middle Ages and Renaissance) It must be noted that the Europeans, when they started to recognize mining for the valuable industry that it was, borrowed the concept of the 'water wheel' from the Chinese and from the Moors.

Water wheels had been in use to grind corn, and when they were applied to the mining industry, it was easier for the miners to pump up water from the mines, and also to grind the ore, run the bellows at the blast furnace, and to operate the hammers at the goldsmith's forges. It was at this time that mining had become a very expensive business to operate, and wealthy families began to acquire mines and to employ many people to run them.

One of the first examples of this is the Fugger Family that helped to finance copper smelters, the revenue from which they utilized to finance the Austrian 'Hapsburg dynasty' of emperors. This became a more common phenomenon as time went by, and the German and Austrian Princes and Emperors of the region became more and more wealthy on account of the mining industry.

It is said that most probably, the first explosives that were used to crack open the mines, instead of using picks and shovels, was in the year 1627, in the Hungarian 'Erzgebirge', and the method used was to fill in the holes that had been drilled into the mountainsides with black explosive powder, and then blow them up.

It was in the year 1711 that steam engines were used for the purpose of pumping water out of mines, in Cornwall, England, and this was also the time when Thomas Newcomen happened to invent the first steam powered pump, to pump water out. An interesting fact is that it was the invention of this steam-powered machine to pump water out of the mines that was the cause of the subsequent Industrial Revolution.

When the miners of Cornwall traveled on to the 'Brave New World', they also took with them a sure knowledge of the hard rock mining methods that were used in Cornwall, and this helped to start up the mining industry in the Western United States.

(Copper in the middle Ages and Renaissance) The Boundary Regions of the United States became some of the largest producers of copper in the world, and places like, for example, Greenwood, Phoenix, Boundary Falls, Summit City and Grand Forks were all made up to meet the miners who worked in the copper mines and in the smelters in those regions.

One of the famous smelters still exists in Greenwood, and it was supposedly built in the year 1898 by the British Columbia Copper Company, which was a New York-based organization that had bought the Mother Lode Mine in 1898. It was in 1901 that the very first 'furnace' was developed, and soon the mine became known as a 'smelter' with 106000 tonnes of ore being smelted that very same year.

This continued until 1912 when there came a shortage of ore, and during the World War, production had to come to a slowdown, until 1918 when it had to stop forever. (Mining History of the Boundary Country) In January, in the year 1848, an incident took place in Coloma, in California, which would forever change the world. What happened was that James W. Marshall happened to be working near the South Fork of the American River when he happened to notice what looked like gold floating on the river.

This could not be kept a secret, and this is the event that triggered the so called Gold Rush of 1849. (Coloma Valley Gold Discovery, the Gold Discovery that changed the world) The fact was that there were no taxes and there were no laws and rules to restrict anyone form helping themselves to the gold, and this meant that almost everyone could dig for the gold with crude implements, and wash it and hit pay dirt.

New methods were invented quickly so that the pay dirt could be washed quicker and faster, so that more gold could be made. The methods destroyed the land and the people, but when gold was to be found, then there could be no waiting. The method most often used by these miners was referred to as 'panning'. (Coloma Valley, the California Gold Rush of 1849) The California Gold Rush had created a Gold Rush in other regions, like one to the Fraser River, another to the Cassiar Region in British Columbia.

In the Yukon River Region in Alaska, there was mining going on for gold, but it was when the strike in Klondike was made that Alaska was catapulted into the most popular mining area for gold. (The Klondike Gold Rush: Curriculum Materials for the History of the Pacific Northwest in the Washington Public Schools) Sluicing' was another very popular method used to obtain gold form mountainsides and form riverbeds.

Hydraulic mining methods were used for sluicing, whereby powerful jets of water would be used to break down the gold laden gravel banks, so that the material obtained could be washed in order to separate the gold from the dirt. This was, as a matter of fact, one of the most important mining devices used during the middle of the nineteenth century, from the years 1850 to 1884, after which there was a federal injunction that banned it.

On a general estimate, it is stated that the method of hydraulic mining yielded about $100 million in gold during those thirty years, which would be about a one third of the total amount of gold produced in California during that time. (Hydraulic Gold mining in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains) The hydraulic mining method was a definite improvement over the other traditional methods of mining, some of which are 'placer mining', wherein miners would use shallow metal pans, and lift soil form the riverbed.

They would then swirl the soil obtained, gently, so that the soil would be washed away, leaving the gold behind. 'Winnowing' was another popular method, whereby miners would bounce dry soil on wool sarapes, so that the soil would be blown away by the wind, and the gold would be left behind.

The method of 'crushing quartz' was popular among Mexicans, and this was a method worked by men or mules and horses whereby quartz would be crushed by a heavy stone above and packed stones beneath, and although the process was very effective for mining, it was considered to be a mite too slow.

(The Evolution of Gold Mining) The 'rocker and cradle' method would need two men, one to fill a bucket with water, and one to rock it, so that the gold would remain at the bottom of the bucket.

The 'long tom' method of mining required two men too, and the process was similar to the previous one, but more productive because more numbers of buckets could be filtered for gold deposits when water was deposited into a long tom, and the final separation would be carried out in the 'panning' method. However, the most popular method for gold mining was the use of the 'water wheel', wherein numerous mining operations could be powered by the use of this marvelous invention borrowed from the Chinese.

Once these methods had all exhausted the gold deposits were found near the surface of the earth and miners began to dig deeper into the earth, and this necessitated the sinking of 'shafts' so that veins of gold could be removed from the quartz rocks. Drilling would either be carried out by hand, or by compressed air drills, and it was only later that hydraulic drills were invented and utilized for mining purposes.

(The Evolution of Gold Mining) It must be remembered that in the beginning of the Gold Rush, miners of the gold were limited by the very few options available to them. They could only, for example, work with hand tools, like gold pans, sluices boxes, and rockers, and could only work along riverbanks. As the time went by and these people started to become more experienced, they started to recognize the fact that deeper gavels in riverbeds would more possibly yield more gold than the shallow banks of the rivers.

This was why the first 'dredges' were invented in the 1900's, which were nothing but steam powered engines that were designed to dredge up soil to sift through for gold. Today, dredges are lighter than and not as cumbersome as they were before. (The Gold Dredge) It is well-known that it was Alexander Graham Bell who invented the first metal detector of the world, and this was a device used for mining later.

(History of the Metal detector) Michigan has remained, till today, one of the most popular mines for mining copper and silver, which is extracted along with copper deposits. The copper deposits of Michigan are well-known for their purity and for their excellent quality, and most of the copper was found in the Lake Superior Region, and it is also a fact that Native Americans had been using the copper found in the area to make crude implements and tools and ornaments, before the Europeans arrived in search of wealth.

The first copper mine opened in the year 1771, and the industry was popular till more than one hundred and fifty years later as well. Today, iron and copper are two of the more important minerals found in Michigan, and as a matter of fact, Michigan produced 5,385,849 tons of copper between the years from 1845 to 1969. (Michigan's Copper Deposits and Mining) In Nevada, while it was gold and silver that were the first minerals mined, it was copper that has remained popular, even to this day.

Copper mining has in fact remained a significant part of the state's economy. Four of the most important mining districts in the state of Nevada are the Battle Mountain, Yerington, Mountain City, and the Robinson District near Ely. Of the four, Yerington and Robinson are today, still actively mining copper, although Robinson also produces gold. Battle Mountain mines gold and silver today.

(Copper Mining in Nevada) A diamond is one of the hardest substances that has ever been found on earth, and it is nothing but crystals of pure carbon that have been subjected to high heat and pressure, and they were most probably formed more than millions of years ago, in the form of molten lava, deep within the earth. The diamond has been found on almost all the continents of the world, especially in India, Africa, and in Brazil.

It was in the nineteenth century that the rich diamond mines were discovered in Africa, and even today, mot of the world's diamonds are being mined here. Australia has also provided the world with some diamonds, and they were discovered there in the 1970's. Diamonds are generally mined by initially sinking shafts and later digging tunnels to gain access to the depths of the earth where diamonds are found.

(The Mill Diamonds, Jewelry and Diamonds) It must be noted that of all the diamonds that are being mined every year, less than half are 'gem' quality, and the rest are either 'industrial' quality, or 'near-gem' quality. Pipe mining, and alluvial mining, where diamonds are extracted from ocean beds and riverbeds, is the most popular methods for diamond mining, followed even today, in various parts of the world. (Mining Diamonds) Iron Ore, on the other hand, is a mineral from which metallic 'iron' can be extracted.

Commercial iron ore mining operations are, today, generally carried out in countries such as Australia, Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S.A. Iron ore is used in the production of steel. (Iron Ore: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia) Coal Mining began during the 1700's in various parts of the world, and this is supposed to have fuelled the Industrial Revolution that occurred in the U.S.A.

Today, Pennsylvania remains one of the largest producers of coal in the United States, and various modern and improved methods are used today, as compared to the older times when mining accidents were more normal than extraordinary. (Coal Mining in Pennsylvania) There were many instances and examples where some mining towns would endure where some others would become what was known as 'ghost towns'. A ghost town is one that had a sufficient population once upon a time, and which now has no life in it.

(Ghost Towns) Grass Valley, Imlay, Lovelock, Mill City, Rochester, Star City, Unionville are some of the ghost towns that exist in the United States today. (Towns, Ghost Towns, Mining Camps) Fort Misery is yet another ghost town, which was built by the person who built the railroad to Crown King, and which was one of the largest mining sites near the Crown King. People lived in the town till the 1920's, after which nobody lives there.

It is said that the town acquired its name because of the hard times that people experienced in that place. (Fort Misery is now a Ghost Town) Mining has had its effects on the environment, and it still does, to this day. Underground mining is not only expensive, but it is very dangerous to the miners and in many places of the world, miners are not offered enough protection from the dangers of working under the earth's surface, where the earth can cave in at any time.

In addition, mining is detrimental to the environment due to many reasons, the first among them being that reclamation cannot be done because of the high levels of pyrite and other substances that are left behind after mining. The soil would have become acid, and would not promote the growth of any living thing on it. In addition, if reclamation of mined soil were to be achieved properly, it would need large amounts of water, and since water is a scarce commodity today, this is not possible. When mining.