The Cost of Mining A Discussion of the Production of Minerals with Remarks on the Geologic, Social and Economic Foundations Upon Which It Rests (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Cost of Mining: A Discussion of the Production of Minerals With Remarks on the Geologic, Social and Economic Foundations Upon Which It Rests During the long and various delays that occurred while the revision of this book was taking its present form the question was entertained whether it would not be fairer to author and readers to give it a different name altogether. It will be seen that it is no longer so narrowly technical as it originally was. But the question was answered in the negative. While it is true that some of the suggestions might, if properly presented, interest the public at large it seems at least as logical to believe that anything that will affect the mining public will affect the whole public. The gist of this idea is contained in a beginning at the revision made in 1917: "There are in the United States alone some two to three million men engaged in the mining and metallurgical industries. With their families and those who are engaged in supplying them with living necessities, that is to say, with the merchants, professional men, educators, etc. who are employed in mining communities, we may count on not less than twelve to fifteen million people who are dependent upon and therefore interested in those industries. This is twelve to fifteen percent. of the total population. If we apply this proportion to the whole English-speaking world, as we may fairly do, we find that at least 20,000,000 people are directly interested in mining and its cognate arts. When we consider that this number equals the white population of the British Empire of a century ago, it becomes evident that they make a field for literary effort larger, taking into account the growth of wealth and information, than that whole Empire could furnish at the end of the Napoleonic wars." This paragraph will illustrate the growth of the conviction that such a body must act upon public opinion, whether consciously or not, as inevitably as the forces of nature. It is therefore sufficient to ask indulgence of the mining public alone for interjecting among the obscure, sometimes trivial figures of mining operations certain suggestions of broader scope. I may quote again conveniently from the earlier paper: "It is necessary also to dwell upon the development of the human animal, intellectual, social and economic, which must take place in order to bring this industry into existence. Let us recall the obvious fact that to the Algonquin Indians who lived in Pennsylvania three centuries ago the anthracite coal fields were not worth the hide of a single deer, and to those same Algonquins the Calumet and Hecla was not as valuable as a boulder of float copper. Then there is the history of these developments. How and why did great mining districts come into the possession of those who now own them and work in them? How do these owners and workers live and what is their outlook upon the rest of the world?" About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.