Mining History

Electrifying Rural Nevada: Mining and Hydroelectricity in Nevada's Northeastern Frontier (1896-1920)

by Christopher Merritt

Draft in Review. Co-authored with Jacob N. Pollock.

In 1896, mine interests revived Tuscarora, a struggling busted silver town in Northeastern Nevada’s Independence... more In 1896, mine interests revived Tuscarora, a struggling busted silver town in Northeastern Nevada’s Independence Valley.  With the incorporation of a new mining company, the consolidation of existing claims, and the construction of a technologically forward-thinking stamp mill, Tuscarora was primed for resurgence.  Like other mining districts in Nevada, the newly formed company needed energy to power its stamp mill, surface and underground lights, ore and man-hoists, and other mining ephemera, but they were faced with the remarkable lack of woody fuel required for steam boilers.  To solve this problem, the company undertook a heavily capitalized venture to harness the power of the area’s second-most available resource, water.  In a parched and arid landscape, hydroelectric power served the needs of Elko County’s leading gold and cyanide producers between 1899 and 1920.  Archaeological survey and historical research has reconstructed the fascinating story of Independence Valley’s hydroelectric plants and power line, its impact on Tuscarora’s third mining boom, and the role homesteaders and ranchers in electrifying Nevada’s Northeastern Frontier.

Irish mining history and the World Wide Web: a survey of current resources

by Greg Fewer

Published in 'Mining History Society of Ireland Newsletter', 5 (July 1997), pp. 6-8.
Re-published in 'Annual Journal of the Shropshire Caving and Mining Club', no. 5 (1997), pp. 8-15.

The Archaeology of the Come in Time Quartz Battery, Bendigo, Otago, New Zealand

by Lloyd Carpenter

Archaeology in New Zealand (April 2011 issue)
NB: This is not a peer-reviewed Journal.
The PDF I have provided is NOT a copy of the 'Archaeology in New Zealand' article. It is a version I have used for teaching and contains many more illustrations than the journal could afford to offer.

This paper discusses the archaeology and historical narrative of the mining site of the 'Come in Time Battery' in the... more This paper discusses the archaeology and historical narrative of the mining site of the 'Come in Time Battery' in the Rise and Shine Valley, Bendigo, Central Otago.
It discusses what is at the site, using the quartz stamper (crusher) battery as the key archaeological feature, detailing the mining history there, noting some of the key personalities involved.

Beyond Spectacular Beauty: The Heritage Experience at the Central Otago Mining Town of Bendigo.

by Lloyd Carpenter

L.W. Carpenter, University of Canterbury, Published in the Conference Proceedings of: 'On The Surface: The Heritage of Mines and Mining' Conference, (April 14-16, 2011, Innsbruck, Austria).

Beyond Spectacular Beauty: The Heritage Experience at the Central Otago Mining Town of Bendigo


... more Beyond Spectacular Beauty: The Heritage Experience at the Central Otago Mining Town of Bendigo




For seventy years alluvial miners, sluicing syndicates, quartz companies and dredgemen focused their efforts, investment capital and lives on Bendigo in Central Otago, New Zealand. Historical evidence of this quintessential nineteenth century mining settlement survives in shafts, sluice faces and quartz battery sites, while echoes of its people remain in four abandoned townships. This starkly beautiful location is a magnet for photographers, but these vistas, while spectacular, decontextualise Bendigo as a place of habitation; absent the narratives of its founders, the site risks becoming a meaningless Arcadia, profoundly divorced from its mining heritage.

Hence the challenge to the government custodians of Bendigo, who must oversee its transfer from farm holding to public ownership to ensure its preservation as an historical reserve. Present visitors are forced to reconstruct Bendigo from visual cues alone, with little to conclude from the hotel sites, house ruins and mining detritus except that these are traces of a tough life lived by anonymous people from a long forgotten past.

My role, in collaborating on a heritage-quality narrative of Bendigo for public presentation at the site, is to populate its ruins with the people who lived, loved and lost there, telling the mining story, but telling also the reality of daily life and work; placing people in the town when it was a community of immigrants in a new and strange land. This narrative must be constructed in association with the New Zealand Department of Conservation, an owner constrained by reduced funding and increasing responsibilities; an organisation with conflicting goals, charged with satisfying the mounting interest from locals, amateur historians and tourists keen to understand and experience the Otago goldfields ‘Heritage’.

Smelting and technical knowledge in Northern Italy between the 18th and 19th centuries

by Andrea Candela

in "De Re Metallica", 2012

The Alps, from the 1780s onward, might be considered an area of technological transfer and development, especially... more The Alps, from the 1780s onward, might be considered an area of technological transfer and development, especially with relation to mining activity and management of natural resources. At the end of the eighteenth century, a renewed interest towards the exploitation of mineral deposits, due to a growing request of metals all over Europe, caused the gradual reopening of excavations along the flanks of the Alps and Prealps. The rediscovery of many deposits has been included in the scientific and social background of geo-mineralogical travels. These were often supported by government funding in eighteenth-century Lombardy. In the wake of several measures, undertaken by some Italian States in order to increase mining activities and cope with the imminent shortage of firewood along the sides of the Alps, the paper will examine the technological transfer, occurred in Europe, that allowed the introduction of new technologies of melting and mining.

Ricerche di archeologia mineraria nell’area occidentale delle Prealpi Lombarde: scenari di conservazione e riqualificazione del “paesaggio culturale”

by Andrea Candela

in "Archeologia Postmedievale. Società, ambiente, produzione", 2008, 12: 67-95

(Researches of mining archaeology in the Western area of Lombard Prealps: scenarios of preservation and development of... more (Researches of mining archaeology in the Western area of Lombard Prealps: scenarios of preservation and development of a "cultural environment")

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a considerable development in mining activities in different regions of the Italian peninsula. Indeed, especially in the second hal of the 18th century, a renewed interest in the exploitation of mineral deposits, due to a growing demand of metals all over Europe, caused the gradual reopening of several ancient mines. For these reason settlements were established near mining sites, particularly in proximity to the Alps. Using various types of data and sources, both historical and archaeological, it is possible to reconstruct the history of these peculiar anthropical environments, on the basis of the geo-lithological and morphological features of given areas. Moreover, historical sources are important tools for the recovery and re-evaluation old mining sites, as well as for the reconstruction of the evolution of specific landscape in the broader spectrum og historical and technological trends. This paper examines a single case study, still poorly understood, concerning the mining deposits in teh Pre-Alps of Western Lombardy. The hill of this area cannot be historically considered a remarkable mining district, such as the better known eastern mountain regions of Lombardy, nevertheless, excavation activities shaped this slopes of the Pre-Alps with distinctive infrastructures which still exist. This type of research represents an interesting way of increasing the environmental riches and cultural heritage of the Alps, through the establishment of mining parks, Geoparks and naturalistic or historical routes.

"Reviled in the Record: Thomas Logan, and the Origins of the Cromwell Quartz Mining Company, Bendigo, Otago."

by Lloyd Carpenter

Published in Journal of Australasian Mining History, November, 2011 (http://www.mininghistory.asn.au/journal/)

The received narrative of the discovery of the rich quartz mine at Bendigo in Central Otago has the success of Thomas... more The received narrative of the discovery of the rich quartz mine at Bendigo in Central Otago has the success of Thomas Logan, Jack Garrett, Brian Hebden and George Goodger of the
Cromwell Company predicated on a fraud committed by Logan.
It is an intriguing tale of a significant theft by a dishonest man in the midst of a famous gold rush to an iconic town and is found in all popular histories of the goldfield.
But is it correct?
Using primary sources and contemporary narratives, the evidence of Logan’s actions during the early days at Bendigo is evaluated and a new conclusion reached.

Explotación y mano de obra en las minas y salinas de al-Andalus

by Ana Echevarria

The road to riches?

by Forrest Pass

The Beaver: Canada's History Magazine, 88.5 (2008), 40-45.

Alquife, un castillo con vocación minera en el Zenete (Granada)

by José Mª Martín Civantos

Arqueología y Territorio Medieval 8, 2001, pp. 325-345.

The Alquife castle is one of the most importants in
the Zenete (Granada), in an area of  intense settle-... more The Alquife castle is one of the most importants in
the Zenete (Granada), in an area of  intense settle-
ment during the medieval period caracterized by the
intensive irrigated agriculture and the mining explo-
tation. Alquife is, in this sense, the principal producer
of iron since the XIth century after a process of  pro-
duction concentration. After the castilian conquest, the
creation of a manor will introduce radical changes.

El Cobre: Cuban ore and the globalisation of Swansea copper, 1830-1870

by Chris Evans

Presented at the conference 'The Local and Global Worlds of Welsh Copper', National Waterfront Museum, Swansea, in July 2011.

Turner, S. 2011. Thomas Sopwith, the miner's friend: his contribution to the geological model-making tradition. In: Ortiz, J.E., Puche, O., Rabano, I. & Mazadiego, L.F. eds "History of Research in Mineral Resources" INHIGEO-2010 volume, Cuadernos del Museo Geominero, 13, Instituto Geologico y Minero de Espana, Spain. 177-192.

by Susan Turner

in the next days the book will be uploaded in the SEDPGYM web page: http://www.sedpgym.org/

The Monstering of Tamarisk: How Scientists made a Plant into a Problem

by Matt Chew

Journal of the History of Biology 42(2):231-266, May 2009

Dispersal of biota by humans is a hallmark of civilization, but the results are often unforeseen and sometimes costly.... more Dispersal of biota by humans is a hallmark of civilization, but the results are often unforeseen and sometimes costly. Like kudzu vine in the American South, some examples become the stuff of regional folklore. In recent decades, “invasion biology,” conservation-motivated scientists and their allies have focused largely on the most negative outcomes and often promoted the perception that introduced species are monsters. However, cases of monstering by scientists preceded the rise of popular environmentalism. The story of tamarisk (Tamarix spp.), flowering trees and shrubs imported to New England sometime before 1818, provides an example of scientific “monstering” and shows how slaying the monster, rather than allaying its impacts, became a goal in itself. Tamarisks’ drought and salt tolerance suggested usefulness for both coastal and inland erosion control, and politicians as well as academic and agency scientists promoted planting them in the southern Great Plains and Southwest. But when erosion control efforts in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas became entangled with water shortages, economic development during the Depression and copper mining for national defense during World War Two, federal hydrologists moved quickly to recast tamarisks as water-wasting foreign monsters. Demonstrating significant water salvage was difficult and became subsidiary to focusing on ways to eradicate the plants, and a federal interagency effort devoted specifically to the latter purpose was organized and continued until it, in turn, conflicted with regional environmental concerns in the late 1960s.

Business cluster internalisation: a quantitative analysis of the connectivity of British free-standing mining companies and their directors, 1820-30

by Jeffrey Snyder

Draft Only
Comments and suggestions most welcome.