The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-03-22
STRIDES OF MINING
Work To-Day Compared With That
of SO Years Ago.
UNEXPECTED IMPROVEMENTS
w. E. Hall Talks Entertainingly
About the Days of Iron Ham
mers and Drills and Straw
Fuse-Rapid Progress.

William E. Hall, now a resident of Spo-
kane, but for years superintendent of the
Alice Mining company IN this city, in a
recent interview in the Independent talks
entertainingly of the great changes in
mining in the past so years:
There is no profession in the world
that has made the rapid progress in the
last half century that mining has," he
said the other day, being at that time on
his way home from an expedition to
British Columbia, and referring to an OBJ
servation that came naturally in dis
cussion of mining matters in a general
way.
II can remember the time when there
was no such thing as a steel drill or a
steel-faced hammer. Safety fuse WASH
known when l was a youngster, and as
for the rest of the improvements, why,
no one would have believed you If you
had predicted the half of them.
when the steel drills came out we
looked upon them with a reverence that
amounted to awe. The iron drills that
had been used up to that time were dull
things, and the hammer was of the same
metal, so that when a miner struck the
drill with the hammer 1t gave out a dull.
heavy sound, like the falling of lead on
lead. The steel rung out as clear as bell,
and 1t was real music to our ears. There
was a time when we made it a rule to
carry out piece of cloth to lay the drills
on when they were not in use, but that
feeling gradually wore off and in time we
came to throwing them around just like
any other tool. But ii was not all at
once.
Then came the safety fuse. 1t was a
wonderful stride, we thought and we
were not prepared TO believe that science
would ever go a step further. We carried
bits of rags in our pockets to wrap arund
1t when we put Il In a hole. But in the
course of time we learned that it, too,
was made to be useful, and that ii would
stand as much tamping as a squib.
What is a squib? In the olden times
we ran a long needle, made of Norway
iron, down the hole when we tamped in
the charge. Then the needle was drawn
out, and in the hole was inserted a squib.
1t was made by Sitting a straw and
charging it with powder, with a bit of
greasy rag on the end. The straw was
creased well and the tallow was worked
into the powder so that 1t was one of the
most infiammable things that you could
imagine. The miner would light the end
and run. When the fire came to the squib
there was a flash and the explosion
came.
1T may surprise you TO learn that I
have blasted many a hole with quick
lime. 1t is done by first putting in a bit
of lime and then a squirt of water, then
another bit of lime and another squirt of
water. The whole was tamped down SOL
idly as quickly as IL could be done, and in
time, as the lime Stacked, the rock was
rent asunder. 1t was slow work. as work
goes now but ii was considered pretty
good in those days.
I'm my boyhood days the miners of the
old country used To think they were do
ing well If they sunk 20 feet of develop
ment shaft in a year. Now they do moro
than that in this country in a month. I
have myself sunk a three-compartment
shaft 100 feet deep in q days. There was
no such mining in England half a century
ago. And the improvements in mining and
mining machinery are kept up with the
movement of the world. l have only spo-
ken of few of those that seem TO show
the strongest contrast"