Arizona republican., 1914-05-10


 metals-that metal was not stone.
 The introduction of melting meth- ods created Q demand for gold dust, and the washing" method was de- vsed by one of the early mining en- gineers A stream of slow-flowlns water ran down a stone or wooden table, sloped gradually, and as the gold bearing sands were sprinkled On the surface of the table near it's elevated edge, the water washed the light particles of earth away. leav- ing the heavier gold dust behind Even at that the primitivcs must have lost half their gold. though grain of gold is six or seven times as heavy as grain of quartz sani. There was a cistern or tub at the elevated side of the table-a reser voir- filled by rainfall or noun tain stream. if it was in hilly country, and tho operator dished the water cut onto the taoie. And mod- ern mining touches hands with5 primitive mining. for this washing method is used by people in all de- | ETppS OI clNlllZdtlOIls ihou6i tbc I'i "
 cess has become complex in it's per- fected form. difficulty arose-the gold dust residue. after the washing rrocess, contained black sand. much. of which was iron ore. These black grains were picked out by means of piece of iron with strong polarity. and the magnet had advanced min ing another step.
 The gold dust was removed. dried. sifted into q covered crucible baked from clay and heated for number of days Casually fivc) over char. coal fire This fire was blown by a mouth blowpipe or by crude Bellows. The molten metal was. poured into furrows or molds traced | in sand, then pounded or twisted ] into the desired shape The next | important step in the progress of | mining methods was the discovery | in South Africa of "fire-settins that. ore could be broken easily with 1 T hammer or cold water when heat
 cd ,n,iekly.. The fire-setting process spread throughout the world and | was common in Europe n hundred years ago.
 i About 1870 an Englisfman in- ] rcntrd a portable furnace for this purpose. but blasting took his mar ket from him. Dirt and soft rock | were dug away until large chunk 1 of ore was exposed. then fire was applied and small Fragments of the ore brosen off and carried out in
 woven baskets or bags made from i tides
 l Thousands of years passed in the 1 mining industry before the miners had any knowledge of ores. They took the visible gold from river beds and where veins cropped out in the rure statc but in the heart of the 1 vein the metal was invisible because l combined with pyrite. The earliest l vein mining evidences we have are for gold in South Africa, and for copper at Lake Superior.
 It was then the miners began to tunnel or sink The ancient cop l per smclters were small mud fur naces as a rule and man sat near | by and operated the air-blower-a l square wooden box in which a piston with feathers for packing moved | back and forth. The ancient Chi nese and Japanese had ore crushers | operated by hand. These ground the ore into dust after which it went through the washing and melting processes.
 In Egypt, some 3.200 years ago. ore veins were loosened by fire-setting. rI, y-- ried the ore in rough baskets and sacks from the mines to the crush CTS. The most primitive ore crusher ever unearthed was stone mortar in which the ore was ground by long pounding with q stone pestle. Then came a block of rock with q scoop out in the top in which the ore was pulverized as heavy flat stone moved back and forth over it. This top stone soon was changed to have a projection on it's bottom
 that fitted roughly into the top de pression of the lower stone. and the ore crushed more easily as the top stone was twisted and turned This latter developed about 330 B. C. At JJm Rus, on the Red sea, an ancient mining camp has been discovered, l where ore was powdered between stone rollers. A primitive stone
 building. 260 by 19O feet, can be seen to this day in Southern Egypt.
 Archaeologists claim this building was a mill where gold was extracted. From ore near old workings at Cap tos. Egypt, still stands the ruins of about 1900 stone huts occupied by miners few thousand years ago. Slaves, war captives and criminals
 guarded by soldiers and spurred on by flogging. worked the mines in ancient Egypt. Greece and China.
 Working conditions were horrible galleries were low and tortuous and cave-ins were frequent
 There was no ventilation until the sixteenth century, when fans, oper- ated by hand from both above and below ground, were devised. Some I of the fans had feathered vanes.
 The first mine illumination was by pine knots. Then came saucers of
 fcul-smelling tallow or vegetable oil, in which was rag, or rush. or stick of pitch floated as a wick. The
 first use of electricity for lighting
 mines was in colliery at Earnock,
 Scotland. in 1879.
 l The old way of entering mine
 was by sliding down rope-or steep
 incline or by walking in through a funnel. The Japanese used a notched ! Iol fnr 1.