Читать книгу The History of Mining - Michael Coulson - Страница 50

The main mining method employed by the Spanish was alluvial panning and dredging of the rivers and streams of western South America, which yielded large quantities of free gold. There is little evidence of any widespread underground mining until later; as we will see further on with African copper mining, the native miner was clearly reluctant to dig deep in pursuit of the metals he sought. When silver was discovered in Mexico, however, the veins did often plunge and required the sinking of shafts to extract the metal. Also, the historic mining areas of Mexico, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and others do show evidence of open pit mining. This was something seen in central Europe as well, this region being a major producer of, particularly, precious metals in the Middle Ages.