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Preface

This book will trace the history of mining from those early moments when man first started using tools and weapons to the present day where metals continue to underpin economic activity in the so-called post industrial age. Before we conclude our journey we will also take a look into the future in an effort to chart the direction this great industry might take in years to come.

As we move through the history we will also take a look at some of the great mining entrepreneurs who, particularly over the last century and a half, have given the mining industry much of its colour and controversy. The book will also try and assess the cause and effect of technological advances and the discovery of new metals and the revival of old ones. This is an important area of the industry’s development.

Many books have been written about mining; the majority have focused on a particular metal, geographical area, mining event or mining personality. This book is broad in its scope and as a result decisions, not always easy, have been made as to what aspects of the industry’s history are emphasised and which are mentioned in passing or even ignored. Not all readers will agree with the choices made but the subject is a large one and editorial selectivity had to be extensively employed.

Two particular decisions had to be made. The first related to the handling of the material and whether the book should simply go from A to Z, jumping all over the place as years and centuries went by, or whether it should deal with metals, geographical areas and mining events (the 19th century gold rushes for example) as discrete sections.

The second concerned the weighting of the ancient against the modern, or at least the fairly modern. Some may recall that British history books 50 or more years ago tended to compress the dramatic events of the post-Boer War period into a modest few pages with by far the greater part of the book dedicated to the preceding centuries. The reason usually given for this imbalance was that recent events were far too fresh in minds for proper historical context and analysis. This book has a different balance as the period from the outset of the Industrial Revolution to the current day represents a period of huge growth and development for the mining industry, far greater and more significant than anything that went before.

So the structure of the book mirrors the way that mankind has developed. The first section covers several millennia from the Stone Age to the middle of the 11th century AD when the Normans invaded Britain. It is short in comparison to later sections because reliable original records are relatively thin on the ground and progress in mining methods, treatment technology and the uses for metals remained unchanged for centuries or changed only very slowly during this time. Much of what we know about ancient mining comes from the work of archaeologists and although their observations on mining and smelting are important and illuminating, at times because their accounts are often very similar it can be a case of ‘read one, you’ve read them all’. I have taken the view that readers wanting to know how mining has developed through the ages will be grateful that too much repetition is avoided and the narrative is kept moving.

After the ancient world we move through the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution and then to the modern age. At each stage the level of detail included increases, as should be expected bearing in mind both industrial and social advances over the period and the expanding role mining has played in the process of these industrial and social developments. The widening range of metals available to fuel technological advances and the huge increase in metal consumption, in line with an exploding growth in population worldwide, have also influenced the size of each succeeding section as more topics and issues are explored.

Over the last hundred years or so there has been an enormous expansion in mining activity, and information on the industry and the book’s structure and emphasis reflects this as well. Readers will also notice that at times for reasons of context and logic I have continued the narrative in certain areas beyond, or indeed in some cases started it before, the historical era that the subject under discussion falls within.

As regards the layout and structure of the book, I should say at the outset that though my intention in writing a history of the mining industry was to cover it from the dawn of time to the present day, it must be understood that reader accessibility has also been a key objective. So as well as the historical editing mentioned above there are also areas covered on which some readers may have desired more information than I have provided, particularly in terms of technical detail; it ought to be born in mind that the classic book on mining in Germany in the Middle Ages, De Re Metallica by Agricola, is on its own longer than this book.

On the other hand I hope readers will approve of the potted biographies of miners and other industry figures (virtually all men I’m afraid to say) that pepper the book. Since mining is very much about people and their dreams, it seemed right to tell readers a little bit about them, perhaps whet their appetite for some personal research, without a wish to clutter the text.

I have also tried throughout the book to erect signposts along the way to draw attention to the very close links between changes or developments in metal uses and the advance of technology as it progresses hand in hand with civilisation. I believe that the history of the mining industry is inextricably linked with economic growth and the continuing improvement in standards of living in many parts of the world. This might contrast with at least some people’s view of mining, which is that it is a dirty, dangerous activity which poisons and despoils the environment and kills people, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.

Whilst such sentiments cannot be dismissed out of hand, there is another, perhaps somewhat callous view, that even desirable progress has its victims, a price that society must pay for that progress and the generally better life for all that usually accompanies it. We must, however, be careful here as mining and the environment have become big political issues, and a cavalier approach to running a mine, as might have been the situation a century ago, is no longer considered acceptable behaviour.

The writing of The History of Mining has been very much a labour of love, but one that has been equally a journey of discovery. In researching what is one of the oldest activities of mankind I uncovered large quantities of information that were new to me, very much underlining the adage that life is just one long learning process. It also made me realise that even after more than 40 years of covering one sector as an analyst, my knowledge of the history of the mining sector was, perhaps, more than adequate but in spite of that by no means comprehensive. The research effort was much helped by the fact that a large body of writing on the industry exists, although I should add a lot of it is out of print or exceptionally expensive to acquire, and in many cases highly technical and therefore rather inaccessible to the lay reader.

Finally, to those who think that there is too much of this or too little of that in the pages ahead I apologise in advance. However, I hope that those who read this book will find it both interesting and illuminating, a good read and a useful reference work. I have attempted to use the experience gained over many years to put together a substantial history of this great industry, to make comments on how the industry has evolved and to draw conclusions as to its importance in economic development over the centuries, and its role in the future. It is for you to judge how well I have succeeded.

A note on currencies and metals prices

Most metals are priced in US dollars, which is also often the currency of share prices and corporate earnings reports even if the reporting company is sometimes not a US company. The reader, however, should be aware that other currencies, not all of them still used today, creep into the text. This is deliberate and is often as a result of the way historic information has come to me. The dollars referred to in the text are usually US, but keep an eye out for the Australian and Canadian versions. Sterling is often used in keeping with the UK’s position, both historic and current, at the centre of international mining, and at times the old pre-decimalisation system is also refered to. But the euro does not intrude very much in these pages.

As to weights and measurements the book reflects the real world, not the bureaucrats’ version, so imperial/American and metric are both used and often in the same breath. Thus a gold mine’s reserves are measured in grams per metric tonne (tonne) but the gold in those reserves is valued on the basis of troy ounces. Similar examples of mixing measurements can be found with base metals such as copper, nickel and zinc where metric tonnes and lbs exist easily together. As regards tonne/ton, the former is the metric measurement and the latter is a short ton in North America and a long ton usually in colonial South Africa and Australia.

M.C.