Show copper and its ancient history 1 1 c 11 mt mailed D 27 wm R stackhouse in boston reporter no permanent mining industry is established and no substantial commercial development is secured until the mining of the base metals and of the bulky materials especially coal is begun precious metal mining is s characterized by the ephemeral camp for gold and silver is not found in inexhaustible quantities if it were common it would cease to be precious it is easy for dishonest employees to steal gold and silver great values take little bulk but it is not so easy to lose lead and coal and copper base metal mining is distinguished by the growth of permanent towns often cities and an enduring population this has been the history of the united states it is becoming the history of mexico it will be the history of south america but for years the production of base metals was confined in area their very bulk required methods of transportation not readily available prospectors roamed over many parts of colorado utah nevada and arizona and found outcrops of veins of lead and copper ore but without the means of cheap transportation por tation these discoveries were useless the construction of the pacific railway was anticipated as the supreme event in mining in the country west of the rocky mountains the railway enabled the base metals to be taken to the markets of the world developed great smelting smelling sm elting centers a permanent mining industry and finally the agriculture and the manufacturing industry required to support the miner virginia city dependent long upon the gold and silver mines of the comstock has waned to a sickly shadow of itself but denver salt lake city helena and bisbee each of them a great bredt smelting smelling sm elting center because of the mining of the ores of the base metals which are brought to their furnaces have become prominent centers of population the phoenician gold hunters have disappeared from the face of the globe and left no trace behind the glorious old days of the forty biners in california exist but as a memory even comstock the wonder of its time is now little more than a tradition but copper camps remain through centuries the history of copper is lost in the mists of antiquity it was known to the ancients thousands of years before the discovery of iron it was one of the six metals mentioned in the old testament and tubal cain was the first known artificer of iron and brass historical discoveries recently made in egypt have shown that the egyptian had a knowledge of copper so early as years B C and possibly at a date consid drably more remote by B 0 copper was in general use in egypt copper mines were first worked on mount ida in asia minor and on mount sinai these latter mines must have bee been worked for many thousands of years because we know that they were in operation as late as 1300 B C copper with its alloys entered not only at a very early date into the ornamental uses of the peoples of antiquity but into their daily economy bronze was used for making tools and weapons and for inscriptions antedating ante dating the great pyramids the oldest piece of bronze to which we can establish a date is a knob from the scepter of peti pet the first pharaoh of egypt around the year B C surely in the days of pharaoh copper was king copper was used in those dim lit times for statues money armor and farm implements household utensils nails locks butts hardware for chariots and boats for jewelry and general decorative purposes and while the pharaohs Phara were mining copper on sinai at ur of the Chal dees copper was being gathered from northern arabia the greeks were familiar with its use from their earliest known history the phoenicians Phoenicia ns mined copper at cypress and later brought it from iberia and still later from cornwall spain has been furnishing copper to the old world for nearly or quite years and still remains one of the sources of the worlds supply hoary with age with a wealth production so fabulous no man can hazard even a guess with a history that runs back a thousand years before the christian era is a copper mine the rio tinto of spain now belonging to the think of a mine that has produced for over years that had been turning out wealth for a thousand years when julius caesar was subduing the gaul when antony and cleopatra were floating down the nile when augustus caesar was establishing the great roman empire this mine has endured all the changes of time and fortune the vicissitudes of the human race and today with thirty centuries back of it is one of the worlds great copper producers the rio tinto may well be called the mother of all mines gold and silver camps may last for a few years but the gold and silver become exhausted and the camps break up and move away but copper mines are imbued with a life that flows into the centuries their span of production is measured not by years but by centuries the burgs mines in germany were opened about arid and have been producers for nearly a thousand years the mansfield of saxony germany was opened up in the year 1199 and became immensely profitable yet after all these years it is now producing an increase of ten fold ij in 1228 the mines of falun balun sweden were opened up and are still producing in 1799 norway was producing tons of fine copper and the copper mines of norway are producing today at the beginning of the eighteenth century great britain was making at least seventy five per cent of the worlds copper think of the tremendous increase in the supply of the worlds copper and the demand that has created that supply and the jump this country has taken when it is producing fifty per cent of the whole worlds copper copper is a sturdy king among metals today As the age of steel follows the age of iron so the succeeding industrial epoch is to be the age of electricity whose foundation is copper already this metal adds five hundred million dollars each year to the wealth of the world and its reign is still in its sturdy youth |