Show man a ma mammal amal plus a mi miner 0 ner an epic with a modern modem moral BY S F HUNT the genus homo aiom 0 o diff differentiates erent lates alfs L s kind from the rest of the animal world in that he mines and uses the metals all mam main mals must eat to live grow and propagate their kind so does the human tribe also vegetate to live and learn but aside from this common first condition of existence mans production of the metals and use of fire distinguishes him from the rest of the animal kingdom our knowledge of paleolithic man is limited but we know he was a contemporary of the hairy mammoth cave bear and tiger in the mid glacial epoch or before the flood of noah to be more explicit all of his early associates mentioned are now extinct from his tools implements and efforts at art for historical subdivision sub division our accounts and uncertain knowledge of his habits and surroundings are described by stages or ages in his development seven in all the first were the three ages of stone rough and polished followed by the age of 1 I gold the age of silver the age el of bronze an alloy of copper and tin and the age of iron the first three preceding the deluge and the last four following it the history of human life on the globe is not tied to stages of city building nor agriculture but to kinds and classes of implements artifices and spiritual development and mental attainment for we have become civilized social beings only as we have first learned to use and fuse the metals and then evolve a notion of creation religion and the sciences the miner a necessity of civilization without the miner miner and the mine civilization is unattainable and should mining cease a condition of degenerate savagery and widespread depopulation would swiftly follow A single generation would suffice to well nigh depopulate the earth only a few now primitive tribes would remain to again grow into nations or to tell the tale of all of the mammals that vegetate man alone is of igneous origin in some strange manner he is related to the earthquake and volcanic phenomena from the begin ing of time his chosen and never abandoned home in the vicinity and glare of these sublime and awe inspiring forces attest this relationship mythology tells us taking some ile earth and kneading it with water prometheus made man in the imagine of the gods giving him an upright stature so that while other animals turn their faces toward the earth man gazes at the stars then en prometheus ascended to heaven light ed his torch at the chariot of the sun and brought down fire with fire in his hands man would be able to win the secrets and treasures of earth he fashioned and furnished him with the fire of intellect and gave him the form and attributes of vulcan the god of fire and the first artificer in gold and bronze vulcan it was who built the dwellings of the gods he made the sceptre of jove the shields and spears of the olympians Olymp ians the arrows of apollo and diana the breastplate fo iler hercules cules and the shield of achilles without these metal trappings fashioned by his cunning hand these deities of old could not have staged the wierd grand and wonderful scenes that have remained the soul and source of poetic inspiration and imagery even unto this day and time and all this back in the golden age pluto the first miner pluto hated of mortals who at his pleasure visited the realm of day was the first miner he was lord not only of all that descends to the bowels of the earth but of all that proceeds from the earth as well and the great giver of wealth he it was who made and mined the metals that vulcan fashioned in his forge beneath aetna for the other unclad gods pluto then was the elemental producer of metal and art the miner that made modern plutocracy possible he then and his direct descendants the miners of today are the only givers of great wealth without which civilization must decline and die now the silver age came on and was inferior to the golden it was the age of farmers jupiter plutos brother and sov reign of the world divided the year into seasons and men suffered the extremes of heat and cold these farmers were a strong and hardy class of men but insolent and impious and when they died jupiter made them g ghosts hosts of the underworld and withheld the privilege of immortal life and the denizens of the walled cities were included when we journey through the gate of clouds to olympus or consult the oracles of delphi or follow jason in his quest of the golden fleece gift of mercury the winged god first inventor mathematician and astronomer we learn that the deities of old of first magnitude were those that worked the metals and identified their activities and sympathies with the arts and sciences that developed only with the use of metals hence the miner may claim a superior holdover hold over dignity from the golden age and the special favor and approval of the gods of old but our plutocrats of the present day do not all appear to be of direct plutonic descent some of them seem to have descended from the god bronus lord of heaven and earth from the beginning of incalculable years with veiled head to conceal his craftiness and reserve or they may resemble the cyclopes or released from to thunder with jupiter on the battlefield of thessaly where fell titanic power thus is set forth mans plus quantity or superiority over the rest of the mammal world as conceived by men and their deities of time civilization centuries ago and its decline in the land of egypt fifty centuries ago in the thirtieth century B C t there here was an hundred years of astonishing tremendous and wonderful mental and material progress unexcelled or in all historic time by any wave of human energy except perhaps the past one hundred years irrigation agriculture and maritime commerce grow grew and expanded by leaps and bounds thebes and other great cities of the nile were built or enlarged and beautified the sciences of mathematics astronomy and algebra were developed and invention and art advanced to almost present day standards egypt then was a great kingdom ruled by menes pharoah it was the mother and founder of civilization for all the ancient world but a period of stagnation and decline came over that land and the fierce shepherd kings swept in conquered and laid waste a civilization that had rotted at the core the egyptians genius and spirit for mining had died they had grown eff effeminate rent and interest takers that brooked no loss nor peered beyond the bounds of their own selfishness fis fish ness so the copper mines of the sinai peninsula and the gold and silver mines of abyssinia and other lands were abandoned for safer investments as they believed and these same mines with ore still in them have lai laid d idle and abandoned for lo 10 these five thousand years in their frenzied scramble for material growth and wealth the egyptians of that day had lost sight of or inverted the pyramid of industrial life which crumbled and fell destroying them in its crash only choops and the silent pyramids of the nile remain they were not built by the phar bahs but before the deluge by a still older civilization that had grown wicked and vile and from which only noah escaped to tell the tale they also had ceased to mine having according to biblical account account become mere degenerate degen rate mammals lost in the wash of a deluge so when a stage of advancement and material progress and accumulation has been reached by any people or at any period of time where their policy of safety first in finance excludes the incidental risks and hazards of mining as unworthy of consideration and support then and there they have passed beyond the meridian of their greatness and have entered the sink of sordid decline because the basic conditions and occupations upon which all civilization must rest cannot be neglected and abandoned as unworthy without consequential decay they have lost prometheus fire and have degenerated in fact to gross mammals having stood the industrial pyramid of life on its apex for their own destruction cessation of mining invites D dl ater given a condition in which all mining of fuels and the useful metals would cease the world over for a period of only five years we must shudder at the thought in this short lapse of time even in a human life there would not remain a factory transportation por tation concern power or lighting plant in operation in all the world of what value would the dakota farmers wheat be to him the cattle the miners ore and without means of travel or transportation how would the dwellers of the great cities fare under this catastrophe and in this ephemeral link of days all of seventy five per cent of the souls of the earth would freeze starve and perish in many ways there is no question about this hence the so called conservative or over careful individual in whatever walk or station of life he may call his own and with whatever dislike or disfavor he may beat bear to the miner of metals must withal be personally concerned if not interested in the necessity and indispensable value of the mining industry to society at large as a fixed and worthy unit in the economy of gregarious grega reous lif life e solemn warning is sounded given another situation in which transportation por tation labor and other top heavy organized forces conspire through state and other means of control to waylay way lay the miner to the point of extinction through various and combined exactions and demands who are they that suffer the miner alone certainly not the miner in the proper sense and meaning of this term is not a wage earner bone of deucalion but a self reliant self sustained individual or group that digs useful minerals from mother earth as did pluto giver of wealth the product of his effort is his contribution to the sum of wealth and comforts As these factors are agencies in production that are made possible and maintained by and upon basic industry are they not killing the geese that lay the golden eggs when their exactions cripple or destroy these primary operations and who are they other than a self satisfied aggregation of mami mammals nals minus and devoid of the fire of prometheus that will lay claim to innocuous indifference hark for whom and wherever they be they will go down conducted by mercury the messenger with those that gibber like bats as they fare down the dark ways past the streams of oceanus past the gates of the sun and the land of dreams to the mead of asphodel in the dark realm of hades where dwell the souls the phantoms of men outworn the ghosts of the underworld of the men of the silver age will they not |