New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

The task of mining in the days before wide usage of electricity and internal combustion engines required a great deal of planning, fortitude, a new invention called dynamite, heavy iron tools, and luck. This presentation will focus on larger tools of the mining trade that often survive to stand testimony to the hard work and sometimes prosperity of the hard rock miner in the western U.S. Some of the manufacturers of these many tools will also be discussed.

Part 1: Prospectors and initial characterization of a mine—Hand tools, small buckets, windlasses, and other tools used in one-man operations. Some ghost towns will be shown as examples of unrealistic expectations or scams.

Part 2: Mine development—There will be a discussion of the influence of mail order catalogs in the early 1900s for choosing mining equipment. Shaft sinking methods and head frames, hoists, larger buckets, and incline car examples will be shown.

Part 3: Working the mine—Drilling and blasting, blasting caps and fuse, hand drills, air drills, drill poles and arms, compressors. Mucking and tramming, and carts used underground, such as flat cars, timber cars, tie cars, powder cars, latrine cars, mucking machines, air, and later Pelton wheels to produce electricity for underground lighting. Hoists will be discussed including those powered by horse, steam, electric, and gas. Stamp mills for ore processing will round out this discussion of tools.