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ACOMMP2_book_usedverygood_1890437603 | | In Stock | | Availability:
Usually ships in 1 business days | | Only 2 left in stock, order soon! | | | | | | Whether you are a tourist with a casual interest in old mine sites or a serious mining historian wanting to know more about mining methods, you will find Riches to Rust to be fascinating reading. Eric Twitty's new book can be used as a field guide for exploring the many old mine sites across the West and understanding the relics strewn around an abandoned mine, or it can be useful in understanding the processes involved in mining in the nineteenth century in the United States. It includes chapters on mine development and organization as well as details on prospecting, mining, milling and transporting the ore. | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Eric Twitty | | Paperback: | 390 pages | | Publisher: | Western Reflections Publishing Co. | | Publication Date: | 2002-04 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 1890437603 | | Package Length: | 8.9 inches | | Package Width: | 6.0 inches | | Package Height: | 0.9 inches | | Package Weight: | 1.15 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 2 reviews |
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| | Features | ISBN13: 9781890437602Condition: NewNotes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 2 customer reviews )
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4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Great Information Aug 13, 2006
By Guy Mason
This book, although a dry read, contains great information about the construction of mines in the west. It also helps you identify mine ruins from their foundations with machine foundation patterns. It is a great resource to have if you like to explore mine sites. The tables dealing with dating artifacts can prove very helpful. There are also tables detailing compressor and hoist data that might be helpful to someone, although I'm not sure what to do with them.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
archaeology and anthropology in one Nov 16, 2009
By DRYWASHER-BILL
Lots of pictures. Pretty much in agreement with the other reviewer.
Mines all over the West had their discovery and renovations. Many collectors of old machinery routinely recover relics and restore them, much like the farm tractor crowd, as some sort of hobby, or variably lucrative trade.
While many mines have been pinpointed and labelled, as time goes forward, names get crossed up or forgotten, and fair to say, many anthropologists want to study a site, as well as others that want to date a site for relic recovery, and have little clue as to which date the area was worked.
Obviously, not all mines are gold mines; that is, the metal mined was not gold, but most mines are a gold mine for relic hunters and scientists of sorts. old bottles, insulators, cooking and eating utensils, machinery, no-name doodads, signage, even the way an old timber was set. There are lots of places to look and discover.
Then you get into mines, towns, and districts in the snow line. In the desert, dry climates preserve many metal goods, but are hard on wood. In the treeline, metal goods are the first to go, along with wood rot, and everything else not made of glass. In sulphide ore districts, water runoff through old workings or across stockpiled ore creates sulphuric acid that seriously and quickly degrades anything with iron in it. Miners in Red Mountain, Colorado had to replace air pipes, mine car wheels, tanks, rail, tools, drills, etc., on a fairly regular basis. In some mines, ore car wheels and piping did not even last a full shift. Rich ore perhaps, but a huge overhead to keep things working.
Eric Twitty did a very good job explaining things to any mining engineer interested in history, and well as to budding explorers looking around camp. I am more than sure that many mining students have copies of this book in their library. everyone needs a hobby.
One thing that I would caution is to not enter any mine; certainly not without leaving a note outside with your vital statistcs (name, dob, pob, home20, phone number, parents #, date). I know as well as anyone about the wonders imposed by a hole in the side of a hill, and how it draws every human being to want to look inside, but what most people don't know is that a mine had to be ventilated.
Most deadly gases in a mine are heavier than air, meaning they have a tendency to settle downwatd and push the oxygen component out of the space or void. Very true of radon, carbon dioxide, nitrogen compounds. As air is exposed to opened rock cavities underground, a chemical reaction causes the breathable oxygen/nitrogen in the air to degrade, creating not only a gas hazard, but rock degradation that leads to sloughing and cave-ins. Though some mines have a draft, there are always side drifts that contain bad air, and rock or support degradation is relevant is all.
As for wood, it may look almost new, color wise, but is as rotten as some corpse in a 100 year old casket, step on it and you may be the new corpse. I am serious! I once worked in Mine Rescue for explorers that had no mining experience, nor common sense. I have recovered corpses that were a mere 30 feet from the outside of the portal; kids being the most receptive to suffocation. In other mines, I have had to leave the corpse at the botton of the winze or shaft for the situation was too dangerous even for mine rescue personnel to retrieve the body.
In others words, stay and and stay alive
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