"This is the fascinating story of Howard E. Perry and his Terlingua fiefdom on the edge of Big Bend National Park. Ragsdale's "Quicksilver: ""Terlingua"" and the ""Chisos"" Mining Company" is perhaps the best book written on the Big Bend country."--William H. Goetzmann
Before Terlingua achieved some notoriety as the site of the annual World Championship Chili Cookoff, the ghost town was the bustling center of the mercury mining industry in the United States. This study, available again in a redesigned paperback edition, examines the company town and its feudal lord, Chicago industrialist Howard E. Perry, who built a hilltop mansion overlooking the dry domain.
Based on many primary sources, "Quicksilver" is solidly researched and historically sound. Color and authenticity come from the author's interviews with such individuals as Robert Cartledge, who for nearly three decades worked as store clerk, purchasing agent, and finally general manager of the Chisos Mining Company in Terlingua.

As electricity became more widely used to power and light Britain's towns and cities a number of municipal boroughs built their own power stations. In the early years these were inevitably fed by coal, of which the UK had a plentiful supply. In the 1960s and early 1970s the government embarked on a programme of constructing new power stations. The majority of these were constructed with direct rail-connected on-site coal handling facilities and thus was born the Merry-Go-Round, or MGR, coal train. The book features a UK panorama of a wide variety of coal trains on the move, with previously unpublished images from across many years and locations.

Farm Prices was first published in 1958. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Few domestic questions are so controversial as the farm problem, yet the average city man finds it difficult to understand the basic issues involved. In this book Professor Cochrane describes for the layman the nature and causes of the commercial farm problem and the rural poverty problem and provides the basis for making informed judgments about these problems and their possible solutions. He analyzes the economic and political forces which are at work in the farm economy, explains the organization of modern agriculture, showing the unique structure of farming, and draws a vivid picture of the revolutionary developments which have taken place in agriculture. He discusses behavior patterns of farmers and consumers as they relate to the farm economy, and the role of government in the farm industry and in the lives of farmers. Farm prices are constantly fluctuating, and out of this price variability emerge such serious and continuing farm problems as variable incomes, low incomes over extended periods, and uncertainty in production planning. In this study Professor Cochrane seeks to get at the root of the trouble by, first, exploring and exposing what he considers a basic fallacy in our present day thinking and approach to the farm problem. This is the widely held myth of an automatically adjusting agriculture, an agriculture that is always out of balance because of an "emergency." This myth, he points out, beclouds the issues involved in the whole farm problem. The farm price myth splits two ways in the public mind, Mr. Cochrane explains, but these divergent attitudes represent differences only in mechanics, not in principle, and they are equally effective in obscuring the real picture. One segment of the public believes that agriculture, if left alone for a while, would gravitate toward and stabilize at some desirable level and pattern of prices, production, and incomes. The other segment believes that the same result would occur if agriculture were given a temporary, helping hand by the government. Mr. Cochrane shows the fallacies inherent in both of these convictions by presenting an integrated, overall picture of farm price behavior as it really exists. On a basis of this realistic view, he presents the two alternatives or hard policy choices that he believes the American farmer faces today. Willard W. Cochrane is Professor Emeritus of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of a number of books, including The City Man's Guide to the Farm Problem and Farm Prices: Myth and Reality. He previously served as an economist with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is the co-author of Economics of American Agriculture and Economics of Consumption.

Western Stock Ranching was first published in 1950. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Successful management of a stock ranch today requires a thorough, specialized knowledge of the land, the livestock, and the financial methods involved. This facts and figures study by an expert with long experience as a range economist deals with the working problems of sheep and cattle ranching and provides authoritative information on how to operate a ranch profitably. The business of ranching is analyzed in terms of markets, prices and incomes, management standards and guides for production, financial planning and reports, production cost analysis, ranch appraisal, rangeland management, and procedures in the use of government lands. The various natural regions of the West are surveyed and the types of ranches found in each section are described. In addition to considering in detail everyday ranch problems, the author realistically discusses the long-range problems confronting western stock ranchers as a group. Photographs, tables, sample accounting forms, and actual case illustrations add greatly to the usefulness of the book. Owners and operators of stock ranches, persons planning to enter the business, professional agriculturalists specializing in credit, marketing, or management, and teachers of courses in ranch management and economy will find this an invaluable reference or text.

A Primer to Theoretical Soil Mechanics is about adapting continuum mechanics to granular materials. The field of continuum mechanics offers many fruitful concepts and methods, however there is declining interest in the field due to its complex and fragmented nature. This book's purpose is therefore to facilitate the understanding of the theoretical principles of soil mechanics, as well as introducing the new theory of barodesy. This title argues for barodesy as a simple alternative to the plasticity theory used currently and provides a systematic insight into this new constitutive model for granular materials. This book therefore introduces a complex field from a fresh and innovative perspective using simple concepts, succinct equations and explanatory sketches. Intended for advanced undergraduates, graduates and PhD students, this title is also apt for researchers seeking advanced training on fundamental topics.

Being a lover of steam locomotives is a bit like chasing a setting sun - with the real diehards searching out survivors further and further from their home territory. Many enthusiasts would mark August 1968 as the end of 'proper' steam locomotives in the United Kingdom, the date when British Rail withdrew their final examples. However, for those in the know, steam continued to contribute to the British economy in industrial settings for nearly a further two decades. In the coal and ironstone mining industry, in power generation, in chemical factories, steelworks and foundries, small, rugged locomotives continued to toil away on a daily basis. Some were lovingly cared for, while others were worked into the ground. The author discovered colliery steam by accident and often explored this world while accompanied by his younger, equally enthusiastic, brother. This led them to some of the more obscure and less traditionally scenic parts of the country, but some of these industrial settings had a haunting beauty of their own. The photographs featured here give a taste of this particular setting for steam workhorses.

The modern public mining royalty and streaming industry began in 1986 with the conversion of Franco-Nevada Mining Corporation from an exploration into a royalty company. Collectively, this industry has since grown to more than 35 companies and approximately $66 billion in market capitalization. The royalty and streaming industry offer two important services: it is a major funding source to large and small companies, and its public companies command some of the higher price-to-net-asset-value ratios of any industry. Told by titans in the industry, this entertaining book shows readers what the founders were thinking about the industry at the time of their corporate formation and the innovative methods that kept the market active and moving in new directions. Most of the founders of the largest companies are now retired, and this book captures their stories for future generations. Their intimate knowledge and leadership provide current and future royalty holders and investors with unique knowledge, detailing how this industry has developed, evolved, and thrived.

What are corporations, and to whom are they responsible? Anthropologist Marina Welker draws on two years of research at Newmont Mining Corporation's Denver headquarters and its Batu Hijau copper and gold mine in Sumbawa, Indonesia, to address these questions. She shows how, against the backdrop of an emerging Corporate Social Responsibility movement and changing state dynamics in Indonesia, people enact the mining corporation in multiple ways: as an ore producer, employer, patron, promoter of sustainable development, religious sponsor, auditable organization, foreign imperialist, and environmental threat. Rather than assuming that corporations are monolithic, profit-maximizing subjects, Welker turns to anthropological theories of personhood to develop an analytic model of the corporation as an unstable collective subject with multiple authors, boundaries, and interests. Enacting the Corporation demonstrates that corporations are constituted through continuous struggles over relations with--and responsibilities to--local communities, workers, activists, governments, contractors, and shareholders.

Both a history of an overlooked community and a well-rounded reassessment of prevailing assumptions about Chinese miners in the American West, In Pursuit of Gold brings to life in rich detail the world of turn-of-the-century mining towns in the Northwest. Sue Fawn Chung meticulously recreates the lives of Chinese immigrants, miners, merchants, and others who populated these towns and interacted amicably with their white and Native American neighbors, defying the common perception of nineteenth-century Chinese communities as insular enclaves subject to increasing prejudice and violence.

While most research has focused on Chinese miners in California, this book is the first extensive study of Chinese experiences in the towns of John Day in Oregon and Tuscarora, Island Mountain, and Gold Creek in Nevada. Chung illustrates the relationships between miners and merchants within the communities and in the larger context of immigration, arguing that the leaders of the Chinese and non-Chinese communities worked together to create economic interdependence and to short-circuit many of the hostilities and tensions that plagued other mining towns.

Peppered with fascinating details about these communities from the intricacies of Chinese gambling games to the techniques of hydraulic mining, In Pursuit of Gold draws on a wealth of historical materials, including immigration records, census manuscripts, legal documents, newspapers, memoirs, and manuscript collections. Chung supplements this historical research with invaluable first-hand observations of artifacts that she experienced in archaeological digs and restoration efforts at several of the sites of the former booming mining towns.

In clear, analytical prose, Chung expertly characterizes the movement of Chinese miners into Oregon and Nevada, the heyday of their mining efforts in the region, and the decline of the communities due to changes in the mining industry. Highlighting the positive experiences and friendships many of the immigrants had in these relatively isolated mining communities, In Pursuit of Gold also suggests comparisons with the Chinese diaspora in other locations such as British Columbia and South Africa.

This book will take an in-depth look at the technologies, processes, and capabilities to develop and produce "next generation" energetic materials for both commercial and defense applications, including military, mining operations, oil production and well perforation, and construction demolition. It will serve to highlight the critical technologies, latest developments, and the current capability gaps that serve as barriers to military fielding or transition to the commercial marketplace. It will also explain how the processing technologies can be spun out for use in other non-energetics related industries.

Himalaya, the world's most prominent mountain system of the world is a source of sustainence for the social, cultural and economic development of population across different countries. Unscientific, small-scale mining for harnessing reounrces including minerals has caused ecosystem damage. Therefore, an integrated and holistic approach to deal with the resource management is required. This book makes a focussed effort to explain how mining in the Himalaya is practiced with discussions pertaining to critiques and lacunas of mining and environmental practices. Status of mining practices in Himalaya is included along with the legal/environmental repercussions of mining.

Born at a traditional Inuit camp in what is now Nunavut, Joan Scottie has spent decades protecting the Inuit hunting way of life, most famously with her long battle against the uranium mining industry. Twice, Scottie and her community of Baker Lake successfully stopped a proposed uranium mine. Working with geographer Warren Bernauer and social scientist Jack Hicks, Scottie here tells the history of her community's decades-long fight against uranium mining. Scottie's I Will Live for Both of Us is a reflection on recent political and environmental history and a call for a future in which Inuit traditional laws and values are respected and upheld. Drawing on Scottie's rich and storied life, together with document research by Bernauer and Hicks, their book brings the perspective of a hunter, Elder, grandmother, and community organizer to bear on important political developments and conflicts in the Canadian Arctic since the Second World War. In addition to telling the story of her community's struggle against the uranium industry, I Will Live for Both of Us discusses gender relations in traditional Inuit camps, the emotional dimensions of colonial oppression, Inuit experiences with residential schools, the politics of gold mining, and Inuit traditional laws regarding the land and animals. A collaboration between three committed activists, I Will Live for Both of Us provides key insights into Inuit history, Indigenous politics, resource management, and the nuclear industry.

Mines have always been hard and dangerous places. They have also been as dependent upon imaginative writing as upon the extraction of precious materials. This study of a broad range of responses to gold and silver mining in the late nineteenth century sets the literary writings of figures such as Mark Twain, Mary Hallock Foote, Bret Harte, and Jack London within the context of writing and representation produced by people involved in the industry: miners and journalists, as well as writers of folklore and song. Floyd begins by considering some of the grand narratives the industry has generated. She goes on to discuss particular places and the distinctive work they generated--the short fictions of the California Gold Rush, the Sagebrush journalism of Nevada's Comstock Lode, Leadville romance, and the popular culture of the Klondike. With excursions to Canada, South Africa, and Australia, Floyd looks at how the experience of a destructive and chaotic industry produced a global literature.

Edward ""Ed"" Schieffelin (1847-1897) was the epitome of the American frontiersman. A former Indian scout, he discovered what would become known as the legendary Tombstone, Arizona, silver lode in 1877. His search for wealth followed a path well-trod by thousands who journeyed west in the mid to late nineteenth century to try their luck in mining country. But unlike typical prospectors who spent decades futilely panning for gold, Schieffelin led an epic life of wealth and adventure. In Portrait of a Prospector, historian R. Bruce Craig pieces together the colorful memoirs and oral histories of this singular individual to tell Schieffelin's story in his own words. Craig places the prospector's family background and times into context in an engaging introduction, then opens Schieffelin's story with the frontiersman's accounts of his first prospecting attempts at ten years old, his flight from home at twelve to search for gold, and his initial wanderings in California, Nevada, and Utah. In direct, unsentimental prose, Schieffelin describes his expedition into Arizona Territory, where army scouts assured him that he ""would find no rock . . . but his own tombstone."" Unlike many prospectors who simply panned for gold, Schieffelin took on wealthy partners who invested the enormous funds needed for hard rock mining. He and his co-investors in the Tombstone claim became millionaires. Restless in his newfound life of wealth and leisure, Schieffelin soon returned to exploration. Upon his early death in Oregon he left behind a new strike, the location of which remains a mystery. Collecting the words of an exceptional figure who embodied the western frontier, Craig offers readers insight into the mentality of prospector-adventurers during an age of discovery and of limitless potential. Portrait of a Prospector is highly recommended for undergraduate western history survey courses.

This concise, accessible introduction to the history of oil tells the story of how petroleum has shaped human life since it was first discovered oozing inconspicuously from the soil. For a century, human dependence on petroleum caused little discomfort as we enjoyed the heyday of cheap crude-a glorious episode of energy gluttony that was destined to end. Today, we see the disastrous results in environmental degradation, political instability, and world economic disparity in the waning years of a petroleum-powered civilization-lessons rooted in the finite nature of oil. Considering the nature of oil itself as well as humans' remarkable relationship with it, Brian C. Black spotlights our modern conundrum and then explores the challenges of our future without oil. It is this essential context, he argues, that will prepare us for our energy transition. Bringing his global perspective and wide-ranging technical knowledge, Black has written an essential contribution to environmental history and the rapidly emerging field of energy history in this sweeping, forward-looking survey.

Coal is the political, economic and cultural totem for debates about climate change. Yet Australian politicians have had a love affair with coal, which has helped lock our politics - and our country - into the fossil fuel age. This searing book takes apart the pivotal role of the Adani Carmichael mine in the conflict over coal. We see the rise of a fossil fuel power network linking mining companies, mining oligarchs, the big four banks, right-wing think tanks, lobby groups, the conservative media and all sides of Australian politics. On the other side, we have one of the biggest social movements ever seen in Australia in the form of #StopAdani uniting to try to save the Great Barrier Reef, native title rights and to fight the corrupt politics of coal. Looking into the social, environmental and economic elements of this big fight, as well as the background of Gautam Adani himself, this book tells the full story of one of the lightning rod issues of our time. Sales Points: The inside story of Australia's largest and the world's second largest proposed coal mine Reveals the insidious power and influence of the fossil fuel lobby at all levels of government. The loser is democracy. Comprehensive - covers all aspects of the political, economic and social sides of Adani Shows impact of the proposed mine and resistance to it on corporations - the big 4 banks for example The Adani campaign has had an impact on voting patterns - the recent Batman by-election in Melbourne is a good example The proposed mine is in Queensland but the story is truly national Author has interviewed key players including Bob Brown, Geoff Cousins, Adrian Burragubba to write an often gripping narrative Includes background on Gautam Adani himself, and the sorry environmental record of his company in India Combines analysis and research within a compelling - and shocking - story Up to date - author can't see a path by which the mine could proceed, but warns we should not be complacent To be endorsed by legendary environmental campaigners Bob Brown and Bill McKibben Quentin Beresford's previous book The Rise and Fall of Gunns Ltd won the Tasmanian Premier's 2015 Literary Prize and was longlisted for the Walkley Book Award. He proved himself as a superb media performer and will do the same here.

TV portraits of the Miners' strike of 1984/5 stressed the violence of the pickets and responsible policing. This book challenges those images, looks at the impact of the strike on participants, and reflects on ongoing controversies and community pride.The book is organised into three parts. In early chapters participants look back. So, Peter Smith speaks of his honest determination not to become a 'professional sacked miner' and Sian James tells of her excitement and pride at her community's defence of a valued way of life. Political controversies are examined: Was the strike the result of careful planning (on the part of the Thatcher Government, and/or the NUM)? How and why were striking miners, at Orgreave in June 1984, injured, arrested and vilified? Why were miners determined not to be 'constitutionalized' or balloted out of their jobs? How did the BBC and ITV misrepresent police action and show miners as 'out of control'? Why did miners in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and elsewhere support, or oppose, the strike? The final section examines enduring issues especially the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign.Is a more critical assessment of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher long overdue? Why is miners' history and heritage - as seen in the Durham Miners' Gala - so fondly celebrated?

This important study examines the role of Africa's strategic mineral resources in global defense and in the international economic system. Beginning with an overview of the situation as a whole, the author discusses the role of transnational corporations in the exploitation of Africa's mineral resources and explains the implications of the theories of Matthew Effect, dependency, core-periphery, and imperialism. Among the issues Ogunbadejo considers are the political economy of strategic minerals; the political significance of American, European, and Soviet dependence on these minerals vis-a-vis their relations with the producer nations; and the impact of geopolitical considerations on U.S./South African relations.

For indigenous communities throughout the globe, mining has been a historical forerunner of colonialism, introducing new, and often disruptive, settlement patterns and economic arrangements. Although indigenous communities may benefit from and adapt to the wage labour and training opportunities provided by new mining operations, they are also often left to navigate the complicated process of remediating the long-term ecological changes associated with industrial mining. In this regard, the mining often inscribes colonialism as a broad set of physical and ecological changes to indigenous lands. Mining and Communities in Northern Canada examines historical and contemporary social, economic, and environmental impacts of mining on Aboriginal communities in northern Canada. Combining oral history research with intensive archival study, this work juxtaposes the perspectives of government and industry with the perspectives of local communities. The oral history and ethnographic material provides an extremely significant record of local Aboriginal perspectives on histories of mining and development in their regions. With contributions by: Patricia Boulter Jean-SA (c)bastien Boutet Emilie Cameron Sarah Gordon Heather Green Jane Hammond Joella Hogan Arn Keeling Tyler Levitan Hereward Longley Scott Midgley Kevin O'Reilly Andrea Procter John Sandlos Alexandra Winton

In Unearthing Conflict Fabiana Li analyzes the aggressive expansion and modernization of mining in Peru since the 1990s to tease out the dynamics of mining-based protests. Issues of water scarcity and pollution, the loss of farmland, and the degradation of sacred land are especially contentious. She traces the emergence of the conflicts by discussing the smelter-town of La Oroya-where people have lived with toxic emissions for almost a century-before focusing her analysis on the relatively new Yanacocha gold mega-mine. Debates about what kinds of knowledge count as legitimate, Li argues, lie at the core of activist and corporate mining campaigns. Li pushes against the concept of "equivalence"-or methods with which to quantify and compare things such as pollution-to explain how opposing groups interpret environmental regulations, assess a project's potential impacts, and negotiate monetary compensation for damages. This politics of equivalence is central to these mining controversies, and Li uncovers the mechanisms through which competing parties create knowledge, assign value, arrive at contrasting definitions of pollution, and construct the Peruvian mountains as spaces under constant negotiation.

This book offers a pioneering window into the elusive workings of state-corporate crime within the mining industry. It follows a campaign of resistance organised by indigenous activists on the island of Bougainville, who struggled to close a Rio Tinto owned copper mine, and investigates the subsequent state-corporate response, which led to the shocking loss of some 10,000 lives. Drawing on internal records and interviews with senior officials, Kristian Lasslett examines how an articulation of capitalist growth mediated through patrimonial politics, imperial state-power, large-scale mining, and clan-based, rural society, prompted an ostensibly 'responsible' corporate citizen, and liberal state actors, to organise a counterinsurgency campaign punctuated with gross human rights abuses. State Crime on the Margins of Empire represents a unique intervention rooted in a classical Marxist tradition that challenges positivist streams of criminological scholarship, in order to illuminate with greater detail the historical forces faced by communities in the global south caught in the increasingly violent dynamics of the extractive industries.

Africa supplies the majority of the world's diamonds, yet consumers generally know little about the origins and history of these precious stones beyond sensationalized media accounts of so-called blood diamonds.
"Stones of Contention" explores the major developments in the remarkable history of Africa's diamonds, from the first stirrings of international interest in the continent's mineral wealth in the first millennium A.D. to the present day. In the European colonial period, the discovery of diamonds in South Africa ushered in an era of unprecedented greed during which monopolistic enterprises exploited both the mineral resources and the indigenous workforce. In the aftermath of World War II, the governments of newly independent African states, both democratic and despotic, joined industry giant De Beers and other corporations to oversee and profit from mining activity on the continent.
The book also considers the experiences of a wide array of Africans--from informal artisanal miners, company mineworkers, and indigenous authorities to armed rebels, mining executives, and premiers of mineral-rich states--and their relationships to the stones that have the power to bring both wealth and misery. With photos and maps, Stones of Contention illustrates the scope and compexity of the African diamond trade as well as its impact on individuals and societies.

This book assesses the state of the science on the environmental impacts of mountaintop mines and valley fills (MTM-VF) on streams in the Central Appalachian Coalfields. These coalfields cover about 48,000 square kilometres (12 million acres) in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, USA. This book focuses on the impacts of mountaintop removal coal mining, which, as its name suggests, involves removing all -- or some portion -- of the top of a mountain or ridge to expose and mine one or more coal seams. The excess overburden is disposed of in constructed fills in small valleys or hollows adjacent to the mining site. Conclusions are drawn, based on evidence from peer-reviewed literature, and from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement released in 2005, and that MTM-VF lead directly to five principal alterations of stream ecosystems: (1) springs, and ephemeral, intermittent, and small perennial streams are permanently lost with the removal of the mountain and from burial under fill, (2) concentrations of major chemical ions are persistently elevated downstream, (3) degraded water quality reaches levels that are acutely lethal to standard laboratory test organisms, (4) selenium concentrations are elevated, reaching concentrations that have caused toxic effects in fish and birds and (5) macroinvertebrate and fish communities are consistently degraded.

At any given moment in our history Australia has been in the middle of a mining boom. This book is a history of iconic Australian towns that have emerged as a result of these booms: Broken Hill, Mount Isa, Queenstown, Mount Morgan, Port Pirie and Kambalda. It covers past and present, showing that while some of these towns have declined they have all had thriving local communities. Unlike many mining books this is not limited to a single material like coal or gold, but traces the fortunes of a range of towns throughout Australia that have been at the centre of very different mining booms. Eklund is especially interested in the communities that have formed around these places, and tells how they started and how well they have fared. Sadly, the current 'fly in fly out' mining culture means we won't see the like of them again, which, as the author shows, is a great loss.