IN THE UNITED STATES COMPRISING AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE AND THE CONDITIONS WHICH HAVE AFFECTED THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDUSTRIES BY WALTER RENTON INGALLS Editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal, Editor of The Mineral Industry, Member 1908 HILL PUBLISHING COMPANY 505 PEARL STREET, NEW YORK 6 BOUVERIE STREET, LONDON, E.C. PREFACE THIS work was prepared at the request of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and with its assistance. It is to form a part of the Economic History of the United States which is to be published by the Carnegie Institution. This independent publication has been courteously permitted by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, chairman of the Department of Economics and Sociology, of the Carnegie Institution. I take this opportunity to express my thanks to the Institution, to Hon. Carroll D. Wright, and to Mr. Edward W. Parker, of Washington, who has been in immediate supervision of the part of the economic history relating to the mining industry, for their valuable assistance and earnest coöperation. Acknowledgment is due also to many who have supplied information which has been of assistance in the preparation of this work. I express my thanks especially to Mr. Dwight A. Jones, president of the St. Joseph Lead Co., Mr. Elias S. Gatch, president of the Granby Mining and Smelting Co., Hon. O. P. Austin, chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor, Mr. David H. Newland, assistant State geologist of New York, Mr. John P. Meany, manager of Poor's Manual of Railroads, and Mr. Charles M. Hicks, mine superintendent for the Bertha Mineral Company, Austinville, Va. I am particularly indebted to Mr. Arthur S. Dwight, who kindly read the chapter on metallurgy and favored me with valuable criticisms and suggestions. In the preparation of this work attention has been directed especially to the features contributing to the development of lead and zinc. mining as important sources of the supply of the metals. Consequently many interesting historical records of the early discovery of lead ore and the feeble, spasmodic attempts to mine it, are dismissed with brief references. These have been well described by W. H. Pulsifer in "Notes for a History of Lead," and I have considered it unnecessary to go over the same ground. The early discoveries and attempts at mining are of much antiquarian interest, but of little from the economic standpoint. The total production of lead in the United States previous to the nineteenth century was insignificant and zinc mining did not begin at all until about the middle of the nineteenth century. NEW YORK, March 1, 1908. WALTER RENTON INGALLS. |