Dear Listers:
I hope I have followed the right procedures to post this. My first attempt.
I wish to comment on, and add to in a sociological sense, the report sent in by
Dave Williams concerning the mining of mercury in Borneo in 1880. This subject
is of interest to me because, in my younger days of invincibility and
immortality, I spent a year or so (~1971-2) running around the Zambian bush in a
LandRover, every crevice of which was filled with little globs of metallic
mercury: I lived, ate and slept in this vehicle for some of that time. The
globs were the result of spillage from a standard flask, at that time 80 lbs in
my memory, but it could have been 75lbs. Instead of iron the flask was made of
stout plastic, but I never found a way of securing it so that it could not break
loose on a bad bump. When it did break loose the top would always pop off, and I
would spend a few minutes retrieving the mercury with my fingernails, a sheet of
paper, or whatever else was handy.
The reason for the flask was that I was monitoring pumping tests on a series of
boreholes designed to supply 1,000,000 gallons of water a day for the
concentrator at the Bwana Mkubwa copper mine, then under construction. Water
flow was measured by a mercury manometer. (The history of the Bwana Mkubwa mine
is a large topic in itself).
A year later I had the privilege of visiting Almaden Mine in Spain: my memory
is of an incredibly beautiful Aladdin's cave of adamantine Cinnabar speckled
with thousands of brilliant spheres of metallic mercury shining back at the lamp
on one's head.
However, the atmosphere was worthy of Hell - extremely hot, humid, and
poisonous. I suffered from severe deep chest pains for at least two months
afterwards. The miners wore no masks, on account of the heat, and nor did we.
The town sidewalks were littered with the shaking wrecks of old miners.
I now find, 30 years later, that I, too, probably suffered some permanent damage
from these exposures to Mercury. It seems incredible, looking back, how cavalier
our attitudes were to all kinds of dangers, both on and off the job. There was
status to doing a job that could quite possibly kill you - a sort of "better to
live a short and thrilling life than to survive a century in boredom" attitude.
As an example, in Zambia, which was a relatively safe place, the highest status
went to the Rockbreakers, who competed furiously to break records for daily
footage, and usually died or were maimed in an accident as a result. The
diamond drillers I knew seemed to admire the mine geologists, whom they normally
would have despised because of their education, because the geologist was
normally the first person into a new stope, before it had been made safe. The
field exploration geologist, who explored by means of logging and sampling pits
(30" diam. and up to 100 feet deep) and cross-cuts dug by a crew of labourers,
was required in his own mind to enter each possibly snake-infested or gas-filled
pit first, and to act as point man on surface surveys, or to risk losing the
respect of his crew.
Perhaps the attitudes of miners of all sorts to the dangers of their jobs, and
the evolution of those attitudes, would be an interesting topic for a young
sociologist. When we think of the history of child and female labour in mines,
it would seem an interesting study to try to determine to what extent attitudes
were conditioned by poverty (necessity), versus the extent they were conditioned
by the sort of "machismo" described above. Unfortunately, in spite of some
anecdotes that I have heard in the UK and in Sicily, I suspect that everybody
who actually experienced doing child labour in mines is dead by now.
For those who are interested in the "chemical" hazards of mining, and the
history of the theories of doctors about them, I attach below, with thanks to
the unknown owner, an extract from the web site
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mossvalley/mv/home.html
concerning poisoning by mercury of miners and of others who used mercury in
their occupations. For "salivated" the Concise OED gives "produce unusual
secretion of saliva in (person) usu. with mercury." It must have been a great
excess to produce the discomfort implied by the report below. Conditions at
Almaden do not seem to have changed much between ~1723 and 1973!
This site is copyright protected, so I have only extracted the small section
concerned with Mercury poisoning: this is part of a transcription of a much
longer article covering a variety of metals, so please go to the site itself for
more details. The site also includes much material relevant to mining in the
Sheffield area and in NE Wales. I apologize to the owner of the site if this
use infringes his/her copyright.
-----------------------------------
Transcribed from The Penny Magazine of The Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge, 1836
DISEASES OF ARTISANS EMPLOYED IN WORKING IN METALS
(extracted from a paper on 'The Diseases of Artisans,' &c.,
in the 'Working-Man's Year-Book for 1836')
4. Mercury
More than a century ago, Jussieu gave an account of the workmen in the
quicksilver-mines of Almaden, in the province of La Mancha, in Spain.
"The free workmen at Almaden," he says, "by taking care, on leaving the
mine, to change their whole dress, particularly their shoes, preserved
their health, and lived as long as other people; but the poor slaves,
who could not afford a change of raiment, and who took their meals in
the mine, generally without even washing their hands, were subject to
swellings of the parotids, apthous sore-throat, salivation, pustular
eruptions, and tremors."-(Christison on Poisons, p.311.) In this country
we have no quicksilver-mines; but the trades of the silverers of mirrors
and water-gilders expose them to the disease called by the French
tremblement mercurial, i.e. mercurial shaking. One of the cases
reported by Mr. Mitchell, in the 'London Medical and Physical Journal,'
for November, 1831, will show the nature of the disease:-
"P. Nash, ęt twenty, of nervous temperament, commenced silvering six
months ago; the trembling came on three days after he began to work,
and his mouth was sore in six days; and he has continued to suffer,
more or less, up to the present time. 14th March, 1831-The speech
greatly impeded; the limbs totter when he attempts to stand or walk,
which he accomplishes very slowly and with great difficulty; an infirm
step and awkward gait: he is unable to convey any substance to the
mouth, in consequence of the severity of the tremors; slight subsultus
tendinum [twitching of the tendons] confined to the upper extremities;
the tongue quivers; gums slightly tender; pulse strong, rather quick;
appetite diminished; sleep disturbed; body wasted; he complains as if
a feeling oppressed, like a load, across the lower part of the Chest,
or as if a substance lay at the bottom of the lungs, as he expresses
himself, which he conceived to have been drawn in by inspiration; the
breathing was quick, accompanied with strictured feeling and cough.
He was nearly thrown from a bath by the violence of the trembling; a
large quantity of the water was driven by his excessive agitation over
the sides of the bath; and if two men had not held him steadily in the
water, he must have been thrown out before he was capable of remaining
quiet."
A part of the noxious effects is no doubt owing to want of cleanliness;
but a great part must be attributed to the mercurial vapours diffused in
the air and inhaled by the workmen. How much must be owing to this
latter cause may be seen from a well-known accident, which took place in
1810. Two ships of war, the Triumph and the Phipps, were bringing home
a large quantity of quicksilver, when, by some accident, several of the
bags burst. The entire crews of both vessels were salivated on the
voyage home from Cadiz; many were dangerously ill, and two died; and the
sheep, goats, dogs, cats, &c., were likewise destroyed by the gaseous
poison.
Transcriptions and scanned images © AJ, Moss Valley, 2001; all rights reserved
(please view terms)"
------------------------------------------------
I, too, was very interested in the discussion on the Town Gas industry: one of
the houses I grew up in was built in 1896 and converted to electricity at some
later time. All of the gas outlets had been sawn off and closed off, but some
less perfectly than others, so that the whole house had a faint odour of gas!
John Berry Assocs - Remote Sensing Services
5013 Westview Drive, AUSTIN, TX 78731
Ph: +1-512-452-8068 Fx: +1-512-452-8068
Mo: +1-512-293-8068
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]>
To: Recipients of mining-history digests <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, 10 January, 2002 6:00 PM
Subject: mining-history Digest - 9 Jan 2002 to 10 Jan 2002 (#2002-11)
There are 8 messages totalling 403 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. South Yorks Collieiries - John Goodchild
2. PLACES AND PEOPLE IN THE EARLY EAST LONDON GAS INDUSTRY (3)
3. Kinnaird Report (3)
4. Mining in Borneo - 1880
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Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 11:27:24 +0000
From: Dave Williams <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Mining in Borneo - 1880
Having just returned from spending Christmas and New Year in Borneo, I
came across the following details in a book "The Experiences of a Hunter
and Naturalist in the Malay Peninsula and Borneo" by William T. Hornaday
published c1880.
They might be of interest to somebody.
"About 8pm we reached Busau, twenty-six miles from Kuching, and landed.
Here we were at the terminus of the Borneo Company's tram-way system,
from which the antimony mined in the vicinity and the quicksilver from
Tegora is shipped down the river. Leaving our luggage to be pushed after
us on a tram-car, we set out in the black darkness and walked on the
tram-way four miles to Paku."
"After coffee, with Mr. Everett accompanying us, we set out and walked
four miles northwest to see the Chinese gold-washings at Bau. There was
a good path all the way, through the second growth of jungle, and the
scenery was highly interesting.
Bau takes its name from a peak close to the washings, from the northern
base of which a remarkable pinnacle rises like a gigantic pillar with
the top broken off and its precipitous face smooth and bare.
There are two Chinese companies working gold at Bau, and we visited the
works of both. Both pursue the same wasteful plan. The gold occurs in
very fine particles in a low hill of decomposed porphyry, mixed with a
small proportion of blue limestone, manganese, etc. In appearance it
resembles yellow clay. A large reservoir affords a good head of water,
and, as fast as the hill is dug down, the earth is thrown into the
sluices, some of which are nearly a mile long, and washed away. Three or
four times a year they turn off the water and wash up the residuum by
hand. It is a very wasteful process, and the Chinawomen do a very fair
business in washing out the dirt at the lower end of the sluices.
The two gold companies have separate villages and two sets of shops,
both well built and neatly kept."
"After leaving the cave, we went on higher up the gorge to some of the
remarkable well-like crevices which exist in the hills. They are simply
holes running down through the limestone, with ragged uneven sides, very
often of no greater diameter than a common well, three or four feet, and
sometimes sixty to seventy feet deep. Sometimes gold is found in the
loose dirt at the bottom, and when this is the case they are worked by
the Malays. In order to get down one of these holes and up again, the
prospector puts sticks across the opening, jamming the end firmly into
the cracks in the sides, thus forming a ladder reaching to the bottom.
There is usually a cavern at the bottom of each crevice, and it would
seem that the whole hill is a mass of huge rocks, cracked and seamed
throughout."
"On the way to Tegora, I met Mr. Harvey, a handsome, manly-looking young
Englishman, one of the officers in charge of the mines, who introduced
himself directly and greeted me very cordially. We met again in the
evening at the dinner-table, and he proved to be a very jolly and
hospitable host.
On reaching the mines, I found Mr. H.H. Everett, brother of our Paku
naturalist, weighing out bags of cinnabar dust, and close beside him on
the ground stood about sixty flasks of mercury ready for shipment to
London. A "flask" is a malleable iron bottle with a screw top, which
holds seventy-five pounds of mercury.
The cinnabar ore comes out of a very steep, double-peaked hill composed
of semi-metamorphic rock, rising to an elevation of about one thousand
feet above the sea, and six hundred and fifty feet above the level of
the adjacent swamp. Mr. Everett, with the most cheerful resignation and
truly guide-like patience, took me into each of the four "levels" that
have been mined into the hill, one above another, and gave me all the
facts in the case as we proceeded. The lowest level was a new one, and
the tunnel had not yet reached the ore. The other three had penetrated
quite to the heart of the hill and on reaching the paying ore it had
been mined in every direction, forming a great cavern at the end of each
tunnel. The miners are all Chinamen who work out the ore and sell it to
the Company according to the assay. The ore was then very poor, and
although the rock contained only four per cent. of mercury it was worked
as a matter of necessity and at a loss, while all concerned hoped
constantly for something better. In one of the levels Mr. Everett showed
me a very rich pocket, which had yielded ore almost as heavy as mercury,
being ninety per cent. pure metal.
The Tegora mines were opened in 1868. The first ore taken out was
stamped, by which process about one-fourth of the metal was lost in the
washing. Now it is smelted, and the vapour containing the metal is
passed through a flue or shaft about one thousand feet long, which leads
off up the steep side of the hill The mercury is gradually condensed
upon the sides of the flue, which after a time is cleaned out by men
sent into it. The cleaners often get badly salivated, so much so that
they are sometimes utterly helpless from the sores which break out upon
different parts of their bodies. We saw two poor follows who were
helpless from salivation; and Mr. Everett himself was also badly off
from an overdose of mercury.
The officers of the Borneo Company are very comfortably housed close to
the mine, and in the evening at dinner we were most hospitably
entertained by four of them, Messrs. Everett, Harvey, Gray and Beecher.
Every one was in good spirits, and we had a very merry time until a late
hour."
--
Dave Williams - [log in to unmask]
Visit the Mining History Network at
http://info.exeter.ac.uk/~RBurt/MinHistNet
for information on PDMHS Ltd., the active Mining History Society.
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End of mining-history Digest - 9 Jan 2002 to 10 Jan 2002 (#2002-11)
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