THE SALTPETER EMPIRE OF GREAT SALTPETRE CAVE and Mammoth Cave by Angelo I
George. 2001 121 pp illus. HMI Press. SB $18.95 needless to say, I can
supply.
What is a caving book doing in a Mining History list you may ask. Well
saltpetre, was mined, OK, in caves, as far back as 1805.
I always though that saltpetre was nothing more that bat guano and all
one had to do was dig it up, mix it with carbon and sulphur and BANG! you
have gunpowder. But it is not as simple as that. The soil that is found in
the cave is calcium nitrate. This is leached out in vats of water and after
3 days or 2 weeks, depending on the size of the vat and the amount of
agitation, the leachate is drained off into a boiler and the water
evaporated. The resulting crystals are then mixed in wood ash in another
vat and stirred with water and after a few days they are converted to
potassium nitrate and a solution of calcium hydroxide. These processes can
be repeated to obtain a better quality of potassium nitrate, with fewer
impurities.
Now is that not easier than smelting copper or zinc ores?
This book will appeal to those interested in the nuts and bolts of
mining, not only the extraction of the material, but the refining and
commercialisation aspects. There are some delightful illustrations of
long forgotten mining machinery and a plethora of facts and figures
related to dimensions, finance and production.
All this and more is described in great detail in the book. How would
the west have been won without these caves which made a great
contribution to the military, not to say pioneering history of the USA?
At one time the Great Saltpetre Cave and Mammoth Cave vied as a producer of
saltpeter, so it is all the more surprising that The Great Saltpetre has now
faded from public memory whilst Mammoth Cave is world famous.
The author uses both the English and American spellings of Saltpetre /
Saltpeter which I quite like. Here has done his homework, consulted both
cave and libraries and produced a very readable piece of mining history.
TO
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