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In i860 almost all work in the mines was done
manually, and almost all mining was performed underground.
Men worked by light of candles or burning lamps, venti
lation was poor and drilling necessary for the placement
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of explosive charges was done by hand.
In all, the miner's job required considerable
hard work and technical skill, both in mining and in the
selection of ores. Men labored on a piecework basis,
paid by the amount of ore brought to the surface, and
care was taken to work the richest veins of ore as
thoroughly as possible. Waste was minimized and subse
quent refining made easier by precautions taken to insure
that the richest ores were not diluted by low-grade ore
or outright extraneous materials. To prevent the
addition of too much non-metallic substance necessitated
a minimum of blasting and a maximum of picking.
Once freed from its surroundings, ore was
broken, again by hand, into pieces of manageable size,
hand loaded and transported to the surface with the
use of animal power, usually mules, but not
infrequently by men. Iron ore at that stage generally
was of sufficient purity to be shipped directly to blast
furnaces; but with copper, the same happy situation did
not usually prevail, and as grades of copper ore became
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Drilling required considerable skill on the
part of each member of the drilling team, since one man
held the drill in place, turning it occasionally, while
the others struck it hard with a hammer.