XII. ACQUIREMEXT OF MIXERALS 



QUARRTIXG A>"D ]MlNIXG 



OF FIRST importance among the industries of primitive 

 peoples, and of advanced nations as well, is the acquire- 

 ment of the raw materials of the arts. The mineral king- 

 dom furnishes a large share of these materials: Stone in its various 

 forms — useful, semiprecious, and precious; clay, salt, sulphur, alum, 

 asphaltum, and pigments; gold, silver, copper, tin, quicksilver, 

 meteoric iron, and iron ore, the latter treated and employed always 

 as stone. Little notice was taken by the early pioneers in any i)art 

 of America of the aboriginal industries connected with the quarrying 

 and shaping of stone and the mining and manipula- 

 Literature Measor tiou of mctals. The literature of the subject is ex- 

 tremely meager, and we seek to fill up the wide gaps 

 in the story by study of such traces of the ancient operations as have 

 been spared by the heavy hand of time. 



The industries involved in the acquirement of these materials, 



where not already in a state permitting of simple 



Use of Terms o-ithering. are known as Quarrying and Mining. 



"Mining" and ^- , ^ .,'... , 



"Quarrying" 1 here appears to be no essential distinction between 



the operations and processes implied by these terms. 

 The former is often applied where the materials sought are obtained 

 in open workings, and the latter where they are obtained by deep 

 shafts and by tunneling. Under this definition most of the work of 

 the American tribes would be classed as quarrying. There appears, 

 however, another distinction in common practice, the term " mining " 

 being applied to the getting out of coal. clay, salt, pigments, and 

 the precious and semiprecious stones as well as the metals, no matter 

 whether in open excavation or in subterranean tunnels, the term 

 "quarrying" being restricted to the getting out of stone in bulk, as 

 for building, for monumental work, and for the manufacture of im- 

 plements and utensils. 



In the early stages of culture progress, the stones employed as 



implements and in the manufacture of implements 



qTany-mg °' ^^^^ other articles, as well also as building stone. 



were gathered at random wherever they happened to 



be found on the surface of the ground. With advance in culture 



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