Seeing Underground: Maps, Models, and Mining Engineering in America by Eric C. Nystrom (review)

Eric Nystrom's engaging book, Seeing Underground: Maps, Models, and Mining Engineering in America describes the evolution of mining, not so much as a development of better technology, but as a better way of visualizing the underground terrain. By way of two-dimensional maps, mining engineers first began the process of professionalizing the industry shortly after the Civil War. As industrial mining's ability to draw capital investment became more prevalent in the latter years of the nineteenth century, mining engineers moved toward three-dimensional modeling to depict the not easily conceptualized underground world. Associated with the move toward depicting the underground world of mines came the need to inform lawyers engaged in the process of litigating current and future mining endeavors. Engineers provided the expertise that dominated testimony with that expertise determining the life or death of mining companies.

Nystrom's discussion of mining engineering begins with an admission: he had never intended to study mining history but found himself fascinated with an underground map, filled with an array of colors and design more art than science. He brings us forward into the topic discussing first mining in the anthracite area of Pennsylvania where father-and-son pit mines had given way to capital and labor-intensive business ventures with competing claims and no good way to understand which company owned what reserve of coal. Two-dimensional maps met the initial needs of the industry as well as formed the basis for regulations designed to make mining safer.

From Pennsylvania, the author takes us west to Butte, Montana, where mining engineers became much more skilled in depicting the underground culture. Two-dimensional maps became less than satisfactory in describing property rights. Elaborate if sometimes competing three-dimensional models capable of depicting not simply the manmade world beneath the surface but the geological one as well became the norm. Nystrom gives us a taste of how mining engineers played the key role in determining property rights and establishing precedent in Jim Butler v. West End case in Tonopah, Nevada. Mapping, modeling, and increasingly a knowledge of geology began to form the basis for mining engineering schools across the country as mining provided the foundation of twentieth-century industrial America. Not only did the visual culture of the engineer form the basis for educating new students, but it also served the same function in educating the American public by way of museum exhibits and industrial displays.

Nystrom's narrative is complete as far as it goes. The detailed discussion of the Butler v. West End case takes the reader deep into the nuances of depicting the underground world of mines and drives home his argument. Where more might be done is in the area of connecting the reader to the social and economic history of mining. Certainly, the development of accurate subterranean landscapes was important to the process of mining but in addition it served to sell the idea that mining, scientifically done, was in the best interests of industrial America. Miners did benefit from better mapping viewed from a safety perspective, but much of the industrial animosity between capital and labor remains outside the scope of the book. Assuming that how one depicts the subsurface world shapes the way it is mined and the challenges involved, some discussion of workers seems reasonable. Also of note is the abundant use of illustrations to make the author's point. These provide a narrative of their own that reinforces Nystrom's explanations. Sadly, one wishes that these models were in the colors the authors describes rather than the black and white the publisher provides.

Living on the edge of the anthracite coal country in Pennsylvania, one cannot avoid the scarred landscape and dead streams left behind by industrial mining but Nystrom reminds us that this is only part of the picture. The world below as seen by men is a...