Calaveras Gold: The Impact Of Mining On A Mother Lode County

3 Mining Society in the Early Years

The Beginnings of Lode Mining, –  ding inferior ores of enough base and foreign matter to make them transportable. The smoke from these works was so charged with sulphur and arsenic that the grass and vegetation all around within the circle of a hundred and fifty yards was killed, and the leaves on the oaks and buckeyes withered and dropped off. A few weeks since these works were temporarily suspended and since then the oaks and buckeyes have put forth new buds which are now unfolding into young leaves, imparting to the surrounding woods all the appearance of early spring. One would suppose that the fumes this fatal to vegetation would be also deleterious to human health, if not fatal to life, but such is not the case. Experience in other countries proves that the people living within the daily influence of the poisoned vapors are about as healthy as those of other neighborhoods where they are not felt. This is a strong argument in favor of homeopathy, which recognizes arsenic as the chief of medicines, though doubtless it is best taken in homeopathic doses.109 Later generations would better understand the effects of toxic chemical releases on environmental quality and human health, but in the s few worried about the adverse consequences of crude smelting efforts. Copperopolis and Campo Seco residents, heavily dependent on mining and accustomed to  Calaveras Gold environmental degradation as a ‘‘legacy of conquest,’’ in Patricia Limerick’s poignant phrase, welcomed these two little smelters as signs of progress. The Copper Decline Most accounts attribute the copper-mining decline primarily to falling world prices for the red metal after . Just as war created an artificially high price for copper, war’s end pricked the bubble. J. Ross Browne noted that in  the price for  percent–grade copper ore at Swansea, Wales, was . a ton.110 By  it had dropped to ., even though it recovered slightly the next year, reaching .. However, in the United States, prices for the metal continued to slide from the peak of  cents a pound in  to  cents in . Other factors also contributed to the depression in the copper districts after . Transportation charges from port to smelter continued to rise. In the first eight months of , Meader’s company shipped , tons of ore on East Coast or foreign-bound vessels at a cost of ,, or  per ton. By , as commercial shippers restored and then surpassed prewar shipping levels to Europe and thus caused a shortage in cargo space, copper shipping costs had risen to as much as  per ton.111 Thus, only the highest-grade ore could stand the mining and shipping costs. In addition, much of the highgrade secondary enriched zones at most of the mines had been ‘‘stoped out’’ by , and the deeper primary sulfide ores were too low grade to ship. The Keystone concentrator and the Union and Taunton smelters were not yet efficient enough or large enough, and were plagued with high costs for fuel and labor. They also had technical and pollution difficulties. Finally, winter rains increased pumping at the deepening mines, turned dirt roads into quagmires, and delayed ore reaching market. These endless problems for mine operators and exporters added substantially to the cost of financing inventories. By April  copper mining had virtually ended in Calaveras County. The Napoleon mine, once reputed to be prosperous, dismantled its corporate structure in  and filed bankruptcy papers early the next year. The Hog Hill area had declined months before, devastated by a geologist’s report that ‘‘there is not money enough in San Francisco to sink a shaft upon the summit of Hog Hill, sufficiently deep to produce the copper that would be necessary for the construction of a copper tea-kettle.’’112 Even the great Union mine was in trouble by early . Charles Meader was dangerously overextended. Despite steadily falling copper prices he had acquired controlling interest in the Newton mine in Amador Countyand was financing additional mine development along theWest Belt.With most Calaveras copperore passing through his The Beginnings of Lode Mining, –  hands, inventories were piling up at the mines and smelters, and on the docks in Stockton and San Francisco. In addition, because of uncertainties in ocean transport, there were long delays between the shipment of ore from the mines and the receipt of ore by refineries on the East Coast and at Swansea. Meader was...