Las Médulas is a Roman mining operation that surpasses the imaginable. The challenge to extract gold was daunting: How to demolish and dissolve entire mountains? The Romans conceived a colossal plan, so ingenious and ambitious that it bordered on the impossible.
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All I have to say is, Holy shit!
Beyond amazing.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it though? Especially without the use of explosives and powered machinery.
DeleteDon't need that stuff if you've got slaves!
DeleteTrue dat.
DeleteIt required a huge investment before there was any payoff. In a way the hydraulic mining of California, where they had to build the reservoirs and aqueducts first, but could then could wash away mountainsides with the huge water cannons (monitors), would give a more immediate and sustained payback.
ReplyDeleteUncle Dave
When the Central Pacific was building the transcontinental railroad across the Sierras they had to have armed guards protecting the right of way. Hydraulic miners were washing out the mountains and would've taken out the roadbed otherwise.
DeleteDad was a metalurgist specializing in gold refining. Graduated during the Depression when few jobs were available-of the 23 men in his graduating class, everyone had at least two job offers. During summer vacations when we were driving through mining areas and saw a gold mine tailings pile-no mater on how steep the terrain-his eyes would glisten and he'd explain why he would like to own the old heaps of rock: not all the gold had been recovered due to fairly primitive extraction techniques in use many years ago-and he knew more modern extraction techniques had been developed. Problem was: gold price was pegged at $35 an ounce and there was no economical way to extract the gold that was just sitting there watching all the cars go by.
ReplyDeleteChances are that if he were alive today he would own quite a few rock heaps that no longer contained much gold. His biggest challenge-besides funding-would have been that since he retired from his day job after the EPA was formed the environmental hurdles may have been too difficult to get to take a shot at the gold, even at escalating gold prices.
Reclaiming mine tailings were fairly common back in the 1980s in the Trans-Sierra and western Nevada. They were all small outfits, though. Gold was up to about $300-350 an ounce then, so it paid the bills.
DeletePeople in Africa still live in huts, let that sink in.
ReplyDeleteTodd near Denver
My wife is Chinese. Whenever we see a show that showcases a spectacular accomplishment: effort, intellect, curiosity, concern for others, etc., she turns to me and simply says, "White people" with a wry smile.
DeleteThat was interesting. Thanks. - Nemo
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