Exploration: Passport To The Future

Many thousands of years ago when our earliest ancestor first swung out of a tree, picked up a rock, and threw it at what he hoped might be his lunch, the minerals industry, in a manner of speaking, was born. It was then a very long step indeed to the primitive metal industry of our early civilizations, for we know that precious metals were accumulated and some metal objects were produced several thousand years ago. Prospecting, or "exploration" to use the modern euphemism, consisted of little more than outcrop examination and the use of a gold pan, and it probably did not change much from our earliest civilizations until relatively recent times. In a general sense, all the early explorers of North America were also prospectors, for mineral wealth was certainly one of the goals of the first pioneers and settlers. The earliest pioneers didn't do too badly either, for they discovered copper and iron in various places in the Appalachians and Michigan, gold in the Southeast Piedmont and many mineralized areas in the Southwest. In most places these were outcropping ores or gossans, and the prospecting was incidental to the arduous task of ekeing out a living in a new land. It was the explosive discovery of rich placer gold deposits at Sutter's Mill in California that caught the public fancy and precipitated the establishment of prospecting as a full-time occupation. After the end of the Civil War in 1865, full-time prospecting became an important occupation and continued as such for almost three generations. Prospectors equipped with picks, shovels, gold pans and four-footed transportation swarmed all over what are now our Western States, discovering thousands upon thousands of mineral showings-and certainly most of today's large mining districts. Our vigorous western mining industry is a tribute to the courage and persistence of these men. The techniques of these picturesque prospectors, however, were essentially the same as those of their predecessors-examination of every outcrop and assiduous use of the gold pan. The great increase in discovery at this time was therefore due to increased activity rather than to different techniques. An important result of this in- creased prospecting was the growth of interest in geology. It was during this period that the U.S. Geological Survey began to grow. Many of the major mining districts were mapped, and geological studies and projections began to have an impact on further ore discovery. Ore search and development gradually became more geologically oriented and the geologist became a fixture in most mining camps by the 20th century. The development of mass-mining techniques in the early part of the century also changed exploration concepts.