Editing Mining (section)

===Americas===
[[File:Lead mining Barber 1865p321cropped.jpg|thumb|[[Lead]] mining in the upper [[Mississippi River]] region of the U.S., 1865]]
During prehistoric times, early Americans mined large amounts of [[copper]] along [[Lake Superior]]'s [[Keweenaw Peninsula]] and in nearby [[Isle Royale]]; metallic copper was still present near the surface in colonial times.<ref name="Lankton91">Lankton, L. (1991). ''Cradle to Grave: Life, Work, and Death at the Lake Superior Copper Mines''. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 5–6.</ref><ref name="west70">West, G.A. (1970). ''Copper: its mining and use by the aborigines of the Lake Superior Region''. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press.</ref><ref name="Ricard32">Ricard, T. A. (1932), ''A History of American Mining'', McGraw-Hill Book Company.</ref> Indigenous peoples used Lake Superior copper from at least 5,000 years ago;<ref name="Lankton91"/> copper tools, arrowheads, and other [[Cultural artifact|artifacts]] that were part of an extensive native trade-network have been discovered. In addition, [[obsidian]], [[flint]], and other minerals were mined, worked, and traded.<ref name="west70"/> Early French explorers who encountered the sites{{clarify|date= December 2013}}<!--Which sites? All, or only the copper mines? If all, then the following word "metals" needs to be changed to "minerals". If only the copper mines, then "the sites" should be changed to "the copper mines".--> made no use of the metals due to the difficulties of transporting them,<ref name="west70"/> but the copper was eventually{{when|date=April 2021}} traded throughout the continent along major river routes.{{Citation needed|date= January 2021}} [[File:TamarackMiners CopperCountryMI sepia.jpg|thumb|left|[[Miners]] at the [[Tamarack mine|Tamarack Mine]] in [[Copper Country]], Michigan, U.S., in 1905]]

[[File:Mining factory - DPLA - cc85a73449447a67878caac4f19a23d2.jpg|left|thumb|Mining factory, {{Circa}} 1880–1885. Photographs of the American West, Boston Public Library]]
In the early colonial history of the Americas, "native gold and silver was quickly expropriated and sent back to Spain in fleets of gold- and silver-laden galleons",<ref>Vaden, H.E. & Prevost. G. (2002). ''Politics of Latin America: The Power Game''. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 34.</ref> the gold and silver originating mostly from mines in Central and South America. [[Turquoise]] dated at 700 AD was mined in [[pre-Columbian]] America; in the Cerillos Mining District in [[New Mexico]], an estimate of "about 15,000 tons of rock had been removed from Mt. Chalchihuitl using [[stone tool]]s before 1700."<ref>Maynard, S.R., Lisenbee, A.L. & Rogers, J. (2002). Preliminary Geologic Map of the Picture Rock 7.5 – Minute Quadrangle Santa Fe County, Central New Mexico. New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, Open-File Report DM-49.</ref><ref>The Cerrillos Hills Park Coalition, (2000). Cerrillos Hills Historic Park Vision Statement. Public documents: Author. Retrieved August 27, 2007, [http://www.cerrilloshills.org/Coalition/document.html]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120801011021/http://www.cerrilloshills.org/Coalition/document.html|date=August 1, 2012}}</ref>

In 1727 Louis Denys (Denis) (1675–1741), sieur de La Ronde – brother of [[Simon-Pierre Denys de Bonaventure]] and the son-in-law of [[René-Louis Chartier de Lotbinière|René Chartier]] – took command of [[La Pointe, Wisconsin|Fort La Pointe]] at [[Chequamegon Bay]]; where natives informed him of an island of copper. La Ronde obtained permission from the French crown to operate mines in 1733, becoming "the first practical miner on Lake Superior"; seven years later, mining was halted by an outbreak between [[Sioux]] and [[Chippewa]] tribes.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=jLTpCAAAQBAJ&q=la+ronde ''The WPA Guide to Wisconsin: The Badger State''], Federal Writers' Project, Trinity University Press, Wisconsin, USA, 2013, p. 451. Retrieved November 15, 2018.</ref>

[[Mining in the United States]] became widespread in the 19th century, and the United States Congress passed the [[General Mining Act of 1872]] to encourage mining of federal lands.<ref>McClure R, Schneider A. [http://www.seattlepi.com/specials/mining/26875_mine11.shtml The General Mining Act of 1872 has left a legacy of riches and ruin] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101205011349/http://www.seattlepi.com/specials/mining/26875_mine11.shtml |date=2010-12-05 }}. ''Seattle PI''.</ref> As with the [[California Gold Rush]] in the mid-19th century, mining for minerals and precious metals, along with [[ranching]], became a driving factor in the U.S. [[Westward Expansion]] to the Pacific coast. With the exploration of the West, mining camps sprang up and "expressed a distinctive spirit, an enduring legacy to the new nation"; Gold Rushers would experience the same problems as the Land Rushers of the transient West that preceded them.<ref>Boorstin, D.J. (1965). ''The Americans: The National Experience''. New York: Vintage Books, pp. 78–81.</ref> Aided by railroads, many people traveled West for work opportunities in mining. Western cities such as [[Denver, Colorado|Denver]] and [[Sacramento, California|Sacramento]] originated as mining towns.<ref>{{cite web |title=Mining in the West Development Articles and Essays Meeting of Frontiers Digital Collections Library of Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/meeting-of-frontiers/articles-and-essays/development/mining-in-the-west/ |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA |access-date=27 September 2022}}</ref>

When new areas were explored, it was usually the gold ([[placer gold|placer]] and then [[lode gold|lode]]) and then silver that were taken into possession and extracted first. Other metals would often wait for railroads or canals, as coarse gold dust and nuggets do not require smelting and are easy to identify and transport.<ref name="Ricard32"/>