Rio Tinto | Minerals and Metals for the world

There are few records of the names of those miners who sweated or froze in cramped tunnels or in immense holes, of those frenzied prospectors who desperately grovelled for gold, of those exiles who died in Siberia's mines, those slaves in New Spain, those mechanics who oiled and nursed the early steam engines.

Nevertheless a few names that feature on Martin's pages are the familiar stuff of school projects: Abraham Darby, Newcomen, Boulton, James Watt, Trevithick. And some are remembered for their technologies or the industries they founded: Bessemer, Siemens, Krupp, Kruger.

Martin also reveals how well known characters in other dramas, like Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, Cortez, Napoleon Bonaparte, Custer and Rhodes were closely linked to the world of metals. He writes of the adventures, the triumphs and disasters of the money men. Many vanished into obscurity, and often penury, but a few names still resonate - the Guggenheims ("America's greatest mining family"), John D Rockefeller, Herbert Hoover. And also in the cast come the politicians, many of whom, including several US presidents, owed at least some of their rise or fall to the vagaries of various metals.

Because of its geographical spread and small number of producers, mining, almost from its earliest organized days, has seen financial chicanery, convolutions and cartels - some successful, others painfully short lived.

Asked to pick out a few people who have had major influences on mining, Martin says that he regards Daniel Jackling of Bingham Canyon, Utah, as perhaps one of the most significant. Against a background of overwhelming scepticism, Jackling "took a set of ideas and made them work."



There are few records of the names of those miners who sweated or froze in cramped tunnels or in immense holes, of those frenzied prospectors who desperately grovelled for gold, of those exiles who died in Siberia's mines, those slaves in New Spain, those mechanics who oiled and nursed the early steam engines. Nevertheless a few names that feature on Martin's pages are the familiar stuff of school projects: Abraham Darby, Newcomen, Boulton, James Watt, Trevithick. And some are remembered for their technologies or the industries they founded: Bessemer, Siemens, Krupp, Kruger. Martin also reveals how well known characters in other dramas, like Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, Cortez, Napoleon Bonaparte, Custer and Rhodes were closely linked to the world of metals. He writes of the adventures, the triumphs and disasters of the money men. Many vanished into obscurity, and often penury, but a few names still resonate - the Guggenheims ("America's greatest mining family"), John D Rockefeller, Herbert Hoover. And also in the cast come the politicians, many of whom, including several US presidents, owed at least some of their rise or fall to the vagaries of various metals. Because of its geographical spread and small number of producers, mining, almost from its earliest organized days, has seen financial chicanery, convolutions and cartels - some successful, others painfully short lived. Asked to pick out a few people who have had major influences on mining, Martin says that he regards Daniel Jackling of Bingham Canyon, Utah, as perhaps one of the most significant. Against a background of overwhelming scepticism, Jackling "took a set of ideas and made them work."
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Review is published by Rio Tinto, 6 St James' Square, London SW1Y 4LD, England Telephone +44 (0)20 7930 2399 Editor: Cherry DeGeer