Getting Gold: A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners and StudentsJohnson, J. C. F. (Joseph Colin Francis)
History
Getting Gold: A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners and Students
Johnson, J. C. F. (Joseph Colin Francis)
Gold mines and mining
But returning to the formation of the Company, care should be taken in
appointing Directors that at least one member of the Board is selected
on account of his special technical knowledge of mining, and others for
their special business capacity. The ornamental men with high sounding
names should not be required in legitimate ventures. Also, it is most
important that the business Manager or Secretary should be a specially
qualified man, who by experience has learned what are the requirements
of a mine doing a certain amount of work, so that a proper check may
be kept on the expenses. The more Companies such a Secretary has the
better, as one qualified man can supervise a large staff of clerks, who
would themselves be qualifying for similar work, and gaining a useful
and varied experience of mining business. An office of this description
having charge of a large number of mines is, in its way, a technical
school, and lads trained therein would be in demand as mine pursers, a
very responsible and necessary officer in a big mine.
With respect to the men to whom the actual mining and treatment of ores
and machinery is committed the greatest mistakes of the past have been
that too much has been required from one man, a combination not to be
found probably in one man in a thousand. Such Admirable Crichtons are
rare in any profession or business, and that of mining is no exception.
Men who profess too much are to be distrusted. Your best men are they
who concentrate their energies and intellects in special directions.
The Mining Manager should, if possible, be chosen from men holding
certificates of competency from some technical mining school and,
of course, should, in addition, have some practical experience, not
necessarily as Head Manager. He should understand practical mine
surveying and calculation of quantities, be able to dial and plot out
his workings, and prepare an intelligible plan thereof for the use of
the Directors, and should understand sufficient of physics, particularly
pneumatics and hydraulics, to ensure thoroughly efficient pumping
operations without loss of power from unnecessarily heavy appliances.
Any other scientific knowledge applicable to his business which he may
have acquired will tell in his favour, but he must, above all things,
be a thoroughly practical man. Such men will in time be more readily
procurable, as boys who have passed through the various Schools of Mines
will be sent to learn their business practically at the mines just as we
now, having given a lad a course of naval instruction, send him to sea
to learn the practical part of his life's work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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