Characteristics of Permanent Mining Communities.—Although permanent mining communities arc found in all climates, and among all races, they have certain important characteristics in common. First, as a rule, they produce only a single product, or at most only two or three, and their prosperity fluctuates greatly according to the demand for that particular article. We have already seen how the seasonal fluctuations in the demand for coal work great hardship on the miners and the railroads. In the same way fluctliations in the iron market cause the amount of work in iron mines to vary. During the Great War the price of silver rose so high that silver mines that had been abandoned as unprofitable were reopened. A few years later when the price dropped from about $1.30 per ounce to less than half that figure, some of the mines had to close again.
Another characteristic of mining communities is their great depend ence on the outside world. The majority of such communities are in regions where the rugged topography or the climatic extremes reduce agriculture to small proportions. Even in the coal fields of Pennsylvania the minor irregularities of the plateau make agriculture difficult; in the iron region of Lake Superior the land is very rocky; in Alaska most of the permanent gold mines, those depending on veins, are located where the summers are too cool and moist for most crops; and in Arizona and northern Mexico drought renders agriculture difficult. A manufacturing community usually makes at least a few things for local but in mining communities the final product can rarely be used at once. If the Minnesota iron miner wants a pick, he may buy one made of his own ore, but the ore has gone east to Pennsylvania to be smelted; as pig iron it has perhaps gone to Cleveland for manufacture, and as a finished product it returns to its source. Thus the demands of the permanent miner, more than those of almost any other person with an equal income, must he satis fied from a distance. Mining machinery is costly, and types like steam excavators and crushers require frequent renewal. Moreover, peculiar kinds of transportation facilities, such as elevators, chains of buckets, and ore cars are needed. Thus the mining community, with its valu able products as a basis of exchange, is one of the great stimulators of business.
Another feature of mining communities is their relative undesira bility as places of residence. In general such towns contain a large number of ignorant laborers, often recent immigrants, for only such men will do the hard, heavy underground work. A few highly trained mechanics and superintendents are always necessary. Their number increases as the machinery becomes more complicated, but is rarely large enough to form a pleasant community which people deliberately choose as a home. There are few professional people, and few mer
chants, and as the merchants eater mainly to the immediate needs of the miners, the stores are generally poor. Moreover, the physical con ditions are rarely pleasant. Even if the climate is favorable, great unseemly piles of debris from the mines and of slag from the smelters may injure the scenery, and often fill the air with dust. The " culm " heaps of Scranton and Wilkesharre stand out in people's memories even though those places are among the pleasantest of mining towns. Sometimes the sulphur fumes escaping from the smelters kill the trees, as at Butte, Montana; elsewhere as in the Appalachian region the collapsing of the coal mines may cause the ground to cave in. On Jan. 13, 1922, twenty acres of land in the midst of Scranton caved in, dropping the houses of five city blocks down a ntunber of feet. Again, transportation facilities are usually poor in mining regions. Not only are the mines apt to be located in rugged regions, but they are generally off the main lines, and the local railroads are poorly built because they are not expected to be permanent. The outgoing freight may be very bulky if ore is shipped out, while the incoming freight is of small proportions, thus adding to the difficulty and expense of transpor tation. In addition to all this the uncertainty as to how long the ore will hold out often makes people hesitate to improve their homes or their city. Such conditions hinder the progress of mining towns, keep the schools backward, and diminish the opportunities for recreation, art, music, and the other uplifting agencies. Nevertheless some mining towns make a valiant attempt to be clean, attractive, and progressive.
Permanent Iron Mining in the Lake Superior Region.—Let us briefly glance at permanent mining in three regions. We shall omit coal because that has already been considered. The great iron deposits south and west of Lake Superior are mined in preference to all others in the United States because the ore is of high grade and can be easily mined. Moreover, it can be cheaply transported by water almost to the coal in western Pennsylvania. The ore lies so near the surface and in such thick, soft, extensive layers that much of it can be dug by the open-pit method, which requires no timbering, hoisting, or ventilating. So cheap is this method that it pays to remove a hundred feet of soil and broken rock or about a ton for each ton of underlying ore. The whole town of Hibbing, Minnesota, with a population of about 10,000, was moved bodily in 1914 to get it off a body of ore.