2015 Presidential Lecture:
How a Political Scientist Had
His Head Turned by Mining
History
Bill Culver
Mining History Association
th
25 Anniversary Annual Meeting
Virginia City, Nevada
#2 (1967) Chile’s Mining North
Andacollo – Modern Chili wheel
working silver ore
Entrance gate and community are
now gone due to pit expansion
#3 (1969) Coquimbo
Eiffel Church Guayacán, Herradura
Bay, Coquimbo
Urmeneta Smelter, Herradura Bay,
Coquimbo - 1872
#4 (1970) Regidores in Monte
Patria – Coquimbo Province
#5 (1970) Allende Elected President
of Chile on September 4
#6 (1973) Military Coup on
September 11
Allende at Presidential Palace
Time Magazine after Coup
#7 (1970s) McGill University &
Montreal
Schulich Library of Science and
Engineering
Douglas Hall – Original Men’s
Residence on Campus
#8 (1989) Capitalist Dreams
Cover of 1989 Issue
Capitalist Dreams opening page
#9 (1990s) National Congresses in
Latin America
Chilean Congress Modernization
Seminar, 1997
Reorganization Planning for
Peruvian Congress
Reorganization, 1995
#10 (1990s) 1872 J. Science Article
Journal of Science (London)
April 1872 Issue
#11 (1995) Historians of Latin
American Mining at Plattsburgh
#12 (1999) Young Douglas & Camp
Douglas & Naomi, Quebec City
Douglas at Camp on Little
Moose Lake, Adirondack
Mountains
#13 (2000) A. B. Parsons, The
Porphyry Coppers (1933) “Introduction”
• The Braden mine and the other South American properties illustrate and
confirm the statement that men make mines.
• If American engineers - or perhaps British - had never laid eyes on
Chuquicamata, on Rancagua, on Potrerillos, it is certain as anything can be
in this world of uncertainties that the Chilean Andes would still be the
undisturbed storehouse for 4 billion pounds of copper that already have
gone into the industrial plants of Europe and the United States.
• The huge electric shovels, the locomotives, electric generators, crushing
machinery, smelting furnaces and other equipment, representing an
investment of $150,000,000 [U.S. dollars] that now are busy winning
copper in South America, never would have been needed but for American
engineers.
• And in saying this, no unkind reflection is directed at the Chileans or the
people of any other country.
• It is not in accordance with their tradition or temperament to
conceive and carry out such projects.
#14 (2001) SERNAGEOMIN Tiltil
Area Tiltil-Santiago
Profile line A in Map
Table of Mine Claims
#15 (2001) 1871 Douglas Letters
Home to Naomi
Original Onion Skin Copy
Recopied Page in Second Book
#16 (2001) Mt. Aconcagua at 22,
841 Feet/6,962 Meters
View from a Mine Road Tiltil
View from Coastal Range Ridge
#17 (2002) Escritura for Invernada &
Patent Letter
Invernada incorporation
Patent extension – low-grade
expectations sent to Chile’s President
#18 (2002) Invernada Mines on East
Face of Costal Range
Invernada mines and plant
looking west from Tiltil
Mines
Plant
Old working at Brillante Mine
#19 (2002) Tramway & Detail
Tramway from mines to plant
down 2,000 feet
tramway
Close-up of tramway scar
#20 (2002) Hunt & Original Patent
T. Sterry Hunt (1826-1892)
1869 Hunt & Douglas patent
#21 (2005) Harvey Hill Mine
From Harvey Hill looking west
Reclaimed hilltop
#22 (2006) MHA Globe
#23 (2015) Hernán Guerrero Operation
Hiking down the tramway
Mill and flotation plant across
Tiltil Valley from mines
#24 Douglas’ 1918 Draft Letter to
“My Dear Children”
“My hope is that the mining and railroad
enterprises that I have been one of the
instruments in developing will be carried on as
heretofore;…that the value of the stocks and
the rates of dividend be of very secondary
consideration and in the conduct of the mines
the welfare of the men under and above
ground be regarded as of more importance
than the cost of manufacturing copper.”