by Yoji » Tue Apr 27, 2010 3:48 pm Iskar wrote:Given historical examples such as the Gold Rush, its ridiculous to say mining was monopolized by population centres. Couple guys head up into the mountains to pan or swing picks for a few days, completely plausible.
Such exceptional examples like Gold Rush don't make much sense. Those "guys" weren't running mines (not to mention maintaining them for industrial scale output), they were just looking for gold, in any form and by any means.
Just to save my breath a little - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Gold_Rush
Wiki wrote:The benefit to the forty-niners was that the gold was simply "free for the taking" at first. In the goldfields, there was no private property, no licensing fees, and no taxes until a government formed. The miners essentially adapted Mexican mining law existing in California. For example, the rules attempted to balance the rights of early arrivers at a site with later arrivers; a "claim" could be "staked" by a prospector, but that claim was valid only as long as it was being actively worked. Miners worked at a claim only long enough to determine its potential. If a claim was deemed as low-value—as most were—miners would abandon the site in search for a better one.
And this here is what i'd add to my previous post about realism.
