Black Powder and Hand Steel

Black Powder and Hand Steel describes the miners and the machinery they used. Otis E. Young, Jr. gives an account of the miners, particularly the Cornish and Irish, their origins, character, social life, pleasures, and, most importantly, their labors. The miner's lot was dependent upon the tools he used, and the author traces the evolution of the miner's most important tools: from hoisting bucket to mine elevator, cold mining to dynamite, ore car to skip, hemp to wire rope, and slow match to Bickford fuse.