Much of the mercury came from the New Almaden mine located in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains west of San Jose. The mining polluted the Guadalupe river with high levels of mercury. The river, which flows into San Francisco Bay, polluted much of the bay with methylmercury. To this day, many decades after mining stopped, the river and the bay are still contaminated with mercury to a degree where consuming fish and seafood from the bay can still be unhealthy.
Adobe, Google, Facebook, etc. are all right there on the shoreline. You might work in software, but (metaphorically at least), you're a lot close to those mines than you might think :)
Cyanide and other such harmful chemicals were used. Let's not mention hydraulic mining. That said, the history, the left over relics, and such are interesting to explore. Empire Mine in Nevada City/Placerville is worth visiting. Sixteen-to-one up in Alleghany (an interesting drive) is still active and on my list to visit.
One of my favorite tidbits from the general Sierra / Plumas / Nevada County area is the Engel Copper Mine. There was a narrow gauge rail road that brought the copper ore down to Keddie which was then loaded onto the Western Pacific. Wikipedia says it was hauled out to Utah to be smelted down, locally people say it was brought down what is now SR-70 / the canyon (where the Camp Fire that decimated Paradise started) to Sacramento/The Bay Area for processing.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3177/3177-h/3177-h.htm#linkch...
for the days before hazmat suits.
Re:The Dangerous Business of Mining
by fredophile on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @01:51AM
(#21822483)
You should check out pictures of the Jeffrey Mine in Quebec. It's an open pit mine that comes right up to the neighbouring town of Asbestos.
You can still run a mining operation from behind your desk. And you'll probably make more money than the men/women in work suits.
The ore was crushed by a giant stamp mill. The resulting slurry was mixed with cyanide, which dissolved the gold. The gold was separated from the cyanide by mixing with liquid mercury, forming an amalgam. The amalgam was put in a retort to evaporate off the mercury... by folks wearing asbestos suits.
I'm happy to work in software, thank you.