Mining in Manitoba |
Historical Background |
Mine Blasting |
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Many of the great engineering feats of the world were accomplished at a time when there were no explosives known. During the building of King Solomon's temple, some 80,000 men laboured in subterranean quarries breaking out blocks of stone with wooden wedges driven into grooves in the rock and then wet with water.
King Hiram of Tyre is thought to have secured 3 tons of silver per year from the Rio Tinto mine using 40,000 men.
The Roman Emperor Claudius completed the aqueduct from Rome to Lake Fucinus some 50 miles away. Over 30,000 men laboured for 11 years, using the primitive method of breaking rock by wooden wedges and also by fire-setting. Dynamite didi not come into use until 1867.
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Black Powder
Liquid Oxygen
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