Mercury And The Making Of California

Author : Andrew Scott Johnston
Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1607322439
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mercury and the Making of California written by Andrew Scott Johnston and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2013-09-15 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mercury and the Making of California, Andrew Johnston’s multidisciplinary examination of the history and cultural landscapes of California’s mercury-mining industry, raises mercury to its rightful place alongside gold and silver in the development of the American West. Gold and silver could not be refined without mercury; therefore, its production and use were vital to securing power and wealth in the West. The first industrialized mining in California, mercury mining had its own particular organization, structure, and built environments. These were formed within the Spanish Empire, subsequently transformed by British imperial ambitions, and eventually manipulated by American bankers and investors. In California mercury mining also depended on a workforce differentiated by race and ethnicity. The landscapes of work and camp and the relations among the many groups involved in the industry—Mexicans, Chileans, Spanish, English, Irish, Cornish, American, and Chinese—form a crucial chapter in the complex history of race and ethnicity in the American West. This pioneering study explicates the mutual structuring of the built environments of the mercury-mining industry and the emergence of California’s ethnic communities. Combining rich documentary sources with a close examination of the existing physical landscape, Johnston explores both the detail of everyday work and life in the mines and the larger economic and social structures in which mercury mining was enmeshed, revealing the significance of mercury mining for Western history.

Author : Andrew C. Isenberg
Publisher : Hill and Wang
ISBN 13 : 0374707200
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mining California written by Andrew C. Isenberg and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2010-08-24 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An environmental History of California during the Gold Rush Between 1849 and 1874 almost $1 billion in gold was mined in California. With little available capital or labor, here's how: high-pressure water cannons washed hillsides into sluices that used mercury to trap gold but let the soil wash away; eventually more than three times the amount of earth moved to make way for the Panama Canal entered California's rivers, leaving behind twenty tons of mercury every mile—rivers overflowed their banks and valleys were flooded, the land poisoned. In the rush to wealth, the same chain of foreseeable consequences reduced California's forests and grasslands. Not since William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis has a historian so skillfully applied John Muir's insight—"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe"—to the telling of the history of the American West. Beautifully told, this is western environmental history at its finest.

Author : Jane Marie Hightower
Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 1597264539
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Diagnosis written by Jane Marie Hightower and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-02-22 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One morning in 2000, Dr. Jane Hightower walked into her exam room to find a patient with disturbing symptoms she couldn’t explain. The woman was nauseated, tired, and had difficulty concentrating, but a litany of tests revealed no apparent cause. She was not alone. Dr. Hightower saw numerous patients with similar, inexplicable ailments, and eventually learned that there were many more around the nation and the world. They had little in common—except a healthy appetite for certain fish. Dr. Hightower’s quest for answers led her to mercury, a poison that has been plaguing victims for centuries and is now showing up in seafood. But this “explanation” opened a Pandora’s Box of thornier questions. Why did some fish from supermarkets and restaurants contain such high levels of a powerful poison? Why did the FDA base its recommendations for “safe” mercury consumption on data supplied by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist extremists? And why wasn’t the government warning its citizens? In Diagnosis: Mercury, Dr. Hightower retraces her investigation into the modern prevalence of mercury poisoning, revealing how political calculations, dubious studies, and industry lobbyists endanger our health. While mercury is a naturally occurring element, she learns there’s much that is unnatural about this poison’s prevalence in our seafood. Mercury is pumped into the air by coal-fired power plants and settles in our rivers and oceans, and has been dumped into our waterways by industry. It accumulates in the fish we eat, and ultimately in our own bodies. Yet government agencies and lawmakers have been slow to regulate pollution or even alert consumers. Why? The trail of evidence leads to Canada, Japan, Iraq, and various U.S. institutions, and as Dr. Hightower puts the pieces together, she discovers questionable connections between ostensibly objective researchers and industries that fear regulation and bad press. Her tenacious inquiry sheds light on a system in which, too often, money trumps good science and responsible government. Exposing a threat that few recognize but that touches many, Diagnosis: Mercury should be required reading for everyone who cares about their health.

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 52 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mining Bulletin; Official Mining Magazine, Chamber of Mines and Oil, California written by and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : David Sievert Lavender
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 9780803279247
Total Pages : 508 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book California written by David Sievert Lavender and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1987-01-01 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the earliest Spanish explorations in the late 1500s through the present, California's history and growth have been both tumultuous and phenomenal. All the historical facts are here: the missions and the Indians, the struggles between the Mexicans and the Americans, the fabulous gold rushes, statehood in 185O, railroad wars, furious labor upheavals, the disastrous scandals and bankruptcies of the 1920s, and the recent gigantic tamperings with nature. David Lavender tells, with unusual clarity and grace, the story of a beautiful state's rise to giganticism. In an afterword to this Bison Book edition, he looks at California today.

Author : Society of Chemical Industry (Great Britain)
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1576 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry written by Society of Chemical Industry (Great Britain) and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 1576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 726 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry written by and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 726 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : National Research Council
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309166071
Total Pages : 106 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Water and Sustainable Development written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2004-05-14 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts in the areas of water science and chemistry from the government, industry, and academic arenas discussed ways to maximize opportunities for these disciplines to work together to develop and apply simple technologies while addressing some of the world's key water and health problems. Since global water challenges cross both scientific disciplines, the chemical sciences have the ability to be a key player in improving the lives of billions of people around the world.

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book Popular Science written by and published by . This book was released on 1942-08 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular Science gives our readers the information and tools to improve their technology and their world. The core belief that Popular Science and our readers share: The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.

Author : William Forstner
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Quicksilver Resources of California written by William Forstner and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: