Throughout world history, copper has been a significant metal for a vast number of cultures, from the oldest civilizations on record to the Bronze Age and Greek and Roman antiquity. Though replaced by iron as the primary metal for tools and weapons in ancient civilizations, copper found new resurgence in the nineteenth century when it was discovered to have particularly high thermal and electrical conductivity. Copper mining quickly escalated into a large-scale industry, and because of its vast reserves and innovative mining techniques, the United States seized the reins of global production with the opening of significant copper mines in Tennessee and Michigan in the 1840s and Montana in the 1870s. Copper-mining prosperity and America’s dominance of the industry came with a heavy environmental price, however. As rich copper deposits declined with increased mining efforts, large deposits of leaner ores—oftentimes less than one percent pure—had to be mined to keep pace with America’s technological thirst for copper. Processing such ore left an inordinate amount of industrial waste, such as tailings and slag deposits from the refining process and toxic materials from the ores themselves, and copper mining regions around the United States began to see firsthand the landscape degradation wrought by the industry. In The Legacy of American Copper Smelting, Bode J. Morin examines America’s three premier copper sites: Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, Tennessee’s Copper Basin, and Butte- Anaconda, Montana. Morin focuses on what the copper industry meant to the townspeople working in and around these three major sites while also exploring the smelters’ environmental effects. Each site dealt with pollution management differently, and each site had to balance an EPA-mandated cleanup effort alongside the preservation of a once-proud industry. Morin’s work sheds new light on the EPA’s efforts to utilize Superfund dollars and/or protocols to erase the environmental consequences of copper-smelting while locals and preservationists tried to keep memories of the copper industry alive in what were dying or declining post-industrial towns. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the American history of copper or heritage preservation studies, as well as historians of modern America, industrial technology, and the environment.

"Modern Copper Smelting" is a book that contains the teachings of Donald M. Levy at the University of Birmingham. It contains the study of practices of some of the most significant copper-smelting works in America. This book also contains the advancement of copper metallurgy contained in recent technical literature and some of his experiences.

This new edition has been extensively revised and updated since the 3rd edition published in 1994. It contains an even greater depth of industrial information, focussing on how copper metal is extracted from ore and scrap, and how this extraction could be made more efficient. Modern high intensity smelting processes are presented in detail, specifically flash, Contop, Isasmelt, Noranda, Teniente and direct-to-blister smelting. Considerable attention is paid to the control of SO2 emissions and manufacture of H2SO4. Recent developments in electrorefining, particularly stainless steel cathode technology are examined. Leaching, solvent extraction and electrowinning are evaluated together with their impact upon optimizing mineral resource utilization. The book demonstrates how recycling of copper and copper alloy scrap is an important source of copper and copper alloys. Copper quality control is also discussed and the book incorporates an important section on extraction economics. Each chapter is followed by a summary of concepts previously described and offers suggested further reading and references.

This insightful book will be of interest to anyone concerned with the historical roots of globalization and the Industrial Revolution as a global phenomenon.

This is the first systematic attempt to survey in detail the archaeological evidence for the crafts and craftsmanship of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in ancient Mesopotamia, covering the period ca. 8000-300 B.C.E. As creators of some of the earliest farming and urban communities known to us, these people were among the first pioneers of many crafts and skills that remain fundamental to modern ways of life. Many of the raw materials for crafts had to be imported from outside the river valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, providing an unusually sensitive indicator of the commercial and cultural contacts of Mesopotamia. In this book, Dr. Moorey reviews briefly the textual evidence, and then goes on to examine in detail the material evidence for a wide range of crafts using stones, both common and ornamental, animal products--from hippopotamus ivory to ostrich egg-shells--ceramics, glazed materials and glass, metals, and building materials. With a comprehensive bibliography, this will be a key work of reference for archaeologists and those interested in the early history of crafts and technology, as well as for specialist historians of the ancient Near East.