Mining California: An Ecological History

by Andrew C. Isenberg

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.

Genres: History, Environment

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2005

About the author

Andrew C. Isenberg is the Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas. He is a specialist in environmental history, Native American history, and the history of the North American West and its borderlands.

Reviews

[Kathleen Hulser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who knew how fast the gold mining industry moved from those romantic grizzled claim-jumpers to hydraulic operations that shot water from cannons at the mountainsides? The industrial operations washed millions of tons of tailings into the American, Feather, Stanilaus and Tulumne Rivers raising streambeds and causing floods of slick waste to spread across what had been river bottom lands in flood times. The Sacramento River flooded the town repeatedly as it and the American kept breaching levees which kept flood waters in, thereby freeing newly built redwood houses to smash against one another like driftwood in the tide. Lumber operations stripped the redwood belt to feed infratructure, timber mines, and replace canvas cities with boom town shanties. It's astonishing how far along this process of resource stripping and industrial exploitation had proceeded by the 1880s - a mere 40 years after Sutter discovered gold. The hydraulics of mining, the need for huge quanities of water to blast the gold bearing rock and sluice it down flumes are less known than the images of panners in the streams. And the mercury used to process the gold still lingers in the stream beds, leaving a toxic map of historical ecology tracing the watersheds of the Sierra Nevada. Engrossing historical reading of natural resources weaving together narratives that relates metals, timber, grasslands and water resources.

[Akakiy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explores the exploitation of California’s land and resources. It shows how the agricultural and livestock industries, followed by the timber and mining sectors, in cooperation with the state, transformed and degraded California’s landscapes.

[Katherine Carlson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very smart, well-developed, and fascinating look on the ecological factors behind the shaping of American Western history. Addresses and disputes a lot of popular American West mythology. Written by my favorite Temple professor, Andrew Isenberg, the book is every bit as good as the class.

[Annette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read certain chapters of this book for class. If i had to read the whole thing I probably wouldn't of liked it but having to read certain chapters and write about it was not bad at all compared to other books that are assigned. The way it was written I found interesting and easy to follow.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book about history of California, Read it as a requirement for a class, but very interesting.

[Kent Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just another book about systematizing nature for the exploit of its natural resources. Provides analysis of economic development as it pertains to the environment in the 19th century. Touches on the struggle to gain investors for the development of hydraulic mining technology. consequences. Read this for class.