The early years of gold mining in Nova Scotia were marked by inexperienced miners and primitive techniques of gold extraction and recovery. Capital nvestment, at first, was limited and most attempts to mine the auriferous mineral were restricted to digging trenches with cheap tools.(1) However, it was realized before long that the most efficient and profitable way, it not only way, to exploit the gold districts was through quartz mining.(2)
Shafts were sunk on an angle, following the dip of the lead. They were usually rectangular and measured approximately five feet by twelve feet at the mouth. The width and height of each shaft and tunnel varied form operation to operation, lode to lode. However, some shafts were sufficiently wide and high to accommodate an ore wagon to transport the ore. The single compartment shaft served for hoisting the ore, for moving miners in and out of the mine , for pumping gear and for ventilation.(3)
Usually more than one shaft was sunk on vein and each successive shaft was deep or shorter than the preceding one, depending on the pitch of the ore body.(4) The individual shafts sunk by a company or group of miners would be connected with one another by means of drifts would be pushed out in either direction along the course of the lode. Similar drifts would be driven at the 120 foot level and the 180 foot level as well.(5) In 1868 the Sherbrooke and New York Company had sunk a dozen shafts, five of which were connected by drifts. The depth of the principal shaft was 170 feet. The main shaft of the Wellington Company in Goldenville extended down to the 500 foot level in 1872. Operations had to be discontinued in this mine because the available machinery was not sophisticated enough to service that depth.(6) Most mine shafts in the province did not exceed the 100 foot level during this early period.
Shaft sinking was done by hand. Machinery for drilling shafts was not used in the province until after the early 1880s. Even then, many of the miners were reluctant to give up their hand steels for an air or steam drill.>(8) Dynamite was not used at this time to expedite the tremendous amount of work involved. Shafts would be sunk either on contract or by day labourers. The Fraser Company at Sherbrooke contracted out their one shaft on the eastern side of the St. Mary's River in 1862. In 1866 the Ophir Mining Company contracted the sinking of their shaft our a $8 per vertical foot. They also paid $5 per linear foot for drifting the mine.(9)
The structures erected over the open shafts were usually little more than shanties and provided the essential means of protection from the elements of nature. ILLUS. 1, "The Royal Oak Pit, c. 1861", depicts one such shaft cover at Goldenville. It was a frame building with a pitched roof, and an entrance wide enough to facilitate the removal of ore in a wheelbarrow. Similar structures were scattered across the Goldenville landscape in t869, according to illustrations 2 & 3.(10)
During this period of gold mining, the ore was usually hoisted up from the mine usually by manpower or horsepower. A windlass would be erected over the mouth of the shaft which would be worked by two men, unless the depth was such to warrant the use of horsepower.(11) (ILLUS. 4 & 5) If there were no ladders in the shaft by which the men could descend and ascend, they, too, would be hoisted in a bucket, or "tub" as the miners called it, by means of a windlass. The use of horses in the early gold fields is suggested by the following returns from Sherbrooke: (12)
| Feb. | Mar. | Apr. | May | June | July | Aug. | |
| Men (total) | 110 | 102 | 100 | 95 | 115 | 90 | 85 |
| Nova Scotians | 104 | 92 | 90 | 85 | 106 | .. | .. |
| Other | 6 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 9 | .. | .. |
| Horses | 12 | 12 | 8 | 8 | 8 | .. | .. |
| Crushing Machines | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
However not all mining operations relied solely on horsepower or manpower to hoist the ore from the mines shafts. The Wellington Mine at Goldenville, one of the deepest operations in the province, employed a 20 horse power engine to operate its hoisting gear and pumping equipment. In his 1868 report, John Rutherford, Inspector of Mines, noted the increased need for machinery to replace antiquated methods of hoisting ore as new depths were reached.(13)
It was only after the shaft had been sunk and several drifts had been pushed out that the work of mining was said to be begun.(14) The methods of stopping were employed:
In the method of underhand stoping, blasts were made from the floor of the drift and all the material was hoisted to the surface where it was sorted. However, in the overhead method, the material was sorted in the drift and the waste was used to fill up space, sustain walls and facilitate the continuation of the work. However, since candles were the only source of illumination in the drift, it was difficult to sort the ore accurately and efficiently. Consequently there was a risk of losing richer fragment in the ore dumps. Although the underhand method was more expensive - in hoisting all the refuse to the surface - it was the method generally followed in most Nova Scotian mines.(17)
It was not until the 1870s that dynamite was introduced. In his 1872 report for the Department of Mines, Henry Poole strongly recommended its use in spite of its expense. The difference would be made up through savings in "the cost of drilling, charging, tamping, convenience in wet work, and effectiveness of blasts." Previous to the use of dynamite, black blasting powder was used in the gold mines.(18) (ILLUS. 6)
Three men (two strikers and a drill holder) would be employed to prepare the blasting hole "using an ordinary inch and one quarter drill". It would take a full shift for the three men to drill a sufficient number of holes which usually extended from 6 - 10 feet into the rock. Since the holes were rarely uniform the blasting cartridges had to be made by hand. According to George Stuart,(19)9 a 19th - century mining entrepreneur, the cartridge shells were covered with thick brown paper and common soap was used to make them impervious to water. The shells were not only made to fill the holes as drilled but were adapted as well to the condition of the rock.(20)
From Inspector Poole's remarks in the 1872 report for the Nova Scotia Department of Mines, it would appear that the blasting powder was not the most efficient substance. It did not break up the rock sufficiently and it threw the rock considerably in the drift.(21) A problem with blasting powder, as well as with dynamite, was the failure of a charge to go off at the proper time. Accidents involving blasting powder were not an uncommon feature of gold mines during this and later periods.(22)
Once the charges had gone off and the smoke was cleared from the mine, the next shift of workers - the mockers - would descend to remove the broken ore. The work would be done by hand, loading the ore in wheelbarrows to transport it to the shaft where the substance would be loaded and hoisted to the surface in the wheelbarrows as in illustration 1,(23) following page 32.
The equipment with which the miners worked underground was a varied collection of hammers, sledges, steels, tamping irons, crowbars as well as wheelbarrows and hoisting tub. Such items were available from the local blacksmith shop or could be imported from merchants in Halifax.(24) (ILLUS. 7)
An 1868 prospectus of the alpha Mining Company, Mount Unicake Gold District, listed the tools owned by the gold mining company:(25)
In December 1869, the sale of the Eldorado Gold Mining Company at Wine Harbour was advertised in the Halifax Morning Chronicle. Among the articles were 1 gin house, 2 blacksmith shops, 1 shaft house, 1 set of cart harnesses and gin harnesses, set of blacksmith tools and mining tools, as well as "a lot of steel and iron "and a 100 chaldorns coals.(26)
The key fact to be noted about mining methods during this period was their uneven development and use. During the early months of mining in the province, the techniques of sinking shafts and extracting gold were primitive, to say the least. It was not long before companies consolidated mining properties and began to employ steam power to operate hoisting and pumping systems. However, the tools used underground continued to be simple hammers, picks, shovels, crowbars and handsteels. In the smaller operations if hoisting and pumping were necessary, they were performed by means of windlasses or whips; the same type of tools would be employed underground. A small primitive operation, owned perhaps by two or three local miners, could develop adjacent to a larger foreign - owned company that took advantage of the most recent technological developments. This continued to be the practice throughout the remainder of the 19th century as well as during the years of gold mining this century. (See ILLUS. 5)
1 Eastern Chronicle (New Glasgow), 6,November 1862. A letter to the paper provide a description of how prospecting was carried out at which was often haphazard. This combined with a general lack of capital often forced the prospective miner to abandon his mining activity. See also J. P. Messervey, "Miscellaneous Memos and Papers on Gold in Nova Scotia", (unpublished, 1034 - '41 Department of Mines) p. 1: The recovery methods were more or less hurried attempts "to locate rich ore shoots and work them to shallow depth with cheap tools and equipment and with as little capital investment as possible".
2 A. Gilman, op cit.; A. Heatherington, MINS,
3 T. S. Hunt, op. cit.; N. S. J. H. A., 1877, appendix 6, Miner Report, p. 67. The Shaft at Wellington Mine, the deepest in the province at the time, was used to hoist ore tubs as well as provide ladderways for the men. In 1876, Appendix6, Mines Report, p 62. One of the shafts at the Wellington was sufficiently large enough to accommodate an ore wagon. On July 31, 1875, "a man 'contrary to orders' was riding on top of the wagon that was ascending the inclined shaft…".
4 W. Malcolm, op. cit., p.111.
5 A Gilman, op. cit.
6 W. Malcolm, op. cit.
8 A. A. Hayward, "Shaft Sinking" in Industrial Advocate, v. III, n. 7, May 1989, p.
9 N. S. J. H. A., 1875, Appendix 4, Mines Report, p. 30 -31. In 1877, Mr. McClure, a prominent mining entrepreneur in Nova Scotia, experimented with a "Victor Hand Power Borer" at Waverley but "as the drill requires … at least a width of a three foot stope; it (was) suitable for only a few leads". The machinery available to miners in the '70s and '80s was so cumbersome and awkward to use that many miners preferred the lighter and simpler hand methods of working the rock.
10 ILLUS. 1, Royal Oak Pit, 1861. The original is an ambrotype owned by A. Lomas, Sherbrooke, N. S. The structure is attributed to the Goldenville diggings.
ILLUS. 2, Goldenville, 1869, courtesy of Public Archives of Canada (hereafter PAC), National Photography Collection.
ILLUS. 3, Goldenville, 1869, Eastern Chronicle (New Glasgow) 1 January 1863: "Most of the pits are covered in from the weather with snug substantial shaft houses and every preparation is being made for carrying on the work during the winter".
11 S. P. Hunt, op. cit., p.13.
12 PANS, RG 1, v. 465 ½, Documents 144, 148 and 182. See also this report , following page 64, ILLUS. 36, (PAC53513, Prospecting Shaft, Mount Uniacke) ILLUS. 4. (PAC53510, Prospecting Shaft Mount Uniacke Gold District) and ILLUS. 5. (PAC 14666, Country Harbour, Old Blair Property, 1934) for examples of horse - drawn hoisting devices. ILLUS. 4 & 5 follow page of this report respectively.
13 A. Heatherington, A Practical Guide, Appendix III, Wellington Mine; N. S. 1868 Report of the Commissioner of Mines for the Province, p. 29.
14 A. Gilman, op. cit., p.584; Heatherington also quotes Gilman's description in A Practical Guide …, p. 88 -89.
15 Albert E. Fay, A Glossary of the mining and Mineral Industry, (reprint, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920), p. 481 - 82.
16 S. P. Hunt, op. cit., p. 13; Albert H. Fay, op. cit., p. 713.
17 S. P. Hunt, op. cit., p.13; A. Gilman, op. cit., p. 584. According to Gilman, when the breadth of the lode was equal to that of the level, it was not material as to whether underhand or overhand stoping was used. However at Tangier, Oldham, and Montague, where the lodes were of moderate width and there was considerable rock to be removed, overstoping was employed "so as to give free passage to the mine". Blasts were made from the roof or 'back' of the drift, and the barren or dead rock containing no gold was left on the floor of the drift. The heaps of barren rock were used by the drillman to gain better access to the receding roof. Wallace Mc Donald; in an interview, described the use of the barren ore during his days as drillman at Ventures in Goldenville.
18 N. S. RDM, 1872, p.23 24; "three men may still be seen laboriously preparing a hole for an ordinary blast, using at least an inch and a quarter drill" and black powder. Dynamite was not used in gold mines in the province prior to 1872. Even after that date the high cost of the material almost prohibited its use. The cost of freight material plus a high duty imposed by the government made it very dear. JHA, 1877, Mines Report, p.30 - 31.
19 George Stuart was associated with gold mining in Nova Scotia from the early '60s until his death. He assisted his father in the construction of the first stamp mill at Waverley in the early 1860s. G. Stuart, "History and Outlook of Gold Mining in Nova Scotia" (unpublished paper, 1933), p. 1: "I helped my father to erect in Waverley the first gold stamp mill in Canada." See also, H. J. Morgan, The Canadian Men and Women of Their Time: A Handbook of Canadian Biography of Living Characters (Toronto: William Briggs, 1912) p. 1074. Stuart was born in 1842.
20 Stuart, op. cit., p. 32.
21 N. S. RDM 1872, p. 32/
22 Eastern Chronicle, (New Glasgow) 1 January 1863. A young man from New Brunswick who was working in the Renfrew mines list both hands in a blasting accident. A. Heatherington, A Practical Guide …, p. 118. Another common accident was "the premature ignition of the powder while tamping for a blast.
23 W. McDonald, Oral Interview, November, 1978.
24 Belcher's Almanac, 1867, p. 184; Belcher's Almanac, c. 1865, p. 184; H. H. Fuller & Co.; Sherbrooke Village Commission File, Lester V. MacDonald, "The Gold Rush, 1861 -1862, Sherbrooke Gold Mining District", (unpublished paper, n. d.) The McDonald blacksmith shop in Sherbrooke supplied a number of the gold miners working in Goldenville, Wine Harbour and Cochrane Hill with the necessary drills, hammers, tamping Ledger "C", 1856 - 1876.
25 Prospectus, Alpha Mining Company, Mount Uniacke, (1868), p. 13 -14.
26 Morning Chronicle (Halifax), 10 December 1869, p. 3, col. 8.