Prospecting

Title: Description of the Prospecting Process
Type: Book
Date: 1897
Source: Minnesota Historical Society

Description: This page from a book by Edmund Longyear describes prospecting for iron ore.
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Activities:

1. According to this source, what is the job of a prospector?
   
   
   
   
   Answer: A prospector's job is to go to places that are likely to have a resource such as iron ore and to dig pits to determine exactly where the resource is located in the ground.
2. What is the reason for digging a test pit?
   
   
   
   
   Answer: Test pits were dug to see if there was any iron ore present, and, if so, exactly where it was and how far down you would have to dig to find it.
3. When prospectors found iron ore in test pits, they did not stop but instead dug even more test pits. According to the article, why was this?
   
   
   
   
   Answer: Prospectors would sink even more test pits to determine how wide and deep the ore deposits were. This helped the explorers figure out just how much ore there was.
4. Did hitting water mean you could never dig any further?
   
   
   
   
   Answer: No, it just meant that human diggers had to stop until a pump could be moved into the area to remove the water. This could only be done if there were reliable roads leading to the test pits.