Suggestions for prospecting

Abstract

Prospectors have contributed much to the development of this Nation's mineral resources. Since the time of the earliest settlement, the need for iron for tools and guns, lead for bullets, and copper for utensils has prompted a search for sources of these metals. The lure of gold and silver provided the impetus for much of the development in the West between 1850 and 1910. Later, prospectors carried out successful ventures to fulfill the country's expanding industrial demands for other metals such as zinc, molybdenum, tungsten, chromium, vanadium, and many others. Even America's uninhabited rugged mountains or barren deserts have been prospected although perhaps only at a reconnaissance scale.