The extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, gold, silver, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash. Any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or created artificially in a laboratory or factory, is usually mined. Mining in a wider sense comprises extraction of any non-renewable resource.

A tramp miner is a miner who travels (tramps) the world in search of opportunities. Unlike many jobs, a miner has to go where the mines are. If he/she wants to remain gainfully employed, the tramp miner must be flexible enough to call most anyplace home. The birth of the Global Community has created many more international professions and a new wave of Tramp Miners.

by: Andrew Sekora

A miners blood runs deeper than the ore in the earth, stronger than the rock broke. A miners family is beyond next to kin. The loss of a miner is heard throughout the drifts of every mine. The loss of a miner is never forgotten. The bond of a miner is never broken.

By Robert Robuck

I am A Miner

As I make my way into the darkness,
I think of my family and what I leave topside. I am a miner. A member of an elite group of men that make their living thousands of feet underground. If she starts to creek and groan, if all hell suddenly cuts loose, remember this. Kiss the kids, I love you and I'll see you on the other side. I am the light at the end of the tunnel.
I am a miner!

By: Josh

Click Here
Drive A Mine Truck

Behind every Successful Man There's is a surprised Woman

My Father, at Star Mine

               

Visit Rude Miner: Mining Mugs, shirts, airbrush, and more!
Got to check it out. Just Click here.

                 It's a Journey though layers of time, through geological blankets folded and pressed in the earth's molten forage.

~tap~tap~tap~

TommyKnockers

    Cornish miners in the 1800s came to work in the hard rock mines of copper, gold and silver. They also brought along the Tommyknockers (Well there belief). The Tommyknockers were small dwarf-like creatures who worked in the mines, tapping away and making strange noises deep in the rocks. They were often heard, but rarely seen. Some of the miners believed that the knockers were the ghosts of Jews who had been brought by the Romans as slaves to work in the Cornish mines. But some other miners that felt the knockers were the spirits of miners in general who had died in the mines or they were the spirits of souls who hadn't been good enough to make it to heaven but hadn't been bad enough to go to hell.

There are some who say the Cornish used this to rid the mine of NON-Cornish workers.

The Urban Dictionary definition of Tommyknocker is:
"Miners who have been trapped in cave-ins and pound on the rocks for rescue. It is believed that the ghosts of these miners go on knocking in the mine shafts long after the victims have died."

Germans called them:
Berggeister or Bergmännlein, meaning "mountain ghosts” or "little miners.”

~tap~tap~tap~ Whos there ~

I heard a strange tap, tap, tap noise at work!
I thought maybe it was a Tommyknocker leading me to the motherload.
Yes - I'd be rich!
So I slowly crept up the drift, I then junped from around the timber, and snapped this pic.

I then seen the little bastard run off, with my lunch bucket and shovel.
He was also waveing his middle finger high in the air.

       They were discribed as about two feet tall, and often described as greenish in color, they look like men and are most often spied wearing a traditional miner’s outfit. Living beneath the ground, they have been "known” to have committed both good and bad deeds through the centuries, often playing practical jokes and committing random acts of mischief, such as stealing unattended tools and food. When these grizzled little gnomes were good, they were thought to bring miners favors and wealth. But when they were bad, they were said to bring about misery, injury, and death to those who doubted their power or who did not believe in them.

 If they were spirits of dead men or simply fictional creatures, Tommyknockers were generally considered to be friendly and helpful by the Cornish miners. They often warned miners of cave-ins, and, upon occasion, would lead a miner to a rich vein of ore. But they also could be vindictive if neglected or abused through disrespect.

Whistling could offend them!
Therefore, was considered to be bad luck.
Speaking with disdain about the knockers could also result in a series of unfortunate events.
As a result, many men played it safe and often left a bit of their lunch behind, often the crusty edge of a pasty, as a gift for their unseen companions.

Belief in these diminutive miners remained well into the 20th century until modern systems and education replaced these earlier superstitions. Though not much is heard of the Tommyknockers today, they will forever have a place in our history, legend and lore.

~tap~tap~tap~

They only drift on to better ground that needs no timber, bolts, or pumps. The ground drills like snow, breaks like glass, and mucks like flour. He'll mine in stopes where the oiler never runs low, bits are always sharp. A place where the steel never shanks, and compressors never die. The equipment is always new, and there's never any powder smoke. The tonage and footage is always met! The whiskey flows like water, woman are ready for love, and he's never broke.
And Yes, once again he'll, Top the Contract Board.
So drift on OL' Pard!

Your memory will always be
drifting on, in our hearts.