Just Scratching the Surface-Geographers and the Mining West

Research for a doctoral dissertation on Western mining disclosed an enormous body of literature on the subject, a paucity of works by geographers, and an almost unlimited potential for such studies.' Most existing studies present and examine facts in their historical context with little or no attention to geographical interpretation.2 Yet, such analysis is essential to a full understanding of the significance of mining. Without geographic studies of mining, its perspective in the development of the West remains vague and its enduring significance to the present uncertain. While hundreds of works exist on the various gold and silver rushes, few contain any geographic analysis of the special characteristics of a mining rush population. Most of these works offer only highly generalized statements on the dimensions of western mining rushes and origins of participants. The best works, almost all by historians, deal mostly with the rush to California.3 Even for tr.e greatly researched California gold rush, no map exists showing quantitatively the movement of people involved. Hopefully, some geographer will produce this much needed addition to the mining history of the West.