The Mountain That Eats Men

[Stuart]

One of the oldest mines in the world and the oldest mine in the Americas. This crazy mine is 15,000' feet above sea level and employs 20,000 people a day. Potosà may be the most important place in the history of the modern world that most people have never heard of. The Spanish discovered silver in Potosà in 1545. The mine was so rich that historians say its wealth single-handedly fueled the Spanish conquest of the Americas. They call it "The Mountain That Eats Men." It is estimated that 8 million American Indian and African slaves died in forced labor at the mine. Amid the colonial remnants of what was once a magnificent city sits the massive Spanish royal mint, now a museum that shows just a fraction of the mother lode that made this remote mountainous place the largest city in the world by the year 1650. And the richest.

This is an awesome article, possibly the only good article ABC has ever written.

http://i.abcnews.com/Nightline/story?id=4582403&page=1

[Brian Passey]

Nice read

[Troy]

"This is an awesome article, possibly the only good article ABC has ever written".

A little biased aren't we??

Well, I think it was a good article as well. I wonder what the monetary value is of the rock extracted to the ton.....how the minerals are extracted. Do they use somewhat modern smelting methods, or smelting methods from the 1500's...probably somewhere in between all those centuries.

[Stuart]

A little biased aren't we??

If it isn't about mines, history, guns, sex, or politics is it really worth reading?