Mining Engineering as a Profession

Abstract

IN his presidential address delivered on May 19 to the Institution ofMining and Metallurgy, Dr. C. B. Kingston discussed “Mining Engineering as a Profession”. He said that mining is essentially a man's job and offers a splendid career to the keen ambitious man who is not seeking security first but likes a spice of adventure and finds satisfaction in a constructive occupation that makes some definite contribution to the world's welfare. The training of a modern mining engineer should be based on asound general education, as not only must he be a technician but also inaddition a man of affairs, a competent negotiator and preferably a linguist. The technique of mining is difficult to define, as it is all-embracing in its requirements, but briefly it can be described as the application of all the applied sciences to finding, winning and subsequent preparation for the market of a mineral deposit. The increasing importance ofmetal in the world's affairs is creating further demands on a mining engineer's accomplishments in an ever-widening field of activity and with larger-scale operations than ever before. A study of history, ancient andmodern, in terms of minerals is fascinating because the growth of nations and the cause of many wars cannot be dissociated from the possession or a determination to secure control of high-grade deposits of essential minerals. The question has been asked, “Who owns the earth?”, and the answer given is "The nation which controls the greatest mineral resources."