Born 1832 In Germany
Died 1917 In South Carolina
Occupation Mining Engineer at the Haile Mine
Ok so his first name is not Adolf but his second name was, and he named one of his children Adolf. While people like Adolph Lundin created a huge mining industry he is far from the only big Adolf in the mining industry. Meet Dr Carl Adolf Thies.
Of the 118 elements available to us us gold is in some ways plain at least chemicaly speaking and in others the most useful to use as a currency. Using gases would not be very practical as a curency, nor would be using metals such as potasium that explode when they touch water. If one were to go through the periodic table one would find there are only a few options left such as iron coper silver platinum and gold. Iron and coper rust relatively easily and are so common that it would be easy to falsify the currency. Platinum is so rare that the coins would have to be incredibly small and the technology to smelt platinum only recently became a possiblity. Realy we are left with silver and gold as means of currency but gold comes out the winner because silver too tarnishes whereas gold could be left on the bottom of the ocean for a few hundred years and come out as shimmering as when it went it was last polished. While the idea of an explosive currency may have its value unfortunately it was an explosion that ended the life of Carl Adolf’s son Ernest and shortly after the mine had to close once again.
When Carl Adolf invented the “Thies method” he drew the attention of the inventor of the light bulb Thomas Edison who visisted the mine to learn more about the Thies Process. Carl Adolf’s contribution to the mine if not the United states made him worth his weight in gold and definately a man worth remembering.
http://www.hailegoldmine.com/about/history/
http://magazine.cim.org/en/mining-lore/the-many-lives-of-the-haile-mine/
https://www.cmstory.org/sites/default/files/special_collections/Thies%20Realty%20Collection%2C%201981-1995.pdf
https://miningmckissick.wordpress.com/tag/museums/page/2/
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25255957