This recently published book is an interesting read. Nominally, it is about the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia but in reality it is a summary of where America was politically and socially in 1876 and along with the presidential election of that year it details shortcomings in the US as it related to blacks, native…

The Society of Mining Engineers (SME) held their annual conference in Salt Lake City from February 22-25 this year. Although mostly technical, there is a growing Mining History group within SME organized by former SME president George Luxbacher. This year there were two Mining History sessions with 12 presentations. The most notable was a paper…

May 2026 is going to be a busy month with conferences in Galena, Pittsburg, KS and Denver. Galena, IL is the epicenter of the old Upper Mississippi lead mining district and it celebrates it’s 200th anniversary this year. There will be a Galena History Symposium at the De Soto House Hotel on May 15-17 organized…

Albert, former CEO of CRH was appointed Chairman of British Petroleum back in July 2025. He has moved quickly, effecting the replacement of the incumbent CEO, Canadian Murray Auchincloss, with American Meg O’Neill. She was most recently with Woodside Energy of Australia and before that spent 28 years at Exxon. Auchincloss was perceived to be…

There is some exploration for lithium going on in County Wicklow. Ganfeng Lithium, China’s biggest lithium producer, has an exploration license. There are known deposits of pegmatite in the region. Europe imports most of the lithium it needs from South America or Asia. There is a pilot program in Cornwall to produce lithium from mica…

Albert, who retired as CEO of CRH in December was just appointed (non-executive) chairman of BP plc. It is step up for Albert. CRH was valued at about 65 billion dollars when he retired and BP is at about 85 billion dollars after being over 100 billion in the not so recent past. Albert is…