Cinnabar means to gild silver and gold to objects) "the toxic properties of mercury were well known. It was dangerous to those who mined and processed cinnabar, it caused shaking, loss of sense, and death. Data suggest that mercury was retorted from cinnabar and the workers were exposed to the toxic mercury fumes." Overexposure to mercury, mercurialism, was seen as an occupational disease to the ancient Romans: "Mining in the Spanish cinnabar mines of Almadén, southwest of Madrid, was regarded as being akin to a death sentence due to the shortened life expectancy of the miners, who were slaves or convicts."
Ore dock steel chutes. These chutes project out over the water at a slight angle from the sides of the docks. The hinged chutes, which are lowered to drop ore from the pockets into ships, are located at twelve-foot intervals over the length of the dock. This spacing is not coincidental, as the docks and the lakers they could load evolved together, and laker hatch spacing is typically 12, or on center. Since the late 1800s, ore docks have been a common sight in many Lake Superior ports of Minnesota, Wisconsin and especially Michigan. Rich iron ore deposits were first discovered in