Our last stop before heading to the airport was at the Western Museum of Mining and Industry. Here we learned more about the mining industry in the Colorado area. We were able to see a variety of different types of engines that were used in the industry and learned how they worked. Panning for gold and other gems was fun. Many of us found small flakes of gold and multi-colored stones.
There is a model mining drift that you walk through to learn what it was like for the miners. One interesting thing was that when the miners would set off blasts it would fill the mine with gasses. To determine if it was safe for the miners to return, they would take a caged canary into the mine. If the canary lived it was safe to return, otherwise they needed to leave immediately. Today they have a much more sophisticated instrument that measures the air quality.
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