Pub. 6 2016 Issue 3

9 MINING FOCUS attempts to cross and had to turn back. They also had to change their destination. They would have liked to settle in the New York area, near the Hudson River, but the winds and the shoals forced them further north, to Cape Cod Bay. Of the 102 people who had started the voyage fromEngland, 68 had died during the first year. Two or three people died every day during the first two months at the colony. It’s no wonder that by the fall season of 1621, the colonists were ready to celebrate the first harvest. They had created a treaty with the Indians, and they had survived that first, deadly winter. The first official public celebration of Thanksgiving was set when the first Federal Congress asked President George Washington to appoint one before the members of Congress left for recess. He obliged them with a proclamation that set aside Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a day for the entire nation to give thanks for its blessings. Other presidents followed Washington’s example, but they chose different dates, and the celebrations were not held on an annual basis. President Abraham Lincoln was the first president to make the holiday a regular one, starting in 1863 when the U.S. began celebrating Thanksgiving eachNovember on the last Thursday. Years later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday so it would be celebrated on the second to last Thursday of the month, but not everyone liked the change, and for two years some states celebrated one Thursday, and other states celebrated the next Thursday. On October 6, 1941, Congress settled on the fourth Thursday. President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to the change on December 26, 1941. To this day, Thanksgiving continues to be focused around gatherings of families and friends. Most people don’t realize how important mining is to their Thanksgiving Day celebration, but let’s take a look at why mining makes it possible: • Thanksgiving is one of the times that people are likely to put good china, glassware, and metal flatware on their tables to celebrate. Those china plates are created from china clay, or kaolin, which dates back more than 10,000 years to the fine white porcelain first created by the Chinese. In 1745, an apothecary named William Cookworthy who just happened to live in Plymouth, England, found decomposed granite that was finer than talcum powder and spent the next 20 years figuring out how to turn it into porcelain. He patented his process in 1768 and a new industry was born. Of course, silica sand is used to make glass, and most flatware involves metal of some kind, whether that’s silver, stainless steel, or some kind of base metal that has been coated in silver. • Our homes and our kitchens are filled with mining products: for just a few examples, think of the metal used to build appliances, the wiring in the home for electricity, the metal ductwork, nails, drywall, cement driveways, and all the other mining products that go intomaking a home, a city, and a nation. • You might think that the meal has nothing to do with mining at all, but there, too, you would be wrong. Farms depend on fertilizers, and many fertilizers depend on mining. Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) are mining products that are absolutely essential to fertilizer, which helps U.S. farmers increase the amount of food they can grow. Wheat and corn are both particularly dependent on the use of fertilizer. Good soil management requires understanding the complex interactions that can take place in the soil. We must use all the knowledge and resources we have to grow our food and make sure the mineral content of the soil is balanced. Farmers have to look at what is in the soil and amend it depending on what the soil needs to grow food. • Wha t ab ou t t r ave l i ng t o a Thanksgiving Day celebration? For most people, that involves driving a car or flying in a plane, and the The first official public celebration of Thanksgiving was set when the first Federal Congress asked President George Washington to appoint one before the members of Congress left for recess. He obliged them with a proclamation that set aside Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a day for the entire nation to give thanks for its blessings.