>The Lone Ranger wouldn't necessarily need a steam-driven six-stamp
>mill, mind

Well, no, but the method Twain describes was the current one in the 19th-century American Southwest, so it's most likely to be the one a Texas Ranger of the same period would've been familiar with. One isn't sure how many copies of De Re Metallica were in circulation in those parts at that time. :)

--G.
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