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THOMAS PRICE was born in the county of Brecon, Wales, on the thirteenth day of March, 1837. After having been well-grounded in the primary branches he entered the Normal College at Swansea, where he received the education which determined his future course in life. He subsequently entered the Royal School of Mines in London, and, in both these institutions, he enjoyed the advantage of studying under some of the most distinguished professors of the day. At the conclusion of his college career, he settled in Swansea and engaged in business of assaying and as professor of an analytical chemistry, and obtained a very wide experience in those branches of science. In 1862 he came to San Francisco and engaged in the business of purchasing silver, gold and copper ores and shipping them to Swansea for reduction. In connection with this business he traveled over every portion of the Pacific coast, visiting and examining all of the principal mines.
At the conclusion of the late civil war the demand for copper ore practically ceased, and Prof. Price was engaged to superintend the assaying and chemical department of San Francisco Refinery, an institution which has since gone out of existence. About this time he was appointed to the chair of chemistry and toxicology in Toland Medical College, and at the late period this institution conferred upon him the degree of M.D., he having devoted considerable time to the study of medicine.
Upon the death of William C. Ralston, the San Francisco Refinery, of which he was the master spirit, closed its doors and its business, and Prof. Price then opened an establishment of his own as chemist and assayer, and, having the confidence of all with whom he had dealings with, he soon found himself at the head of the successful and lucrative business, in which he is still engaged.
During the many years Prof. Price has spent on this coast, he has examined mining properties in all the principal mining States and Territories, extending his research is even to North Carolina. He is now under engagement to visit and examined the gold fields of South Africa, for the working of which an enormous mining plant has been constructed under his supervision. In this connection we may mention a high complement paid to Prof. Price, as well as to our American workmen, by Baron Albert Grant, in an address delivered by him to stockholders of the Lisbon-Berlyn (Transvaal) Gold Mining Company, of London. In the course of his remarks the Baron said:
"A man may be the most theoretical person possible, but unless he has had practical experience of mining, there were contingencies peculiar to every mining which are not repreduced in another, and which he alone can solve by the light possibly of previous failures--certainly by previous actual experiments. Therefore we applied to a friend of mine, Prof. Price, of San Francisco, for his assistants, and his knowledge as to the class of machinery that we should order to work the great property this company owns. Prof. Price' s name, as any one who knows about mining will say, will be a guarantee that the best knowledge of the subject, as well as the most straightforward conduct in any negotiations entrusted to him, will be represented in his person.
"I believe it is said of him by Americans who know him well, that anything he writes, anything he says, may be implicitly confided in, and that, I think, many of you know perhaps about mining--and perhaps know too much--is not the common experience with the other American experts you come across; I am sorry to say it is not mine. Prof. Price is an exception, and is a man of vast experience. To my mind he is a perfect representative of straightforwardness and honesty, and I have no hesitation in entirely recommending my colleagues to confide in his judgment as to the character of the machinery, and the manufacturers who should be entrusted to make it. San Francisco, as you know, is twenty-three or four days by post, and to tell him what we wanted, and get a return by post as to any modification or information, would practically have landed us, if we had followed that course, in a great delay. We should have been thinking what we should order at this very moment, instead of being able to tell you that it is not only ordered, but manufactured, and actually in the vessel that leaves on Thursday for Durban, en route for the gold fields. That has been obtained of course by a free use of the cable, and what wasn't possible before the cable was laid, of course, is now perfectly possible, as you have seen. Still, for all that, I do not think that if we had started exactly from the day when we first allotted our shares, it would have been possible to have been so far advanced in that respect as we are to day, because there is a certain physical time necessary to manufacture a 60-stamp mill; and though the Americans work enormously fast, and in that respect to give an important lesson to manufacturers here, yet they cannot do impossibilities. It is most astonishing how Americans work, but I suppose it has something to do with the absence of trades unions, so that they can get their work-people to work any number of our hours, it merely being a question of pay.
"That is the main reason; but at any rate they do the work at a rate which cannot be done by many of our largest works in England; and they tell you when you give an order for a 60-stamp mill that ‘ inside of ninety days it will be got ready,’ whereas here they would not do it in six months. In America also they are willing to enter into a contract under penalty of so much per day in case of default, and they have kept to their engagement, I may say, almost absolutely to the day. I took upon myself, knowing full well that sufficient capital would be subscribed, to open negotiations through Prof. Price, before we had actually allotted to capital; consequently you are enable to reap the benefit of that."
The quartz mill forwarded from San Francisco has reached London, according to the latest accounts, and the Baron has bought 1, 600 head of oxen to transport it from the African coast to the gold fields. Sarles and Davis, the California mill men, have already left London for South Afrfca[Africa], and Prof. Price, we understand, will probably soon followed to make a thorough examination of the mines of that country, concerning which so little is yet known to the world. Prof. Price has been very prominent in the hydraulic system of mining in California, and it is more than probable that the powerful "monitors" which have reduced mountains in this State may yet be brought into active operation in the mines of South Africa. We trust the Professor may have a pleasant voyage, that he may meet with financial and scientific success and soon return in health and safety to his numerous friends in San Francisco. That his report will be an interesting one there can be no doubt.
Source: "The Bay of San Francisco" Volume 1. Lewis Publishing Company 1892. Page 422-424
Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton.
© 2002 Nancy Pratt Melton