Corporations: Gold from Lead

Along a tunnel 4,850 ft. beneath the Black Hills of South Dakota, explosions rumbled like artillery fire. Sweet-smelling dynamite and ammonium nitrate fumes poured into the tunnel from a cavern where some 30 to 40 tons of ore had just been blasted loose. In an immaculate, cement-lined chamber nearby, a hoist operator scanned two closed-circuit TV screens that monitor the ore buckets, make sure they are dumping properly into large collection bins. Above ground, at the end of the production process, refinery workers were pouring Brick No. 37,035—a 30-lb. hunk of solid...