In Zambia, the history of industrial and commercial mining is over 115 years. The earlier period, from 1900 to 1920, is least known. It is ignored, passed over, or referred to in passing by academics and non-academics. The earlier period forms the building blocks on which the later more successful mining enterprise in the mid-1920s was anchored. This study looks at this period and discusses the beginning of mining enterprises from the beginning. Colonial rule began with the British South Africa Company, administering the two territories acquiring mining the Barotse concessions in North-Western Rhodesia, followed by an assortment of treaties with a number African chiefs in North-Eastern Rhodesia. As the country did not have geological maps, mineral deposits had to be found by amateur prospectors employed by a number of mining companies. With this support, prospectors fanned parts of the country, looking for valuable and economically exploitable minerals deposits in various parts of the country. Copper deposits were dominant. Some deposits located on sites of ancient mines in the Kafue Hook, Kansanshi, and Bwana Mkubwa were pegged with the help of African chiefs and citizens as guides. Others, such as the zinc and lead found at Broken Hill mine and the Sassare gold in Petauke, were found by sheer luck and chance.

Handbook of Strata-Bound and Stratiform Ore Deposits, Volume 6: Cu, Zn, Pb, and Ag Deposits focuses on the characteristics, properties, origins, and structures of Cu, Zn, Pb, and Ag deposits. The selection first underscores a comparative review of the genesis of the copper-lead sandstone-type deposits; "volcanic" massive sulfide deposits and their host rocks; and tectonic setting of some strata-bound massive sulfide deposits in New South Wales, Australia. Discussions focus on tectonic setting of Cyprus-type and Kuroko-type strata-bound massive sulfide deposits; development of some tectonic units in which strata-bound massive sulfide deposits occur in the Paleozoic sequences of New South Wales; volcanic host rocks; and interim summary of field and laboratory data. The text then ponders on Caledonian massive sulfide deposits in Scandinavia, Precambrian, strata-bound, massive Cu-Zn-Pb sulfide ores of North America, and geology of the Zambian Copperbelt. Concerns cover types of orebodies, structures of the Zambian Copperbelt, geology of representative deposits, general geological features, and lithostratigraphical relations of the ores. The manuscript takes a look at the McArthur zinc-lead-silver deposits, Appalachian zinc-lead deposits, and tri-state ore deposits. The selection is a dependable source of data for researchers wanting to study Cu, Zn, Pb, and Ag deposits.

As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, despite the many years of direct contact with European traders and the influx of European goods, most African societies still produced their own iron and its products, or obtained them from neighbouring communities through local trade. The quality of iron products was such that, despite competition from European imports, local iron production survived into the early twentieth century in some parts of the continent. The production process covered prospecting, mining, smelting, and forging. Different types of ore were available all over the continent and were extracted by shallow or alluvial mining. A variety of skills were required for building furnaces, producing charcoal, smelting, and forging iron into goods. Iron production was generally not an enclave activity but a process that fulfilled the totality of socio-economic needs. It also fit the gender division of labour within communities.