High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Saihei Hirose (June 16, 1828 1914) was a Japanese mining businessman and former head of the board of directors of Sumitomo Zaibatsu from 1877 to 1894. Previous to this, he was manager of the Besshi Copper Mine, which he extensively modernised using Western technology. There is a museum dedicated to him in Niihama (the Hirose Memorial Museum). Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or (coal) seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash. Any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or created artificially in a laboratory or factory, is usually mined. Mining in a wider sense comprises extraction of any non-renewable resource (e.g., petroleum, natural gas, or even water).