The Jaredites acquired all manner of “gold, and of silver, and of precious things” (Ether 9:17). They “were exceedingly industrious, and they did buy and sell and traffic one with another, that they might get gain. And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore, they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work” (Ether 10:7, 12, 22-23).  The Jaredites “did make all manner of tools to till the earth, … and they did make all manner of tools with which they did work their beasts. And they did make all manner of weapons of war. And they did work all manner of work of exceedingly curious workmanship” (Ether 10:25-27). The phrase “curious workmanship” in old English meant expert or careful workmanship. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. The ores of zinc, copper, silver, gold and iron are found in many locations in Baja California and have been mined from the time the Jesuit fathers first reached the peninsula in the late 1600s. Indeed, the availability of gold, silver and copper was a major motivation for early Spanish appropriation of these Jaredite lands.

Moroni records that Shule, a member of the Jaredite ruling family, “came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him; and after he had armed them with swords he returned to the city Nehor, and gave battle unto his brother Corihor, by which means he obtained the kingdom and restored it unto his father Kib” (Ether 7:9). The molting (melting or smelting by heating to a high temperature) of iron ore and other metals to make swords of steel is informative, but the name of the place of molting, the hill Ephraim, is unexpected. The name “Ephraim” seems out of place in the Jaredite lexicon. We suspect it is not a Jaredite name, but a name that was commonly used among Moroni’s people when referring to this hill of iron ore. Moroni identifies other locations within the Jaredite lands by their Nephite names, such as Desolation, Zarahemla and the hill Cumorah (Ether 7:6; 9:31; 15:11).

The name Ephraim, of course, is associated with the house of Israel, and a name mentioned in the Nephite record when quoting the prophet Isaiah from the brass plates (2 Ne. 17:2, 5, 8-9, 17; 19:9, 21; 21:13). There is a hill Ephraim in the central area of the land of Israel, the area inherited by the tribe of Ephraim and where they dwelt before moving northward in 721 B.C. The Biblical hill Ephraim was a known site of iron production at the time the family of Lehi and the people of Zarahemla (Mulekites) departed the land of Jerusalem. We suspect the people of Zarahemla named the hill with iron ore in their new homeland after the name of the hill with iron ore they knew in the old world. The descendants of Lehi would not have encountered the hill Ephraim in the northern Jaredite lands until about 50 B.C., some 550 years after their arrival in the promised land, and after they had united with the people of Zarahemla under the first Mosiah (Omni 1:12-19; Alma 63:4-10; Hel. 3:3-13). The people of Zarahemla, however, landed along the shores of the Jaredite lands, close to the site of the hill Ephraim (Alma 22:29-31). It would appear the people of Zarahemla named several distinctive landscape features in these northern lands after Biblical locations: the river Sidon, the wilderness of Hermounts (the Hermonites or Mount Hermon), the valley and city of Gilgal, the cities of Boaz and Judea and the lands of David, Jershon, Jordan and Joshua.

The hill Ephraim provided a common geographical link for the Jaredites, the Nephites and the people of Zarahemla. The shared attraction for all three cultures, of course, was the valuable ore within the hill. A hill, by definition, is a naturally raised area of land, not as high or craggy as a mountain, that extends above the surrounding terrain. There are a number of hills in central Baja California, near the Jaredite royal land of Moron, that are candidates for the hill Ephraim. These ore-producing areas are commercially mined today.