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Title: The Business of Mining

A brief non-technical exposition of the principles involved

in the profitable operation of mines

Author: Arthur J Hoskin

Release Date: February 16, 2012 [EBook

#38903]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUSINESS OF MINING ***

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U TAH C OPPER C OMPANY ' S O PEN P IT M INE , B INGHAM ,

U TAH

T HIS M OUNTAIN IS C OPPER O RE

OF MINES BY

ARTHUR J HOSKIN,

M.E.,

CONSULTING AND GENERAL MINING ENGINEER; WESTERN EDITOR, "MINES AND MINERALS"; FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF

MINING, COLORADO SCHOOL

OF MINES; MEMBER, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF

MINING ENGINEERS;

MEMBER, COLORADO SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY

WITH 16 FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

AND ONE CHART

PHILADELPHIA &

LONDON

PRINTED BY J B LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS

PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.

III The Antiquity of Mining 22

IV Mining's Place in

IX Considerations Preceding

X Mine Openings 93

XII The Questions of Depth

XIII Valuation of Mining

XV Incorporation and

XVII Mine Equipments 154XVIII Mine Management 162

XXII Mining 202XXIII Miscellaneous

PAGEUtah Copper Company's

Open Pit Mine, Bingham,

Steam Shovels and Churn

Drills, Copper Flat, Ely,

Nev

74

Mill of the Pittsburg-Silver

Peak Gold Mining Co.,

Blair, Nev

88

Mills and Shaft House of

Daly West Mine, Park City,

Utah

100

Shaft No 3, Tamarack

Smeltery of the Balaklala

Consolidated Copper Co.,

Coram, Cal

114

Washoe Reduction Works of

the Anaconda Copper

Mining Co., Anaconda,

Mont

119

Mill of the

Roodepoort-United Mines, Transvaal,

Diagram of Metal Market

Florence Mine and Mill,

THE BUSINESS

OF MINING

There is probably no line of humanactivity that is not beset with maliciousand ignorant intruders The fact that anyoccupation or business is really legitimateseems often to stimulate the operations ofthese disreputable persons

Mining does not escape the application ofthis postulate For ages, the industry hasafforded most fertile opportunities for themachinations of the unscrupulous and theerring Somehow, there weaves throughoutthe history of mining a sort of magnetismrendering us unduly susceptible to theallurements which are presented with

every mining proposition.

It is not, however, always intentionaldeceit that is perpetrated upon the unwary.Often, mining failures result from actualignorance of the business upon the part ofthose entrusted with its conduct, or if notfrom actual lack of knowledge, then fromerroneous conceptions with theconsequent misapplication of honestendeavor A victim of such misplacedfaith is perhaps more leniently inclinedthan is the person who has been duped by

a "shark," but the effect upon the greatindustry is hurtful in either case

The purpose of this short monograph will

be served if the author can feel assuredthat his readers will finish its perusal withthe belief that mining may be followed as

a business with just as much assurance ofsuccess as attaches to any one of the manylines of industrial activity Many personswho have sustained losses in miningventures deserve no sympathy whatever,since they have not exercised even thesimplest precautions So long as men—orwomen—will take as fact the word of anyuntrained or inexperienced individualconcerning investments, just so long willthere be resultant financial losses, nomatter what the line of business Becausethere have been elements of chanceobserved in the records of mining, thisbusiness appeals to the speculative side ofour human natures, with the result thatuntold numbers of individuals have hadample reason to regret their ventures But,

as will be found in the text matter, mining

can be relied upon with precisely as muchassurance as can any other business.

Nothing of a technical or engineering sorthas been attempted herein, the sole aim ofthe writer being to establish the reliabilityand the credit of the mining industry as awhole by pointing out the lines of conductwhich should be followed by those whoenter its precincts as business people.When investors of small or large meanswill put their money into mining projectswith the same precautions that they wouldexercise in placing their cash in otherenterprises, they will be rewarded withcorresponding remuneration In this firmconviction, then, this little work isdedicated to the intelligence of Americanlaymen in mining matters

I WHAT IS A MINE?

Before entering into a discussion of theeconomic features of the mining industry,

it will be well to be sure that weunderstand, definitely, what is meant bymining As one investigates the question,

he is bound to run across varying shades

of meaning for the words Mine and

Mining, and so we must pause long

enough to define these words according tothe best usages

A search through works on mining written

at various periods reveals differing ideas

that have prevailed among authors Lessthan a hundred years ago, it was said that

a mine "consists of subterranean workingsfrom which valuable minerals areextracted." One early writer said that amine is one only when the operations areconducted in the absence of daylight Astime has created new fields for theindustry, we find that ideas concerning themeaning of the word mine havenecessarily altered, until now (according

to The Coal and Metal Miners'Pocketbook), we may think of a mine as

"any excavation made for the extraction ofminerals." Under this definition, weproperly think of the rather unusualoperations of marketing coal right from thesurface of the earth, in eastern Kansas, asmining There is, in this case, no covering

of earth above the workmen; neither arethe operations necessarily carried on atnight to avoid the illumination of the sun.

So, also, placers are now correctlyspoken of as mines, although but a fewyears ago there was drawn a strict line,eliminating such worked deposits from thecategory of mines One may still runacross a few men who are sticklers uponthe point that a placer is not a mine.Throughout the world, at the present time,there are many places where immensedeposits of valuable minerals are beingexcavated from open pits by out-of-doorsmethods, and our common term for theseplaces is mines Thus, in Minnesota, inthat wonderful Lake Superior country, that

is famous as the world's greatest known

producer of iron ore, tremendous tonnagesare handled every year by the modernsteam shovel, which works in natural light

by day and by electric lamps at night InUtah and Nevada we find similaroperations conducted in the excavation ofcopper ores In Australia, the famousMount Morgan mine is using open airmethods in the mining of precious metalore

But what about quarries from which aretaken building stone, salt, kaolin or clay?Are not such substances of the mineralkingdom? Here we run across a hitch inthe definition quoted above; for while wehear of "salt mines" (not "salted mines"),our parlance has not, as yet, warrantedthis term except for such excavations of

salt as are carried on in subterraneandeposits; and it is quite out of place tospeak of stone or clay mines.

Evidently we must pass through anothertransition in our conceptions about mines,

or we must permit quarries and pits to beincluded within our realm of mines At thepresent time, the prevailing practice of themen best qualified in such matters is todesignate as mines those workings fromwhich only coal, metallic ores, or gemsare extracted Hence, we should not speak

of a slate, sulphur, mica, clay orphosphate mine

And yet, with all the above restriction inour nomenclature, we have not reachedone very important consideration, onewhich we have been approaching for a

number of years and which, of late, hasbeen met and forcibly applied by the bestmen in the profession of miningengineering.

An excavation that will produce coal,metals or gems is not necessarily a mine.The simple fact that a man can get somegold-bearing dirt from a hole in the grounddoes not mean that he has a mine Theoccasional finding of a diamond on thesidewalks of a great city does not giveanybody the impression that citysidewalks are diamond mines There aremany places in which small amounts ofcombustible coal can be scratched fromits natural depository, but no companyappears to think highly enough of theseseams to install machinery and to carry on

operations In the eastern part of Kentuckythere are well-defined deposits of lead-bearing baryta, though, up to date, theirdevelopment has not proved successful InBrazil there are known to be very richareas of placer ground, and still thedeposits are not worked A friend of thewriter discovered some very good gold-bearing gravels in Alaska, but he wasunable to mine.

There is something besides the presence

of valuable minerals and the ability to winthem from their natural matrices that isessential to a mine It is here, in ourconsiderations of the mining industry, that

we come into real economic notions forthe first time Yes, according to the latestideas, we are wrong in stating that any

worked or workable mineral deposit is a

mine, if it does not contain possibilities

of profitable working This is now the

prime thought of every up-to-date miningmanager or engineer It is this notion thatwill distinguish a mine from a prospect.The prospect may become a mine byproving itself profitably workable: if itsimply carries values which cannot berealized to advantage, then it mustcontinue as a mere prospect There arecases of properties which possess richdeposits and which are loosely calledmines These properties may be observed

to be erratic in their productiveness,owing to the very pockety nature of thedeposits; and the owners, although they

do, indeed, strike occasional handsomebonanzas, expend all the profits of such

finds—or even greater amounts—insearching for other pockets Is such workprofitable? Is it mining?

The trouble with the cited placers of SouthAmerica is that climatic, hygienic andpolitical conditions have beenantagonistic to successful working: theground is rich, but it cannot be handled tomake money In the case of the Alaskagravels, there was no available, thoughessential, water supply The Kentuckygalena cannot be economically separatedfrom the containing heavy spar Coal,which is sold at comparatively lowfigures per ton, must be handled at themines in large quantities to pay, so that athin seam or a scattered deposit is notsuitable for mining

Under these restrictions of our newdefinitions, we run across manyinteresting points For instance, one mayask the question about the old abandonedhole in the ground which is occasionallyfound by prospectors, "Is it a mine?" Theanswer can be simply another query as towhether the hole was abandoned because

it contained no value, or because,containing value, it could not be profitablyworked As we think of mines nowadays,

we can conceive several reasons why,before the advent of transportation linesand the invention of modern metallurgicalprocesses and many forms of labor-savingmachinery now so common in and aboutmines, many very rich deposits may havebeen necessarily forsaken by theirdiscoverers But such a property would, if

now worked, probably prove highlyprofitable We thus note that there existssome elasticity in the meaning of the wordmine An unprofitable project at one timemay develop into a mine at a later period.Many gold mines have become worthlesspropositions merely through changes in theore that have rendered further workunremunerative.

II WHAT IS MINING?

Having considered the accepted definition

of a mine, let us now extend our reasoning

a little and inquire just what is meant bymining At first thought, one would saythat mining is, in a broad sense, the art orpractice of excavating, at a profit, the ores

of metals, the beds of coal, the gravels ofplacers and the deposits containingprecious stones Are we justified in lettingthis definition stand as it is? If we do notmake any change, we must exclude allquarries, sand banks, clay pits, and thenumerous sorts of works that are

producing the non-metallic minerals ofcommerce Very well, since we find goodusage will warrant us, we will do so.

H ACKETT M INE AND M ILL , J OPLIN , M ISSOURI

Still, there are other pertinent questions

arising Does the practice of mining coverthe treatment of the excavated products?Here we run across a mooted point TheBritish and the American uses of the wordmining seem to be a bit different in thisregard Upon the Rand, South Africa, aterritory dominated by Englishmen, everymine is equipped with its own mill, andall notions of mining cover theinseparable idea of local ore treatment.Here, in our country, there are many, manymines which have absolutely no means oftreating their own products and themanagers give no thought whatever tometallurgical or milling lines There are,

on the other hand, many companies thathave erected private plants at their minesfor the extraction of metallic contents fromthe ores Here it may, or it may not,

happen that the operations of mining areconsidered as distinct from those oftreatment In some instances, as at theTonopah Mining Company's plants, there

is separate superintendence of the millingand the mining; but in the Joplin, Missouri,zinc region one superintendent looks afterthe running of a mine and its omnipresentmill

There may be drawn a sharp distinctionbetween what is really mining and what isthe subsequent treatment of the ores for theextraction of values The latter field is

denoted Metallurgy when the operations

are of such a nature as to actually recover

or extract metallic products or metals Ifthe treatment process has for its objectmerely the rejection of some of the

worthless materials in the original ore,thus causing a concentration of thevaluable minerals, but without actually

obtaining any metal, then the term Ore

Dressing is warranted At some mines,

there is maintained a practice of cullingout, often by hand, a certain percentage ofthe obviously worthless ingredients of theore before shipping the products totreatment plants This is neither milling,metallurgy, nor ore dressing, but is more

properly called Sorting It is one of the

operations connected with mining Millingmay be either ore dressing or metallurgy

In the operations of placering, there is a

simultaneous excavation of a deposit and

a n extraction of the valuable contents In

this case, shall we call the process mining

or metallurgy? If it is a gold placer, onemay see the recovery of the metallicvalues Here, the usage of the majority ofpractical mining men will uphold us inalways speaking of the work as mining.

In its original significance and use,metallurgy involved the use of fire for theconcentration and recovery of metals.With recent advances in chemistry, therehave been numerous discoveries of wet orfireless methods for arriving at equivalentresults, so that it is now perfectly proper

to allow the word metallurgy to coversuch processes as cyanidation,chlorination, electrolysis, and the host ofnew inventions that are continuallyappearing

The writer has consulted a number of

authorities on mining lines to ascertainjust what sort of a position to give to thepractice of ore dressing Prof Robert H.Richards, the head of the miningdepartment in the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology, and the inventor ofmachines which have made him famousamong mining men, says, "Ore dressing is

an essential part of mining The wholeobject of ore dressing is to remove ganguebefore shipment and so save in freight andtreatment charges." Mr A G Charleton,the eminent English mining engineer andauthor of numerous books, in discussingthis question, writes, "Personally, I am ofthe opinion that ore dressing should beincluded in mining." One has but to lookthrough the catalogues of most of theAmerican and foreign mining schools to

find that little or no line is drawn betweenthe courses in mining and metallurgy, andalmost universally the dressing of a mine'sproduct is taken up as an inseparable part

of mining In a very few exceptions, thecourses of study are so planned as to draw

an imaginary line between mining andmetallurgy, and in these instances, oredressing is placed with metallurgy onlyfor convenience in the use andarrangement of college laboratories But,since it is a common practice for miningcompanies to install plants right at themines for the purpose of diminishing thebulk of ore shipped and to thus save infreight and custom treatment charges, minesuperintendents and even the commonminers have become accustomed tothinking of such plants as but units of the

"mining" plants At bituminous andanthracite mines whose products containobjectionable amounts of impurities, it is

a common practice to subject the output to

a Washing to remove the deleterious

substances before shipment to the market

C OAL W ASHING P LANT , P ANA , I LLINOIS

In view, then, of these reasons, it is proper

to decide that mining is a term broad