Document gb1oLxD7eLoe4JJqbg8nz55LJ
V From Sent. 19 R 8 i eerie Chameleon Fames 6-7
During my recent visit to Cleveland and Chicago I could,......... not heir but notice that when they introduced me as being from our mines at Magdalena, there followed a sort of dazed bland' look which seemed to indicate a wonder as to dust hat a mine -as and whet one did with it if he rad one. At Cleveland I was seised upon, as have many others before me, and was not released until I cromised to furnish bail in the form of an article for The Chameleon describing our activities here at Magdalena.
In the 107th Psalm we read, "They that go down to the sea in shi s, that do business in groat, raters: these see the works of the Lord ^nd his wonders in the dearths of the earth." If we change that verse to road, "They that go down into the earth in mines, that do business in the bowels of the eerth, " the rest of the quotation is ss applicable to the mining business ss to the senfarina business, for we do, indeed, see these wonders.
The Bible, however, has little to say of mining, although, we know from other writings that mining was a well developed industry 4000 B.C. Me do, however, find abundant references to smelting and. to. accumulations of gold and silver in the Bible. The book of Job lias a passage which contains the only reference to pining found in the Bible: "As for the earth, out of it ccmeth bread; and under it is turned up as it were fire. The stones of itare the "lace of sapphires and it hath dust of gold. There is s path which no fowl kneweth, and which the vulture's .eye hath not seen; the leon's whelps have not trodden it, nor hath the fierce lion passed h- it." Anyone who has ever seen the tunnels of cur modern mines will appreciate the'accuracy of this desorption" of t-l-e pi?ce which even the king of beasts avoid. (Ask Join Weber, he knows).
The miner's claim that mining is the most ancient of all induatrv has been strengtheened by the' unearthing at Cissbury, in England, in the flint mines,- of the remains of wild animals, which indicates that mining was on advanced art before agriculture began. Eighty of their deer-horn picks were found not so long ago in the tunnels of theflint mines ...at Brandon, Eng land. The skeleton of one of these early miners was found in a flint mine in Belgium lying beneath s fall of rock from the roof of his tunnel, with a deerhorn rick still clasped in his hands. This mining for flints began in western Europe about 10,000 years ago.
The first metal mining was done by the Egyptians in the cooper mines of the Sinai peninsula nearly 6000 years ago end on the walls are the. inscriptions of the early miners, much.as today the miner of Magdalena writes upon the limestone walls of the slopes or draws pictures with soot from his 'carbide'lamb.
About sixteen years ago a young nan named Sydney Stevens turned up in Magdalena with a new thing which he applied to the first success ful treatment of the ores of our mines down there. Sledding had been hard. We could mine the ore but we could not get it into shape so that it could be used or sold. Steve did a thing he called. Flotation. It bad been discovered that under certain conditions oil had sn affinity for metals as opposed'to the gangue, or dirt- of the ere. In other words, the valuable miners.! could be serrated from the dirt or v.sste baa the use of oil in the presence of water and air making bubbles. Under the proper conditions the oil clung to the metal, floating it to
N15887
the. top of the vessel so that it could be skimmed off while the dirt sank to the bottom.
Whet actually happens is that a grade of ore containing from 15 to ?.0% of zinc and lead is so concentrated by the taking out of worth less material that in piece of five tons of low grade ore we now have one ton of high grade ore, effecting a tremendous saving in freight and in smelting cost.
We have been operating such a concentrating plant for a good many years now,, but recently there have been further inventions which per mit atil; greater recovery of metal, or to put it the other way, a still greater removal of waste material from the ore as it comes from the mines. And during the past year we have rebuilt our mill so that it now represents the very last word in modern metallurgical practice. Our plant is now complete and in ooeretion and the results are very satisfactory.
Briefly stated, the operations at the mine and mill at Magdalena are as follows; First, the ore is blasted loose. It is then loaded by miners into small cars drawn by horses'which take it through the underground workings and it is hoisted b" engine to the surface. There are approximately fourteen miles of underground tunnels in these mines. After the ore reaches the surface it is carried by an aerial tramway a mile.down the side of the mountain tc the mill. Here it is ground finely in the mills to thoroughly separate the mineral from the dirt. This powdered ore then goes through the oil flotation process which Sydney Stevens first aoplied so successfully which floats out the lead and the zinc. The refuse is pumped out to the dumps. Some of the., ore is shipped to our smelter at. Coffeyville, Kansas, and the balance is sold to other smelting companies for the manufacture of metallic zinc. At our smelter the ore is turned into zinc and lead pigments and shipped to' our various paint fact ories v/here it is ground into paint.
Getting back to the miner, himself. What sort of a chap is he? The miner reads from the rocks the history of their creation, their pre sent position end composition, and from this he can get an idea of former times. He finds evidence that the sea once covered Magdalena, for myriads of shell fish laid down layer upon layer of their lime shells to form the immense beds of lime stone rock which exist there today.
Then came titanic volcanic upheavals which lifted un these limestone beds and formed the beautiful Magdalena ea*evisee mountains.; With the cooling off of these rocks cracks *nd crevices were formed Surface water ran in to these cracks and as they p-rcolated down through absorbed acids and also be came hot so that these waterd dissolved minerals from the rocks they passed. These solutions carried vast deposits of precious metals with them which were deposited far down in veins and pockets in the very bowels of the earth.
The miner jn^eed sees the wonders of the works of the Lord. But he is a most practical man. He must find the ore and make the mine pay. Mining is a hazardous occupation although not as bad as it is often repre entd to be. The miner grows accustomed to handling end to considering vast weights
007-SWP-53074
4* *
end nesses.
learns 'non to make use of the forces of nature, to orotect
himself with timbers and with piled rock. His occupation, more than any other,
calls for the quick and ready use of the .mind , alert to ward off danger end
equally alert to turn the forces of nature to his use.
Therefore the miner is ant to be more confident of him self, quicker vitted, quicker to decide matters and to be more independent than other men.
With the exception of agriculture, mining is. the one busi ness which may alone be said to be entirely creative in that it is oursued with out taking anything away from the other fellow. The miner recovers the rrecious ore from the ground, thereby adding to the wealth of the world, whereas the banker, grocer, doctor ana even our good enemies in the General Accounting Tent, must be supported by the rest of the community.
007-SWP-53075