Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1884-02-15
The BeetOWn Mine.

The Lancaster Teller of last week
has an interesting account of the
work that is being done in the Bee
town mine, in Grant county, owned
by J. J. Ross, Joseph Gundry, James
Toay, and the estate of the late VIM.
T. Henry:
The best of the mines in this section of the
mining country is that known as the Beetown
mine owned by Mineral Point company. The
mine used to be called the Wilcox diggings.
There is an account and diagram of the mine
given in Vol. > Geology of Wisconsin, it having
been visited by the state geologist, Prof. Cham
erlaln Mr. Wilcox run level 500 feet. Along this
taken out fiat sheet of zinc ore that in some
places was thirty-six inches thick and extended
IN places 80 feet wide The level ran east and
west. South of it copper ore was found. Above
this sheet - feet, lead ore abounds i'll quantities
not proved Mr.. Chamberlain states that this
that this upper sheet, a mixture of Smithsonite
and led ore, is 100 feet wide and length unknown.
Before the publication referred to, $500 worth
of led ore had been taken out by little sallles
from the level below. We made hasty visit to
this mine last Saturday afternoon. The level
starts ut point i'll the side of the hill We
should say 80 TO 10 feet above the water course i'll
| the adjacent raYine. The passage is not quite
high enough Tor one to stand upright aud walk
in. You go directly west. The " level ascends
at moderate grade. small rivulet of water
runs under the tramway. Al first the passage is
protected ON Gather side by wooden crooSbeams.
Afterwards the pillars, six TO eight inches in
diameter, appear as supports to the fiat-bottomed
sand rock. Where the passage was formerly 80
| to 50 feet wide the rock and debris have been
walled up either side of the present tunnel.
! Some years ago the ponderOus sand rock over
| head dropped enough TO bend the strong pillars
under ii breaking some of them. This was a
fright. Had it dropped to the bottom of the
opening, though the miners might have been UNI
| hurt behind it. it might have taken months TO
communicate with them. The leval continues
west under the hill more than LOO feet The
mineral does not give out there but sheet
extending north struck and the miners
/ followed that IL has averaged about 20 feet
! wide and probably Is inches thick. the view of
il at present is very rich The level has been run
now about 400 feet. When we reached the end
we found the miners had put in a blast touched
| the fuse and left it, The powder and dynamite
had done its work. Tons of ore were laying
! there broken from the sand rock ceiling and the
| fresh wall with Its broad, glisteniug layers OF
ore was in plain sight. At this point there are
! two layers of black jack about foot thick,
| each separated by layer of blue limestone
and above the blackjack is a course of rich
drybone. which had no look of value TO u.s. but
! its richness demonstrated to us by Mr..
Garner. We know little of indications in
Il mine, but the rich view there in plain sight
| inspired lis with desire TO be miner. The ore
found here is worth about so per ton and il
looks as If there might be thousands or millions
of tons. There are N two at work there
! Mr.. Alf Mcdonald and MIR. Richard Pascoe.
/ Mr.. Josiah Peck also works some in the
| mineral "spouts" overhead. We have not at
! hand statistic of the value of ores that have
been taken from this mine. hen Mr.. Toay was
/ here a month or two since, we learned that the
previous year 2i2 tons of ore were sold out of il
| at SIC per ton and the whole cost of mining il
1 was 81 6tN. Probably a less quantity was taken
| out this wear, for not much work was done.
1 Several car loads of ore from that mine were
shipped late in the fall and sold at Sic per ton.
There are now piles of ii on the ground.