Omaha daily bee., 1890-05-04
THE MORSE DRY GOODS co.

| al douglas Island, found the owners
to several quartz claims ready
to abandon their rights, fully dis
heartened. Treadwell purchased their
interests and improvements for small
amount, and with faith, energy and re-
sources pushed the explorations already
| begun to conclusion.
For many months he was the butt of
every old miners ridicule in all that re-
| gion. AT last he pierced ledge of gold
| bearing rock 400 feet wide, over 300 feet
! deep from the surface and more than
! 5000 feet in length from east to west
This, in fact, became the great Tread
! well gold mine, now operated by the
Alaska Mining and Milling company
that he had something in which it would
pay to invest, and the company
was organized in 1884, with SEN
ator Jones of Nevada and ID.
G.. Mills of New York, the principal
shareholders. A mill with 120 stamps
was erected in few months, and the
mill and chlorination works on a grand
scale put in operation. Two large bitches,
one ten miles long to the westward,
along the face of the mountain, and the
other to the east five miles in length,
were constructed with great difficulty
and expense, owing to the tundra char
the mill as a motive power. A pressure
of 700 feet, through iron pipes twenty
inches in diameter, was communicated,
to wheel of eight feet in diameter, by
which all those ponderous stamps, 1000
pounds each, and the other ma
chinery, We're set in motion
and did their work. For
two years the mill and works were kept
in constant operation, no cessation night
or day, during the week. Early in 1888,
the capacity of the stamp mill was ex-
panded, and the number of stamps in
creased to two hundred and forty, MAX
ing the largest mill of the kind under
one roof in the world
The policy of keeping the establish
ment i'll constant operation remains
unchanged, and since it's increase in
capacity, there has been stoppage of
only one day. During the summer of
1889, fifteen miles We're added to the
ditch for water supply, and to intercept
additional streams as they came down
the mountain side to the sea. During
the winters of 1887 and 1888, there was
no interruption of the supply of water
by cold weather, for motive power, but
to guard against any contingency of that
that kind, powerful Corliss engine has
been provided to drive the great mass of
machinery at such times. The winters
mt Douglass island are seldom so severe
that the rapid, fresh-water torrents
freeze over and deprive the mill of its
full supply. In December, 1889, there
was some difficulty in that respect, and
the Corliss engine was doing the work
of the water-wheel.
The Treadwell is not mine in the
strict sense. The rock is taken out of
an open quarry and conveyed to the mill
less than five hundred feet distant on
tramway. Its capacity is $50 tons every
twenty-four hours. The profits of the
establishment are, of course,
the company's own secret, but
experts acquainted with this
quartz, and other conditions, put the
average yield per ton at SO and the cost
of extracting the metal, at from 81 to
$3.50 per ton. BY the amalgam process,
all the free gold which passes from the
stamps to the concentrators is recov-
cred, while the residue, in the form of
sulphurets; is manipulated by roasting
and chlOrnatiOn in the vast wooden
building which stands several hundred
yards nearer the beach than the stamp
mill.
This company owns 1900 lineal feet,
or six quartz claims in length, from east
to west, and while in four years of con
stant movement, an enormous cavity in
the side of the mountain has been
created, the indications are that the