Arizona silver belt., 1891-08-08
rwr OLD DOMINION COPPER COMPANY.
impe-,an, Work Now In Progress

in operating copper mine such as the
 Old Dominion Company's property, IS
 astonishing to the occasional visitor,
 and the management of 30 large an en-
 terprise requires not only technical and
 practical knowledge of mining, but ex-
 ecutive ability of high order as we'll
 The business of the company has grown
 greatly in the past two or throe years,
 With the attainment of depth in the
 mine and the consequent increase of
 water, the cost of mining has necessa-
 rily risen, while tho ores in the lower
 levels, as was to be expected, are not
 so rich as those extracted from above, and require greater amount of Aux in
 smelling. Consequently the chief aim
 of the management has been to eheapen,
 or rather to keep down, the cost cf | production by every available method,
 One of the principal rneans of accom-
 plishing this is by increasing the out
 put, which necessarily involves the en-
 largemeut, cr better development, of
 the mine, and an increased smelting capacity. Obviously, this can not be
 effected speedily, but is tue work of
 months-even years. Towsrd this end Supt A. L. Walker has been constant ly working. and is now about to see his plans consummated.
 An important piece of work which has proved its utility, is the drain tun- nel, S66 feet long. through which all the water from the mine Is discharged. Also, q compound Worthington pump with capacity of 10000 gallons per hour, was put in the mine last year, and these improvements have effected saving of fuel of 90 per cent. Only 225, 900 gallons of water are pumped daily, at present, although the flow has been twice that
 After period of several months since our last visit, we found the mine great lv changed Considerable new ground has been explored in the lower levels, and on the Alice claim where tunnel has been driven 35O feet with uncer- tain results as yet, although encourpg- ing enough to warrant tho building oi { tram line to it, now nearly completed Considerable development work is be- ing done in the pppsr levels along the line of the old main ore chute, DOT tion of the mine supposed to have been worked out. The result of this work is l thai several promising ore-bodies have been encountered. The average month ly output from these levels is 650 tons, and from the lower and intermediate levels, 1850 tons. The lowest C7thJ level is being prcspoeted uith die mond drill. The intermediate levels are beieg steadily worked and are show ing up we'll Iu fact, at no time hes the mine shown go much ore IS it does | now, and, what is very desirable, it oc- CUTS in many places, on almost every level
 The roof over the main ore chute is finished, and the track from the tunnel . will be extended 10 connec. with the chute by building trestle Then all | the ore from the various openirRs will ! he delivered into the mair chute. A saving will bo effected in conveying the ore from the ore bins at | the mine to the sInelter by the substi- tuition of an improved wire tramway for teams Tho trapway to the new shelter site will be 1925 feet in length, and the longest span, where 1t crosses the gulch, 300 fae' It will carry eighteen buckets of capacity of 500 | pounds each, the total capacity of the tramway, in ten hours, being ITO tons. The locked wire steel cables, one car rying the loaded buckets, another the empty buckets, and continuous trac- tion cable, will be l 1s, and 1. of an inch in diautter respectively. Grading for the tramway and new smeter is progressing favorably. The amount of excayation necessary is over 5000 cubic yards. The surfac5 work and increased development work in the mine takes 8 large number of extra men, and there are now 220 names on the pay roll of the company,
 The drawings for the ewplant made by Mr. Walker himself, are worked out in detail, and everything will be ar ranged for efficiency, and economy of labor. The bins will have Q capacity for 800, 900 pound of coke and 1000 tons of ore and lime. Tic Root blow CTS, of an improved type, will be direct ly connected with the engine, and on the same bed plate. The new works will probably be completed some time in December next
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