Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-12-11
OUR BONANZA IN TIN.
The Black BILLS Will Be Able to
Supply America in Five Years.
PLENTY TO SPARE FOR EXPORT.
The Pioneer Company Seems to Have the
secret Of Development.
WHAT ORE PAYS FOR TIE TROUBLE
CORRESPONDENCE OF TIE prspArcH1

RAPID CITY, S. OAK, Dec. As al
ready briefly noted in The DISPATCH the
! big mill of the Harney Peak Company has
at last commenced crushing tin rock. It is
doing its work as smoothly as the most
sanguine expected. The mill was built to
allow the crushing of 500 tons of tin rock
per day, and will soon be enlarged to that
capacity. At present it is crushing only
250 tons per day from which an output Of
125 tons Of black tin, or tin ore, per month
will result. The tin ore will run between
70 and 80 per cent metallic tin of q superior
quality.
j From these figures it can easily be calcu-
lated that when running at full capacity
this one mill will supply nearly 10 per cent
of the entire bar tin consumed in the
United States The Harney Peak Com
pany has announced its intention of remod-
cling and putting new machinery in the
Eta mill, and also of putting up a new mill
during the next year. The Eta, compar-
atively speaking, is q small mil, but located
near the richest part of the tin belt. The
mistakes made in it, and which prevented
its being. run at profit, can now be seen
and remedied.
The Harney Peak Company controls
about 15 per cent of the locations on the
tin belt, which extends i'm a semi-circle for
a distance of nearly so miles around Harney
Peak and is from two to five miles wide.
Several years ago this company started out
to get control Of all the tin ground, but
after expending over $3.50, 900 gave up. In
the opinion of many this big company,
composed OF New York and English capt.
talists, has been a detriment instead or .
benefit It is accused of preventing, both
directly and indirectly, the investment of
money by other companies in Black Hills
tin. The individual prospectors own over
so per cent of the tin locations, but are un-
able for the lack of means to more than
"show up" their property. To turn pros
pect hole into mine capable of producing
200 or 300 tons of rock per day and to build
mill to treat the rock after it is mined re-
quires, say, 500, 900.
The statements published some years ago
that large veins would assay 80 per cent
black tin were, to put it very mildly, very
wild. Picked rock will, of course, assay
that much, but the whole veins run from
~ to AZ per cent. At 21l four foot vein
can be proftably worked. while large veins
going per cent will prove bonanzas to
their owners. Veins going less than 2 per
cent, of which there a number, cannot be
worked to advantage at present.
Many of the undeveloped mines grow
richer with depth, and there are enough Of
these latter ones to warrant the statement
that when properly developed the Black
Hills tin belt can not only supply this
country with tin, but have a surplus Tor ex-
port-if conditions should ever be such a.
to make the export of raw or manufactured
tin practicable. Ten per cent of the located
groups when developed into good mines can
do this; 90 good tin mines can easily supply
the present American demand for metallic
tin, and Black Hihers are confident that
that number will be worked within the next
five years JOHN BEGAN RYAN.