Douglas Island news., 1898-11-23
1T TIE IREADNELL MINES.
A News Man Spends Few Hours Sight Seeing. Going Down
 the Shaft. The Tunnel.
FOREMAN HUNTER AS GUIDE.

Who has not heard of the wonderful Treadwell mines? The greatest mine the largest stamp mill in the world. One of the first things the News man thought of after locating at Douglas City was trip to Treadwell, not to go and look at the buildings and see the stamps pound the ore so fine that it looks like buckwheat flour, out to go down into the bowels of old mother earth and follow the ore until it passes through the various stages and becomes a thing of real value.
 Our wishes were made known to Foreman Hunter and in part our desire was realized on last Saturday; leaving a portion of our sight seeing for some future time. We met Mir. Hunter at the shaft about ten o'clock in the fore noon and the engineer of the hoisting engines stopped one of the skips and we climbed on. We stood on the edge of the box and were let down so easily and gertly that it reminded us of a beautiful dream. We made our land ing on the first level, which is down no feet below the surface. We were each provided with a candle, for the electric light is not in all parts of the many tunnels through which we passed. .
 At the place where we landed are nu- merous iron tracks on which the ore is conveyed on cars to bin some fifty feet in depth and which holds 200 tons of ore. We started out toward the end of the tunnel, which has high ceiling and is wide enough for team and wagon to travel on. Along either side are numerous chutes that are filled with ore, and Manager Hunter informed us that if the blasting were stopped, the ore constantly on hand would be sufficient to run the mill for at least three months. We soon reach ed two men who were running drill with compressed air. They had wall pretty we'll peforated. but were still drilling in more holes. Two feet was the depth of the holes they made.
 "How much ore will you blow out of that placer" asked the scribe.
 "About thirty tons," was the reply.
 And how far do you go away when the discharge takes placer" asked the News man.
 "Oh, around the corner a little ways" was the reply.
 Our judgment was that we would prefer to be away half a mile and we haven't changed our mind yet on the subject.
 We followed that tunnel some four hundred feet until we came to hole that Manager Hunter told us was 100 feet deep. It extended clear across the tunnel and we had no desire to go any further, and Mir. Hunter no doubt viewed the situation in the same light we did, for we turned and cut across into another tunnel that is still longer and where the cross sections are as nu- merous. We travelled over HOO feet through the tunnel, and think of it., from the surface down hundreds of feet through solid ore. This vein is more than 400 feet wide, but just how far it extends in downward course, no one knows, but for more than 800 feet is known to certainty.
 Six or seven little cars are constantly running from the chutes down to where the ore is hauled up to the crusher, which we will see later on. The load ing of these cars is done by man who raises the trap door to the mouth of the chute. The cars are at present run by hand to the place where the ore is dumped into the big bin before men, toned, but the company is arranging to run these cars by electricity Here the man power stops short. From there the ore is all handled by ma chinery, and how much do you think the stamps will use in day? 25O tons. Just think of it, 25O tons of ore is mined, crushed and ground as fine as flour every twenty-four hours.
 We wandered around the caverns for some time and returned to the shaft; and soon we were up in the hoisting engine rooms and from there we climbed up flights of stairs until we reached