The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-07-18

The want of skill in smelling, the
absence of any great demand, and the
unbroken darkness of barbarism kent
the great iron deposits of Lake Super
Tor locked up till late in our present
century. To DIR. Houghton, who five
times coasted the south shore of Lake
Superior before 1910, is due as much as
to any one man the discovery of the
great iron deposits in the lake regions.
But not until the Civil war had
awakened an unprecedented demand
for iron did the prospectors begin work
in earnest and not till 1854 did the
capitalists Of the country take the jas
per hints seriously and lay hold to de-
Velop these magnificent mineral re-
source. Since then millions upon mill
ions Of tons of the richest iron ore have
been uncovered in these regions.
Lying sixty miles north of the west
ern end of Lake Superior is the most
remarkable deposit of iron in the world.
This deposit is lodged in two branches
of system of low, rugged, iron-filled
ranges. One branch lies in Michigan,
centering west of Marquette, and the
other branch Of the system lies further
west in Michigan and Wisconsin. In
around the entire lake, so that this
magnificent sea practically lies in an
iron basin.
These twin ranges, the Vermillion
and the Mesabi, as unlike in the char
acter of their ore as in physical ap-
pearance, are about one hundred and
fifty miles long, running westerly and
breaking now and then into Jagged
spurs, gloomy with Jack pines. They
reach from near the Canadian borders
to the headwaters of the Mississippi.
SOFT CRUMBLING ORE.
The Mesabi hills are filed with a
soft, crumbling ore nearly pure, called
hematite, together with a yellowsh in
gredient of far less value. The ore
here lies soft and fine as mustard and
near the surface. The drifts are of
varying width and depth. Where the
mealy hematite prevails the drifts are
reddish and tinged here and there with
rich yellow, where goethite, or yellow
ochre is found. Soft and dust-like and
heaped as it is in ridges, more than
one hundred feet thick, it suggests Il
snow-drift Of red flakes piled up by
some strange paleozoic blizzard.
The process of mining is unique. The
slight covering of earth is stripped
| from the drift, and a railway is laid
| down upon the ore surface or at the
| side. Then great steam shoves are
| located at proper places and the soft
ore is scCoped from the red dusty drift
| into the cars. So rapidly is the ore
| lifted that the cars move slowly while
being filled. The tracks are lowered as
| the surface drops away. No blasting,
| no deep shafts, no miners creeping
| through dark caverns with lamp and
| picks; but everything in the open sun
shine of forest clearing, and as un-
romantic as a gravel-bank; but no.
! where in the world is there so rich an
| iron deposit, mined with such ease and
| cheapness. The winds catch up and
whirl the iron dust into the air, and
men, trees, and buildings are seen
emerging from the red snowstorm with
| the marks of the storm heavy upon
| them
| These trains loaded with ore run to
! the largest ore-dOcks in the world at
the head of Lake Superior, and mov-
ing out on miles of trestle work, quick
| ly drop their precious freight through
the swinging sides or bottoms of the
| cars into vessels.