The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-12-14

PClt d. ICS5dlQ S AN4SSdOl idliSC. dIiQ 1lOAi
Maxwelfs "Lavas, etc" Professor Max
wells figures for iron, phosphor, silica
sulphur etc, have been given in tft
shape of oxides or acids. To make them
comparable with y. S. data of pure
elements, | have figured the amounts
of pure elements from corresponding
chemical forInulas.)
Comparing these figures we see thai
IN our red and yellow soils we possess
actual iron ores. of which some APP
! proxinate in composition the best ores
in the U. S.
1t must be understood that, besides
the contents of iron, of all other con-
st1tuents of an iron ore only three are
of Importance: PHOSPHORUS. sulphur
and titanium. All the rest: silica, alum
ina, lime, are of little consequence, be
cause any lack of those elements in every
ore is supplied arti6cially by properly
compounded f1uxes, whose purpose is tc
make the balance of minerals CATER the
separation of pig iron) fluid, and thus
to enable it to leave the smelter and
prevent choking.
AS for those three elements, sulphur
renders iron too brittle in its incandes-
cent condition. Phosphorus has the
same effect at low temperature. For
the contents of sulphur and phosphorus
in Hawaiian ores are even smaller than
in the ores of Mesabi range.
In regard to titanium, | am sorry
U. S. Geological Survey Report does
{ not give the contents of American ores
| in titanium. We are therefore unable
to compare just now. Maxwell anal
Uses give the average in our red soils
IS per cent of pure titanium (corres-
ponding to 10 per cent of his titanic
acid) and in yellow soils, per cent of
titanium Like sulphur and phosphorus
it is an undesirable component of an
iron ore, and this may constitute the
only black cloud on our mining horizon.
| Still the above u S. Geol S. Report
! (page AID says: "It is not improbable
that large deposits of titaniferous mag
mites may be brought into demand, if
/ the supply of ores free or nearly free
| from titaniu1n is restricted
The principal advantage of Hawaiian
/ iron ores, however, which they share
with the Mesabi range, is that both lie
on the surface. There is this advantage
| that has made of Mesabi range such
gigantic enterprise.
In the above quoted article of F. n.
Stacy: THE Iron Mines that give us
leadership" (World's Work, Sept.
/ 1900 we read:
Nowhere else in the world is it pos
sible to buy an open field of iron ore
! in forty or eighty acre tracts: or to un-
cover a bed of ore, stretching III single
| horizontal mass from one to three miles.
| Nowhere else is iron ore mined, as If
! it were sand, with steanlshovels, loco
motives, and trains of switching cars.
! Nowhere else is the cost of mining re-
| duced TO the trifing item of zoe. to
! :3oc. ton, which is one of the least
| important items in the value of the ore
! laid down at the furnace Nowhere else
| is there an iron ore formation, from
which the everything stone Gaping for
more than hundred miles has been
| planed off by glacial erosion and by
| flood and frost to a width of one-half to
three miles, exposing an iron formation,
covered only bv few feet of soil with
! from FIVE to eight per cent of the whole
| $50 square miles of surface underlaid
with good ore The Mesabi changes
ones whole conception of iron mining.
! Instead of a mine deep down in the earth
you see an open field from 20 to 200
acres Instead of blocks of black rocks,
hard and massive as iron ore, you see
| acres of black and red and yellow dust
- and this is high grade ore. Instead
of hive of human beings, delving with
pick and drill and shovel in dark and
dripping caves, a thousand feet under
ground a steam engine OF, the surface,
guided by one man, scoops up ore III
five ton shovelfuls and drops it into a
railway train alongside One great steam
machine in sunlit field, does in an
hour what would be days work of
500 men, working in the depth of an
4
in mining, we have, OF course, to thank
nature first. The ore instead of stand
ing vertically on edge, as in other ranges
of Lake Superior region, and running
down iii deep and narrow wedges, often
10 a great depth, spreads out near the
surface in great horizontal beds"
And so it is with the Hawaiian red
and yellow soils. They might be sent
to the seashore on trolley lines
Now reverting to the Report of the
U. S. Geol. Survey Dept. to the page 81,
we read:
"The total value at the mines of the
27,553f6I long tons of iron ore, pro-
duced in the calendar year 1900, is re-
ported as 500, 500, 5o4 worth, an average
of SAP per long ton. This indicates
an increase of ST per ton or 7o.4 per
cent over the 1890 value of $I.42 per ton.
The lowest average value reported per
ton was 81 cents in the State of Texas,
where convict labor is employed in some
of the mining operations. The highest
value was $3.7I per ton in Colorado"
The value of iron ore at the mine
over the U. S. being 85c. to $3.7I and the
cost of production of a surface ore in
Mesabi zoe. to 3oc., there is good
margin of profit for the owners of a
surface mine.
From page 65 of the same report we
further learn that the following amounts
and values of ore have been imported
to the U. S. from abroad:
Years. Long tons. Values.
1896. .. 6S2 sos $1,0369 OF |
1897. .... 4S9, $40 1882 |
1898. . 1S720S 255,54S
1899. . 6740S2 1,0S2,Si7
1900. ........ Ss7,S31 1903, 19s