Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-09
MILLIONS IN NICKEL
Vast Ore Deposits North Of
Lake Huron.
OWNED BY AMERICANS
HOW THE LARGEST NICKEL MINE
ON EARTH rs OPERATED.
Five-Cent Pieces for Coinage, and
Uncle Sans Big Profts-The New
East Indian Coins.
Copyright. 1905, by Frank G. Carpenter.)

I1Oo Dy FRANK u. Cafpenter.)
SUDBURY, Ontario.
Take a nickel out of your pocket. Nov
suppose you had a pile of nickels as big
as the National Capitol building at Wash
ington, and that they were all packed solid
in a great hole in the ground. I saw
today a nickel mine out Of which
chunk of nickel ore bigger than
the Capitol has already been taken The
miners are working away there today
and they still have millions of tons of
nickel in sight. This was at the Creighton
NINE about twelve miles from Sudbury
the biggest nickel mine of the world.
There are only two places so far dis
covered on our great round earth where
nickel exists in large quantities. One is
here in Canada, a few miles north OF the
Georgian bay, and the other Is away down
below the equator off the eastern shore of
Australia, on the opposite side of the world
It is in the little island of New Caledonia,
where France sends her criminals. The
ore there consists of a green deposit. The
mines are worked by convicts who use
steam shovels, the ore being shipped to
France for treatment.
The nickel of this Lake Superior region
lies In the earth somewhat like iron ore
1t looks like iron, rather like the brass
stuff you sometimes find in coal. 1t Is a
combination of nickel, copper, sulphur and
IRON, and it is found in mighty beds or
pockets going down no one knows how
deep. There are nickel mines at Copper
Cliff, about four miles from here, which
are now 1,2O0 feet deep, and the ore is still
rich and plentiful. The Creighton mine is
apparently inexhaustible. The vast pit
from which the ore has been quarred during
the past two or three years is about aO0
feet wide and 800 feet long. It looks like
the mouth of a volcano and makes me
think of the Bona volcano which visited
in m maintains of eastern Java.
The ore here lies between great walls
of rock. On one side of it is granite and
on the other black formation known as
diorite. The excavation has already been
made to q depth equal to the height of
one of the New York skyscrapers, and all
the way down between these rocks there
has been nothing but ore. The company
has sunk a shaft down through the gran
tie and the vast body of nickel l have
mentioned has been taken out by running
tunnels at different levels into the ore and
bringing it down from above.
While / was at the mine hundreds of
workmen were drilling and blasting. They
were loading the ore upon cars, raising 1t
to the surface and shipping 1t off to the
great smelters at Copper Cliff, where it is
reduced to nickel matte, which Is sent to
the refineries at Constable Hook, New Jer-
sew Standing on the edge Of the great
hole, I could see the diamond drills work
ing more than a thousand feet away test
ing the ore body in that direction. 1t seems
| to be equally large and rich, and it is, I
am told, one of the most Valuable bodies
of ore in existence.
| The Worlds Biggest Nickel Deposit.
But this Creighton mine is by no means
the only nickel deposit here. The ore is
| found in every direction, and the supply
seems to be almost inexhaustible The
| Creighton mine and those at Copper Cliff
| belong to the Canadian Copper Company.
This is a branch of the International Nickel
| Company, or nickel trust, which owns 20
! 600 acres of nickel lands here, and which
| has a monopoly of the nickel business OF
| this continent. Indeed, might say that ii
| has almost a monopoly of the nickel of the
| world, the output of the French mines being
| much less than that of Canada. It ships be-
| tween 100000 and 15,o00,000 pounds of
| nickel matte annually, and its product last
| year was worth more than one million dol
| lars. 1t has the biggest nickel smelter on
! earth, and 1t has about the only process
| that is successfully used for getting the
| nickel out of the matte after 1t comes from
| the smelter. 1t Is this process which gives
/ the International Nickel Company the
| monopoly of the business. Men with small
| capital cannot compete, although there are
| great areas of nickel lands outside those
| belonging to the trust. Such miners would
! have to build smeiters and at the same time
| invent process for getting the nickel out
| of the matte Indeed am told that more
| than half the nickel ore now available is
| outside the mines of the Canadian Copper
i Company. Valuable deposits are owned by
] the Lake Superior corporation, originated