The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-13
The Mining of Graphite,
 Another Alabama Industry

in the last days of the great war. Pro- fessor Gessner, c famous chemist of the war period, was sent South to look after the copper mines and take super vision of the work of getting out the gun powder chemicals.
 some say the work was successful and that the Confederate Government received valuable and timely assistance from the Clay County copper mines. Others. and they who saw 1t are In the best position to know. say that the Confederate Governments undertaking here :n Clay County was never more than experiment and that the experi- ment ended in failure.
 At any rate. the usefulness of the copper mines, If they ever had period of usefulness, came to an end with the war. For nearly forty years they remained silent and abandoned to be- come the center Of orn the hsw n"t ths cony brousht in an indirect way the advan- tage of another industry to Clay
 Profe.sor Gessner's Work.
 This Professor Gessner was scien- tist with an inQuisitive turn of mind He believed that there were other min, erals of value in the hills of Clay and his leisure time he devoted to the ex. pioration of the mountains and foot hills for evidences of the buried min eral treasures that might somc day of which 1t never dreamed. Some six miles from the Government copper mines he came upon this graphite ore in large quantities, The The Ts11,,sss yein was Mountains ended, run through the foot hills in northern and northwest. ern Shelby County to Mountain Creek in the County of Chiffon: '. .. discussed and talked of, but no effort was made to work 1t as commercial venture for years. In time some DIT real estate man of that city, bought up a lot of this graphite ore land and established a mill a mile and haii plant plant It was worked intermittently for several years and the property changed hands more than once.
 It now belongs to paut a,ra1,m GliiarSom,' rSo m The mill is not in operation, no ore Is being handled. but still the mill and the ore lands are regarded as valu- able piece of property; .v., dega mountains to build up his shat tered health. He had for many years TeIegraph % n and his work in that line is known to thousands of Georgians. At length the breakdown which so often follows the routine grind or daily the mountains was taken for rccupera- tion. deposit. He investigated and had the The conviction was formed in his mind that there was money in the making of graphite from the rich ores found in the hills of Clay.
 Interested His Friends.
 with hut little dif0Culty inienes'en friends in 's the proposed 1njertakins A large lot of land rich in these was snd started 1898. The mill served its purpose when 1t convinced the owners of the property that graphite could be got; some s2.ooo worth of graphite was shipped from the experimental mill and sold in New York City.
 The new mill, now in the the course ssnn,,so0i oi undertaking. It Is not known how much the machinery. and the buildings for the new plant of the Allen Graph tSre m is evidently very large. For one thing a saw mill has been bought and established near by to furnish lumber for the big mills that are now going the magnitude of the graphite mill Is the statement that the washing mil! which is now practically complete ed yin be oyer goo feet ionf tSsra In ars addi1n t%n three-story buildings practically com. pleted. One Is the crushing mill and the other the finishing mill. A fourth
 In the meanwhile the costly machin- cry which the company has bought has arrived on the ground. Some of 1t is now being installed. Big boilers. an ing in now. Some forty men are al work upon the plant. Long before fall 1t will be in full operation.
 con structive work. He is domiciied in a vine-covered farm house on the mountain side above the works; Mir Allen. like all veteran editors. bas a veteran editors he is an interestins talker. On the subject of graphite which is terra incognito to the lay men, his information Is especially ac- curate and thorough.
 There are, as you probably know. two kinds of graphite" said MT. Allen. the crystallized. or flake. graphite, and the amorphous. or fomless gra- phite The crystallized graphite Is by far the most valuable of the two. It Is the sort of graphite that we will take out of the hills here. The vein of graphite which runs from the foot hills of the Talladegas to Mountain A kind.
 TiconderOga the Main Source.
 Perhaps 90 per cent. or over of this graphite comes from the famous beds on the island of Ceylon, where 1t Is found almost in a pure state. The only place where 1t Is mined in any considerable quantities Is Ticonderoga. N r.. where the Dixon Crucible Com pany has a large plant.
 What is 1t used for? Why crystal lized graphite is used principally in the manufacture of crucibles. It can be used like amorphous graphite for the making of lead pencils and In the mak- ing or lubricants. as well as for any other cause, but the most valuable use to which 1t may be put Is the making of crucibles which have to be subjected to intense heat. over all other ma terials graphite has the advantage In the making of crucibles. because 1t can be subjected to the most intense heat without cracking or bRaking. Graphite has the advantage of contract ing instantly when 1t is removed from this intense heat The most success full mixture in the making of crucibles is 50 per cent graphite, 32 per cent. c 4rman clay asd 16 per cent. sand.
 The graphite we are mining Is right at the surface. From our mine. which is about three-quarters of a mile from the mill. 1t Is no more trouble to get the graphite ore than 1t Is to get dirt frosp a railroad cut. Our cars are run on \. tramway close up to a bank of
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