The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-05-20
SCOOP|NG GREAT
HOLES IN EARTH
Mining the Ore Used in Steel
Making
SOME MINES LIKE CRATERS
Material Taken From Minnesota
Ranges at Pace Greater Than That
Set for Panama Canal Dig
gers-Moving a Town.
SOME MINES LIKE CRATERS

Duluth, Mimi, May 19.-All signs indl-
cate that this is to be a record breaking
year among The steel makers. Railroads
are ordering thousands of tons for use
in extensions and the relaying of exist
ing tracks. Forty-two thousand tons are
needed for one of New York's big
bridges. Elsewhere bridge building and
rising slkysorapers in scores of cities help
to swell the demand. And, in addition,
steel must be supplied for the rebuilding
of San Francisco. This activity in the
steel trade means that there will be even
buster times than usual on the ranges
north of this city, where material for
skyscrapers and bridges is dug from the
earth. From these deposits comes the
bulk OF the high grade iron ore used in
the steel making industry. Last year
there were shipped from the Duluth GUS
toms district 21,ssO,Ss5 tons of what to
the uninitiated looks like a reddish brown
gravel mixed with pebbles and small
stones of the same color This is the
ore which has made the Mesaba and YER
million ranges famous among miners and
iron workers the world over
The visitor to the Minnesota ore fields
is likely to have his ideas of mining
methods suddenly altered. He has
thought of a mine, perhaps, as a shaft
leading down to galleries far beneath the
surface of the earth. There are such
mines in this region, but its distinctive
feature is the open pit mining. An open
pit mine is well described by its name
1t is hole in the ground and some of
these cavities dug in the face of the
landscape are so large that they resemble
the craters of great extinct volcanoes.
Great Ore Mine.
Take the Mountain Iron mine. for in
stance, from which, in 1905 2,495 0S9 tons
of ore were shipped. 1t is so deep and
so long that a string of railway cars
seen at a distant point in it's depths look
no bigger than toy train with which
child plays upon the nursery floor. This
artificial valley is more than half mile
in length and its average breadth ex-
ceeds a quarter of a mile. There is a
point where from the grass roots TO the
bottom of the pit the distance Is 225 feet
and the average depth is $50 feet. Ore
has been shipped from the Mountain
Iron mine for only fourteen years, al
saba range. yet in that time a total
amount exceeding 100000 tons has been
sent away to be converted into the steel
on which run the trains of great Ameri
can railway systems and which forms
the frames of towering skyscrapers and
mammoth bridges. Last year on the Me-
saba and Vermilon ranges ore was taken
from seventy-one mines, ranging in size
from that which produced less than 1000
tons to the eight which sent out over
100000 tons each.
The mines are scattered about in
groups. Here and there rise, tall and
ground workings. There Is everywhere
a tangle of railway tracks. running from
mine to mine and down into the pits.
1t sounds like a continuous Fourth of
July celebration, for rock and ledge must
be blasted away when they obstruct the
work and the reports of dynamite charges
boom like giant cannon crackers Moth
ing is allowed to interfere with the min
ing operations. Land is sold here with
the ore rights reserved and in at least
one instance an entire town has been
moved bodily out of the way. This hap
pened to Eveleth, town of several thou
sand people. The streets were lighted by
electricity and the place had its sewer
system and public waterworks. But Eve
leth stood over a deposit of valuable
ore and so it was rebuilt at a point on a
hillside some distance away from which
It now looks down on the mine workings
which mark its former location.
Mining on this mammoth scale has
brought prosperity to the range towns
Brick business blocks stand in the midst
of the houses of the mine workers and,
as It Is still a new country. log cabins
are sometimes found in the shadow OF
hundred thousand dollar school houses
Three railroads extend from the mines
to Duluth and they are busy lines.
Looking Down on Trains.
During the eight months of 4ha year
when navigation is open on the lakes and
the mines on the ranges are working full
blast, the man who stands at the edge
of one of the great ragged holes torn in
the ground by the energy of giant steam
shovels some of which lift six tons at
every stroke, sees far below on the rail-
road tracks, which seem to roam in hit
or-miss fashion through the pit. long
lines of ore cars drawn by locomotives
as large as those which haul the freight
trains on many railroads. Such a train
comes to a standstil by the side of one
of the steam shovels. With a few move
ments of its mighty arm the shovel fills
a car which holds from thirty-five to
fifty tons of ore. AS car after car is
filled the train is moved along jog by jog.
and when the work of loading Is COM
pleted it is hauled up the incline leading
from the pit to the surface of the ground.
There at the edge of the mine 1t is turn
ed over to one of the ore carrying roads
and sent away on its journey to the
shores of Lake Superior.
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