The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-04-23
IRON MINES OF
IRON COUNTY
Particular Mention of Them
Made in Review of Worlds
Iron Ore Reserves.
HIGH GRADE ORE LIMITED
eUTTE's PRESENT BOOM DUE TO
HEINZE.

In closing a long review of THE
Worlds Iron Ore Reserves" c. X.
Leith of the geological survey, and an
expert who has been called on the ex-
anime the Iron county deposits of this
state, INDUCES in the following inter
esting comment:
Among the better known deposits
might be mentioned those in the Hart
VILE district of Wyoming and in Fier-
70. Mex Mexico, both of which are now
being drawn upon; in Pitkin, Cheaffee,
Saguache, Lake and GunnisOn counties,
Colorado: in Iron county, Utah; in
northeastern Washington and in a
number Of localities in the Great
Basin region of Nevada and Califor
mia. There should be included also the
ores of Vancouver and TeXada islands,
in British Colum bia, which are largely
controlled by American capital and
will be used in the United States The
same remarks may apply to the Du-
range and other Mexican deposits.
With few exceptions the western ores
occur along the contacts of intrusive
igneOus rocks and limestone, and the
extent to which the ores follow the
contact in depth has not been shown.
Hence the estimates of tonnage vary
within very wide limits
1.-The iron ore deposits of Iron county
Utah, are among the larger and most
typical Of this class of ores. Here
some 800 pits have been sunk and it
has been possible in recent detailed
mapping to estimate with a reason
able approach to the truth the amount
of ore of all grades appearing to the
depth shown by explorations of ma
tural exposures
West Has Lots of iron.
Using the Utah deposits as A basis
OF comparison, and excluding the Mex
lean deposits which the writer has not
seen, the tonnage of iron ore of all
grades in each of the better known
districts of the west and adjacent parts
of British Columbia would not surpass
that of one of the other Lake Superior
ranges. but it is extremely likely that
as deer exploration of the presently
known deposits continues, and as fur
tEer deposits are found. as they I'M
dOubtedly viii be, that the aggregate
tonnage of ore in the west will equal
a considerable part of that of the
Lake Superior region, and one would
be rash to conclude that 1t is impOSSi-
bile that an amount of iron ore may be
found I'm the west fully equivalent to
that in the Lake Superior region.
IF these data approximate the
truth. there seems to be little cause of
alarm that North America will really
SiderabIy longer period than required
for the exhaustion of the presently
known tonnage as estimated by Tor
nebOhn and others, at the present rate
of increase of production. The time
of exhaustion is not likely to come be-
fore that calculated OH the same basis
for the worlds reserves, and probably
not then It may be argued that the
use of lower grade ores in Europe and
England than in the United States is
itself evidence that the exhaustion of
reserves is farther in the future for the
United States than for Europe or Eng
land.
High Grade Ore Is Limited.
But as it becomes more and more
obvious that the end Of the supply of
higher grade ores in the United States
Is not indefinitely in the future and
may even be within a single lifetime
there is likely to be an increase in the
tendency TO conserve the higher grade
ores, and especially the Bessemer ores,
and draw more largely on the lower
grade supplies, tendency favored by
the concentration of control in a few
hands This tendency has already be-
come we'll defined, shown by the
fact that pig iron production has not
in recent years increased as rapidly as
iron ore production. 1t Is not at all
unlikely that even the next decade NAV
see important changes in this direc-
ton. This will give values to properly
located low-grade ores. It will ulti-
mately mean higher cost for iron
changes in the relative importance OF
processes for conversion of iron. DOS
s1bly changes in the geographic distrf-
button of different phases of the iron
industry. and modification of the re-
lations of the North American iron
trade with that of the rest of the
world"