Mohave County miner., 1909-09-18
John Hays Hammond Here.

John Hays Hammond, the most widely known mining engineer in the world, arrived in Kingman last even- ing with his secretary, and was met at the train by delegation of business men and representatives of the Mo- have County Chamber of Mines. Af- ter an interchange of greetings, MT. Hammond and party was taken in au- tomobiles to the Arizona Gold Mines Company camp, four miles south of Kingman, which property is to be ex- amined in the interest of the Venture Company of America, so it is said. While Mir. Hammond is not engaged by the Venture company, he is an old friend of the president of that organi- zation, and in the matter of the taking over of new property the advice of the eminent engineer is always sought.
 During a recent visit east E. M. La mont, general manager of the Arizona Gold Mines company, placed the prop osition before the company and a corps of engineers were sent on to make the preliminary examination of the mines, and it is this work that Mr. Hammond is here to check over. He will probably not remain but today, going from here to Los Angeles and other coast towns, where he will put in the time until October IA, when he will meet Pres. Taft at the Grand Canyon.
 The Bi-Metal mine, which Mir. Ham. mond is to pass on, is one of the great est veins or deposits of ore in the ter ritory, showing an outcrop of more than 500 feet in width. Throughout this great outcropping samples of ore have been taken and milling tests made showing it to run well above five dollars to the ton. For testing purposes ten stamp mill was put in some time ago and runs have been made from ores taken from all parts of the great mass. The property lies under the escarpment of the kingman lava fields, about one thousand feet in length being uncovered by erosion. The cliffs, columner and perpendiC- ular rise hundreds of feet above the vein outcrop, making majestic and spectacular scenic setting for the min- ing and milling operations that are carried on there. The Santa Fe rail road crosses the vein and spur track has been run to the doors of the mill ending only at the portal to the great drift that has been run under the mas- sive outcrop. The vein mass is geo. logical curiosity, being composed of decomposed granite-porphyry, show ing ribs and bands of gold bearing rock heavily charged with iron oxide. Some of these bands carry gold values far into the hundreds of dollars, but in the main the ore runs low. Shafts have been sunk to a depth of about 100 feet, with no change either in value or character of the ore. although some pyrite is showing in the seams. With great mill on the property it would seem possible that the ore could be mined and milled at less than one dollar per ton, which would leave a wide margin of profit for the operating company. Col. Lamont and Judge Aikine, of Gunnison, Colorado, took the property over for eastern interests some time ago and have been hard at work developing it into the producing stage. Steam drills have been used in the quarry work and two men have been breaking about forty tons of ore daily. The mill has been handling this amount readily and making sav- ing of over 90 per cent of the values. The average of the ore is said to have been about 6$ in gold, no silver show Ing in the assays.
 Should the Venture company take the property over it will certainly op- crate the mine on an immense scale, which means much for Kingman and the mining section that lies right at its doors.