The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1916-09-14

part of the vein was Immediately be-
meath the spot where Walsh picked
up the piece OF porphyry on the trail
Cases II this kind In the history OF
cited in great numbers. This is why
there arose in the minds of the ad-
f mmistrators OF mines during the last
decade or two the advantage Of haV-
/ ing a corps of trained observers in the
underground workings men having
nothing TO do with execution of the
mining work, which opened an en-
tirely new field of employment to the
young college graduate The Amazon
da company was the first TO develop
this system, as II has many others Of
great industrial Importance. ID. w.
Brunton, who was then consulting en-
giEeer for the Anaconda company,
remarked in technical paper in 1906;
an my judgment, every company
operating large mines would find ii
advantageous to employ as a separate
official. competent mining geologist,
whose duty 1t should be to follow con-
Itinuously all workings and surveys,
and note with precision those indiea-
tons which hard worked superintend-
ents, foremen and surveyors. however
Intelligent, might easily overlook or
fail to record. The proper man for
i 10 N
who has nothing else to do, and will
do this one thing with industry, en-
thusiasm and technical knowledge"
| Just the same thing may be said of
mining operation. The efficiency en-
gineer, with his time studies, is above
everything else an observer OF met
allurgy, too, the same story may be
told What are our great steps i'm adj
vance during the last so years? In
copper, the principle of pyritic smelt-
| ing, coal dust firing of reverberatory
furnaces basic converting, and cleo
trolytic refining, In lead, first of all,
the knowledge of compromising proper
slags, then the filtration of smoke, and
| finally the blast roasting of sulphide
ores. In gold and silver, cyanide lix-
iviation. In mechanical concentration,
the flotation process. In no one of
these cases was the progress the re-
suit of lucky discovery. No one
drew grand prize in the lottery OF
success. Each one was the result OF
technical evolution. The germ of the
idea dated back half century in
some of the cases. Scores of investi-
gators had played with 1t, some OF
them coming within sight of success
In most cases the thing needful was
staring them in the face, but was
overlooked through the human failing
to observe accurately. When finally
it was found everybody was amazed
by the simplicity of it.
It is only in the metallurgy of zint
that there have been no major i'm
provements that ] think of, yet tha
does not disprove my point, The ar
of zinc smelling was transplanteC
from China to England, From Eng
land it was taken to Carinthia, Silesii
and Belgium. America got it from
Europe Both in Europe and Ameri
ca it remains today essentially as
was in China centuries ago and
there still. our improvements hay
been in details, chiefly mechanical, tn
principle remaining the same. Yet
has been by observation that we haV
improved the art in it's multiplicity {
details and created a practice tha
China will some day copy from u
just as we first got it from China.
:, But it is not enough merely to OF
serve. Observation must also be az
curate. Inaccurate observation an
=, absence of thought may result in sue
erroneous deductions as happene
from a freak of Jim ellis of Jacka!
Hill in the gold diggings of Californi
- jim was Mark Twain's "Truthfl
James," In the early days the stae
:, road passed Jim's house or cabin
y should say. The old miners used
' make sour-dough bread and Jim ha
some in a pan trying to make it ris
but it would not. So he said: II
y, make you rise, durn you" So
= put the pan out under the oak thu
:, branched over the stage road, and p'
a stick of giant powder under it, an
- as result the dough rose and hun
: all over the limbs of the tree. Jul
:, then the stage came along loaded wit
: eastern women and tenderfeet lookiT
for curiosities in the gold diggings.
lady asked Jim what kind of tree
was Jim, with a sober face, replied
Madam, that is bread tree" "Rea
ly, is that bread we seer" ooh yes
said Jim, you can take the dough
your hands and work it into bread
;, Whereupon she took some of 1t al
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