Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1916-03-26


and have walked through the mighty cav
ems, called slopes, where they are blasting
down the ore and dropping it into the cars
for the mills 1 have gone through the new
crushing and reduction works, the latest OF
their kind, and have seen, as it WERE the
mechanical triumph of the twentieth cen
fury in saving the riches hidden in the bow
els Of the earth.
The greatest mines Of today are those
which deal with low-grade ores. This is 50
OF the gold mines of the Rand, in South AT
RIGA It is so Of the largest copper mines of
the Rockies and of the Treadwell mines,
which lie within rifle shot of where | am
writing | have told you how the Treadwell
properties have already produced $60,000,-
900 of pure gold. They have repaid the pur-
chase price Of Alaska many times over. All
Of that gold came from ore that ran from
two to three dollars ton. The mine | Wis
tied today has mighty ore body whose gold
contents average about $3.50 per ton, and
still the machinery for mining and milling is
such that fully half of that amount is clear
profit. The actual cost of mining the gold
is now about 90 dents ton, and it may be
cut TO so cents or even lower than that
Have you any idea of what gold ore carry
ing only ST so ton means? Gold is worth
about $40 an ounce, and at that rate $1.50
worth Of gold would equal only about one
thirteenth of an ounce. Divide twenty
dollar gold piece into Is parts and each part
will not be as big as pea Nevertheless,
that pea of gold is all that is to be found in
one whole ton of this ore.
A ton Of ore is CARLOAD for two horses.
Now grind your pea into the finest of pow
der and put one of the grains Of that powder
in every pebble or broken piece of CARLOAD
of gravel and you have some idea of how the
gold is scattered through the rock and how
difficult it is to get it all out.
Or suppose the gold to be salt, and the ore
to be water. | went to drug store today
and weighed out enough salt to just equal
the weight of the gold in ton of this ore
The salt did not fill the smallest teaspoon
But ton of water would fill 250-gallon
hogshead. Now if you should drop your
spoonful of salt into the hogshead and churn
up the water until the salt is thoroughly
the proportion of the gold and rock in the
mine of which I am writing. Think of get
ting the pea made Of gold powder out of the
CARLOAD of rock in such way that half of it
will more than pay all the costs, and you
have the problem which the operators Of this
mine have successfully solved.
It seems petty business, does it not
Nevertheless it is one of the biggest bus
inesses of the world Of today 1t takes mil
lions to work the mine and it will probably
pay millions in profits. The mine I refer to
is the Alaska Gastineau property. It's only
one of several mighty low-grade PROPOSE
tons along the Gastineau channel which will
keep thousands of miners and millions Of
dollars of machinery ut work here for a cen
fury to come. Adjoining it is the Alaska
Juneau mine, similar mountain Of gold
which is now at its very beginning Farther
along is the Elmer mine, another great prop
erty, and there are other deposits about Of
enormous extent Today | shall write of
the Alaska Gastineau only.
The mountain of low-grade ore over the
Alaska Gastineau mine rises almost precipi-
tously from the Gastineau channel Its ore
body is said to cover something like 1000
acres. 1t is more than two miles in length
and the miners have already made 20 miles
of tunnels and cross-cuts in their develop
ment works According to the report of
the managing director, d. G. lacking. TO
the stockholders, the block of ore has some
thing like 100000 tons above a certain
level and at least 1oo,000.000 tons above the
level Of the sea. The Treadwell group on
II. 1r.r,rrite side Of The channel Is now ex-