The Duluth rip-saw. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1917-19??, 1918-06-15

DOuduld, d. we'll as properties WILL
out ample merit. Hildreth's asso-
ciates, Chase, Bevier and Kendall,
failed to come forward with ample
working capital, therefore work was
shut down.
Stamp Mill Is Erected.
The Rainy Lake City townsite COM
pany had given a bonus Of $1,000 to
Lave a stampmill built on the town
site on the mainland. That required
transportation of the ore by barge
across a mile of water and several
landings before it reached the bins
a. the. top Of the mill nd over the
rock crusher. The mill was built in
| June, 1894. 1t had only five stamps,
| capable of treating eightaor ten tons
e day of that hard ore. About $4,000
il bullion was recovered under the
Hildreth regime.
In the fall of 1894, the property
was leased by the fee owners, then
dali, to J. B. Weimer. He lacked cap
ital and failed to raise any, therefore
sold out to F. A. Bates & Son, Mes
aba iron range operators. Bates &
Son sent the late Arthur w. B.
Whitley to take charge but they fail
ed to follow him with money to pay
the bills, therefore the mine again
was shut down.
Watzke. Leases Little American.
In June, 1896, o. A. Watzke, a
real estate operator in West Super
ior, leased the Little American mine
for twenty years, in behalf of the
Lyle Mining Company. This COM
pany had acquired large number
of claims and even erected a 10
stamp mill on Dry Weed island,
where inexperienced men expected
to recover gold by the amalgamation
process from ore so base that the
acids from it actually attacked the
amalgamating plates.
My first visit to the Little Ameri-
can mine was made one rainy Sum
day afternoon in --Tay, 1897. At that
time, Theo. Menges, an electrical en-
gineer from Milwaukee, was super
intendent. Rainy Lake City had de-
clined to population Of about 500
souls. We covered the mile between
mainland and island in small row
boat, across a sea that made pulling
very hard and that well drenched
us before we landed a. the island
dock.
Substantial Improvements Are Made.
At that time, the light 5-stamp
mill still was being used on the main
land. A shaft house, air drills and
air compressor had been provided
the mine and sinking was under way.
Shaft No. then was down 120 feet.
Eventually, it reached depth of $50
or 800 feet, if my information is cor
rect. Drifting had been done on two
SOFT. levels. The upper level show
ed drift los feet long, with a
winze sunk 60 feet at an angle of
As degrees. The lower drift showed
60 feet of drifting.
Shaft No. 1 had been sunk 81 feet
by Hildreth but heavy blasting had
so opened up the walls of the ore
body that waters of the lake leaked
in considerably. The ore on the sur
face, tributary to the shaft, was
stopped out. That shaft was aban-
doned after shaft No. was started.
Little American island has an area
OF about two acres.
Up to the time of my first visit,
the Lyle Mining company had ex-
pended about $4,000 in improve
ents and labor. A little later, the
1O-stamp mill was brought over from
Dry Weed island and installed on
Little American island, making it I'M
necessary to extensively barge ore to
the inadequate little mil on the re-
mote mainland.
Precious Gold Is Wasted.
Mr.. Watzge was backed by Ger
man capitalists and manufacturers in
Milwaukee and Northern Iowa. When
they first took hold, an incompetent
amalgamator was credited with let
ting $4,000 in gold run through the
mill into the lake. Later, the COM
pany succeeded in hiring John
Sutherland, a most successful mill
man and amalgamator on Rainy Lake
ores, who succeeded in making a sat-
isfactory saving.
At the time of my first visit, the
management assured me that the
Little American ore, unsorted, as it
came from the slopes, yielded from
$40 to SIS ton, free milling. The
naturalization other than native gold
was light, as I remember it, consist
ing OF iron pyrite. 1t also was stated
that some of the ore ran as high as
$40 and even $50 ton in gold but
l cannot prove the truth of that in
formation. Supt. Menges also stated
that the ore-body ranged from lift.
wide on the first level to 40-ft. wide
on the second.
Character of the Ore.
The ore. by the way, aside from
small vein or streak Of solid quartz,
rs inches wide on the surface, where
discovered by prospector Davis, was
mixed with slate. Little American
island is of slate formation. The
quartz, where massive and unmixed
with the slate, was very hard, vitre-
GUS and coarsely crystalline. It was
not unlike much of the ore that
have seen on the East Belt of the
Mother Lode in California. My i'm
preston is, too, that the walls of the
ore-body. were not at all free nor
well defined.
Eventually, the Lyle Mining Com
~ 0rrY H.