Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1919-02-08
NO PLATINUM FOUND
 IN GRAND CANYON

About twenty years ago prospectors
 in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado,
 north of Williams, reported the find ing of platinum in the bedded rocks of
 that region. The Arizona school of
 mines was reported to have made an
 investigation and found that there
 was platinum there. The writer at
 the time "joshed" the school of mines ! engineer and the head of the institu- tion made a personal examination, re-
 porting adversely. Still the men in terested, organized companies and continued to send out their claims of
 immensely rich platinum in their properties. Several men came in from California and located a large area of ground below Diamond Canyon and spent considerable money making camp and prospecting. They finally folded their tents and stole away.
 Now comes the United States Geological Survey with thorough re- port on the district,S which, must be accepted as conclusive:
 1 For many years it has been reported i that deposits of platinum ore occur 1 in the Grand Canyon, Arizona in the vicinity of Grand Canyon station. J. F. Kemp, in his report on the Geo. logical relations and distribution of platinum and its associated metals" published in 1902 as Bulletin 193 of the .Unted States Geological Survey, states:
 Specimens of a shaly rock have been sent to the East from some To- cality near Williams, Ariz., which have yielded assays for platinum. The clays in Cataract Canyon, a branch of the Grand Canyon, are also said to contain platinum"
 Professor Kemp, in response to in- quiry, states that he never visiteN the supposed platinum locality in the Grand Canyon and that the first sen- tence of the above quotation refers to assays made by the s. s. White Dental Co.,, of material which was sent to that company by someone un- known to him and which may, of course, have been "salted."
 From time to time the supposed, presence of platinum ore in the Grand Canyon has received new advertise ment, and recently stock in a com pany organized to exploit the alleged deposits was offered for sale in an alluring prospectus wherein were published assays of the so-called ore that showed as much as 2.4 ounces of platinum to the ton. It has been as- serted that the platinum occurs in a colloidal state and that this explains the failure of standard methods of assay to show it's presence.
 The claims referred to in the pros- pectus mentioned are near Indian Gar den, a locality we'll known to visitors to the canyon as point on the Bright Angel trail, about 3,25O feet below the brink of the canyon and visible from Ell Tovar. Considerable pros- pecting has been done in this vicinity on both sides of the trail by means of open cuts and short tunnels. The supposed platinum-bearing deposits are beds of green and red ferruginous sandstone >that constitute subordi- nate part of the geologic formation known as the Bright Angel shale, of Cambrian age.
 In 1911 F. L. Ransome, of the Unit ed States Geological Survey, while examining certain supposed copper deposits in the Grand Canyon, had his attention called to the alleged plati- mum ore near Indian Garden and col lected sample that was afterward carefully assayed for platinum by the Bureau of the Mint. The results were 
 In 1915 H. G. Ferguson was detail ed by the Geological Survey to ex- anime and sample the claims near Indian Garden that were being held as platinum-bearing ground. The salnpl- ing was done with great care, and about thirty samples were assayed specially for platinum by Ledoux & Co.,, New York. As check, portions of five of these samples were assayed by E. E. Burlingame 6 Co.,, Denver. None of the assays showed any plati- mum.
 In the summer of 1918 MT. Ran some again examined the supposed platinum deposits in company with the geologist who had been engaged by the expoiting company to report on them. He took additional sam ples, and two of these, selected as representativessf the alleged ore, were divided into three portions. One DOT tion pf each was submitted for assay