Iron County news. [volume] (Hurley, Wis.) 1913-1950, 1922-12-30
GREAT LAKES
ORE SHIPMENTS
Lake Superior Mines Produce Eighty
Per Cent of Entire Country's
Supply of Ore.
VAST RESERVES OF ORE
InexhaustibIe Supply of Low Grade
Ores in Northern Wisconsin and
Northern Michigan.

An article printed IN the Duluth
Herald gives a report of the iron ore
shipped from different Great Lakes
ore shipping ports. 1t says that there
was shipped over the five ore-ship-
ping ports of Lake Superior, Duluth,
Superior, Two Harbors and Mar
quette and Lake Michigan's one
ore-shipping port, Eseanaba, total
of 42,613,184 tons Of iron ore dur
ing the season Of 1929. From
BIichipicoten, a Canadian island at
the east end of Lake Superior, a
small quantity also was shipped. All
this ore went by water to Lake Erie
ports, South Chicago and few
cargoes to Canadian ports. These
figures constitute the bulk of the out
put of the Lake Superior iron mines,
the Mesaba in Minnesota, the Gogebic
in Michigan and Wisconsin, and the
Vermillion, Marquette and Men,
ominee ranges in the Michigan
peninsula. As the Lake Superior
mines produce 80 per cent of the en-
tire supply of the country, there has
been considerable interest in esti-
mating how long these mines will
last; in fact. producers all over the
world have been interested especially
during the past twenty years.
Ore Production Increases
Ore production has increased enor-
mously, 1t is twice that of 1900,
and twenty times greater that 1860.
Ashland which is the shipping port of
the Gogebic range, shipped no ore
until 1886. 1t shipped a million tons
in 1896, and nearly eight times as
much in 1920, and a total of 124,-
100000 gross tons has been shipped
from its docks to Lake Erie ports.
Following 1896 the great increase in
the country's totals came from the
Mesaba in Minnesota.
Andrew Carnegie threw a scare
into the world in 1902, when he ssaid
that the supply of ore in the United
States would not last longer than
seventy years, but that low grade
ores might extend the time another
thirty years. Since his time the
output has been doubled, and if what
the great iron master said is true,
only fifty years is left before the
producers will have to tackle the low
grade ores, which, he said, will last
but thirty years longer.
Careful Estimates Made
During the past fifteen years a
number of careful estimates have
been made, based upon borings and
explorations and the results rather
contradict the predictions of Carne-
gle. These explorations have dis
closed vast Preserves" of ore, that is
low grade ore, ranging from 80 per
cent and lower. The most COM
prehensiye analyses made were those
by DR.. C. w. Hayes of the United
States Geological survey and that of
the international geological congress,
which agree materially.
According to the HAYES estimates,
the present supply of available
ores" will last the Uuited States
about sixty-five years yet, and over
three-fourths of this amount will
come from Lake Superior mines, but
there is an immense supply of low
grade ore in the Lake Superior re-
gion, sufficient to last this country
$50 years, even though the produc-
ton increases from its present out
put of 100000 or 10000 600 tons
q year to 100,000,000 His estimate
was:
Available iron ores in the United
States $4,000, 100000 tons, of which
total there is in the Lake Superior
mines 3,5I0,000,0OO tons. His
estimates of the quantity of low
grade ores was: In the United
States 100000 tons, of which
Lake Superior win supply 10000
100000 tons, sufficient to last $50
years.
Northern Wisconsin has an mex
haustible bed of low grade ores. It
runs right across the state and is a
continuation of the Gogebic iron
range and is known as the Penokee
iron range A mine near Mellen
recently opened on this range, covers
unknown deposits, and is now partly
furnishing the Ashland pig iron
plant. The Minnesota and Michigan
mines have similar inexhaustible de-
POSTS. When the present supply of
high-grade ore is exhausted mining
viii continue as before, only with a
smaller output of pure iron per
ton, and with the deposits in Sweden,
Cuba, Brazil, Chile, Newfoundland
and Norway available, iron will
doubtless be mined for a thousand
years hence.