THE WEST SHORE.
411
eight per cent limestone, and moat of them still more
than thai When Peter Kirk was here two years ago
looking into the matter of establishing a great iron
industry at some point on Paget sound, he secretly
scoured a sample of the rock and sent it to England
to be analyzed, for the purpose of ascertaining its
Take for flaxiog purposes. He sabseqaently gave
Mr. McMillin, the president, the following certificate:
ANALYSIS OF ROCHE HARBOR LIMESTONE.
February 29, 1888.
Silica 0.44
Iron sod Alumina 1.13
rhonphorus 0.11
Carbonate of Lime 08.21
The above analysis hui been made by the Mow Bay Hema
tite Iron A Steel Co., Ld., Workington, England.
Yours truly,
Fsteb Kirk.
Repeated assays by the Paget Sound Iron Co.,
the Weathered & Dewey Iron Manufacturing Co., of
Wheeling, W. Va., and by chem
iits in Portland, Ban Francisco
and other places, all give praotio
ally the same result When it is
known that the rock from which
the famous " Marblehead " lime of
Ohio is made has only eighty-two
per cent of carbonate of lime in it,
the purity of this marble is more
fully realized. The stone contains
no sulphur, and for flux is unsur
passed, as it acts as a pure lime
stone and requires the addition of
nothing to counteract deleterious
ingredients, as is often the case in
flaxes used in smelting. This ledge
is rery important to the smelting
interests of this section, and will
no doubt supply the greater por-
tion of stone to bo used by the smelters to be built to
work up the iron, gold, silver and copper ore of the
northwest Heretofore the spawls-the technical
name for the small chips broken off in quarrying and
dressing stone hare been damped to one aide, but
ia the improvements now being made are inoladod
storage bunkers and a system of tracks by which Tea
sels can be loaded from ears direct from the old
damps, as well ss from the bunkers. Already much
flax is being supplied to the smelters at Irondele,
Washington, and Oswego, Oregon, and arrangement
are being made to supply a Ban Francisoo company
with fifty tons per dsy.
When the new oompany took possession of the
works, two years age, there were but two kilns, of the
large stone pattern, which were turning out about
eight thousand barrels a year, a small lime abed, a
H'r v
'J
HI i
URAWINU AMD SARHKUXU
manager's residenoe, three or four small buildings,
and three log eabins for men. A systematic develop
ment of the property was at once begun. A dock four
hundred and fifty feet long, with a front of sixty-six
feet, was constructed, the steel rails wore laid on a
trestle leading from the quarry to the kilns, so that
loaded cars could be sent from the quarry by the op
eration of gravity, being pushod back by hand when
their oontent had been dumped into the bins above
the kilns. The quarry was opened more extensively
and the construction of new kilns began. President
McMillin made some radioal improvements at once.
Previously the lime had not been weighed In barrel
ing, and builders complained that they never could
tell how much lime they wore gotting in a barrel He
at onoe sot a platform scale into the floor near each
kiln, and from that time every barrel of Roche bar
bor lime baa oontained just two hundred pounds of
first quality of lime, no more and no leas. Another
improvement is the cooling rooep
taole. In the old kilns the lime is
drawn direct from the bottom of
the kiln into an iron car, damped
apon a atone floor and spread oat
with shovels, whore it mast lie for
an hour or more to oool, and is
then shoveled up again into bar
rels. He attached an iron recep
tacle to the bottom of the new
kilns, somewhat in the shape of an
inverted cone, into whloh the lime
settles and cools slowly, and from
which it is drawn into a sheet-iron
oar, which runs down a abort In
cline to an iron chute. Undnr the
chute Is fixed the scale, apon which
the barrel is set, and the lime is
thus run direct from the ear luto
the barrel and weighod without any handling what
ever. An improvement upon this has been made in
the latest kilns constructed, as the iron chute is ex
tended clear np to tba oooler, and the iron car is dis
pensed with, the oooler being opened and closed by
means of a lever operated from the lower end of the
chute by the man who fills the barrels. Lt us fol.
low a piece of marble from its long sleep in the heart
of the mountain to the bold of tbs vessel which car
ries it away as a pleoe of prime Roche harbor lime.
The face of the quarry from which rock la now
being taken Is one hundred and twenty-five feet high,
and ths bottom is fully one handrejl fot above the
water. Ry means of several diamond drills, operated
by compressed air conducted in pipes from a steam
compressor located at the northern end of the row of
kilns, deep boles art drilled In the rock, men often