WKST SIlORti.
.:::
there being not even mud
except near the entrance.
In some places where the
vein of ore was thin the ex
cavated chamber is so low
that one Iiiir to stoop very
much to get through, and
again where tho vein was
thicker the rooms are eight
or nine feet high.
From tho main slope
there are numerous branch
es, known by the very or
dinary name of rooms, ex
tending into the ore strat
um on either side. These
excavated rooms are alioiit
eighteen feet wide, and the
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blocks of ore lietwccn them, left to sustain the roof, are about forty feet
thick, so less than one-third of the ore body is removed as the mine is driven
into the hill. When the slope has been worked as far as, is prolltable from
one entrance, the miners take out the standing walls of ore, beginning at
the farthest extremity so no ore will lie lost by any caves that may occur
as the supports are removed. When the roof appears weak the rooms are
securely timlcred to prevent caving, hut when- there is llrm rock overhead it
is left to support itself. As the miners have to do their own Umbering, it
would seem as though those in the rock-roofed chambers had an advantage
W over their fellow workers in the softer ore, but the dill'ercnee in the ease of
working fully eonicnsates for the extra labor of putting in the timber
supports. In the soft ore only pick and shovel are necessary working im
plements. In the harder portions of the stratum the miners have to do a
good deal of drilling and blasting.
" Hut how is it ascertained in the mine just where the valuable ami
worthless rocks meet?" To the unsophisticated it all l.s.ks alike when no
answer,
more brilliant light than that radiating from a miners lam, struggles with the pitchy darkness. For
the superintendent, who is an experienced, practical miner, t.k up a pick and hacked a hit e on the s.
surround
in walls and roof. "There," said he, striking into some base rock, not.ee the mark lef by the p.ck here;
it is whitiHh. Rut hero is another pick mark very near that is a distinct red; that indicates g,,d ore. I he
pick
eolor of the pick bruises guides the miner
in determining the limits of the ore vein.
The experienced miner is also governed, to
e extent, by tho Bound."
'i' nerally two miners work a room to
k'elher. and are paid $1.00 a car for the ore
loaded. Two men get out six loads a day,
"li'iit twenty tons. They furnish their own
'Wit ami powder, which costs each man
"'"'lit fifty cents a day. The daily output
""the mine is about 150 tons of ore, which
' a brown hematite.
When hauled out of the mine the ore is
'''niped into bunkers and is sifted into two
'-'Hides, as regards fineness, as it falls. From
''' bunkers it is taken in cars to the fur
where each car load is weighed and
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