Mining machinery

“ Not so with silver and gold mines. They are most unreliable in both quality and quantity. Costly buildings and machinery are often erected to economize the mining of the ore, only to find no mine to operate by the time the buildings are completed and the machinery is working. ”

“ But, of course, more is wanted on a mine than a man who can direct the sinking of shafts, driving of levels, and stoping of the lode. Much loss and disappointment have resulted in the past from unsuitable, ineffective, or badly designed and erected machinery, whether for working the mine or treating the ores. To obviate this defect a first-class mining engineer is required. ”

“ If he takes any thing in that line, let it be the best mining pick and spade he can{181} find, with a stout sheath-knife, and a horn for crevassing. The “cradle” is found any where in the settlements or in the mines. If it is intended to engage in the quartz-crushing operations, the most simple machinery is the best. The very complicated and expensive machinery which has, in several instances, been taken to the mines, has been useless. The least breakage will delay the whole work for months, till it is replaced from the States.
By all means avoid companies which are got up at home for mining. ”

“ The Manufacture of Mining Machinery
Most of the metal deposits of the earth are in small quantities and scattered far and wide in various places. Most of the mining enterprises resemble farming in that it is more profitable to work by individuals and small parties. As such is the case, most of the mining enterprises229 have to be worked out by private concerns. In order to accelerate the development of mining, more liberal laws should be adopted; education and information should be given freely by experts employed by the state ”

“ All machinery for mining purposes is subject to only 11⁄2 per cent impost dues, the term machinery being stretched by the government to its uttermost possibilities to meet the mining industry, and it is made to include sheet lead, cyanide, etc. ”

“ Machinery is usually purchased at centres of mining supplies and manufactures. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver and Chicago are the principal rendezvous in the West for mining men in need of machinery. Mexico City is, similarly, the outfitting point for the mines of southern Mexico. The United States holds the supremacy of the world in the matter of equipping mines and mills, large orders of American-made [90] mining machinery being shipped to even the antipodes. ”

“ Many branches of mining and those which yield the largest returns, can be carried on only by deep excavations in the earth, and the use of powerful machinery, requiring expenditures generally far beyond the means of single individuals. In lode mining, especially, such excavations extend, in most cases, hundreds of feet, in many cases thousands of feet, into the earth, where, for successful working, the steam-engine of great power is as essential an instrument as the pick and the shovel. ”

“ The industry has also profited by the improved methods adopted to facilitate the transfer of the ore in transit and especially by the use of machinery and the mining operations themselves. Furthermore, in the principal mining range—Mesabi—the ore is sometimes found so near the surface that with the removal of a few feet of earth it is mined by the open-pit method, the ore being scooped by huge steam shovels directly from the pit to the car. ”

“ In net result, no mineral deposit of speculative ultimate volume of ore warrants an initial equipment of the sort that will meet every eventuality, or of the kind that will give even the maximum efficiency which a free choice of mining machinery could obtain. ”

“ Thus, without the mining industry there would be no machinery, and without machinery there would be no modern industries which have revolutionized the economic conditions of mankind. The mining industry, after all, is the greatest factor of material civilization and economic progress. Although in the fifth part of the first program I suggested the development of the iron and coal fields in Chili and Shansi as an auxiliary project for the development of the Great Northern Port, still, a special program should be devoted to mining in general. ”

“ In general, mining progress was slow up to the middle of the century. The production of the baser metals, here and abroad, increased gradually with the demands of the mechanic arts, but it was not until the middle of the century that this factor, joined with the improved methods of transportation, and of metallurgy, gave to mining that impetus which, though through alternate recurring waves of prosperity and stagnation, carried it forward until the annual expenditure for technical skill, machinery, and supplies used in the industry is estimated to-day at one thousand million dollars. ”

“ As we think of mines nowadays, we can conceive several reasons why, before the advent of transportation lines and the invention of modern metallurgical processes and many forms of labor-saving machinery now so common in and about mines, many very rich deposits may have been necessarily forsaken by their discoverers. ”

“ It is in the first only that the process of mining is carried to any degree of refinement, and that machinery is employed. The Chinese alone are engaged in working these, and the average number of hands employed in each mining operation is from 25 to 30. The whole of the laborers work on terms of equality, the older and more experienced directing, and the younger and more active performing the operative part, while all share equally in the profits. ”

“ But, curiously enough, the huge organisations utilising immense masses of lower-grade ores, employing thousands of men and most modern machinery, with smelters at the mining camp, are generally stated to be run at a loss. ”

“ They become either worn out or practically valueless through the exhaustion of the mines. Even surface machinery when in good condition will seldom realize more than one-tenth of its expense if useless at its original site. ”

“ The profession of mining engineering, last of the major branches, embraces all work having to do with the locating and construction of mines—coal-mines, iron-mines, copper-mines, diamond-mines, gold-mines, and the like. Also it establishes the nature of the apparatus used, though more often than otherwise the mechanical engineer in this regard is consulted, since much of the machinery utilized in mining operations is the direct work of mechanical engineers. Screens and hoppers are mechanical devices the result of mechanical engineering genius ”

“ The number of the men condemned to work in coal and metal mines incroased enormously owing to the progress of the English factory system; but during the last few decades this increase of number has been less rapid, owing to the use of new machinery in mining. [137] A new type of workman springs into life along with the machine, namely, its maker. We have already learnt that machinery has possessed itself even of this branch of production on a scale that grows greater every day. ”

“ Since the extension of the railway systems and the establishment of a stable government, mining is again attracting a great deal of attention. The government encourages foreign investments in the mines. Many of the old bonanzas have been taken over by new companies with both good and bad results for the investors. The introduction of modern machinery has so reduced the cost of mining that lower grade ores can be profitably worked. ”

“ While the application of machinery to mining must indubitably minimize the probability of strikes, the operators must be prepared to reckon with these until the end of time, in that throwing down their tools appears to be the chief occupation of miners. It is hard to account for this irresponsible vagary unless it be that they receive twice as much pay as other workmen. ”

“ Probably in no other mines in the world does massive machinery play so great a part in mining operations and hand labor so little. Work in the Mesabi Range began in 1892, and the output grew rapidly until 1901, when it amounted to 9,303,541 long tons. The Southern iron region shares with the Northern Appalachian region in the advantage of having coal and limestone, two essentials in the reduction of the ore and found in close proximity to the ore itself. The South has the additional advantage of cheap labor, but it is under the disadvantage of having a limited local market. ”

“ Go into any of the great mining works of central Germany, and you may see acres covered by machinery ingeniously constructed to clean, break, and sort, and ultimately deliver the ores into trucks or direct into the furnace, and the whole under the supervision of a youngster or two. When a parcel of ore arrives at any of the works, say Freiberg or Clausthal, it is carefully assayed by three or four different persons and then handed over to practical experts, who are expected to produce the full amount of precious metal according to assay ”

“ Another large company bought a large piece of mining property in Mexico, although its initial operations were in Colorado. Placer mining companies frequently dismantle, move and re-erect dredges. [154]
XVII
MINE EQUIPMENTS.
There is a constant tendency toward the adoption of machinery for the performance of every mining act which, formerly, was done by manual or animal labor. There are good reasons for this tendency. Good, trained labor is scarce; wages are slowly but gradually rising; ores of lower grade must be mined, and the tonnages must be correspondingly greater. ”

“ Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d.
Mining Machinery: a Descriptive Treatise on the Machinery, Tools, and other Appliances used in Mining. By G. G. André, F.G.S., Assoc. Inst. C.E., Mem. of the Society of Engineers. Royal 4to, uniform with the Author’s Treatise on Coal Mining, containing 182 plates, accurately drawn to scale, with descriptive text, in 2 vols., cloth, 3l. 12s.
Contents:
Machinery for Prospecting, Excavating, Hauling, and Hoisting—Ventilation—Pumping—Treatment of Mineral Products, including Gold and Silver, Copper, Tin, and Lead, Iron, Coal, Sulphur, China Clay, Brick Earth, etc. ”

“ Steam shovels, weighing from sixty to seventy-five tons each, do the work. Like a great hand one of these shovels dips down into the soft mass of ore, buries its great dipper until it holds from four to eight tons, and then, groaning and rumbling, slowly lifts its burden aloft, swings it over a car, and the actual work of mining is done. A thousand times a day it will repeat this operation, lifting from three thousand to eight thousand tons of ore. ”

“ The want of capitalists in the mine country, and of practical skill in the boring, blasting, sinking shafts and galleries, oppose obstacles to the [Pg 160] successful progress of mining. There is but one regular hearth-furnace for smelting in the whole district; and that is on the modern plan of English furnaces. There are not over four or five regular shafts in about forty mines; there is not an engine, either by horse, steam, or water power, for removing water from the mines, several of which have been abandoned on this account, with rich prospects of ore in view. ”

“ Access to the buried deposits is gained by vertical shafts. Actual mining is now done to a large extent by continuous miners, machines which bore or rip the potash ore from the face and load it into shuttle cars in one continuous operation. The shuttle cars then transport the ore to conveyor belts which move it to the shafts for hoisting. Working conditions and safety are excellent and have led to high productivity from these mines. ”

“ Rock and earth on the one hand, and metal and ore on the other, are filled into buckets separately and drawn up to the open air or to the nearest tunnel. If the shaft is not deep, the buckets are drawn up by a machine turned by men; if it is deep, they are drawn by machines turned by horses.
It often happens that a rush of water or sometimes stagnant air hinders the mining; for this reason miners pay the greatest attention to these matters, just as much as to digging, or they should do so. ”

“ At every step gold-diggers, or their operations, greet your vision, sometimes in the form of a dam, sometimes in that of a river turned slightly from its channel to aid the indefatigable gold-hunters in their mining projects. Now, on the side of a hill, you will see a long-tom, a huge machine invented to facilitate the separation of the ore from its native element; or a man busily engaged in working a rocker, a much smaller and simpler machine used for the same object ”

“ The increased economy in production can be brought about by the adoption of devices that will supplant, and even excel, muscular effort.
A machine can now be installed and can be operated by a single man to perform the work formerly done by many men. There have been machines invented to entirely, or partially, perform every operation in and around mines, and one might imagine an ideal mine in which all such machines were installed. ”

“ The law of diminishing return applies therefore to mining, in a still more unqualified sense than to agriculture: but the antagonizing agency, that of improvements in production, also applies in a still greater degree. Mining operations are more susceptible of mechanical improvements than agricultural: the first great application of the steam-engine was to mining; and there are unlimited possibilities of improvement in the chemical processes by which the metals are extracted. ”

“ The mines, though they represent the labour of several generations, and derive their sole value from the requirements of the industry of a nation and the density of the population—the mines also belong to the few; and these few restrict the output of coal, or prevent it entirely, if they find more profitable investments for their capital. Machinery, too, has become the exclusive property of the few, and even when a machine incontestably represents the improvements added to the original rough invention by three or four generations of workers, it none the less belongs to a few owners. ”