Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 12

RENO EVENING GAZETTE WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1940 PAGE TWELVE TONOPAH COMPANY News of Nevada Mines and Mining OLD-TIE US RALLY 'ROUND IN RENO HEAVY PRODUCER MINERS FIND GOLD IN GRAVEL AT MANHATTAN IDAHO LOW GRADE II OPTIONED III i 1 A mm ertar 53 Workers Prospective Millionaires Fifty-three men, working on the Ruck-a-Chucky dam, are prospective millionaires. The structure is on the American river, about eight miles north of Auburn, and Robert Shi-roda, of Reno, who was on the ground Sunday, tells the story: "Several weeks ago one of the contractors was building a road across a hill in the vicinity with a tractor and shovel when he cut through a ledge without being conscious of it. A passerby soon after picked up a piece of quartz that contained about half of its weight in gold. The act was witnessed by others and soon there was a scramble. To avoid complications it was agreed to form an association, including all of the men working on the project.

"In a few hours gold to the value of about five thousand dollars was saved and in four days the men estimated that they were about $20,000 to the good. A miner named Prescott, who had formerly worked in Goldfield, Gold Circle and other Nevada camps, was selected as superintendent, and as they were being bothered by outsiders, who managed occasionally to "glom" a specimen, Prescott ordered that the shovel be used to cover the apex and a tunnel was started on the vein further down the hill. But then it was discovered that there was a fly in the ointment. Prescott went to the mint in San Francisco to sell some of the wonderful ore, and according to report, he was immediately arrested as a highgrader, and was not released until he had been fully identified. Further, it was ascertained that the discovery was on the dam res Picture shows first placer mining in the Pine Tree camp, on February 7, 1906.

Manhattan Cowboy Mining Company extracting yellow metal from lease No. 4. In late years the work has been taken over by the Manhattan Gold Dredging Company, which is composed of the Natomas Company and associates. Yuba Manufacturing Company Representative Writes About Recovery of Placer Gold HEAVY PRODUCTION FROM DISTRICT IN IDAHO LAST YEAR TONOPAH, May Leasers at the Tonopah Mining Company holdings in Tonopah produced 372,324.42 ounces of silver during the year 1939, it was announced in the annual report of the corporation released through the office of Horace A. Johnson, superintendent, this week.

A total of 11,101 dry tons of ore were produced during the year and in addition to the silver output, 4328.439 ounces of gold were mined. The net profit to the company from the leasing operations amounted to $39,661.05, the report which was submitted to the stockholders and which explained the entire scope of the company's operations, stated. A recount of the company's op erations as described in the report follows: "The grade of ore has shown a decrease each year for the past four years, with the tonnage mined remaining approximately the same. Unless adverse conditions prevail, the present production may continue for a period not possible to determine. "During the year, $7309.86 was spent in the search for a property suitable for operation or develop ment.

A large number of proper ties were examined and, while some showed prospective merit, prices and terms were such to preclude further interest in them. This work is being continued in the hope that a suitable property may be found that will prove a successful financial venture. Since the first of the year, the Tonopah Mining Company has ac quired a group of eighteen claims in the Oatman, district and upon which development work is now under way. The company is employing twenty men, working two shifts daily in pushing this work. La Luz Mines, Limited.

"Ac tive construction began in Novem ber, 1938, on a three hundred-ton cyanide mill, Diesel electric plant, machine shop, carpenter shop, lime kiln and commissary, together with improvements to the airplane field and the building of roads to timber tracts and the lime kiln site. Also, a river station was put in at Alamicamba, consisting of a sea-going schooner, unloading station, oil handling equipment, a splendid airplane field, and a good road connecting the river landing and the airplane field. "The mill commenced operations in August, 1939, and for the period of August to December, 1939, treated 39,093 tons. Of this ton nage, 28,093 were milled in Octo ber, November and December, 1939, of an average grade of 0.196 ounces of gold a ton, and operating costs averaged $2.97 a ton. "No development work was done in the mine during the period.

All ore milled came from old dumps made up of material discarded in previous operations. Two million tons can be mined by open-pit and the latter is being started. "Work is now under way for the enlargement of the mill to a capa city of 500-600 tons, and construction work also is starting at the river hydro-electric plant. "As stated in the last annual re port, your company owns 120,000 shares of La Luz Limited stock." The annual report also included a report on the Tonopah Mining's property in Nicaragua, which is near the La Paz mines, and indi cated that new capital is being in terested and this mine may soon go into production. The company's properties at Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada, and at Gowganda, Ontario, Canada, both remained idle during the year, it was said.

The Vertex Min ing Company, owned by the com pany and located at Silverton, remained idle during the past year, also. The report also said that some diamond drilling was carried on at the Jim Butler property in Tono pah, but that no new orebodies had been opened, although ore is currently being taken out from that sector. A concise report on the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad Company's operations was outlined and showed the rail subsidiary as operating at a net loss of $18,000 for the 1939 period. C. H.

Nonamaker, company sec retary, prepared the report which also noted the death of Charles S. Wesley, a director, as occurring on October 29, 1939, and the appoint ment of Thayer Lindsley to fill the vacancy. Baby elephants often remain with the mother for as long as ten years. Judge of the Mining Game Is the ASSAYER He Mast Be Right I For your safety, all assays run In duplicate no extra charge at our office Mail samples receive prompt attention. Write for rate-list and sample sack.

NEVADA MINERAL LABORATORIES 233 East Plaza Street. Reno Several Nevada mining men who have been operating in other climes recently, were in Reno over the weekend, talking over old times with James O. Greenan, who is carrying on large mining operations in Nevada. They were J. D.

Fraser, M. R. Arick, J. C. Kraner and Roy Folks, all of whom have spent a large portion of the last twenty years in Korea or Cho-sen, as it has been called since it came under the control of the Japanese, and they all have filled positions of great importance in mining there.

Fraser, Folks and Greenan worked together in the Nevada Hills mine at Fairview, forty miles from Fallon, between 1912-15. Fraser was battery man there and Greenan was his helper for a time. Folks was shift boss in the cyanide plant. At that time Roy A. Hardy was mine foreman and subsequently became general manager.

Earle Hart and Verne Adams were also there at the same time. Fraser and Folks went to Korea in 1924 to work in a mill. Some years afterward they took a lease oA a nearby mine and did some development work, which turned out successfully. The result was that they operated their own three hundred-ton mill for some years and later increased the plant to five hundred tons daily. The operation was very profitable to both of them.

A few years ago they sold to the Japanese, and are now living in this country. Mr. Fraser has built a beautiful home in Men-lo Park, and Mr. Folks is residing in Los Angeles. Mr.

Arick has been for several years in charge for the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company which, for the last three decades, has been the largest gold producer in Korea. Mr. Greenan visited him there in 1936, while on his way to Muckden, which is in Manchukuo and Peking. Mr. Kraner was for years in charge of important mining operations in a French-owned concession in Korea.

Mr. Greenan was an almost constant resident of the state from 1912 to 1930, his chief absence being when he joined the army in the first world war. From 1930 to 1936 he carried on mining operations in the Philippines and other foreign countries, being connected with some of the. most important gold mines in those countries. Having acquired a considerable fortune, it is said, he returned to this, his home state, and has since been in control of several gold and placer mines of importance, as well as the Corper Canyon placer, said to be one of the largest in the state.

minsThSg FROM LEAD MINE GOLDFIELD, May 8. W. P. Rains, veteran miner of the Gold Mountain district, was a visitor here Tuesday. Operating under the name of the Rains Development Company, he is reopening the Mead mine under a lease and option contract.

This week he shipped thirty tons of ore taken out in development work and expects to send about the same amount every month, which goes to the Nevada Gold mill at State-line. Before starting underground work Rains shipped the entire dump on the property and got returns of $9.40 on 144 tons. The clock on the town hall of Amersham, Bucks, England, has been going for more than three hundred years. BIG MOHAWK MINING The sale of shares in the BIG MOHAWK MINING COMPANY is restricted to the residents of Nevada, and the present offering is at Fifteen Cents per share (par value Ten Cents). This company, controlled by Nevada men, owns 19 claims in the Sulphur Mining District, Plumas County, and is in the same mineral belt as the famous WALKER MINE, one one of the biggest producers in the West, and owned by the ANACONDA COPPER COMPANY.

The BIG MOHAWK has an immense outcropping for over 6,000 feet and has been reported on by prominent engineers. Maps, Engineers' Reports and Prospectus mailed on application. BIG MOHAWK MINING COMPANY 1147 East Fourth Street Reno, Nevada Phone 23859 Listen to the Radio Mining Program, XELO, at 9:00 p. every evening 67 kilocycles on your dial). BY SIERRA Wide Shale Deposits Carry Commercial Gold Values It Is Announced In a little-prospected region of Idaho the Sierra Nevada, has optioned what may prove to be another of those low-grade gold power shovel propositions that have become so popular with mine operators.

Blake Thomas, manager for the Sierra Nevada, which is mining on Cedar Hill on the Comstock lode, said yesterday that the new property was situated three miles across the line in Idaho from Fre- mountain, Utah, at the base of Black Pine mountain, where there Is plenty of wood, water and other mining facilities. There are sixteen claims in the group. 170 FEET WIDE The gold is contained in a shale cut diagonally by a quartz dike. The quartz carries only a dollar or two but the shale uniformly averaged from six to seven dollars a ton. There is a tunnel following the fissure for several hundred feet and a crosscut trench on the surface over a width of 170 feet shows a content of from five to six dollars a ton.

The 'gold is microscopical, with none showing free, a condition similar to that at the great Mer-cur mine in Utah. A preliminary leaching test for eighteen hours by cyanide gave a recovery of eighty-seven per cent of the values. WORK UNDER WAY The ground was passed on favorably by J. J. Beeson, noted Salt Lake geologist and a force of men has been put to work under his superintendence.

If results prove satisfactory a mill will be built, but the company will continue its operations at Virginia City, where a flotation plant has been in grinding for several years. COPPER TO ITALY NEW YORK, May 8 CSV-France Is taking eight thousand tons of copper monthly from the Kenne- cott Copper Corporation, it was disclosed today at the company's annual stockholders' meeting. E. T. Standard, president, also told shareholders the company is supplying Italy with two thousand tons and Japan one thousand tons monthly.

Under the present contract, Stannard added, the French ton nage will be reduced to 6600 tons a month, starting with June and running through August. French requirements after August will be determined later. Kennecott's copper production currently is running about thirty thousand a month in the United State and eleven thousand tons monthly at its Braden mine in Chile. The latter is supplying the foreign contracts. Stannard reported that Kenne-cott earned about $11,840,000 in the March quarter, equal to $1.09 a share, against net income equal to twenty-seven cents a share estimated for the 1939 first quarter.

Charles L. Tutt of Colorado Springs, was elected a director. Stephen Birch, chairman, said the company's financial position continued excellent, with cash and government securities currently about $79,000,000. Including sold and unsold copper inventories, he added, this total would be increased to about $106,000,000. Kennecott owns Nevada Con, Utah and other noted mines.

I SAN FRANCISCO, May 8. UP) The Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company reported today that April net operating income before charges for depletion, depreciation and federal income tax rose to $126,250 from $119,350 in March and $63,300 in April, 1939. Gold recovery per ton was ninety-seven cents, the same as in March, but higher than the eighty-three cents averaged in April, 1939. For the first four months this year operating profit was $459,600 against $335,000 last year. NEVADA Kicon HPS AND AN ALASKA UNEAU ounvr LARGER GOLDFIELD, May 8 Fred Schultze has temporarily suspended operations on his lease on the Combination 'Fraction and is doing assessment work on his Gold Crater claims southeast of Goldfield.

Bud Kelly reports that he has obtained a lease on the Harmil mine in the Montezuma district and will soon begin operations. This is a silver-lead property and has been idle for some time. Ed S. Giles, mining engineer. was doing professional work in northern Nye county this week Mrs.

Giles accompanied him. A. M. Johnson, of Hollywood, was a visitor at his castle home in Grapevine Canyon in Death Valley this week, coming by plane from Van Nuys in an hour and a half. The tourist season just closing for Death Valley resorts has been the most successful in their history.

The castle had over ten thousand paid admissions during one month, it is reported. Lloyd Mount, mining man of Silver Peak, was here on legal business Monday. Fred Horton, mining man of Goldfield and Weepah. spent the weekend in Goldfield. He is doing assessment work in Weepah at present.

Mrs. Joe O'Connell, Tom Berg and Bert Berg, partners in mining operations at Leadville canyon, in the Palmetto district, were busi ness visitors here Tuesday. While awaiting delivery of a compressor and jack-hammer they are work ing their placer ground. Roy Daniels, a mining man of Palmetto, and Mrs. Daniels are the proud parents of a baby boy born in the Tonopah hospital on May 2.

Men of Mines Are Mentioned, And Women, Too Wm. D. Swackhamer, mining man and merchant of Battle Mountain, attended to business in Reno Monday. George Frasher, D. L.

O'Rouke, G. L. Erwin and wife, and R. A. Tranchope and wife, all of the min ing camp of Wonder, were registered at the Golden early in the week.

Corrin Barnes, consulting en gineer and S. W. McNair, of Gold- field, were arrivals in Reno Sun day. Jack Glover, field man and en gineer for Denver people, stopped over in Reno Monday to visit friends, while on his way to California, where he will make property examinations. Frank Horton, has gone to Eagle's Nest, N.

where he has accepted the position of superintendent in the mill for the Deep Tunnel Mining Company. A. J. Anderson, mining man of Mina, was a visitor to Reno Mon day. W.

H. Webber died a few days ago in Salt Lake City. He was an old Goldfielder and one of the owners of the Nevada Hills mine at Fairview in its palmy days. PERSONA NOTES FROM ervation, and the matter must be taken up with the interior department and what will Mr. Ickes say? "Any way, the work on.

The ore is on the hanging wall of a vein about a foot wide, and the high grade is in no place more than four inches thick, but some of the ore is about two-thirds gold. It is what the miner calls pocket gold, although it has been uncovered for a length of forty feet." TRUClCONlCT GIVENJO WELLS The Wells Truckporation Company of Reno, has been awarded the contract to freight the concentrates and crude ore from the property of the Mountain City Copper Company to Elko, a distance of seventy-five miles, and also the back freight, and commenced the work Monday, it was reported here this week. Five six-wheel Kenworth trucks capable of handling twenty-three tons each and costing $60,000, have been purchased and should arrive on the job by the end of the week. The garage, warehouse and office at Elko have been taken over, it is understood. The owners of the company are Joseph and Howard Wells.

Knowles brothers of Elko, have held the contract for more than two years. PARSONS VISITS VIRGINIA CITY VIRGINIA CITY, May 8 C. S. Parsons of Ottowa, Canada, chief of the bureau of mines metallic division, was a visitor to this city last week. He was accompanied by George N.

Geyer of New York City. While here they inspected the property of the Comstock Cedar Hill Gold Mines, Inc. They were very much pleased by the development work done so far. A crosscut has been started in the west section of the mine to get depth on a promising looking ore vein that was recently discovered on the property. Output Is Less At Carson Hill SAN FRANCISCO.

Mav 8. UP) The Carson Hill Gold Mining Corporation reports $19,512 net operating profit before depletion, depreciation and taxes for the March quarter this year against $32,527 in the preceding quarter and $44,368 in the March quarter of 1939. Revenue from bullion sales de clined to $214,130 from $226,666 and $233,649, with ore yields de clining. JUNGO MINING A cordial Invitation Is extended to our large list of stockholders to visit our rich property 10 miles North of George Austin's Jungo store. See a mine In operation.

See our camp and equipment. Latest mine Report on request. (Listen to the radio MINING PROGRAM at 9 p. m. every evening 67 kilocycles on your dial.) JUNGO MINING CO.

1147 East Fourth Street Reno, Nevada Phone 23859 By H. A. SAWIN Sales Engineer for Yuba Manufacturing Company, San Francisco "Gold" the magic word that built California almost overnight, still holds its attraction for man kind. Used since time antedating written records, its use again as coin, especially in the western states, would be welcomed by many. Perhaps more important is the fact that, knowing tons of gold are held by our government, we circulate paper dollars at face value without second thought as to their acceptability.

Thirty-five paper dollars worth an ounce of gold are "good" dollars, but are good largely because of our inher ent regard for the hoarded gold, stored safely and owned by our country. Gold has always caught the fancy of man. Not only miners seek gold, but others forsake trade and business to hunt for it. This fact has been emphasized again recently in the development of placer gold deposits. Mechanical devices of many kinds and varying descriptions are invented for the sole purpose of mining gold Equipment built for other pur poses is adapted to gold mining and, in placenng especially, it is possible for a resourceful mind to put many devices to work.

Bull dozers, scrapers, drag-line equipment and many other machines aid the modern placer miner. Some are successful; many prove to be mechanically practicable but, at the same time, economically, are failures. Inexperienced men with capital to invest, theirs or others', are tempted to try out a scheme, which to the better informed is un sound on its face. Placer deposits usually can be closely valued by comparatively simple and sure methods. Values per cubic yard and characteristics of a deposit can be pre-determined.

Operating costs, by known methods, can be balanced against estimated values and probable net returns made known within safe limits. Dredging for gold, as developed in the West, particularly in California, has been successful almost from the start. Bucket -line dredges of the California type date from the turn of the present century. Drag-line dredging as done today is not new but better meth ods of sampling and larger capacity units have made such opera tions profitable in many cases. The increased price of gold brought into production, quickly, many marginal properties which could not be worked under the $20.67 price.

Men with little capital but, in some cases, owners of contracting equipment, siezed the opportunity to use such tools to excavate gold-bearing gravel. Wash ing plants, at first inadequate, were built and an attempt made to use time-proved gold-saving methods. These included one type of riffle or another and also newly devised adaptations of mining equipment, such as jigs, amalga mators, shaking screen and tables and the like. Here is where the mining-trained man has an ad vantage over the paper-hanger, carpenter, WPA worker or others who enter placer mining. Success is not a matter of chance but in ventive genius in putting new methods to work was and still is repaid if operating costs are carefully balanced against ground value.

The bucket-line dredee princi ples today are the same as those of 1900. Excavate, classify, metal recovery, tailings disposal these are the four jobs that any dredge, I bucket-line or drag-line has to do Any other type of plant has to accomplish exactly the same jobs Profit is that small marein be tween average value per cubic yard and total cost per cubic vard Large dredges today handle gravel at the rate of 400,000 cubic vards a month and dig from depths as great as 175 feet below ground level. Such a dredge is Yuba No. 20 at Hammonton, Calif. It, however, was not built until after many years of accumulated field and manufacturing exrerience.

Early Yuba dredges in the Hammonton field dug sixty feet below water level and used seven cubic foot buckets. Later, nine cubic foot buckets were used, and later dredges with fifteen and eighteen cubic foot buckets to dig eighty feet below water level were built On the experience record of these latter dredges, running over a pe riod ot twenty years, and supplemented by the experience eained on more than one hundred dredges many parts of the world, it was thought practicable to build the giant gold-diggers known as Yuba xno. 17 and Yuba No. 20. The sue cess of these two, however, is de pendent largely, almost entirely, on the use of a Perry patented bucket idler and a Yuba mud- pumping system.

These aids to aeep dredging made profitable op erations at depths of 112 feet and 12i feet below water level pos sible. The Perry idler is mounted on the under-side of the digging lad der about midway and controls the catenary of the bucket-line in its return to the lower tumbler. The Yuba mud-pumping system, with a suction behind the lower turn bier, removes fine silt. Without pumping in deep ponds, silt hp comes such a hindrance to proper Bwmgmg ana digging as to cause abandonment of deep ditreinp-. Bucket-line dredges are marvels or simplicity and efficiency, slow motion machines but steadv nH sure.

Operating twenty-four hours a day, with average digging time well over twenty-two and one-half hours, is the reason for their ca pacity to earn a profit on ground worm ten cents a cubic yard or even less. No other device, new or old, can approach the efficiency ui uie DucKewine. What one bucket drops, the next one nicks un- no spilling, few stops for replace ments, and weight necessary to dig in and do the work. Thpsp are important factors to be considered. Drag-line units are nronospd fnr deeper dredging than present ex perience proves them capable of handling efficiently.

Initial costs of such equipment, comparable in weignt, strength and capacity to bucket-line dredees to do thf samf job, should be thoroughly investigated. Included in the cost should be bulldozers and similar rigs used with drag-line dredges. Probable operating costs should be carefully considered and, above all, for any type of dredge, the eround shnuld be prospected and carefully logged. Nevada has gold placers whiVh now are being mined by dredge, drag-line and ether equipment. Good prospecting will develnn more areas.

The minine men ran well look to the courage and abil ity evidenced by others who have entered his chosen field but. at tho same time, he can aid his community and himself no end by sticking to facts, not. fancies: exneri- ence, not wishful thinking, in de veloping a piacer mining method suited to his particular property. I WALLACE, Idaho, May 8 UP). Idaho's rich Coeur D'Alene min ing district yielded net profits of $6,918,266.80 to twelve mining companies and ten leases in 1939 figures released by the Shoshone county assessor showed today.

The total was $105,962.20 less than the 1938 figure of $7,024,229 for eleven mines and six leases, Predominating metals are lead, zinc and silver. Lower metal prices and reduced production because of work limi tations under the wage-hour act were held responsible in company statements for the decline from 1938 which in turn was nearly $5, 000,000 under the all-time record of $13,007,556 for mines and leases established in 1937. The cost of extraction of com panies reporting totaled $11,735, 481 and the gross yield was 834,397. Statements of the companies, on which the state ad valorem and three per cent mine tax levies are based, do not include deductions for depreciation, taxes and fixed charges. Two mines and eleven leases operated at a loss of $69,142.60 last year.

Losses in 1938 were $120, 838.47 for four mines and fourteen leases. Sunshine Mining Company, the nation's largest silver producer, continued to set the pace for the famed district with net profits of $4,041,936.74. Second was the almost equally noted Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining and Concentrating Company with $885,505.28. The large Morning mine of the Federal Mining and Smelting Com pany, with $729,379.18, was third and completing the "big four" of the district was the Hecla Mining Company with $588,373. FOR STONE CABIN The work of installing a flotation mill on the property of the Stone Cabin Consolidated is under way, according to a report reaching Reno.

It will have a capacity of forty tons daily and is being brought in from a Utah mine where it has been idel recently, it is understod. The work is in charge of Glen G. Gentry. There is considerable activity in the district, with leasers shipping from the Rapidan mine of the Como Mines Company and the Logan and Holly, to the Dayton mill. The district is situated about ten miles southeast of Dayton.

Currant Creek Mines to Merge The stockholders of the Com stock Gold Point Mines Company and the Currant Creek Mining Company will meet in Oakland on May 21 to consider a proposition to merge the two corporations, it was reported in Reno Saturday by John N. Richardson, the manager. The mines are adjacent and it is proposed to install a mill to treat the ores of both. Currant Creek is forty-five miles southwest of Ely. It is proposed to make the new stock nonassessable.

FLOTATION MILL.