MECHANICAL ANT

Evening Star, Issue 22631, 24 April 1937, Page 27

MECHANICAL ANT

DIGS DEEP ROUND HOLE A mechanical “ ant,” a round-bodied machine about 30ft long and sft in diameter, has been described iu New York as typifying a new technique in minfng. It enables miners for the first time to drill deep into the earth on the insect principle. The “ ant ” was described to the annual meeting of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers by J. 11. Newsom, of the Idaho Maryland Mines Corporation, Sap Francisco. This mechanical insect has a body and jaws. The body is a steel barrel about 15ft long, housing a powerful electric motor. The ja'ws are another 15ft barrel, hollow’, revolving under drive of the motor, fitted with teeth on the lower rim Of the barrel. The teeth drill both earth and rock. As they bore downward the empty barrel fills with the “core ” they have out out. When the barrel is full cables hoist the “core” to the top of the shaft. One lone man rides the “ ant ” ns it digs. He sits at the motor controls, with a steel “ umbrella,” half an inch thick, above his head.- This queer, new machine, Mr Newsom said, has drilled a 6ft round hole 1,125 ft deep at Grass Valley, California,