ROMANCE OF NICKEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20740, 6 December 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

ROMANCE OF NICKEL.

FAMOUS MINE'S WEALTH. STORY OF A DISPUTE. The discovery of nickel, called after " Old Nick " on account of its hardness, is one of Canada's modern romances. The time of its discovery- and the circumstances surrounding it have a peculiar resemblance to the events associated with the discovery of silver at Broken llill.

In 1884, a prospector named Tom Frood heard from a trapper of a showing of mineral near his trapline. Mr. Frood and another prospector named A. J. Cockburn, set out to locate it. They found the vein, and having quarrelled, settled their dispute by partitioning it. Mr. Frood's share afterward became the Mond v Nickel Company, Mr. Cockburn's the International Nickel Company, both famous all over the world. Jn Broken llill, one of the three discoverers of silver, a boundary rider, sold his share to his mates for £2oo—a share that afterwards was worth £2,000,000.

Nothing was done with the nickel discovery for fifteen years. Jn the next three years, 110,000 tons were mined, then there was another lapse of eleven years. Doubt existed about the ore reserves at Frood, nnd the mine ceased working, the houses and buildings being moved away. Years afterward, in 1925, drills were again set up on the Frood, which, as the work proceeded, revealed die huge masses of rich copper ore that have made this mine one of the wonders of the mining world. The two companies pooled their interests end were amalgamated under the name of the International iNirkol Company. There is romance also in the first discovery of nickel in Ihe Sudbury field. Searching tor a tnan that was lost, Dr. Howey found him sitting on a small hill. The doctor saw copper nearby and took samples to the Geological Surveyor in the neighbourhood. They were pronounced valueless. When the Canadian Pacific Railway was taken through this hill, the construction gangs exposed a bed ot copper nickel ore. On Dr. Howey s hill, pronounced valueless, was developed (lie famous Murray Mine, which later passed into the, control of the British Government as an independent source, of nickel for purposes of the Great War. John Flanagan, a blacksmith on the construction gang, ..made the discovery. Aroused by tlie appearance of "red mud on a road alongside the right-of-way, he dug deeper and discovered solid copper ore,

The great steel and armament makers of England and Europe quickly realised the importance of (lie new nickel deposits. Supplies had previously come from New Caledonia and tliere was at, one time r* complete dearth of, the metal. Sir John A. McDonald and Sir Charles Tupper, two of Canada's Prime Ministers, joined in hailing the impetus nickel was destined to impart to Canada's prosperity. The latter foresaw the manufacture of nickel steel —a vision which has not yet been fulfilled.