ORE-EXTRACTION EXTRAORDINARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2287, 30 December 1897, Page 18

ORE-EXTRACTION EXTRAORDINARY.

AN EDISON UNDERTAKING.

The story of the great iron ore-extracting expereiment upon which Ediion is engaged is told picturesquely by Mr George Guy in the Daily Mail of November 2. There are 16,000 acres under the control of the company working the mines in Midland, New Jersey. In tbis area they have six large veins and several small ones. The six veins alone run for 21 mile?, with an average depth of 750ffc. One deposit close to the works contains over 200,000,000 tons cf ore-bearing rock,, which will last, mined at the full capacity of the plant, for over 100 years. The minim?, like evetthing else ab

Edison, is done on a gigantic scale. The steam shovels, of 60 and 90 tons respectively, bury their jaws ia the face of the cut, and at a mouthful take up three to four tons of rock, which is swung round and shot right into the skips waiting on the loading ear. An ordinary hour's work for one of these excavators is 250 tons. The cars are drawn by locomotives to the crushing mill, where electric cranes pick up tho skips and land them, ready for discharge, over the giant rolls. After the ere has undergone several reductions in size, and been dried as it runs, it is passed finally through, a 50-mfish sieve, and, in the form of powder, is taken by a conveyor to the stockrcoin. It is Me Ediaou's boast that from the .moment the rock is mined -to its shipment as a finished product not a hand touches it, every part of the process beiog automatic! From the fctockhouse the ore goes to the magnet tower, on the inner Ride of which are ranged a seiies of magnets, 12iu wide and 6't long. The ore is dropped in from the top of the tower. ( As it falls the metallic particles -are deflected by the magnets and turned to one bide, while the tailings, iv the form of sarld, fall to the bottom of the tower, whence they are removed to the sandhouse. The concentrates are subjected to a second arid then a third series of mig"ots, when the finishing separation is reich« 3. Mr Edison- holds tbah- the iron-ore ni , , ; „ «■..„,■•,,- j 8 a geograpical one. While the Lake Superio miaes'of almost pure ore are iouu L.i.i.11 .<.^ui thtir market, he is only 100. He has uulinnled confidence in his great enterprise.