A MECHANICAL ART

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 104, 4 May 1937, Page 10

A MECHANICAL ART

A echanical “ant,” a round-bodied achine about SO feet long and five in diaeter, was described as typifying a new technique in ining. It enables iners for the first tie to drill deep into the earth on the insect principle. The “ant” was described to the annual eeting of the Aerican Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers by Mr. J. B. Newson of the Idaho Maryland Mines CoCrporation, San Francisco. The echanical insect has a body and jaws. The body is a steel barrel about 15 feet long, housing a powerful electric power. The jaws are another 15-foot

barrel, hollow revolving under drive of the otor, fitted with teeth on the lower ri of the barrell. The teeth drill both earth and rock. As they bore downward, the epty barrel fills with the “ore” they have cut out. When the barrel is full, cables, hoist the “core” to the top of the shaft. One lone an rides the “ant” as it He aits at. Ihe otor controls, with a steel “umbrella,” half an inch thick, above his head. This queer, new machine, Mr. Newsom said, has drilled a five-foot round hole 1125 feet deep at Grass Valley, California.