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Show Mining Interests Protest Against Removal of Rails Closing of the Milford-Frisco branch of the Union Pacific railroad rail-road would seriously interfere with development of mineral deposits de-posits vital to the nation's war effort, witnesses declared Thursday Thurs-day of last week at an interstate commerce commission hearing at the Hotel Utah on the company's proposal to caase operating the line. iH. J. Plumhof, member of the state publicity and industrial development devel-opment commission and prominent former Union Pacific official, as. serted that construction of a ?350,-, 000 tungsten mill for processing scheelite ores, large quatities of which have been discoverel near Frisco, would insure ample ton-j nage to justify maintenance of i the line. Mr. Plumhof said Senator Abel Murdock had informed him the tungsten plant is to be built soon, probably in the Salt Lake area. Paul H. Hunt, president and director di-rector of the Horn Silver Mines company, the King David Mine company, and the Cupric Mines j company, said a 180-foot diamond j drill test in the Cupric property j at Frisco indicates presence of i 180,000 tons of commercial workable work-able tungsten ore. He read a telegram tele-gram from C. H. Hall, field rep-J resentative ofHhe U. S. Vanadium j company, protesting the railroad's application to shut down the branch. (Mr. Hunt .estimated 'that the Cupric property could reasonably produce 300 to 500 tons of scheelite schee-lite ore daily after spending from $125,000 to $150,000 to get into production. He said $350,000 would be needed for building a concentrator at Milford. H. O. Hall of Ely, Nevada, testified testi-fied he has a contract with thej Horn Silver Mines company to remove re-move 30,000 tons of dump ore from Frisco to Garfield. He said the ore assays approximately $5.02 per ton, leaving him a margin mar-gin of approximately 75 cents per ton, which would be seriously en dangered by closing down the; branch railroad line. Kuno Doerr jr., assistant manager of the! Utah department of the American Smeltering & Refining company, said the dump ore is valuable to his company for use as a fluxing material. J. A. Marsh, geologist for the Wah Wah Mining company and L. F. Block, president of the Frisco ' Silver Lead Mining company, both said they had ores blocked ont and hoped soon to produce substantial j tonnage which would be shipped i over the Frisco branch if this is continued. j |