Show THE NEGLECT OF DETAIL in referring to causes leading to the success or failure of mining ventures the mini mining ng review has from time to time commented upon the subject of mine management and on the results following the employment of competent or incompetent superintendents superintend engg we have said that no mine however good could stand mismanagement for any length of time and continue to make profit for owners or shareholders in the development of a prospect good management is especially essential as it is more difficult to obtain money for the development and operation of a prospective producer than it is for the handling of a property of known merit and value in the development of a prospect a good manager will pay particular attention to the little details of operation and they are many it is an old saying that wilful waste makes woeful want this applies to mining as well as to other occupations and the careful superintendent and shift boss will pay as much attention to the economical use of powder fuse candles and other mine supplies as he will to the way the men put in their time and this later item by the way is a feature of mining operation that is often abused to such an extent that as one mining man recently recent y remarked a miner who i soldiers in the mine should be arrested for petty larceny as a theft of time is a theft of money the miner who wastes an hour of his employers time bilue every shift and sometimes he is compelled to do so through force of cir cum stances may think that it amounts to but little but in eight days this amounts to a shift for which he is paid at the rate of from to a day and for which no recompense to the mine owner is made in any manner whatever wh alever with a force of a dozen or twenty five men at work in a mine waste of time and loss of money means much in the course of three or six months and because of this loss more than one mine in this intermountain country has been forced to close down for the reason that the funds available at the start of operations have been found insufficient to accomplish results anticipated antic and yet the work may have been intelligently and ably directed and performed in a workmanlike manner we have known of a force of men who have been compelled to suspend operations for an hour or more because a short length of ladder had not been supplied when I 1 it should have been lack of system in providing supplies has often kept many men in a mine in in forced Jd idleness leness for a half a shift in the operation of machinery the failure to keep duplicate parts pars on hand whose use may be hourly expected la Is another source of loss of both time and money and minor detail is so often overlooked that frequently the whole force of a mine is unable to perform good and satisfactory work for a day or two this lack of attention to detail has a most important bearing on the successful operation of a mining proposition and cases are numerous in this western country where an apparently legitimate enterprise and promising mining venture lags along for weary months but which long ago would have reached a sound footing and a paying basis but for this one thing of lack of attention to detail in every department 0 of operation |