Show DIAMOND DRILL RECORD interesting data are given by A B dodd who is supervising the running of a diamond drill hole which is being put in by the alaska gold belt company near juneau alaska the hole is now a little more than 1600 feet in depth and was drilled to pierce the main ore body of the property it is now in the ore and the attempt is being made to drill it another feet mr dodd says some idea of the work of drilling at this depth may be gained when it is realized that we are turning a single rod of steel longer than from the postoffice post office to the juneau general hospital this rod is perfectly smooth on the outside and rests on the bottom of the hole the entire wa way y causing an immense amount of friction which must be overcome the rod is kept greased heavily at all times and could not be turned otherwise we are using pounds of af air or enough to run six air drills to operate the drilling machine we will be forced to stop before we run another feet but I 1 believe we will have what we want before that time several years ago the treadwell company drilled a horizontal hole for 1200 feet and was forced to quit for years this stood as a record for alaska but we have beaten that figure some the men working the drills operate or drill for about six hours and it then takes them about the same length of time to change the bit the drilling rod is jointed in eight foot lengths and every inch of it has to be pulled from the hole to reach the bit after the bit is changed the rod has to be connected and all put back again extra care must be exercised to keep the drill frond from freezing in in 1 the hole water is forced through the center of the rod to the bit and keeps the slime washed back but if the water leaks through the join joints or for some reason becomes blocked a and does not reach the bit it will freeze in thirty seconds when a bit freezes it becomes so hot that it fuses with the rock and then has to be either extracted with the f fishing tools or drilled out we have had two or three fishing jobs since we started work and in one case had to drill out a steel bit which we could not fish out fortunately we were able to get it out shortly before we had drilled to the diamonds and were able to save them which saved us about 1500 as that is the value of the diamonds in the bit of a diamond drill |