OCR Text |
Show BINGHAM, AND THE AERIAL TRAMWAY W. P. Hardesty has found ln tho tramway tram-way of tho United States Mining company at Bingham material for a most interesting interest-ing and instructive contribution to a recent re-cent number of the Engineering News of New York city. Touching upon the tramway tram-way as a means of transportation, Mr. Hardesty, after telling of the company's possessions and the domain over which tho wealth of tho property Is spread, says: "After mining Its ores, an Important Impor-tant part of tho company's undertaking Is to get them to tho railroad, to bo shipped to tho smelter. Freighting with wagons was the old-tlmo way of doing this, and in ores that were not high-grade high-grade It formed an important item of cost. Horse tramways havo nlso been much used at Bingham, but during the past threo years these havo been replaced by steam roads or aerial tramways Tho Highland Boy tramway was tho first to be built, and it has proved very successful. success-ful. The United States company also has adopted this method of ore-haullng. The line built by It la heavier and of greater capacity than any heretofore built ln tho world, and has many Interesting features. It Is ono of tho latest of the many wlro rope tramways that of late years havo become be-come fairly numerous." Telling of Bingham's evolution as a camp of copper, the writer says- "ln the early days the mining was confined con-fined to the carbonato ores found at or near the surface, overlying tho sulphides. Not much work was done below fifty feet below tho surface; in fact, very much of tho oro was shoveled from open cuts and pits directly onto wagons without the necessity of even tram cars. During later years, as increased depth has been attained, at-tained, tho geological formation and tho occurrence of ores havo been better understood, un-derstood, Tho sulphides formerly were not desirable, on account of tho high prlco of smelting them, but improved processes pro-cesses have overcome this. Most Important Impor-tant of all has been the discovery that lmmenso bodies of copper oro He undor the other ore bodies. Tho copper Is Indeed In-deed found at tho surface, but It becomes more conspicuous as depth is attained, until finally It Is the most Important metal. The Improved piocesses of smelting smelt-ing tho copper ores found huro, together with the greatly increased demand for tho metal of lato years that has arlson from Its extcnslvo uso ln electrical appliances and long-dlstanco transmission lines, havo lately made It about tho most important product of tho camp." |