OCR Text |
Show IIOISTIi SECTIONS OF BIG COPPER ffi What 1e believed to be the largest mass of copper ever discovered is now being uncovered and hoisted in sections from the Trl mountain mine of the Copper Range Consolidated Mining company at Painesdale, Mich. The mass was discovered dis-covered just a year a so and continuous mining operations since that time have failed to defino Ub limits. Tids tremendous mass of copper was located at a pohit about fifty feet above the twenty-firth level of No. 2 shaft and continuous uncovering operations for a year have brought the work down to the twenty-seventh leel witnout the end of the mass being anywhere in sisht. Thus far the mass, one con;inious strip .f solid copper, lias measured, roughly, iI-vQ feet in length or aepth. At times it has been forty-nine feet wide and eicht Inches thick, though It narrows down and thins out at points, but a break in it has never been discovered. As eoon as It was demonstrated to Superintendent Richard Bowden of the Trimoumain that the mass is apparent- , ly interminable he detailed two men to work at it during each shift. A special tool, at least for a mining operation, was devised for it, consisting of a coal chisel attached to an air riveter, and with this tool t l;e men assigned to the work chip away at the mass tili they cut across in the direction of the level. The worK of cutting off chunks from the mass pays for Itself. It manifestly 1 would be Impossible to hoist the whole mass and if it were not cut up it would be useless, so the chips made by the i cutters are saved and they represent a 1 alue just about equal to the wages paid : the men for tne operation. ! There are now lying on the mass dump ! at No. 2 shafthouse, where the sections i of this mass are hoisted, two pieces about six feet Ions, four feet wide and varying in thickness from eight inches ! to less than an inch. , In the mine the cutters have awut 1 completed cutting four pieces, each ; larger than those described, the latter weighing about a ton each and those still underground more than a ton and a half ! each. These masses run better than f 5 per cent pure copper. |