Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-11-25 | Page 16 | Expedite Prince Mine Operation

EXPEDITE PRINCE HE Nil Exploration of Fissures in Quartzite With Shaft Pushed to Utmost. New Beds of Ore Proved by Diamond Drilling Will Be Opened Up. The exploration ot tho fissures in the lower quartzite on the Prince property has attracted considerable attention among: miiilns men. As a result of the ue- cislon on the part of the company to do this work Immediately, the Prince Consolidated Con-solidated mine is the scene of considerable consider-able activity, says the Pioche Record. It Is the belief of the Pioche mining men that the new development work being undertaken un-dertaken will add a long life to this mine, and that the past substantial dividends of this company will be eclipsed by future disbursements. At the present time only-one only-one shift of six miners is employed in the sinking of the vertical shaft, which is carried on absolutely independent of the operation of the mine as it concerns the production of ore. The usual tonnage is being mined and hoisted through Ihe vertical shaft and dispatched to the smelters, smel-ters, the car shortage being the only factor fac-tor that holds down the production. This condition is, however, only temporary and is expected to be relieved shortly. New Hoist Operating. An auxiliary hoist operating .on the third level takes care of the waste broken !r. the shaft work, and this waste is hoisted and dumped into a capacious pocket provided at the third level, abso-lutelv abso-lutelv independent of the large ore pocket w'.iieh serves as storage for the shipping ore. thus causing the minimum amount of interference with the usual mine operation. opera-tion. ' At convenient times the waste pocket is drawn and the material hoisted to the surface. It Is the intention of the management to put on three shifts, a crew of fifteen msn, within the next tew days, and from then on progress will be rapid. The bottom of the old incline working Shaft, through which a wonderful tonnage Of ore has been handled in the past, is sti'.i a hundred feet of vertical depth below be-low the present working face of the new vertical shaft. Thus it will require 100 feet of sinking lo be completed before virgin territory is entered. Still another forty feet of ground will have to be pierced before the permanent water level will be reached and the sulphide zone encountered. Equipment Efficient. The new shaft will have two compartments, compart-ments, one being four feet six inches by five feet in the clear, and containing a self-dumping skip of two and one-half toi.s' capacity. The other compartment is five feet -by five and one-half feet in the clear, and is used for manway, air and water pipes. The first bedding of ore. which has been demonstrated by a series of drill holes, shows a thickness of ten feet. The work has shown a width of 300 feet, and if the Ledding conforms to that already developed devel-oped in the lime "beddings of the property, it is 1500 feet long. At a vertical depth of 300 feet below this bedding is the zinc ore body, which is eleven feet thick and aas probably the same lateral dimensions. The new equipment, which, consists of : i o 200 horsepower Sterling boilers and the necessary adjuncts to the same, has arrived on the ground and is being installed. in-stalled. It is anticipated by Superintendent Superin-tendent J. H. Hedges that all this equipment equip-ment will be read to run by the time the -mart reaches the permanent water level, a matter of probably five weeks, provided no unforeseen circumstances interfere with the well-planned program.