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Show MICHIGAN IRON MINE ACTIVITY CURTAILED I Proving up of new ore bodies in the I Iron district of Michigan is impeded to a considerable extent by taxation methods, meth-ods, according to A. D. McPherson. Mr. McPherson, vho represents the McPherson McPher-son Exploration company of Iron River, Mich., is visiting the city in contemplation contempla-tion of opening up an office here. Michigan law provides that as soon as ore bodies are proved to exist on land, the land is assessed at a rate which is based upon the valuation of the deposits, whether or not development is possible or planned. This method of taxation has discouraged landowners from doing diamond dia-mond drilling, for if an ore body is proven upon land, the tax is so prohibitive prohib-itive that unless the owner has the capital capi-tal to develop and market his ore, the proof of existence of ore is a hindrance rather than a help. Considerable activity prevails- in- the iron region of Michigan, especially upon those properties which have ore bodies with a low phosphorous content. Since the production of articles made of iron wiLh a high phosphorous content has been curtailed to a considerable extent, properties with this character of ore are doing comparatively little, according to Mr. McPherson. The Cleveland Cliffs Iron company is ; doing considerable development work upon Its property In the way of sinking shafts and opening up pits. The Mesaba range district is fairly active. Diamond drilling activities, in which branch of mining- Mr. McPherson' s ex-i ex-i perience has been, have been considerably consider-ably curtailed during the past few months. At one time, in the Mesaba, : the Gogebic, the Menominee and the j Marquette districts, a total of 800 diamond dia-mond drills were operating. At present but twenty-five are active. Copper companies of Michigan are hampered by a scarcity of skilled mining labor. When the drop in the price of copper occurred, these companies, thinking think-ing that the demand for the red metal would be small for a long period of time, laid off a large number of men. Many of these men found employment in the automobile factories of Detroit at excellent excel-lent wages, says Mr. McPherson. When the copper companies of the peninsula district found it advisable to resume activity ac-tivity skilled miners were exceedlngiv scarce. As a result, those companies have been compelled to pay a scale of wages in excess of the war-time scale. |