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Show Claim Staked on Wooden Gold Mine in Iowa Town FORT MADISON, I. A Chicago metal-refining company hat itaked out a $20,000 claim on a "wooden gold mine" in the town ot Tort Madison. It offered that amount for the rifht to rip up some 10,000 square feet of old factory flooring at the Sheaffex pen company plant when the fold nibs department moves into in-to a new factory addition now under construction. "Tht prospectors" figure the old flooring will be worth that, and more, in 14-kaiat gold dust and chips that have been ground into the boards through more than 30 years of shaping gold pan points. Another reason they expect It to "pan out" is that the floor also should yield some osmium, a super-hard super-hard metal that Is used on the very tips ot better pens and actually is eight or nine times as expensive as gold. The pen company takes elaborate precautions to prevent day-by-day loss of gold. All aprons worn by workers in gold are laundered on the premises, the wash water settled out and the settlings smelted, along with floor sweepings and the dust from aU the gold grinding and polishing machines. All teld, Sheaf-fer Sheaf-fer figures these measures reclaim about $100,000 worth of gold each year that otherwise would vanish down the drain or into the dustbin. |
