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Show try and small towns, who drive to work in the family "jallopy." At the booming new "Bonanza" mercury mine near Roseburg, Ore., a survey shows that the men drive from 10 to 70 miles a day to their jobs. At several big plants in California Cali-fornia and Nevada there isn't even a store or a bunk house. The Bonanza mine now ranks with the New Idria and the New Almaden mines of central California as the three largest mercury mines in America. Production of the fluid quicksilver has doubled here in the past two years. West coast mines now yield 3,000 flasks a month. Incidentally the price has Jumped from $75 a flask in 1938 to $192 a flask today, department records show. Source of Metals. Manganese chromite and antimony anti-mony in North America, are found almost exclusively in the coast and Sierra Nevada foothills of the western west-ern slope. Increased production of these metals has been stimulated recently, recent-ly, Merrill pointed out, by construction construc-tion of two large smelters in Ta-coma, Ta-coma, Wash., and Portland, Ore., to reduce the ore to ferro-alloys. Due to the, high shipping cost of the raw ore to eastern steel mills and importation of cheap Oriental minerals, the western source of supply sup-ply has remained practically untapped, until the present emergency. emer-gency. Operation of the new furnaces make reduction of the bulky ore to concentrates possible with corresponding corre-sponding economy of shipment to the East coast. Government reports show a 50 per cent boost in production produc-tion here already with Merrill predicting pre-dicting even greater expansion during dur-ing 1942. Defense Drive Boosts Mining Output of JVlercury, Chrome, Manganese and Tungsten Doubles in Two Years. SAN FRANCISCO. A new mining boom is on in the West. But the old boom camps of the roaring forties have vanished into the shadowy shad-owy past along with the bearded prospector and his burro. Stimulated by the defense program, pro-gram, the mines of California and Oregon are producing as never before be-fore even in the halcyon goldrush days. But their operation has fallen into a streamlined, modern design. Demand for metals needed in the manufacture of guns and armaments, arma-ments, shells and explosives has more than doubled production of manganese, mercury, tungsten, chromite and antimony during the past two years, Charles White Merrill, Mer-rill, chief engineer of the United States bureau of mines in San Francisco Fran-cisco revealed. Contrast With Past. But in place of the wide open camps of the famous forties which grew up around the mines here 60 ; years ago, the plants are now I manned by sober farm boys, clerks i and mechanics from nearby coun-' |
