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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (July 22, 1906)
THE OMAIIA SUNDAY BEEt JCLY 22. 190(3. 1 f m 4 Discoveries of Geological Survey Adds Aillions DR. DAVID CAT. (Copyrlfht. 190, bjr Frank O. Carpenter.) m ASHINOTON, D. C. July 19. (Spe- olal Corrwpondence of The Bee.) Within the last year experiment V r'2 "-', nkVe been made which will revo- lutlonlzo placer mlnlnc all over V the world and add million to the wealth of the United State. They may build up a manufacturing lnduatry on our Paclflo lope and populate region In the north west which, are now as wild a any part of the Kockle. Based upon them, syndi cate ar already forming and they will give small or large fortune to a great i , '(umber of people. I refer to the experi ment which, at the direction of congress, y the geological survey ha made and 1 Aiaaing aa iu in a mineral iouna in Diacil and. Every miner knows what black sand I. It Is the heavier particles which come from the wearing away of rocks containing cer. tain minerals. All sand comes from rock and the greater part of It from quarts. The quart sands are white or light brown in color. Tbey are found on our Atlantlo horea and are scattered here and there all over the country. There are many of them In the west, but there, mixed with them and often In great beds apart from them, are found deposit of black sand. There 1 so much of this black stuff along the Paclflo coast that the seashore Is dark and not white when viewed from the ocean. This Is the case from Cape Flattery on Fuget sound down to San Diego. Aa one comes closer shore he often sees great masses of black rocks and headlands, the latter made up of layers of black and white sand, one running through the other somewhat like marble cake. These head lands sometimes result 'rom the dropping of the shore, through an earthquake some what like that of Snn Francisco. This black send Is alio found along the big western rivers. The Columbia has many such deposits, and the "Snake river Is es pecially rich. Black sand Is to be found In every mineral region, and It Is more or less connected with every placer mine. When Director Walcott began to investi gate the subject, he sent out letters to eight thousand placer miners scattered all Over the (Unlted States, and asked each to end him .a little bag of this black sand with which he was working. More than a thousand of the miners responded and the ample came from thirty-five different State nd territories, Including the -palachlana and the Rockies and all pa.s of the Pacific coast even to Alaska. The samples were analysed and assayed for the gold and platinum they contained, and also for the numerous other minerals In the.-n which our sctentlMs thought might be of industrial value. As a result of the assays and the experiments made In the reduction of these sands, at the Portland exposition. It Is known that they can be made of enormous value to the country, and that they may bring In millions of dollars of a product every year. David Day and KUs Rani. "I am like Saul the son of Klsh. I started out to hunt my father's asses and lo! I found a kingdom." Dr. David T. ry. the chief of the mining and mineral resources division of our geo GENERAL GRJEELT AND 1 1 i ' : : A- logical survey, might well have made the above remark as to his work in the black sands, although he did not. I called upon him at the survey the other day and had a long chat with him about his experi ments. He has been chief Investigator of the black sand minerals and the principal discoveries are due to him. Dr. Day 1 one of our best known geolo gists. He has been connected with the survey for almost a quarter of a century, and has been In charge of the government mining exhibits at our national expositions from the world's fair at Chicago to Port land. It was at Portland last year that the most Important of the black sand ex periments were made. In my talk with Dr. Day I asked him how the Investigation originated. He told me It was through a search for platinum, a metal which I have referred to above a Saul' father' asses, and In the hunt for which he discovered vast quantities of mag netic iron, chrome Iron, slrcon and rare minerals valuable In the arts. Chroma Iron Is used In the manufacture of paints, chrome steel and bichromate of potash. Zircon is valuable In making Incandescent gas and electric lights, and monaslte and other metals for the same purpose. In ad dition to them Dr. Day found titanium and. other thing of which I write further on. Hast for Platinum. The beginning of the hunt was for plati num and It was the direct outcome of the Japanese-Russian war. The' chief plati num mines now known to the world Are In the Ural mountains, on the border of 'Si beria. It Is from there tha( the most of the world's supply comes, and the sup ply Is controlled by a trust which fur nishes our American markets with plati num at It own prices. When the war brok9 out our manufacturers were greatly alarmed, and they sent in petitions to congress to have the geological survey look up platinum in the United States. San Francisco's Business Men Defeat iin ittj a vrnpv 'n tttt.v arRn.int. SI correspondence of The Bee.) I Fourteen weeks have rjassnd since the great fire, and Ban Francisco Is being rehabilitated with a speed that is going to astound the world. The Board of Supervisor and the Board of Public Works have decided that sufficient time ha elapsed for the property owner to have the streets cleared of debris, and after giving ample notice have taken the matter into the city's hands and will clear the rubbish, making the cost a Hen on the property. The work Is now well advanced and several of the down town street have been put In passable condi tion' and the work of rebuilding greatlly facilitated. One of the most noticeable features of the reconstruction of San Francisco la the rapidity with which the great office and mercantile building of the city are being put In condition for occupanoy. It may be mentioned in this connection that nearly all of the das "A" building of II IS STAFF AT HEADQUARTERS IN BAN i i i . i i n j. ... i A if It was known that the metal existed in' mall quantities In many localities, and the object of the petitions Was to have America furnish Its own supply of this metal and thus beat the trust. The geo logical survey asked for an appropriation, and got It, but they worded their request so that the work covered all the metals In the black sand. Worth Mor Than Gold. The results of the Investigations have shown that we shall supply a large part of our own platinum and that our miner in ome localities will make a great deal from this metal In addition to the gold which Is almost always found in connec tion with It. Platinum Is a silvery whit metal, aa hard as Iron, and very malleable. It Is with one exception the heaviest metal in nature, and still It is so ductile and workable that wires have been made of It which are one-twelve-hundredths of an Inch in diameter. This metal Is of great value in the art. It will not amalgamate with quicksilver, and it la about the only metal which can be used In carrying the electric current through the glass of the incandescent lamp. Every electric globe or bulb ha two fine platinum wire running through the glass by which the electricity goes to the filament within. It Is used in all kinds of electrical machinery. It is also used in dentistry, and especially for the pin which attach a brand new porcelain tooth to an old snag of a root. Platinum Is used in laboratories for crucibles and other utensils, as it I not attacked by acids, and it 1 also alloyed with many other metal for vartou pur poses. It has at times been used In Rus sia for the coinage of high values of money, and, indeed. It Is almost always worth more than Its weight In gold. It Is now bringing upwards of 20 per ounce. Dr. Day tells me that there is a regular search going on along the coast of Oregon the city were left In condition hlch ad mit of easy repulr. Quite a number of these buildings were in course of erection when the Are came. Work is progressing on all these buildings now, and in several instances the unfinished structures are being pushed to completion so fast that they wjll be occupied about the time that has been specified before the Are. Among this number Is the big nine-story building on the corner of Stockton and Geary streets, opposite the California building, the new home of the California Promotion c.mmlttee. This great building will be ready for occupancy by October 1. The Monadnock building on Market street, the Chronicle building and the Call building, the Merchants' Exchange, the Kohl build ing and the Hobart building are already occupied with work going on over the heads of the tenants. Army of Men at Work. The 25,000 men now at work on recon struction will be Increased to twice that FRANCISCO MAT U. ISO. W '., , ,Wi .. .''..'. mu "i .-. . .. .. '.. hv -i. : .. J: ; " .r UNCLE SAM'S ELECTRIC FVRNACB SMELTINO BLACK for a hidden treasure of platinum, some what the same as the hunt for Captain Kldd's pirate board off the coast of the Atlantic. As the story goes, this treasure Is contained In six pop or ginger beer bot tles, which have been filled with platinum and tightly corked. They were burled In the sands, and there are various tradition aa to where they: are hidden. A bottle the slae of the ordinary cigar Ailed with plat inum is worth at least 100, and those six bottles contain about 110,000 worth of this most precious of the white metals. Just where they lie no one has yet been able to ascertain and the hunt goes on. The average placer miner of the west ha long known of the existence of plat inum In black sand, but he has never made much effort to save It. This ha been owing to the Ignorance regarding the metal and It vlue and also to some unsuc cessful attempts to dispose of it. Not long ago a miner from Oregon sent to the east three skins of the sea otter and twenty-five pounds of platinum. He got something like $1,000 a skin for the otter, but only realized $1 a pound for his plat inum. How he was defrauded I do not know, but at the present prices his platinum should have brought him about 16,000. Platinum ind Gold. By the use of the separating table em ployed by Dr. Day for getting the metal from the black sand, the grain of plat inum and gold are taken out at a cost of a few cent per ton. The platinum which ha formerly gone to waste can now be saved, and it will form an Important by-product of most placer mines. When found it re main In the . sluice with the gold and other heavy materials. In panning, It will even stay behind the gold In the pan. It Is known by Its great weight. Its white color and Its resistance to nitric acid. In general, platinum grain are smaller than gold grains and large nuggets are rare. The new experiments with the tables to number within sixty days, if the calcula tions of contractors are correct and then the process of rehabilitation will proceed with a rapidity that will be marvelous. Already the Examiner la preparing to work three shifts of men on Its building, which will be erected in record time, and then the three morning newspapers .will be back In their old homes on Newspaper Corners. The Bulletin, the evening paper, which was first to print In the city after the Are, has let contract for It new home on Market treet. Just above Newspaper Corners, and expects to have It finished by the beginning of the new year. These newspapers going back to their new homes so early Indicates conclusively that Mar ket street, that great thoroughfare which extends straight through the city from the Ferry station, Is to be as it has always been, the nuttn business artery of the city. One feature which Indicates the thorough ness of the reconstruction work Is the fact thst It Is not confined to any one part of the burned district, but is going on In all parts of the city. Not only is this true of the btiHlnt-s section, but In the residential portion as well. Cottages are springing up where once Ane houses stood, but these cottages are so placed as to permit the erection of large houses on the same lot, the people having a home while their more pretentious houses are being erected. The time for the erection of temporary structures without permit from the Board of Public Works has expired, and now all buildings erected In San Fran cisco will have to undergo examination In plan and specification before they can be put up. This means that from now on only the better class of buildings, and especially those that are permanent, will be allowed. A different atmosphere seems to have come with July, and while heretofore there has been an element of uncertainty, owing to delay on the part of Insurance com panies, now everyone appears to know Just what he la going to do and Is doing it as hard a he can without waiting for hi in surance. The result of this changed feel ing is that contracts are being let for good and substantial buildings on the old loca tions, and before the winter rains set In most of the business Arms will be housed and ready to do business as of yore. Handling; Relief Work. In the disbursement of publlo fund amounting to many millions of dollars, and especially where that fund has come from millions of people, and la to be used to re lieve the temporary distress of hundreds of thousands of people. It may be taken as a foregone conclusion that many a captious crltio will be dissatisfied and much misun derstanding engendered In the minds of those whose ready response brought prompt preventive to suffering after San Fran Cisco's great fire. The congress of the United States appro priated a large sum for Immediate relief and this was disbursed through the army Sfiiclal quickly and efficiently. Thousand X people were clothed and fed and hous4 s A .A- SAND. be used for saving the ore will result In an enormous increase of gold from certain of our placer mines. So far the most of the gold saved has been by means of mer cury In sluice boxes. The dirt containing the gold has been washed into these boxes and saved with quicksilver. A great deal of the gold, however, our geologists now find, ha never been touched by the quicksilver. It has been coated with copper or other metals which resist the action of mercury and has been thrown away as waste. Saved T.I Cental Lost VM. Dr. Day showed me a little bottle con taining what looked like grains and scraps of copper, which he told me were grains of almost pure gold. Said he: "The man who owned the mine from which this gold was taken was saving 73 cents for every ton of dirt washed, while he was throwing away $69 worth of gold as refuse copper. When specimens of the waste were sent to me I thought they were copper. I tested them with nitric acid with no result. I then treated them with hydro chloric acid, and they began to look a little more like gold, and when I showed them to my assistant he said at once, that they were gold and he took them and melted them down Into a gold button, which was worth $20 an ounce." "There is a great deal of gold in the black sand that has never been gotten out," continued Dr. Day, "and there I much black sand, containing quantities of gold, which has not been worked because the proportion of sand 'was so great that It was hard to handle and the miners pre ferred to go to other places where the sand was less In quantity, even though It contained less gold. By running the black sand over the Wllfloy Plnder and other tables we And that we can save from 95 to 98 per cent of the gold and platinum, and at the same time separate the other metals so that they can be reduced." "The gold and platinum are by no mean during the early days. But even this splen did work, hampered a It was by the hun dreds of unforeseen difficulties and delay owing to railway congestion, wa not with out Its adverse criticism. Major Devol, Major Krauthoff and Captain Ferguson worked through the Arst three days of re lief with no rest and without removing their clothes, night or day, until the sys tem was In perfect working order and the supplies were being distributed without a hitch. Two hundred thousand people, thrown suddenly from comfortable homes onto the charity of the nation, were cared for so well that not a man, woman or child went hungry or suffered for lack of cloth ing. Million front Donations. But there were other million of dollar and other trainload of supplies coming from U parts of the country, sent without stint through that one. touch which "makes all the world akin." The distribution of this vast fund of money and auppUea was a to National Wealth i'lill'I'Mii'1 i illilll'.'I'iliTii' - l!li:! mm 1. 1 . , I I 1 . ' it ii. .":! .v.i,! hi'i'.iiMi :.l :'l I !!'' ii!ll'l!!!lli : i ? i;i!;!:';i;-i!!li!!ip I.!!'. '.I Jm'M - ! '"t.i , : 1 1 ' HI ,i .'l . ..1 I Ii I ' I i! I ' M1; i i i! 'i! ,M! I III' I i 1 IPH1;! Iii iih' ! I i il l is !. li'U Ii II II 1 I I I I ii! 'I il I I i 'iil i i i i v r irmHT 1 P. ML INGOT CAST FBOM ULACTt SANTV-PT PTRANOW CHANCH IT ASSUMED THJB FORM OF THE CHINESE CHARACTER FOH OOOO LUCK. the only value In the black sand," con tinued Dr. Day. "There are also metal of Industrial worth containing enormou possibilities. A great part of the sand la made up of magnetlo Iron, which by a little electric furnace made last year we ara able to turn Into excellent steel. All along the Paclflo coast from Puget sound to the southern end of California this black sand exisU In great quantities. It lies In de posit back from the coast, on ledges and headlands, and Is washed up by the sea at every high tide, being rolled over and over and thrown out upon the beach. In that sand, If It were separated from the other minerals, there Is enough Iron to All Lake Superior and make it solid Iron ore. This Is on the estimate of working sands that contains only 10 per cent of magnetlo Iron and some contain far more. Suppose we had 500 furnaces situated along that coast, and that each should handle but 100 ton of ore a day. Altogether they would handle M.pyO ton per day, and at 300 day to the year have an annual output of 15,000,000 ton, or about one-third a much a the Iron product of the whole United State. That would make the Pacfllo lope one of the greatest Industrial center of our coun try, and also the workshop for China, Japan and the remainder of the orient. Indeed, the steel track's for China' new railroad may yet come from the black sands of the Pacific." Smelting by Electricity. Dr. Day tells me that these Iron sand can be turned Into steel by means of elec tricity at a lower cost than ordinary Iron, can be smelted with coal. Only a very small amount of coke la needed and the electrlcty does the work at 50 cent lesa per ton. This Is very Important to the PaclAo coast, as it la new producing some of the cheapest electricity known to the world. It furnishes It In many places at lower rates than at Niagara, and at as low as $7 or $8 per horsepower per year. This Disaster task so stupendous a to seem appalling, and naturally the mayor of the city wa expected to see to it that the distribution be accomplished In such manner that the best use would be made of the supplies so that the greatest good Could coma to the greatest number. In this crisis Mayor Schmlts called Into consultation Afty of the representative cit izens of San Francisco and appointed them as a relief committee to aid the administra tion in all matters pertaining to the wel fare of the municipality. The citizens' committee wa appointed at 8 o'clock on the afternoon of April 18 and held con tinued session, being compelled to move Ave times In twenty hours owing to the encroachment of Are. Being composed of men of national reputation in commercial and financial circles. It was a body emi nently Atted to supervise all relief meas ures, assuring by their high character the absolute certainty of a proper distribution (Continued on Paga Eight) CLASS A BUILDINGS W SAN FRANCISCO lilli!'"!" - "li i V f- !! i Ml' - ijBi-iilitiiilil i! ' iiK !ii Mi tltl f if : .! -u:ftn , r.!!i!i!!:iii!: m m """" -! Pi ' iii'li;.) M;'l .1 1. -V.'i:;. !Hi!i:iJ.;i!ii:ii;lji !!l:u ilr !i i l r ,! !! !!!!! !i h ; V i! I' i' ii i ! i 1 mean that th PaclAo slope, with tha manj streams running down Its mountain side, 1 Just a well off a though It had vast deposit of smelting coal, and that elec tricity I to make th iron used by, tha west in the future. , ... Vaelo Sam' Fnrnnco Portland. ' During the Portland exposition Unci Pam, at the Instance of Dr. Day, put up a little furnace there to experiment on these sands. Tha Canadian government had sent a commission to Europe to report on what I going on there in the reduction of Iron by electricity, and It wa on tha basis of that report that the furnace wa made. Th man who did the work wa an expert named Wilson of the Wilson Alumi num company, which ha taken out patent for certain electrlo furnace. Mr. Wilson arrived In Portland last October, and at the end of on week be had made a fur race and wa producing steel from thesa sand. His furnace turned out good steel In Afty-pound lot th day It began to work, and It had a capacity of a half toa of steel a day. It was, of course, small and experimental, but It worked right along without a hitch. It wa run for month for $1,000, and this Included the original cost of construction and all labor and cost of operation during that time. To show how quickly Jt could be worked, Dr.. Day and a party started at 1:80 on afternoon, with everything cold, and within lea than three bourse they bad made a quarter of a ton of steel. The sand used for making that steel wa from bag brought from Monterey bay. Just below San Francisco. The and wa taken from the bag, run over tha con centrating table to get out the gold and other minerals, then dried and tha magnetlo iron In It taken out and run Into steel. At the same time the gold In the sand wa melted Into a button, and all wa don before t p. m. If electrical furnace wera established on Monterey bay they might now be furnishing the steel for the re building of San Francisco. Dr. Day tells me that Uncle Sam's little furnace could be run at a profit for smelt ing certain kind of steel, and that for $500,000 two furnnce could be put up, on) for smelting and the other for refining, which would make money right along, day, In and day out. Opportunities for Farmer and Minor) These new discoveries aa to th separa tion and aavlng of the metal In the black aand will result In the building up of a part of Oregon which Is now so wild that elk roam the woods and that on can buy a bearskin there for 50 cents or a dollar. This is what Dr. Day tell me he paid for kin In those region. Much of the land I good for farming, but now inaccessible by railroad. Some of It lies along tha beach and some on the rivers where there Is black and. In th future the farmers may own their own concentration tables, which they can use for the separation of the metal. They can pile up their Iron ore. and In tlma It will be taken out by the railroad. For a thousand dollars a mining aapolllon of this kind can be established!, FRANK Q. CARPENTER. ' . . Ml. . :!)' ! 1 i (mi i. ;i M i i . . ' . ' Mill a ; lit j i . in . it t - i rt 1 1 1 i in i 1 1 1 1 1 1 e':- ''5J f ?- i I'M ,1) U i