Nevada Nugget Hunters

rehab · Joined: 15 Aug 2006 Posts: 939 Location: NEVADA

THE MINING JOURNAL

Tin Deposit of Lander County, Nevada
By MARSHALL HANEY, Consulting Mining Engineer, Greer, Virginia.

A description of a little-known deposit in central Nevada.

Some years ago, tin ore was found in an unnamed range of hills in Lander County, Nevada, about 20 miles north of Battle Mountain, a town on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The region is mostly accessible by wagon roads.

Geology
A series of rhyolite lava flows is the main rock of the tin bearing area. Basalt is found in small quantities at the west end of the belt, and increases in prominence farther west. Alluvial washes are found along the base of the range. These rhyolites are the oldest Tertiary lavas in this part of Nevada, and their eruption evidently began early in Miocene time. As a general rule, the rhyolites are massive, and crowded with phenocrysts of quartz, and of glossy feldspar. The phenocrysts make up one-half of the bulk of the rock.

Occurrence and Character of the Tin
The known bearing veins veins are at an elevation, between 5,500 and 5,700 feet, and in a belt 10,000 feet long, and 2,000 feet wide. These veins are enclosed in rhyolite, and are narrow, ranging in width from 1 to 18 inches. They occur as stringers an inch or so wide, carrying wood tin, and specular hematite, in a gangue of chalcedony. In places, enough of the veinlets are found, to make up stringer lodes eight feet thick. Generally the stringers are widely spaced in these lodes, and the barren rock between the stringers materially reduces the tin content of such ore bodies.

Very little is known concerning the linear extent and persistence of the lodes and this point largely determines the possibilities of this deposit. The limestone development work shows the ore in many places ranging from a few inches to eight feet, and a tin content of over one percent. On the whole, the result of the limited development work is encouraging.

Origin of the Veins
The fissures in which the wood tin occurs, were opened by stresses that were accompanied by enough movement to brecciate the adjoining rhyolite, and a close examination proves that the veins occupying such fissures, are not merely filling of joints, or shrinkage cracks, and the veins were evidently formed by ascending hot water, soon after the eruption of the rhyolites.

It is reasonable to presume, and to expect, that along the more strongly fissured zones, the ore will persist with depth. Similar deposits occur in Mexico, and they have been worked to a depth of over 200 feet.

Suggestions
It is necessary to concentrate the development work at a few of the most promising outcrops. The present prospecting proves that the tin occurs in many places, but does not prove the depth or extent of the deposit.

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STUDY, And be FREE from the BONDS of IGNORANCE!

rehab · Joined: 15 Aug 2006 Posts: 939 Location: NEVADA

THE MINING JOURNAL for JANUARY 30, 1931

Drifts and Crosscuts

Some people believe that the theory of taxation is the art of getting the most feathers from the goose with the least squawking.”

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Raises and Winzes
(A Letter To The Editor)

In Regard to Russia:
The world is just beginning to realize the menace of the Five-Year Economic Plan, of the Soviet regime, of Russia. Confiscated mines, factories, and land, combined with forced labor, working at a mere pittance of what is paid workmen in this country, enable the Stalin government to produce from mine, factory, and farm, at a cost which destroys all possibility of effective competition abroad.

Due to the cancellation of all foreign obligations by the Bolsheviki, the Russian government has no credit standing in the world at large. It has, therefore, become necessary for the Soviets to establish gold credits abroad, in order to provide itself with the necessary machinery and equipment for its five-year socialistic production program. This can only be accomplished by selling its products and goods in the competitive markets of other countries. So urgent is the necessity for foreign credits that the Soviets do not hesitate to resort to dumping, at any price they can get.

As a result various countries have already taken drastic steps to protect their own people against the threatened demoralization of their own industries. Among these may be mentioned England, France, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, and Rumania.

It has become apparent that the 1930 tariff rates are not sufficiently high on a number of products, to protect our people against ruinous competition from a country where the working man and farmer has ceased to have any voice in the price of his labor, and where he has been reduced to a chattel, to be driven to work at a wage which barely suffices to keep body and soul together.

American machinery and American engineering brains employed by the Soviets, I am sorry to say, are aiding in creating a first class menace to every civilized country on the globe—and not the least among these is the United States, and its possessions.

Wheat can be produced in Russia at a figure so low that it can be landed in New York Harbor at from 25 to 30 cents a bushel. What sort of chance has an American farmer to compete with that kind of production, and what good is our tariff of 42 cents a bushel, at that kind of price? Just the other day the press reported the landing of several shiploads of Russian wheat in Italian ports, which went upon the Italian market at 55 cents a bushel. No wonder there is no foreign demand for wheat!

During the war, we made a desperate effort to produce our own manganese, which is as essential to a successful war, as explosives. Up until that time, 95 percent of all manganese used in this country was imported. Our annual consumption is about 800,000 tons. By the time the Armistice was signed, we were producing 300,000 tons and rapidly expanding production. Due to inadequate tariff protection, however, importers soon strangled the industry. After a hard fight by those of us interested, we succeeded in securing one cent a pound protection in 1930 tariff act, which applies to all ore assaying 10 percent or more, metallic manganese.

For a time the industry looked up, but, to the astonishment of everybody, the Soviet regime was soon dumping Russian ore from confiscated mines, on the Atlantic seaboard at 25 cents per unit. This would make the price, tariff paid, f.o.b. at Pittsburgh, 50 cents per unit, as compared with an average price of 68 cents per unit, over the five-year period prior to such dumping.

At 50 cents a unit, the American manganese industry cannot survive. In fact, the mining, and beneficiating of manganese ore, are already dead. Going concerns everywhere have been compelled to shut down.

South Dakota has vast manganese deposits. So have Minnesota and Montana. The only hope of saving the industry in Montana, and of developing it in Minnesota, and South Dakota, lies in enforcing an embargo. Unless an embargo can be established at an early date, the manganese industry is doomed. As the Russian five-year plan gets under way, it will become an increasing menace to the other products mentioned in my bill. The farmer and the miner have a right to insist that an embargo be established.

WILLIAM WILLIAMSON,
Representative in Congress, Rapid City, South Dakota.
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STUDY, And be FREE from the BONDS of IGNORANCE!