76 JOURNAL OF THE 



adit, and found it equally good. Several other miues were 

 opened and worked, as the Deake and Flat Rock. As local ex- 

 perience was acquired (the sine qua non in mica mining as in 

 every other kind), they extended their operations, so that up to 

 1882 of the 400,000 pounds obtained Heap cv. Olapp must have 

 mined by far the greater part. The average spot value of cut 

 mica then was about $2 per pound, some, however, selling as 

 high as $11. Even at $2 the total value of the mica up to 1882 

 would be $800,000. As to the profits, no very definite informa- 

 tion can now be given. In 1880 the total real and personal 

 capital invested in the North Carolina mica mines was $6,900, 

 and the value of her product $61,675* — every dollar invested 

 returned $8.93 I cannot say of my own knowledge whether 

 these figures can be accepted or not. If true, if they can be 

 taken as fairly representing the capital and yield, they reveal a 

 most remarkable state of affairs. The waste in mica alone, as 

 we shall hereafter see, is from 85 per cent, to 95 percent, in mica 

 mining. That any mining operation utilizing at most only 15 

 per cent, of the stuff brought to bank should return $8.93 per 

 $1 invested is simply incredible. It is statedf that some of the 

 free milling gold ores of Dakota are worked at a profit on $2 a 

 ton, that some steam-tin works in Cornwall yield only two 

 pounds of black tin per ton,J and that the pay-dirt at the Eureka 

 claim, near San Juan, California, gave a profit on three cents per 

 ton.§ So far as the refuse matter is concerned these examples 

 show there are places where it far exceeds the North Carolina 

 mica mine waste. But it is not stated that there was anything 

 like such a profit as is reported from the mica mines. It is so 

 great as to be incredible. We shall hereafter see that the New 

 Hampshire mines in 1880 yielded twenty ceuts per $1 invested, 

 which figure, while iudeed somewhat low, is perhaps about right. 



♦Tenth U. S. Census, Vol. XV, p. 843. 



f Report of the Director of the Mint on Precious Metals, 1884, p. 251. 

 tj. A. Phillips, Mining and Metallurgy of Gold and Silver, p. 160. 

 ^Collins, Metal Mining, p. 56. 



