86 WALDON FAWCETT 



When it is explained that in some of the mines surround- 

 ing Lake Superior as much as four hundred gallons of water 

 must be disposed of every minute, the reader will appreciate 

 that it is inevitable that there should be considerable moisture 

 in the ore. Naturally this greatly increases its weight, and 

 one of the lines of investigation recently tak^n up by mine 

 operators has involved experiments in the drying of the ores 

 at the mines in order to effect a saving in freights. It has been 

 found that about ten per cent of water, or nearly all the 

 moisture in the ore, may thus be driven out, and inasmuch as 

 it is claimed that the ore, if once dried at the mines, does not 

 absorb moisture after it is placed in the stock pile, the saving 

 is continued through all the stages of the journey to the fur- 

 nace. 



What might be termed the financial side of the iron mining 

 industry easily constitutes one of its most interesting phases. 

 Here is a commodity which, in its raw state, adds nearly 

 twenty five million dollars to the wealth of the country every 

 year — an aggregate greater than that of the gold and silver 

 mines of the nation. There are mines in the territory border- 

 ing on the world's largest fresh water lake which have, in a 

 single year, recently netted their owners a profit of $1,500,000, 

 or half as much again as the authorized capital of the com- 

 pany controlling them, and it is nothing unusual to hear of 

 a mine which has paid for itself in a single season. 



