110 Copper MiniiHi in Mitnifsofa — JlalL 



Up fche Knife river a uiile or two from the lake, this same Mi-. 

 Saxon (lid some exploring work at the same time he was working 

 the French river mine, i. e. in 1805-60; the excavation reached only 

 a few feet in depth. While the rock was almost identicul with that 

 at French river, only two or three miles away, and scarcely a block 

 could be removed without disclosing native copper, the amount 

 was too small to make the work profitable. At both places. 

 French river and Knife river, the early reports were most flatter- 

 ing and the owners always felt assured that the work was givijig 

 indications of valuable results.r 



At Mr. Wakelin"s, farm 10-| miles below Duluth, copper is also^ 

 found. Here the rock is partly amygdaloid (commonly called asli 

 bed amygdaloid) and partly conglomerate. The copper in small 

 quantities is found everywhere, sometimes disseminated through 

 the rock in fine threads and minute irregular masses, sometimes 

 in leaves and bands and again in nodules and loose fragments. No- 

 veins have here been found ; native copper can often be seen on 

 the rock surfaces beneath the shallow water off the lake shore. 



in Town 00, range 2 west, Mr. Henry May hew of Grand 

 Marais did considerable work at mining for copper ore in J808-T)9- 



This location is on a vein of bornite which Mr. Mayhew 

 found at the edge of the water on the lake shore, three or four 

 years l>efore. The vein is four feet wide; it dips slightly to the 

 north and it carries the sulphide in seams or bands one-eighth 

 inch and upwards in tliickness. From where several veinlets 

 unite quite a large piece of clear ore was taken out and shipped to 

 the Vienna Exposition. The vein was followed but a short dis- 

 tance before it divided and work then stopped and has never been 

 renewed. Probably 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of ore were shipped 

 from this mine. 



In Town 61, range I west, section 24, native copper has been 

 found. This location is in the bed of the Rosebud river, one and 

 one-half miles from the lake shore and three miles west from 

 Grand Marais. In the year 1876 two men named Johnson and 

 Maguire worked here and secured some hundreds of pounds of 

 copper. The rock is a coarse grained, dark green gabbro or gab- 

 broid. Since there is felsite or felsite porphyry both above and 



tFor details of these two early enterprises at Frencli and Knife rivers, 

 consult a paper by Hon. H. M. Rice of St. Paul, in the Minnesota Historical 

 Collections, vol. ir, pp. 11 and 12. 



