wae NCE 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 19, 1894. 
BAUXITE MINING. 
BY HENRY M OALLEY._ 
Bavuxire mining in America is a new thing, only a few 
years old, and hence its methods, etc., are kndwn to but 
few. Four companies have been engaged in it, viz.: Re- 
public Mining and Manufacturing Company, formerly of 
Hermitage, Ga., now of Rock Run, Ala., the pioneers in 
the business; Southern Bauxite Mining and Manufactur- 
ing Company, Piedmout, Ala., Georgia Bauxite Company, 
Linwood, Ga., and the John D. Taylor Bauxite Company, 
Summerville, Ga. Only the first two of these companies, 
however, are now actively engaged in the work, the Geor- 
gia Bauxite Company having laid off a few months ago 
until the tariff question is settled, and the Taylor Baux- 
ite Company having never done anything more than to 
develop the quality and extent of its deposits. The two 
companies now actively engaged in the work have mines 
in both Georgia and Alabama, though they both, in 1892, 
concentrated all of their forces in Alabama, in the “‘ Dyke’ 
District,” Cherokee County, and so they are not now 
working their Georgia mines. They each have in the 
“Dyke District” two mines, though the Southern Bauxite 
Mining and Manufacturing Company are at present work- 
ing only one of theirs. These mines consist of nothing 
more than irregular holes, diggings in the ground, on 
the sides of hills, with deep, open drainage channels, or 
ditches, leading off from them and with graded ways lead- 
ing down into them. In other words, they are the coun- 
terparts of limonite and manganese diggings, with the ad- 
dition of the drainage channels, the ore occurring very 
much as do the limonites and manganese, in irregular or 
ill-defined beds or deposits in residual clays. It is, how- 
ever, more or less stratified, or, in other words, follows 
the strike and dip of certain strata. 
_ The mining of the ore is made easy by its comparative 
softness below the surface, being usually soft enough to 
be dug up with a pick. It is, however, expensive to mine, 
from the fact that it is so variable in quality that it has 
to be condensed and assorted. ‘The ore in the same mine 
often changes from one quality to another, sometimes 
suddenly and sometimes gradually. It is condensed and 
assorted by means of the screen and the hand. 
The mining implements are of the most simple kind, 
consisting of only the pick, shovel, churn-drill, wheel- 
barrow and tram-car. The ore has to be dried before it 
is shipped, as it has a very great affinity for hydroscopic 
water. This drying is done at present by simply spread- 
ing the ore out over the yard and under the shed; and 
leaving the rest to the sun and the winds. The prepara- 
tory work, therefore, in commencing to mine bauxite con- 
sists in leveling off a yard, building a shed, building of a 
road or track to the dump piles, and the securing of per- 
fect drainage for the mine. 
As now conducted, the drying process goes on only 
during favorable weather, and hence at the expense of 
much time and often of completeness. This will doubt- 
less be corrected as soon as the profits of the business 
will admit of the additional outlay of capital for the erec- 
tion of artificial driers. The present method of mining 
will, of course, have to be varied some, as the diggings 
get too deep to be drained by open ditches, and as bed- 
ded rocks are struck, provided the deposits still hold out. 
No bedded rocks as yet, other than the ore itself, have 
been struck in any of the mines. 
The Alabama ores have, up to this time, invariably im-_ 
proved with depth, though, in some of the Georgia mines, 
the ores have deterioriated, or have increased in iron and 
silica with depth. The best variety of ore now makes up 
most of the shipments, and so the inferior ores, though 
many of them of very good quality, are accumulating at 
the mines. This-is to be regretted very much, especially 
since nearly all of the present shipments are used for the 
manufacture of alum, and a much inferior ore, or one 
much higher in iron and silica, might just as well be used 
for this purpose. This shipment of only the best ore is, 
however, a necessity, from the fact that these new enter- 
prises have to meet in competition old and well estab- 
lished shippers of cheap foreign ores. They have been so 
successful in this competition that they have about killed 
the import trade. If the shipment of the best ore first 
was not a necessity it would be nothing more than what 
might be expected, as it would be simply repeating the 
history of all new mining enterprises at their very begin- 
ning. 
The three mines that are pow in active operation are 
known as the “ Washer or Taylor Bank,” “Dyke or Burst- 
Up Bank” and the “War-Whoop Bank.” The first two, 
on the property of the Bass Furnace Company, are leased 
and worked by the Republic Mining and Manufacturing 
Company. The last one is owned and worked by the 
Southern Bauxite Mining and Manufacturing Company. 
These mines are in a broken country, from three to four 
_ miles to the northeast of Rock Run furnace, to where the 
ore has to be hauled in wagons to be loaded on the cars. 
One of these companies employs from fifteen to twenty 
hands and the other from fifteen to forty, exclusive of the 
teamsters. This ore now costs, as stated by one of the 
companies, about $3.45 per long ton, loaded on the cars 
at Rock Run furnace. The exact cost, however, as stated 
by this company, is hard to get at, as, the mines being 
new, a great deal of expense for prospecting and dead 
work has properly to be taken into account to get the 
cost per ton. The cost per ton at the different mines 
would, therefore, probably vary materially from each 
other. 
The “ Washer or Taylor Bank or Mine” has now reached 
a depth at its back or deepest part, next to the hill or 
ridge, of some forty feet. It will hardly be dug any 
deeper until there is provided some other means of keep- 
ing it dry than the present open ditch. It is proposed to 
drain it to a still lower depth of some twenty feet by 
means of a tunnel or drift that will start in some distance 
away at the foot of the hill. The ore is continuous across 
the mine in the direction of the strike, a general north- 
east and southwest direction, though the strike is in 
waves. The dip, in a general way, is from 30° to 40° 
toward the northwest. The deposit, however, is irregu- 
