THE MINING AND QUARRY INDUSTRY I912 101 



that should pay for concentration. A mill was erected at the mines 

 early in the year and experimental runs were made which resulted 

 in a small output of concentrates. The milling process was based 

 on a combination of gravity and magnetic separation without pre- 

 liminary roasting, the design being to save the pyrite as well as the 

 blende. Though experimental runs seemed to indicate the feasibility 

 of the process, difficulty was found in carrying it out on a working 

 scale. The mill was intended to treat 50 tons of crude ore a day. 



Exploration of the ore bodies was confined mainly to the southern 

 end of the Edwards property, on the Brown farm, where a shaft 

 had been under way in the preceding year. This was sunk to a 

 depth of 350 feet measured on the dip which averages perhaps 35 °. 

 Though the band or vein of ore in which the shaft started was 

 found to pinch below, other bodies were encountered so as to afford 

 stoping ground for most of the distance to the depth mentioned. 

 There appeared to be little change in the character of the ore. At 

 the 100 foot level the ore band was explored by a drift to the 

 southwest, which, 100 feet from the shaft, came out into the sur- 

 face clays that fill the adjoining valley. An adit, extended to the 

 northwest from the drift, ran into a second band that was followed 

 for some distance. Exploration was conducted also at depths of 

 200, 300 and 350 feet along the vein, constituting a series of 

 levels from which ore will be mined when active operations are 

 begun. 



A little work was performed also a little farther north in a second 

 shaft situated across the ridge and about 600 feet distant from the 

 first. At this point the ore at the surface is not in a solid band of 

 sulphides, but occurs as a zone of crushed and brecciated material 

 in which the blende and pyrite form angular disjointed blocks with 

 limestone as the matrix or cementing substance. The width of the 

 zone is about 15 feet in maximum. It has been followed in the shaft 

 to a depth of a little over 100 feet. 



The work at Edwards has served naturally to stimulate interest 

 in the mining possibilities of the region. The belt of limestones 

 which contains the ore bodies extends southwest across the town of 

 Edwards to Sylvia lake in the town of Fowler, a distance of about 

 12 miles. Recent prospecting has resulted in the discovery of addi- 

 tional occurrences of zinc blende at different localities within the 

 belt. For information as to some of the occurrences not hitherto 

 mentioned, the writer is indebted to Mr Homer L. Drake, of 

 Gouverneur. 



