1 64 The American Geologist. March, 1894 
time they had considered the possibility of making a division 
between the magnesian and the non-magnesian white lime- 
stones. When, however, the attempt was made, the difficulties 
of the problem became so great that in the press of other 
work the subject was dropped. 
A BIT OF IRON RANGE HISTORY. 
By Horace V. Wixchell, P. G. S. A., Minneapolis, Minn. 
The average mining man has but little respect for the 
science of geology. He looks upon it as something purely 
theoretical, while the discovery, development and exploitation 
of mines he considers simply and purely practical. He re- 
gards with distrust the opinion of ever}* man who professes 
himself a geologist: but is ready to put a large share of his 
fortune into a venture of any one who claims to have been 
for years a "practical miner." 
The miner himself is no less prejudiced against the student 
of rocks. Many are the tales told in all mining camps of the 
ignorance and errors of the geologists who have visited the 
region. It has been the writer's fortune to hear several of 
these yarns — the cloth for which was woven on the spot out 
of a tissue of absurdities — told about himself. Because a 
geologist visits a certain mine but once or twice the miners at 
that place conclude that that is the extent of his acquaint- 
ance with mines; and ignorant of the weeks and months de- 
voted to field investigation by this same geologist, and the 
exact habits of observation acquired by careful training and 
his years of research into the literature of ore deposits, they 
set him down as a recluse with his mind full of "book-learn- 
ing" and ideas that do not in the slightest degree harmonize 
with the facts as the miner finds them. 
The cause of this prejudice is partly excusable ignorance, 
and partly wilful neglect of opportunities of becoming 
acquainted with the real intent and content of geological 
knowledge. Your average miner would scorn to read a geo 
logical treatise upon the very mine or district in which he is 
employed or has a proprietary interest. 
The result is twofold. The first, and by far the most im- 
