MINING, MILLING, AND METALLURGICAL TREATMENT OF SLLITIUEET ORES AT CHARACTERISTIC MINES.
THE REIMER MINE, ROWAN COUNTY, N. C.
This mine is situated about 6 miles southeast of Salisbury on the waters of the Yadkin river. Geologically it is in the Carolina belt. It represents a highly sulphuretted quartz-vein of marked persistency, with smooth walls and a clay gouge, the ore from which is worked by stamp-mill amalgamation, concentration of the sulphurets, and cliloriuation by the Thies process.
The vein is said to average li-J- feet in thickness,* varying from 1-J- to as high as 9 feet. The strike of the outcrop, which has been traced for 2 miles, is in an east and west direction. The dip is practically vertical. The sulphurets, mostly pyrite with a little chalcopyrite, occur in bunches, averaging about 10 per cent, of the ore. The quartz is compact, white and glassy. The wall-rock is a coarse crystalline eruptive, probably a quartz-diorite, and a fine-grained phase of the same.
Until 1884, when it was destroyed by lire, a concentration plant was in operation here. The concentrates which were obtained without previous amalgamation, were treated at the Yadkin Chlorination works near Salisbury. Work was not taken up again until 1894 and lasted until the fall of 1895. Fig. 18 gives a vertical section of the mine along the strike of the vein. The last work was concentrated at the bottom of No. 1 shaft (1), at a depth of 190 feet. The shaft is poorly constructed and very wet. A Cornish pump, driven by a belt from the crank of a small friction-clutch hoisting engine, raised the water from the bottom into a crude ring at the 150-foot level, from where a No. 9 Cameron sinking pump raised it to the surface. No development work was carried ahead, the ore being taken out by overhead stoping as soon as found. It was stated by the management that the poor condition of the mine and the crude method pursued was due to the more or less experimental nature of the late underground developments. The size and substantial construction of the mill and chlorination plant seem, however, to have gone beyond this stage. On account of the limited development the mine was worked in three shifts of eight hours each, with two miners and helpers on each shift, paid respectively $1.50 and
