Tbe Crofton Gazette and COWICHAN NEWS Devoted to the Mining and Agricultural Interests of Vancouver Island, Texada Island, and Coast Mainland Districts
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tbe Crofton Gazette AND COWICHAN NEWS Devoted to the Mining and Agricultural Interests of Vancouver Island, Texada Island, and Coast Mainland Districts. VOL. 1. CROFTON, B. C, THURSDAY, MAY 8, 1902. NO. 11 PROGRESS HAS BEGUN. destined place as a metallurgical centre have been changed. (An editorial in the Victoria "Daily Colonist," April 27,1902.) The United States is choked with metal, and is spending more anxiety at present in reducing the output at home than in T has long been understood and appreciated tbat Vancouver increasing it abroad. Alaska and the Northwest and Northern Island is, so far as the metallurgical industry is concerned, British Columbia are giving indications of a large available I the pivotal point on the Pacific Coast of North America. supply of metalliferous ore. Most important of all, a local There is not a metallurgist of any eminence on the continent supply of ore to serve as a base to the industry has been who has ever given his attention to the question of smelting developed. There are some people who say that we will have on the Pacific Coast but has recognized the paramount a furnace capacity of 500 tons daily in operation at Crofton superiority of Vancouver Island as a smelting centre. The and Ladysmith by next fall, and that the Mount Sicker mines reason is so apparent that he who runs may read. Vancouver are incapahle of a steady production of 500 tons a day. They Mand has the fuel and the fluxes, has deep sea transportation argue in this way simply because they understand the question to and from all points, and any number of land-locked har neither as it affects the country nor, we are sorry to say, as bors. There have been certain causes which have militated it affects themselves. Our coal and lumber ships come to against the establishment of this industry on Vancouver British Columbia in ballast. There are thousands of tons of To CARRY ORE TO THE CROFTON SMELTER—TRAIN ON THE MT. SICKER RAILWAY, Island. One of these was that metal producers in the pro good South American and Alaskan pebbles lying at the bottom tected market of the United States were under no Inducement of our harbours. It will not be difficult to substitute ore for to ship ore out of the United States for treatment; while, that ballast, and that ore will give exactly what is necessary possessing a mononpoly of the United States ore, the smelting for satisfactory commerce —a bulky freight coming in to companies there were able to attract scattered lots from balance a bulky freight going out. It is an absolutely sober British Columbia, Old Mexico and iSouth America, on terms statement of fact that within a few years the mineral re with wrhich British Columbia could not compete. Another sources not merely of the coast of British 'Columbia, but of reason was that while Vancouver Island was geographically Mexico and South America will he made tributary to the central, the northern portion of the seaboard had given no industry of Vancouver Island. The process by which this is indications of being an ore-producing country. A third reason to be done is already in operation; its outcome is logical and was that while fuel and fluxes existed on Vancouver Island in inevitable. This will have a reciprocally stimulative effect abundance, there was no local supply of ore to form a smelt upon the development of our own mineral resources. It will ing base. We have been talking about superb prospects and cause a large investment of capital and the growth of a popu magnificent mineral resources for a long time past —some lation interested in and dependent on mining and metallurgy. years, in fact. But superb prospects and magnificent re A very similar problem, with an ultimately similar solution, sources will not feed a furnace which eats up several hundred confronts us in relation to the smelting of iron ore nnd the tons of rock every day. Within the last year and a half these manufacture of pig iron and steel. There is, however, a conditions which prevented Vancouver Island from taking its difference. We can enter every market in the world, excep't THE CROFTON GAZETTE AND COWICHAN NEWS. that of the United States, with our copper, silver lead and MOUNT SICKER AND DISTRICT NOTES. their various products; while with pig iron and steel we have only the Pacific Ocean market. But that is ours beyond the Messrs. J. H. and F. M. Little are paying a short visit to shadow of a doubt, provided we do not permit it to slip their homes at Port Townsend They are doing a good deal through our hands. Hero, then, we have one process of Indus- of work on their Mount Sicker claims. trial development actually begun and visible before our eyes, The Messrs. A. & M. Howe, of Chemaiuus, who have while another is capable of initiatory development within a been working some claims on the north side of Mount Sicker, comparatively short time. • What it all means to the people have struck some good pay ore. living on Vancouver Island at the present time is this, that Development work on Mr. Creeden's claims on Mount we had best either quit talking about our resources altogether, Brenton is proceeding very satisfactorily. or welcome and encourage specific instances of their develop Mr. Lewis, secretary to the Yreka Copper Company at ment, The resources must belong in the long run to those Tacoma, has been visiting the Yreka mine on Mount Richards, who have the energy, courage and faith necessary to develop and is very enthusiastic about the development work his com them. pany has taken in hand there. The usual (Sunday excursion from Victoria to Crofton and MINING NEWS. back by the Victoria Terminal & Sidney Railway and the steamer Iroquois is announced for Sunday next. Fare for MOUNT SICKER & BRENTON MINES, LIMITED. the round trip, $1,50. No more charming excursion than this can be made. This company owns some nine claims on Mount Sicker and Mount Brenton. The Copper Canyon is perhaps the best known of these properties. Here a tunnel has been driven AMERICAN CAPITAL FOR VANCOUVER ISLAND. for 150 feet. This, running east and west, follows one of the Mr, J. F. Bledsoe, the eminent mining engineer, is en route ore bodies. North of it is another ledge, 4% feet wide; north to Alberni iHe reports from the outside a growing interest again another, 5% feet wide; and yet a fourth, 12 to 14 feet in Vancouver Island affairs, and states that several American wide. One hundred and twenty feet from the mouth of the capitalists are discussing the advantages that may be reaped tunnel a crosscut has been made for a distance of G5 feet, by the opening up of the interior of the Island by railway* and will be continued until the outer ledge is struck. On the Victoria claim some 300 feet of tunnelling has been made. The ore is a chalcopyrite, carrying gold, silver and copper values Transportation from these mines to the Crofton THE LONDON "MINING JOURNAL" ON THE STATE smelter will be effected by the spur line which Mr. Croft is OF THE COPPER MARKET. laying from the Mount iSicker Railway. This will be about (Condensed.) a mile in length. Mr. W. A. Dier, the managing director of these mines, has been up ehe mountain organizing further de O the mere " man in the street" it must be a matter velopments. Mr. W. Lewis, who has had much experience in of no little difficulty to reconcile the reported increased charge of Kootenay mines, is the local superintendent for the T consumption and decreased production with the price Mount Sicker & Brenton Company, and he states that he has of copper at present ruling. Every symptom of recovery has already uncovered sufficient ore to prove that the rich promise been so carefully stifled by the Amalgamated Company's repre of the surface indications is being more than fulfilled at depth. sentatives as to make it abundantly evident that the much Assays show that even at tho present artificially reduced price •desired entente amongst American producers is still a long ot copper, very considerable profits can yet be made by the way from realization. It is scarcely possible yet to accurately treatment of the ores from these properties at the local Crofton gauge the full effect on the market of the very large dales smelter. Two or three mining financiers of Tacoma are inter which brought about the heavy drop in copper. Had the whole est ing themselves in these mines, and nn extension of mining of the offerings been taken by actual consumers, such exten operations may be expected in the near future. sive absorption of the metal must already have found its reflection in higher prices. It is exceedingly probable, there fore, that the speculative element still hangs over the market, to a certain extent, as a dead weight; the Avhole of the MINING AT SIDNEY INLET, WEST COAST, V. I. copper sold may not be delivered, and should prices continue Dr. T. R. Marshall, the distinguished metallurgist, has to languish as at present, the position of the Amalgamated boon carrying on mining operations for a long time past on the Company may be relieved from time to time by realization of Prince group of claims, belonging to himself, at Sidney Inlet, tired " bulls." Existing conditions, however, cannot continue north of Clayoquot Sound. The ore there he describes as a indefinitely, as a prolongation of the fight must bring many copper and magnetite association.