The Harvester World: Volume 2, number 13, October 1911

              The Harvester World

21

good system of electric lights. There is a large and well-stocked commissary, and a meat market with a fine cooling room. These two stores, under the man¬ agement of our genial B. A. Telle, feed the people, clothe them, furnish their homes, and supply the various camps up and down the line of our operations.
The second floor of the commissary is a large hall (the largest in this county), where the Sunday-school and church services, and all public meetings are held, and occasionally the young folks meet here to dance. The boys clubbed together and bought a fine piano. We completed a fine hall last spring, which contains an ice cream parlor, nicely furnished with a modern soda fountain, tables, chairs, etc. Back of the soda fountain is a double bowling alley, three pool tables, a pressing club, and good barber shop. In addition to the store, amusement parlors, and meat market, the town has fifty-seven houses for white people, and thirty-five houses, for the colored people. Of the above, thirty-one are comparatively new.
There is being built, at the present time, a warehouse, 231 feet long by 30 feet wide and, we are practically assured of an artesian well and S3'stem of water works.
In addition to the lumber mill, we have three dimen¬ sion mills, cutting ash dimension lumber for the Har¬ vester works. We are building and improving all of the time, and Deering, surrounded as it is by some of the most fertile land in the world, is bound to be permanent, and to become a town worthy of the name.
'Tis true that we have plenty of malaria here, but beyond that, there is no great amount of sickness, and we must say for the Chicago officers of this company that they stand behind the local administration in everything which stands for the good of our business and our people, and staunchly support every effort for the upbuilding of health, morals, and the general prosperity of our little community.
M. TrewheUa
A Battery of 120 Coke Ovens in Process of Construction
THE AGNEW MINE AND  ITS DEVELOPMENT By M. Trewhella, Superintendent
In the year 1902, the Agnew mine was opened as an
underground mine, using the caving and slicing system.
In this system the first work is to sink shafts in the
ore, or close to the wall rock, and in some cases in the
wall rock, well to the bot¬ tom of the deposit of ore. In places the shaft is not sunk to the bottom because of the irregularities likely to be encountered. Drifts or cross cuts are then run out from the shaft either diagonally or in rectangu¬ lar positions, and raises are sent up from the drifts, which are cross-cuts to the top of the ore deposits. The ore is then drawn in from the top by drift slic¬ ing. When all the ore is taken from the drift, the bottom is planked and the top is allowed to fall or is blasted down, faUing on the planking, which forms a roof for the next drift. The next drift is started just below, and the same method is used as described above, and so on, always working down. Tramming, or the hauling of the ore to the shaft, is mainly done by hand or mules, although of late, electricity has been introduced.
In the year 1903, a question arose with the company as to the cheapest method of mining the Agnew ore; namely, underground or open pit, and it was decided to adopt the open pit method, which is the removing of the overburden or dirt, and digging the ore with steam shovels instead of by hand, and hauling it with loco¬ motives.   General open pit mining is far the cheapest.
The reason why open pit shovel mining is cheaper than the underground method is because of the larger production possible, and because timbering is not necessary, fewer men are required, the ore can be better sorted, tramming cost is saved—as the ore has to be handled but once—and the hoisting is by locomotives on grades rather than through a shaft. Many other expenses are less, and practically all the ore can be taken out, whereas in underground mining about ten per cent of the ore is lost.
In order that an ore deposit may be worked satisfac¬ torily by the open pit method, it must have considerable horizontal extent as compared with its length, in order to afford proper grade to the tracks. The deposit of ore must be in a position to allow for an easy grade to the approach, or to the tracks over which the ore is hauled out of the pit. The thickness of the overburden or dirt must not be too great, or the cost of stripping, or removing overburden, will run up the total cost of mining. There also must be available ground on which to deposit the dirt stripped from the ore body.
Without a large annual production, the interest on the preliminary investment for open pit mining, such as rolling stock, etc., necessary before a pound of ore can be moved, runs the cost of ore per ton up to a high figure. This preliminary investment is in most cases large, still the recent tendency has been greatly to- increase the use of open pit mining.