ODDS’N’SODS — Mining copper in the Carolinas, Part 1

It was December, 1952, when The Northern Miner announced the remarkable base metal discoveries made by Jim Boylen’s organization in New Brunswick. There ensued the usual claim-staking rush, followed by serious exploration and many more discoveries. Thayer Lindsley, president of Ventures Ltd., decided that, with the Brunswick deposits at the northern end and the Ducktown deposits at the southern end, 1,200 miles away, a review of the base metal potential of the entire Appalachian belt was called for. He engaged Bill Martin, a Haileybury consultant and one of the finest geologists to have walked along Bay Street, to undertake the studies and examinations that followed.

The project was financed by Nipissing Mines, perhaps the most successful of the original silver-producers in Cobalt, Ont. It had closed down with $2 million in its treasury after paying out some $25 million in dividends. The company had been headed by Hugh Park who had passed away by this time, with management being taken over by Ventures Ltd. Nipissing became an active exploration organization. Pat Quinn, Park’s secretary for decades, spoke to me once in a very agitated mood, complaining that “those Ventures people are robbers. They should be put in jail. They’re spending all Mr. Park’s money.” A result of Martin’s work was an option to buy the Ore Knob mine, in the northwest corner of North

Carolina, about 170 miles northeast

of Ducktown and in a similar geologic environment. The owner was R. Lassiter of Florida.

The Ore Knob mine exploited a steeply dipping vein of massive pyrrhotite-chalcopyrite and had been an active producer from 1873 to 1883, being opened to a depth of 400 ft. vertically.

The mine had been shut down when its enriched supergene ore was mined out and production from Michigan and Montana mines pushed the price of copper below a break-even level for Ore Knob. The mine had produced about 25 million lb. of copper. An 1882 report mentions that the average daily pay of 72 men working underground, including bosses, was 92 cents and that the company store sold beef at 4 cents per lb. and chickens “grown size” at 10 cents each. In 1942-3, the U.S. Bureau of Mines drilled 20 holes into the vein, testing its extensions northeast, southwest and below the old workings. Most of the intersections were far below ore grade; one showed 1.85% copper over 8.5 ft. The prospects for either depth or strike extension of the ore seemed unfavorable. The first seven holes, drilled to shallow depths on the southwest extension from the old workings,

cut the vein, but none of the intersections were of ore grade. At this point, Martin decided the intersections had been too shallow and that the longitudinal projection of the old mine workings and the one near-ore-grade intersection suggested that the ore shoot within the vein had a low-angle plunge to the southwest, below the drilling of the Bureau of Mines and, later, of Nipissing. He spotted Hole V-8, which cut 2.93% copper over 8.5 ft., and V-10, which cut 4.73% over 29 ft., and the project

was under way. By October, 1954, a total of 31 holes had been drilled, tracing the ore shoot down its southwesterly plunge to a distance of 2,600 ft. An ore reserve estimate of 1.2 million tons grading 2.7% copper resulted. Disappointingly, the two deepest intersections, Nos. 30 and 31, were not of ore grade.

A strong copper price in early 1955 influenced a decision to explore the drill-indicated ore underground and I was sent down from another Ventures operation to manage the job. A shaft was sunk to an ultimate depth of 1,286 ft. and a 45-ton-per-day mill designed by Wright Engineers of Vancouver entered production in March, 1957. It was later expanded to 900 tons per day. — This is the first of a 2-part article. Philip Eckman is a retired mining geologist in Scottsdale, Ariz.