Tintic History, 1925
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Tintic History, 1925
From the Salt Lake Mining Review, February 28, 1925.
Mineral History and Growth of Tintic District From Its Earliest Days
By George H, Ryan.
(Mining Engineer, in Eureka Reporter of Feb. 13th.)
The Tintic mining district is located about 80 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah, and comprises part of the eastern end of Juab county and part of the southwestern lortion of Utah county. It is situated in a low range of hills covered with sage brush, juniper and pinion pine, typical of the semi-arid regions of the West. There are four towns in the district, Eureka, Mammoth and Silver City, all in Juab county, and Dividend, in Utah county. The Denver Rio Grande Western and Union Pacific railroads have branch lines running from Springville and Tintic Junction, respectively, and extensive trackage serves the mines and mills, while electric power is brought over several lines from the east and north.
Three Types of Mineral Deposition.
Mineral deposition in the district follows three disinct types; fissure veins cutting the monzonite in the southern part of the district and producing a heavy sulphide ore :arrying silver, lead, copper, gold and zinc; contact meta-norphic deposits along the contact between the monzonite ind the sedimentary rocks, which have produced large ton-lages of iron ore, used for fluxing in the Salt Lake valley melters, and replacement deposits in the dolomite limestone 'ormations, carrying values in silver, lead, copper and gold. Oxidization of the ores in the replacement deposits in the imestone has extended to great depth, about 1800 feet, vhile in the monzonite the primary sulphide zone is within JOO feet of the surface.
Four Periods in District’s History.
The history of the district segregates naturally into ’our major periods, the first starting with the discovery of he Sunbeam vein in December, 1869, and ending with the :ompletion of the Utah Southern railway to Ironton in 1978. Fhe second location was the Black Dragon in January, 1870, followed in February by the Mammoth and Eureka Hill nines.
During the succeeding eight years many other claims Were located, covering most of the prominent mineralized toppings, but development was necessarily confined to exploiting the high-grade ores which would stand the excessive -ost of transportation to the few smelters then in operation it San Francisco, Reno and Baltimore.
During this period twelve mines had reached the production stage, namely: the Sunbeam, Eureka Hill, Mammoth, Bullion Bowers, Morning Glory, Gold Hill, Showers, Martha Washington, Shoebridge, Swansea and Armstrong. The Eureka Hill, Mammoth and Bullion were in the limestone areas and the others in the porphyry.
The First Mills and Smelters.
In order to treat the ores which were too low grade to ship, the early operators soon turned their attention to local reduction works, the first of which was a combined mill and smelter at Homansville in 1871. Other furnaces were built at Diamond and Roseville in the south end of the district and at Goshen. Mills were built at Homansvilie in J872 and 1873 to treat the ores from the Eureka Hill and Wyoming mines, but owing to the poor recovery ma e on the complex ores, operations were not successful.
The works at Roseville eventually proved to be e most successful and about ten years later there were wen ty-two furnaces in operation at this plant, running- mos y i0* ore from the Grismon^Mammoth mine. According to
United States geological survey statistics, the total production up to 1878 amounted to $3,435,000.00. With the completion of the railroad to Ironton in 1878 the wagon haul was reduced to five miles, allowing the mines to ship a lower grade crude ore which greatly increased the produc-. tion of the district and was the beginning of the second per--iod of activity. Up to this time, the principal output had been silver bullion, lead bars and copper matte.
Increasing Production Period.
The second period witnessed the production grow from a gross yield of $400,000 in 1879 to over $4,000,000 in 1898, although in the year 1890 it was over $5,000,000. This increase in production was mainly due to better smelting and transportation facilities, rather than to discoveries in new territory.
It was during this time that the Centennial Eureka, one of the largest shippers in the district, began production, as did the Godiva, Utah, Sioux, Spy and Carissa mines on the east slope of the Godiva mountain.
A much greater tonnage of ore was being shipped to the smelters each year as the development of the existing properties proved up very large ore deposits. Most of the original mines were shipping, the development of others had reached the productive stage, and during this stage of the district’s history the total production almost reached $49,000,000.
Transportation and Mills Provided.
During this time railroad spurs were run from Ironton to the three principal camps and the Denver & Rio Grande Western had completed a line into the district from Springville. Local smelting of ore had been discontinued but several new mills were built and ran for varying periods. The most successful were the Eureka Hill, Mammoth, Farrell and Bullion Beck, but by 1900 milling was also abandoned, due to lower freight and smelter rates and practically all of the production of the district went to the Salt Lake valley smelters.
During the last two years of the -second period, the hrst successful attempt at developing ore in an area not having any surface indication of mineralization was completed, when the Grand Central opened commercial ore after having spent over $2,000,000 in prospecting.
The discovery of ore in the Humbug, on the east slope of Mammoth mountain, was the beginning of the subsequent work which resulted in opening the wonderful ore zone running -south to the Iron Blossom and ushered in the third period of Tintic’s history, wherein more attention was given to studying the relation of the ore deposits to the geology, and to prospecting in new territory those limestone formations which had been proven to be the most favorable to ore deposition.
Third Period Marks Substantial Growth.
During the third period from 1898 to 1912,the value Qf the annual production rose from $5,288,999 to $9,800,000, as a result of opening the Humbug-Cc1orado-Iron Blossom zone and the total production for this period reached the sum of $93,209,000. Great as was the increase due to the discoveries in the eastern part of the district, the development of large ore bodies by the Chief Consolidated, in the limestone underlying the porhyry north of the proven .limestone area, opened vast possibilities for the future of the diStThe development of the Chief was undertaken after a careful study had been made of the geology ore d eposi-tion in the older mines and the fact that in 1922 this; mine became the -largest producer of silver in the United States is ample evidence of the wisdom of applying geology in the development of mineral resources.
Big Things Begin to Happen.
The fourth period, covering the time from 1912 to the present, 1924, witnessed the development of the two greatest silver producers in the United States, the Chief Consolidated in Eureka and the Tintic Standard at Dividend, Utah county. In 1923, the Tintic Standard produced 3,614,294 ounces and the Chief Consolidated produced 3,046,859 ounces, while in 1924 the Tintic Standard production reached close to 5,000,000 ounces.
These two notable discoveries during the fourth period mean more for the district's future than the two discoveries during the third period, as the former were in areas with proven mines on either end of the zone, while in the latter instances the development was undertaken outside the known minral zone and required a great deal of courage to carry it through to a successful finish.
The Tintic Drain Tunnel.
Another project undertaken during the fourth period and which will certainly add an eventful epoch to the district’s history, is the Knight drain tunnel, designed primarily to unwater the mines in the porphyry area, which is undoubtedly one of the largest undeveloped, or rather, partially developed sections of the district.
Under present conditions it is impossible to go deeper than an average of 40Q feet on the fissure veins in the porphyry on account of the heavy flow of water. The production from this area has been very good as far as the workings have been able to go down below permanent water level and, the completion of this project offers one of the most attractive propositions in the camp. The completed tunnel will 'be about six miles long and there is about one and one-quarter miles finished.
Advent of New Ore Treating Processes.
In 1913, the Knight Investment Company erected a plant at Silver City, with which to treat the low-grade silver ores from its various properties, using the recently perfected Christensen process. After operating about two years the plant burned and was replaced 'by combining the former process with the Holt-Dern process which had been in operation at Park City for some time.
Later the Holt-Dern roasters were used exclusively and the mill operated until 1923. This process has been one of the most successful yet devised and is b.eing used with certain modifications by the Tintic Standard Company at its mill at Warm Creek, east of Goshen.
The Eureka Metallurgical company built a test plant at Eureka for the treatment of the oxidized ores by a patented flotation process. In 1921, the Eureka plant was abandoned and a large one built near Murray which has met with considerable success in the treatment of ores which have hitherto not been considered suceptible to flotation.
Chief Consolidated Evolves New Process.
For several years prior to 1923 the Chief Consolidated had been conducting experiments with the object of devel-oping a process to treat the large tonnage of mixed oxidized and sulphide ore in its properties, which ore is too low-^5. e?° sent^ 1° the smelters, and finally developed a volatilization process which has been patented in the United States and several foreign countries.
In 1923, construction was begun on a plant in Eureka which would treat 125 tons per day and the flotation unit went into operation in the fall of the following year. The process involves two'distinct treatments, consisting first of wet concentration, by flotation, using Callow. pneumatic cells^and Wilfley tables which remove the sulphides. The wet tailing from the tables is thickened in a Dorr thickener, dewatered with two Portland filters and the cake dried by indirect heat in a Ruggles-Coles dryer.
Volatilization Features of Plant.
The dry pulverized ore is then fed into a rotary kiln where volatilization of the metals is accomplished with heat generated by the combustion of pulverized coal. The hot gas from this kiln is drawn through cooling pipes, thence 300 bags where the fume is precipitated and the waste gas discharged to the atmosphere. As the fume and gas are basic the bags are not affected.
The precipitation fume is dropped into tight steel hoppers under the bag house from which it is elevated to the pug mill, mixed with water to the proper cohesive consistency and loaded direct into cars for shipment to the smelters.
The plant makes two products, the hig-grade lead-silver concentrate from the flotation unit and the high-grade silver-lead fume from the volatilization unit. The calcines from the rotary kiln are discharged to the tailing pile.
The distinguishing feature of the process is that volatilization is accomplished without additional of fluxes or reagents. The fusing point of the feed is kept high merely .by proper mixing of the various classes of ore. If fusion takes place the metals will not be released and the fused mass will adhere to the refractory lining of the kiln.
New Mineral in Tintic Standard.
Another item of interest is fhe discovery and analysis of a new silver mineral in the ores of Tintic Standard, namely, Argentajarcocite, or silver-oxide, which has been found in commercial quantities and constitutes a considerable part of the high-grade ore.
The year 1924 closed with several important development- campaigns in progress, based on the knowledge of ore deposition gained from* fifty-five years of development and production. The district has produced over $250,000,000 , and still offers excellent opportunities of reward for intelligent and systematic exploration.
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