The other cabin is only slightly less in finish and equipment, it being the residence of the manager of the mine. The owner lives in New Jersey. The sight of these is highly inspirational to those who appreciate this sort of life.
Upon invitation of the manager we go up into the hills to the mine. The road is well improved; it must be to carry the great truck loads of ore in all kinds of weather. After a little driving we round a bend in the road and gaze upon a great ridge of white quartz, probably nearly a hundred feet high. As one gazes at it he ponders upon the enormous potential wealth of this heap, if it could be put to use. Rumor tells us that a glass factory for the Black Hills is not out of reason and will probably soon be a reality.
At present this quartz is an undesirable stuff which must be separated from the mineral and piled into great scrap heaps. We climb the slope to the top of the ridge where a tunnel leads to the open cut spodumene mine.
But before going to the top we might look into the opening of the old underground mine.
A narrow gauge railroad runs into the tunnel. A warning is posted against the entrance. A gaze into the tunnel however, makes one think the walls are lined with gold. But on closer examination the gold turns out to be mica in very fine flakes.
On the top of the quartz pile, just outside the top tunnel or the one from the open cut another narrow gauge railroad takes the quartz to the end of the dump pile in small ore cars. Following the short tunnel through a hill we come to the mine proper. It is just a huge hole in the ground, not now worked, from which the ore was taken with dynamite, picks, shovels and derricks. The useful ore, valued at about fifty dollars a ton, stands in the layers of quartz and granite at a tipsy angle, like huge tree trunks of pure white. The sight is really worth seeing. Spodumene is a substance resembling grained rock embedded in quartz and mica but soft enough to be crushed in the hand. It is raised from the cut, emptied into cars and carried through the tunnel where it is dumped into a long chute. When the chute gets filled up, trucks back under the gate at the lower end, fill up with the mineral and take it to the railroad cars at Keystone. From here it is shipped east, where lithium oxide is made of it for storage batteries.
Going from the Etta Mine up, over the next rise, we come to the Juga Feldspar Mine. This, too, is an open cut mine in the top of a mountain.
The feldspar, used for enamel in lining bathtubs and making dishes, is found, mined, loaded and shipped much as is the lithia. Valuable by-products of the mine, mica, tourmaline and lepidolite and others are found in small quantities.
Back through the valley we go and up the opposite slope to a mica mine. This, too, is an open cut, the men working in the shade of a large tarpaulin awning. Slabs of mica varying from small scraps to large sheets are all loaded in the chute, hauled to Keystone and shipped east.
