Shovelers or loaders operate in gangs of 8 to 12, and are supervised by a “straw boss,” who is provided with a gallon can for illuminating oil. The cars are 20 cu. ft. (1 ton) capacity. Under ordinary conditions one shoveler will load 20 of these cars in a shift of 10 hours. They use “half-spring,” long-handled, round-pointed shovels.
Cars are of the solid-box pattern, and are dumped in cradles. Loose and “Anaconda” manganese-steel wheels are the most common. Gage of track, 24 to 30 in., 16 lb. rails on main lines and 12 lb. on the side and temporary tracks. Cars are drawn by mules. One mine has installed compressed-air locomotives and is operating them with success.
Shafts are generally equipped with geared hoists, both steam and electrically driven. Later hoists are all of the first-motion pattern.
Generally the cars are hoisted to the top and dumped with cradles. One shaft, however, is provided with a 5-ton skip, charged at the bottom from a bin, into which the underground cars are dumped. Upon arriving at the top the skip dumps automatically. This design exhibits a number of advantages over the older method and will probably find favor with other mine operators.
THE LEAD ORES OF SOUTHWESTERN MISSOURI
By C. V. Petraeus and W. Geo. Waring
(October 21, 1905)
The lead ore of southwestern Missouri, and the adjoining area in the vicinity of Galena, Kan., is obtained as a by-product of zinc mining, the galena being separated from the blende in the jigging process. Formerly the galena (together with “dry-bone,” including cerussite and anglesite) was the principal ore mined from surface deposits in clay, the blende being the subsidiary product. In the deeper workings blende was found largely to predominate; this is shown by the shipments of the district in 1904, which amounted to 267,297 tons of zinc concentrate and 34,533 tons of lead concentrate.
The lead occurs in segregated cubes, from less than one millimeter up to one foot in diameter. The cleavage is perfect, so that each piece of ore when struck with a hammer breaks up into smaller perfect cubes. In this respect the ore differs from the galena encountered in the Rocky Mountain regions, where torsional or shearing strains seem in most instances to have destroyed the perfect cleavage of the minerals subsequent to their original deposition. Cases of schistose and twisted structure occur in lead deposits of the Joplin district but rarely, and they are always quite local.