August 26, 1970 (12 pages)

1 2 The Nevada County Nugget, Wed., hee 26, 1970 ere. and mines of Nevada County All drilling was stopped and men put to work: building dams across the drifts to hold back the water: Steam was got up and used for hoisting water to save compressed air for the pumps. Then things began to happen, First, the water falling downthe 1600 foot vertical shaft, from the baling tanks, reversed the draft so that the fumes from the heaters filled the pump station. Then the S, P. bridge went out, and we could not get fuel oil. We burned mining timbers under the boilers, but could not do that in the heaters for the pumps, so put a pipe down the shaft and turned steam into the heaters; the pipe was put in in a hurry with out expansion joints; and the heat of the steam buckled it out into the shaft so the cage would not go through. Finally, when we did get fuel oil, it was sothick and heavy that the heaters smoked so that you could not see a lighted candle two feet away. The pumpmen went around with a hose blowing air in their faces, But the water was held below the pump station, and there has never been such a flood ‘as that since. LAVA CAP'S BEGINNING About this time, the Perrin mine, now a eer of the Norambagua, was — in operation for a short time. The Bullion was opened up by DeSabla, and an electric turbine pump was used to keep the water out. Mr. Bailey was opening up the Central Consolidated, now the Lava Cap. He has some good ore, built a mill, but could not make a satisfactory recovery and had to close down, : In 1905, the litigation between the Champion and Home was going on,, The Mountaineer was still in operation with John Becker as superintendent. About 1910 he completed building a new water power. hoist and headframe and sank a new shaft 400 feet. The mine was closed down for lack of money to go further, and Becker went to South Africa. On August 4, 1908, J. D, Hague died. Mr. George B. Agnew became president of the company and William Hague, managing director. I supposed William Hague was considered too young to look after the finances of the company, but he was a firstclass mining man, and after he moved out here and built a house, spending most ofhistime = here, the affairs of the company were managed better than ever before or since. In 1913, A, D, Foote was getting on in years so that he could not get around the mine very well, so. became consulting engineer, and I, was manager under William Hague. ACCOUNTING STUDIES Hague, with Robert Bedford to help, made time studies of the various operations of drilling, mucking, lowering to the drifts, filling from chutes, etc., in order to determine their relative importance. He also developed an accounting system to determine the cost of each operation from drilling the rock until it had passed out of the mill, From then on, weekly records were kept:of the number of holes, drifts, missed holes, tons broken and feet advanced, drill shifts, shovellers' shifts, sticks of powder, etc.; for every stope and development. fact in the mine. Among other things, this brought out the fact. that in our hard rock, the efficiency of the rock drills was very important. About this time, air hammer drills, were just coming into use, no one knew why one machine drilled faster than an-other -whether a few hard blows were. better than many light blows, One thing led to another and William Paynter, the drill repair man, got the idea of a drill testing machine, He had the idea of what it should do, several of ‘us helped to work it out, and the first one built was a success, It . made a record on a strip ‘of paper, like an indicator diagram, of every blow, and it told more about a machine drill in ten minutes than would a day's testing by. drilling rock, We soon arrived at a standard that. we knew meant a fast drilling machine, and if a new drill did not come up to that standard, there was no use in trying it out underground, I really think it was a factor in bringing drills up to their present standard of efficiency, because, after Paynter started George Brothers’ Foundry to-building his testing machine, the drill maufacturers bought them and tested their own drills, GELAESIO CAETANI During the period between 1904 and 1917; quite a numberof budding mining engineers spent a few years adding to what they learned in college and went on to earn laurels in the big world. I will mention these of whom I have heard from time to time. Gelaesio Caetani was the first to leave after I arrived. He later made a name for himself. designing several matallurgical plants in California and Idaho. He was an Italian prince, and went back to serve in the war an engineer. Later he became Ambassador to the United States. William Saben has been down in Arizona and is now gen-eral manager of the United Verde. Lorin Kemp is assistant managerat Chucuicamata, Chile, one of the biggest copper mines in the world. Bill Fraser, after wandering around quite a bit. is now. at Long Beach. (Continued Next Week. ) START MY NUGGET RESERVE MY FREE SCRAPBOOK BINDER AND SUBSCRIPTION SUBSCRIBE NOW! 1 YEAR-'3" 2YEARS-‘5" 3 YEARS -‘7” ah \ “mt \ \\\ *. ROSS S ~ DON’T MISS A SINGLE ISSUE! OF THE REPRINT— “NORTHERN MINES” by Edmund Kinyon VETERAN NEWSPAPER EDITOR and GOLD RUSH HISTORIAN and start your HISTORIC SCRAPBOOK NIMES 5 osc Ba hen os Ce an HUMANE onic ogc ce cvel ds oiGehacncinbeety THE NUGGET, P.O. Box 572, Nevada City, Calif. 95959 2 with each new ‘subsctiption: NUGGET HISTORICAL SCRAPBOOK HARD PRESSBOARD BINDER to preserve the historical centerfold in each issue of THE NEVADA COUNTY NUGGET. a —— a eS —— ee 8 Sa Re Rael 2 Nab os TE ER PPR ore: << cece RENRD-< exsenpore nomen ?¢ =

1 2 The Nevada County Nugget, Wed., hee 26, 1970 ere. and mines of Nevada County All drilling was stopped and men put to work: building dams across the drifts to hold back the water: Steam was got up and used for hoisting water to save compressed air for the pumps. Then things began to happen, First, the water falling downthe 1600 foot vertical shaft, from the baling tanks, reversed the draft so that the fumes from the heaters filled the pump station. Then the S, P. bridge went out, and we could not get fuel oil. We burned mining timbers under the boilers, but could not do that in the heaters for the pumps, so put a pipe down the shaft and turned steam into the heaters; the pipe was put in in a hurry with out expansion joints; and the heat of the steam buckled it out into the shaft so the cage would not go through. Finally, when we did get fuel oil, it was sothick and heavy that the heaters smoked so that you could not see a lighted candle two feet away. The pumpmen went around with a hose blowing air in their faces, But the water was held below the pump station, and there has never been such a flood ‘as that since. LAVA CAP'S BEGINNING About this time, the Perrin mine, now a eer of the Norambagua, was — in operation for a short time. The Bullion was opened up by DeSabla, and an electric turbine pump was used to keep the water out. Mr. Bailey was opening up the Central Consolidated, now the Lava Cap. He has some good ore, built a mill, but could not make a satisfactory recovery and had to close down, : In 1905, the litigation between the Champion and Home was going on,, The Mountaineer was still in operation with John Becker as superintendent. About 1910 he completed building a new water power. hoist and headframe and sank a new shaft 400 feet. The mine was closed down for lack of money to go further, and Becker went to South Africa. On August 4, 1908, J. D, Hague died. Mr. George B. Agnew became president of the company and William Hague, managing director. I supposed William Hague was considered too young to look after the finances of the company, but he was a firstclass mining man, and after he moved out here and built a house, spending most ofhistime = here, the affairs of the company were managed better than ever before or since. In 1913, A, D, Foote was getting on in years so that he could not get around the mine very well, so. became consulting engineer, and I, was manager under William Hague. ACCOUNTING STUDIES Hague, with Robert Bedford to help, made time studies of the various operations of drilling, mucking, lowering to the drifts, filling from chutes, etc., in order to determine their relative importance. He also developed an accounting system to determine the cost of each operation from drilling the rock until it had passed out of the mill, From then on, weekly records were kept:of the number of holes, drifts, missed holes, tons broken and feet advanced, drill shifts, shovellers' shifts, sticks of powder, etc.; for every stope and development. fact in the mine. Among other things, this brought out the fact. that in our hard rock, the efficiency of the rock drills was very important. About this time, air hammer drills, were just coming into

use, no one knew why one machine drilled faster than an-other -whether a few hard blows were. better than many light blows, One thing led to another and William Paynter, the drill repair man, got the idea of a drill testing machine, He had the idea of what it should do, several of ‘us helped to work it out, and the first one built was a success, It . made a record on a strip ‘of paper, like an indicator diagram, of every blow, and it told more about a machine drill in ten minutes than would a day's testing by. drilling rock, We soon arrived at a standard that. we knew meant a fast drilling machine, and if a new drill did not come up to that standard, there was no use in trying it out underground, I really think it was a factor in bringing drills up to their present standard of efficiency, because, after Paynter started George Brothers’ Foundry to-building his testing machine, the drill maufacturers bought them and tested their own drills, GELAESIO CAETANI During the period between 1904 and 1917; quite a numberof budding mining engineers spent a few years adding to what they learned in college and went on to earn laurels in the big world. I will mention these of whom I have heard from time to time. Gelaesio Caetani was the first to leave after I arrived. He later made a name for himself. designing several matallurgical plants in California and Idaho. He was an Italian prince, and went back to serve in the war an engineer. Later he became Ambassador to the United States. William Saben has been down in Arizona and is now gen-eral manager of the United Verde. Lorin Kemp is assistant managerat Chucuicamata, Chile, one of the biggest copper mines in the world. Bill Fraser, after wandering around quite a bit. is now. at Long Beach. (Continued Next Week. ) START MY NUGGET RESERVE MY FREE SCRAPBOOK BINDER AND SUBSCRIPTION SUBSCRIBE NOW! 1 YEAR-'3" 2YEARS-‘5" 3 YEARS -‘7” ah \ “mt \ \\\ *. ROSS S ~ DON’T MISS A SINGLE ISSUE! OF THE REPRINT— “NORTHERN MINES” by Edmund Kinyon VETERAN NEWSPAPER EDITOR and GOLD RUSH HISTORIAN and start your HISTORIC SCRAPBOOK NIMES 5 osc Ba hen os Ce an HUMANE onic ogc ce cvel ds oiGehacncinbeety THE NUGGET, P.O. Box 572, Nevada City, Calif. 95959 2 with each new ‘subsctiption: NUGGET HISTORICAL SCRAPBOOK HARD PRESSBOARD BINDER to preserve the historical centerfold in each issue of THE NEVADA COUNTY NUGGET. a —— a eS —— ee 8 Sa Re Rael 2 Nab os TE ER PPR ore: << cece RENRD-< exsenpore nomen ?¢ =