in such form that it would stand the furnace and enable the operators to produce ferro-manganese, which, as everybody knows, is used in the manufacture of steel. The reading public will remember that Edison, in his famous iron works in the New Jersey mountains, first separates the iron from the sand in the ore, and then takes this iron, which is also in the form of a fine sand, and, by employing a "binder," is able to convert the iron sand into iron bricks which will stand the operations of the blast furnace. Such a process of treating the manganese bog ore has been discovered and has stood the test, and is now to be applied by the Mineral Products Company, of New York, at the great bed of this ore found at Dawson Settlement, half a dozen miles from Hillsboro, in Albert County. An American company tried once before to utilize the ore, but was not successful. The present owners are satisfied that they can succeed, and have indeed proved it by actual test. It may be added that theirs is the only process known which has proved effectual. It involves a large expenditure and a complicated plant, and their works in Albert County are the only ones of the kind in the world. The Mineral Products Company is incorporated under the laws of New York. Hon. F. C. Sayles, of Pawtucket, R. I., is president; F. C. Sayles, jr., of Providence, R, I., treasurer; Dr. Edwin F. Ward, of New York, secretary; Russell P. Hoyt, of New York, general manager; N. M. Langdon, of New York, superintendent of works. The company began operations in Dawson Settlement six months ago and has spent about $50,000 in purchase of land, clearing it up, and erecting the plant. Forty men have been employed until lately. They are now awaiting the beginning of operations in the works, which will start in a short time and be run night and day, employing ninety hands or more and treating probably 100 tons of ore daily. The company owns 400 acres of land, on 17 of which the ore is found under a thin coating of soil or vegetable matter extending to a depth of 5 to 30 feet. The ore can be got out by merely shoveling it into the cars. I paid a visit to the place, which is about 15 miles from Moncton. The deposit lies on a hillside, with a slightly higher elevation behind it and a deep gully running along its base. The place is covered with a thick growth of woods. Seventeen acres of this have been cleared, stumps taken out, and drains dug. The ore lies in a bed of varying thickness all over it. A man with a pick went with me and on the sides of the drains and in the holes dug all over the place sunk the pick through the coating of frost, and everywhere the ore was disclosed. A singular fact is that there is quite a number of living springs on the property. There are two close together on the highest point. of the deposit. The scientific theory of the deposit appears to be that in the hills back of the bed there is manganese in place or in formation. If the former supposition is correct, there must be a very large deposit of the ore, and streams of water passing over these beds have carried the ore in solution to the place where it is now deposited, and perhaps is still being deposited, as "wad," or bog ore. This bog ore in its natural state contains about 50 per cent of water, and this, of course, must be extracted. When that is done, the result is, as stated, a powder black in color and about as fine as flour. The company has erected the plant at the foot of the hill that forms the ore bed, the lower side of the structure being on a level with the bed of the gully. A branch railway comes to the back door. The building is equipped with heavy machinery specially made for the work. There is an 80-horsepower engine and a 50horsepower boiler. The "drier" is a brick chamber 10 by 44 feet and 30 feet high, in which there is a revolving cylinder of half-inch iron, 5 feet in diameter and 28 feet long. The process through which the ore must pass is a very interesting one. It goes in as rough ore, looking to the unpractised eye not unlike any other blackish-colored fine earth, and it comes out in the form of a hard, black, cylindrical brick, 3 inches in diameter and 21⁄2 inches long. The process is not easy to understand without being seen, and even then, of course, the secret by which the dried powder is cemented together is known only to the company that controls it. The ore is brought in little tram cars from the ore bed, a distance of only 600 to 1,000 feet, and, running into the building, is dumped on a platform, on a level with the feeding hopper of the revolving drier already spoken of. It is shoveled into this hopper, and the revolving drier, which is kept heated by wood or coal fires, carries it to the back end of the brick chamber, where it drops into a spiral conveyor, which carries it out of the chamber to the boot of a bucket elevator, by which it is raised to the top of the building, some thirty odd feet, where it passes through a revolving screen. The fine ore sifts through the screen into what is called the dry-ore bin. The coarser part, which will not sift through, goes on and out of the farther end of the revolving screen, and is carried from thence down into a grinder, which powders it, and it is then carried back to the boot of the elevator and up again to the revolving screen, through which this time it sifts without diffculty into the dry-ore bin. But this is not all. Above the brick drier is a dust chamber with a V-shaped bottom, provided with a spiral conveyor. Any fine ore passing off from the drier along with the steam or gases settles in the bottom of the dust chamber, is carried out by the spiral conveyor, and passes to the boot of the elevator, up to the revolving screen, and into the dry-ore bin. Thus, every bit of the ore is saved. The steam and gases pass out through two smokestacks rising from the dust chamber above the drier. The ore from the dry-ore bin is drawn into a mixer, where it is united with a suitable "binder," the purpose of which is to cement the powder together. The mixed material is then carried up to a sufficient height to pass in at the top of the briquetting machine, a very complicated piece of mechanism, from the bottom of which the ore comes out in the hard, cylindrical bricks or briquettes already described. These briquettes are carried to a pocket on the level of the railway, which has capacity to store 250 tons, and from which the ore is shipped on cars to be taken to the company's blast furnace at Bridgeville, Nova Scotia. The company would have erected a blast furnace at Hillsboro, but there was some difficulty in getting a site, and it purchased the furnaces at Bridgeville, Nova Scotia, which, along with a fine belt of hard wood, happened to be on the market. The briquettes will be taken by rail to Bridgeville, converted into ferro-manganese, and from there can be shipped to steel works in any part of the world. The company has had the property examined and reported on by seven of the best experts in the United States and Canada, and the ore analyzed by ten of the principal steel makers and prominent chemists of the United States; and the result shows that the ore deposit is a valuable one. The analysis is as follows: This analysis was made on the dried mineral at 212° F. The value of the ore is shown by the very slight proportion of phosphorus and sulphur. No process has yet been discovered that will eliminate. phosporus. When an ore contains more than 0.1 per cent of phosphorus or more than 12 per cent of silica, the price is scaled down in proportion to every unit above these figures. The Albert County ore is thus very valuable, if it can be successfully prepared for the blast furnace. The ore is covered by a few inches of vegetable matter. A cubic yard of the ore in its natural state weighs 1,900 pounds. Besides erecting the plant, the company has built a branch line of railway from the works to Stony Creek, 11⁄2 miles distant, on the S. and H. Railway. The latter connects with the Inter-Colonial Railway at Salisbury, 11 miles away, over which the ore is taken to Bridgeville; this connects the works with the Grand Trunk system and practically with the railway system of the continent. It is only 51⁄2 miles from the works to Hillsboro, where, at a wharf which the company proposes to construct, vessels of 1,000 tons can lie; and thus there will be direct water communication with Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other American ports, and also with Europe by vessels which come there to load lumber. The vessel freight rates to United States ports is $1.50 and to British ports about the same. When the works are in full operation, it is expected that 50 tons of briquettes per day will be shipped to the blast furnaces. Mr. Langdon, the superintendent of works, has had long experience in manganese working in New York State, and his inventive skill has been utilized in adapting the briquetting machine to its present purpose. There has been some difficulty in getting this new machinery properly adjusted and the “binder" effectively mixed with the ore; but they were making hard briquettes when I was there, and were confident that in a very short time the plant would be in full operation day and night. Machinery practically does it all, from the time the ore goes into the hopper of the revolving drier until the briquettes. come out. The building is equipped with an elevator, connecting the floor where the briquetting machine stands with the storage room beside the railway. The market value of ferro-manganese to-day is $46.50 per ton, delivered at buyers' works. Two tons of the bog ore will make 1 ton of ferro-manganese, which is the only material that will successfully purify steel. It is imported by steel works from South Africa, Spain, Cuba, Mexico, and Japan, and is not therefore found in quantity in any country. In Canada, the returns show that only 12 tons were produced in 1896. There is also a deposit of "wad" at Point de Bute, which has been secured by the Mineral Products Company. There is a bed, said to cover 100 acres to a depth of 5 to 15 feet. There may be deposits in other parts of the Province, and possibly in Nova Scotia. GUSTAVE BEUTELSPACHER, MONCTON, March 16, 1898. Commercial Agent. |