The period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was marked, to be sure, by increasing tensions between mine labor and management, as we’ve been discussing. But that same period was also marked by technological advances that allowed for old, abandoned mines to be revisited, with techniques that were far more economical than sinking a shaft, opening drifts, and hoping to strike a copper lode. The new technology was the diamond drill.

Roger Burt, University of Exeter, Emeritus, in his 25-page publication, “The History of Diamond Core Drilling: The origins of diamond drilling in the 1860s through the end of the nineteenth century,” described the drill in understandable terms:

“The drill consisted of a hollow rotating casing, or pipe, crowned with a bit mounting eight black diamonds,” Burt wrote. “Water was pumped down the bore hole to flush out ground dust while a core of rock was captured inside the pipe, to be periodically withdrawn. All-in-all it had taken the commercial perception of a practical engineer, the intellectual insight of a classically aware mechanical genius, and the practical skills of a working craftsman to deliver a new drilling machine that was totally different from any of the other mechanical ‘impact’ drills that were currently under development.”

Rodolphe Leschot, a French railway engineer, born in Switzerland of a long-established watch-making family, and educated at the Ecole Centrale in Paris, is credited with inventing the drill, Burt states. He patented the drill in the U.S. in 1863. By 1880 diamond core drilling had become commonplace in most parts of the U.S.

The drill had several advantages. First, it dispensed with the capital outlay for contract and wage expenditures necessary to exploring a property and trenching along the length of a promising length of a potential mineral lode. It also dispensed with the risk of funding shafts on a location that might prove worthless, and equally important, it saved time. Cylindrical core samples obtained from the hollow drill bits could be quickly examined and assayed by an experienced geologist in a matter of hours or days, rather than months of waiting for an exploratory mine to start producing rock samples.

Beginning in the 1890s, diamond drilling became standard practice at mining locations throughout the Lake Superior copper region. Using Ontonagon County as an example, we can start to see the impact diamond drilling had in providing the capability of revisiting long, abandoned former mining sites to discover that they, in many cases, did contain commercial amounts of copper after all.

The Copper Handbook for 1911 reported that on the Ontonagon Copper Range, the Adventure Consolidated Mining Company was organized on Nov. 1, 1898, absorbing the old, independent Hilton (Ohio), the Knowlton and the Adventure Mines into one corporation. According to the Copper Handbook, production in the old mines was suspended in 1908, but diamond drilling located three beds of mineral, referred to as Nos. 1, 2, and 3 Adventure Lodes. The second lode was considered the most promising. Located about approximately 300 feet below the No. 1 Lode, averaged about 30 feet in thickness.

On May 6, 1909, No. 5 shaft was started, which was vertical, and a large steam-powered hoist was erected.

One of the more promising ventures was the King Philip Copper Company, organized in Nov., 1905, and located about a mile south of the Winona Copper Company’s mine in Houghton County. The King Philip owned just over 1,000 acres in Houghton and Ontonagon counties. By 1910, the King Philip operated from two shafts and was working 11 air drills. The King Philip was a modern facility, operating an electric hoist. Company housing included about 40 six-room housings, complete with electric lights, along with a 24-foot by 62-foot bunkhouse and a large cookhouse.

Among the new consolidated companies in the Ontonagon region was the Mass Consolidated Mining Company, which included the holdings of five former mining companies. Organized in 1899, Mass Consolidated included the old Ridge, Mass, Ogima, Merrimac and Hazard mining ventures. Across all of these properties were seven separate and distinct copper veins, upon each the Mass Consolidated had openings.

In addition to the surface plants, the Mass Consolidated also owned approximately 60 dwellings for its employees, along with the townsite of Mass City, which was the terminus of the Mineral Range Railroad, but also had a station on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. Mass City also had several stores, hotels, and other businesses.

Another large company that organized in 1899 was the Michigan Copper Company which, including its mill site on Keweenaw Bay, consisted of 6,686 acres of land.

The Michigan company included the old Minnesota, Rockland, and Superior mines, across which ran no less than 11 distinct copper lodes. In 1909, the company produced just under two million pounds of refined copper.

The Victoria Copper Company, another venture organized in 1899, by 1910 employed somewhere around 225 men.

There were other ventures operating in Ontonagon County by 1910, including the South Lake company along with several small ventures. All of these companies had utilized diamond-drilling in determining the risk of mining.

The State of Michigan Geological Survey and Biological Survey, Publication 13, for 1912 and prior years, stated that in 1912, the Onondaga Mining Company was operating two drills on its properties north of Lake Gogebic, in Ontonagon. The company was organized that year on 11,000 acres.

The report also stated that “the method of prospecting in the Copper Country in almost all cases (is) diamond drilling and trenching.”

Mineral outcrops, carefully looked over, still remained to be prospected, said the report, notably, extensive areas covered by glacial debris.

“The most notable new discoveries during the past few years,” the report said, “have been made by drilling in such covered areas.”

The 1912 report noted that the White Pine Copper Company, under the management of the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company, was exploring the Nonesuch lode where, over the previous few years, 31,206 feet of diamond drilling had occurred.

The report stated that in putting down the first drill hole in an exploratory campaign in drift-covered areas, it is the usual practice to set the drill at an angle normal to the dip (of the copper lode) as determined on neighboring properties.

“If the hole proves to be approximately normal to the bedding,” the report explained, “other holes are bored at such distances that each will give a slight overlap over the section obtained in the next one. Many of the holes are drilled 1,000′ to 2,000′. Where there is little known concerning the stratigraphy, the most satisfactory results are often obtained by vertical holes.”

The cores drawn were closely examined for copper; and also for the purpose of correlating the various strata cut. Commonly all the core was kept regularly arranged in boxes. At intervals in the core-box a mark was made to indicate the depth from which the core was taken. After examination the cores were usually stored and kept for future reference. Many such core sample boxes are still found on old mining locations today.

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

Democrats have been looking for a political lifeline and believe that the Dobbs case overturning Roe v. Wade is ...

The period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was marked, to be sure, by increasing tensions between mine ...

We have a big medical mess that will cost women their lives and physicians their competency. That realization is ...

Dear Annie: I recently got married to the greatest guy I’ve ever met, yet I know for a fact that he has cheated ...

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

Copyright © The Mining Gazette | https://www.mininggazette.com | P.O. Box 368, Houghton, MI 49931 | 906-482-1500