50 Years ago – October, 1940

MICA IMPORTANT AS WAR MINERAL

Mica has been classed as an essential war mineral by the United States authorities responsible for the provision of adequate supplies of such materials. It is one of two non-metallic minerals so classed, the other being quartz crystals . . . Incidentally, anyone who can locate a deposit of quartz crystals of optical quality can make himself some money.

LOW-COST SEPARATION INTRODUCED

In order that the Canadian mining industry may have facilities for getting ores tested by the “sink-and-float process,” the Dominion Bureau of Mines has arranged with Messrs. Huntington and Hebelein of London, England, to erect a pilot plant in Ottawa laboratories . . . The sink and float process, after years of research, “realizes an ideal long envisaged by metallurgists, namely a heavy-solution technique hitherto confined to laboratory research . . . The process depends on gravitational separation and has nothing whatsoever in common with froth flotation.

NORTHERN EMPIRE WORKS DEEPER

The first bit of ore has been showing up lately in work on Northern Empire’s lowest level at the 2,075-ft. depth. Ore started coming in at about 700 ft. east of the shaft and with with the drift out another 200 ft., now there is exposed 125 ft. of material that will make stoping grade . . . Shaft-sinking is being completed and when The Northern Miner visited the the property last month, the station for the 2,425-ft. level was being cut.

TECK’S PROFIT HIGHEST IN PAST FOUR YEARS

Teck-Hughes Gold Mines, in the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, made its best earnings record in the past four years, the company’s preliminary reports show. Not only was income from subsidiary Lamaque Gold Mines at its highest level to date, but profits from the parent property at Kirkland Lake were above the level of the preceding 12 months.

VETERAN PROSPECTOR

An old-time sourdough of the `98 gold rush, Duncan , died recently in Instow, Sask. He had aged 94 years. Born at Kirk Hill, Glengary County, he spent 11 years prospecting in the Yukon but left the Far North 20 years ago and finally settled down as a farmer in parts of western Canada

IRON IN DEMAND

Iron is one of Canada’s major requirements in both war and peace. The development of Canadian iron mines is a desirability in peacetime. Now, in time of war, it is a necessity. Today iron ore is as important to industry as gold ore is to our nation. Too large a percentage of our gold is being utilized in payment for imported iron ore, iron or steel. The market for any Canadian iron production is assured not only for the present but for years to come.

GOLD ALL RIGHT AFTER ALL

Accounting in part for the recent strength in gold stocks is the American discovery that the U.S. gold stock is not going to be useless, after all. The new feeling is that it will be used as a strong lever for peace and for the continuance of the British-American monetary method after dictatorships have run their course.

The U.S. should be in a position to enforce a “play the game” policy upon nations now disposed to be recalcitrant, or upon others which find themselves under the heel of the Nazis.