American Mining Industries

Abstract

THIS, the fifteenth and final volume of the Reports illustrating the results of the census of the United States taken in 1880, is in great part devoted to descriptions of the principal districts producing iron ores in the United States, the condition of the mines during the census year being studied in considerable detail, and in many cases illustrated by sketches of the workings. A very large number of samples of the ores of the different mines were collected by specially appointed agents, who visited every district and almost every, mine of importance, and these were examined by a chemical staff at a special laboratory at Newport, Rhode Island. It was originally intended to make complete analyses of the greater number of the 1400 samples so collected, but the early exhaustion of the funds voted for the census necessitated an extensive curtailment of the plan, and only the more important minerals from the older rocks were completely analyzed; while for the bulk of the remainder, the properties of the more important constituents, iron, phosphorus, and sulphur, were alone determined, and the presence of titanium and manganese noted incidentally. The total number of samples investigated was 1250, 53 being completely and 1157 partially analyzed. The description of the methods of analysis adopted, and the tabulation of the results, occupy about a hundred pages, in addition to the 500 devoted to the geology and topography of the iron ore mines and their statistics.

Report on the Mining Industries of the United States (exclusive of the precious metals.)

By R. Pumpelly, 4to, pp. xxxviii.–1025. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1886.)