Page Twenty
THE STATE
December 2, 1933
WHAT’S ALL THIS ABOUT MINING FOR TIN?
AFTER seeing several articles in the papers about a
resumption of tin mining in Lincoln County, we wrote
Alton B. Claytor, news editor of the Lincoln County
News, and asked him to get us up some facts about
the industry. He promptly complied, and here's his
article, written in collaboration with Alexander Spotts-
wood, resident engineer of the American Consolidated
Tin Mines Corporation.
By
ALTON B. CLAYTOR
★
THE Carolina» are the only part
of the United States where tin
has been encountered in exten¬
sive deposits. The presence of fin in
this section has been known for the
past fifty years. Efforts have been
made to exploit several deposits in
Xorth and South Carolina, hut such
ventures have been conducted by men
who were either illy advised or who
were poorly financed, with resultant
failure.
In the Carolina.» tin occurs in fis¬
sures of pegmatite, a form of granite.
Such pegmatite is usually composed of
mica, feldspar and quart*. Occasion¬
ally in the Carolina» the feldspar re¬
ferred to has altered into kaolin, a
very valuable clay used in making
china and also in many branches of
industry. The sections of some de¬
posits, largely composed of kaolin, ex¬
tend to a depth of about 100 feet, and
in view of the fact that some of the
ore fissures are
«30
or more feet wide,
a body of kaolin in such large ore
bodies is an enormous tonnage avail¬
able for exploitation.
In most pegmatite fissures, in the
tin bearing section, there are bodies of
ore that will carry from 2 to 10 per
cent tin. Such rich bodies are irreg¬
ular in their occurrence and of varia¬
ble size. To date there has not been
discovered in the Carolina» any very
large ore body that will show values
in tin ranging from 2 to 10 jter cent.
However in other tin producing sec¬
tions of the world tin ore is mined
successfully where such ore carry less
than one per cent tin.
The problem that confronts the tin
miner is to make a satisfactory profit
from large ore bodies that contain
The main shoft on the property of the American Con¬
solidated Tin Mines Corporation in Lincoln County.
Mr. Spottswood is shown on the left, standing along¬
side one of the employees of the company. Incidental¬
ly, Mr. Spottswood is one of the eminent tin miners
in America today.
★
is composed of kaolin and about 5
|»er cent of the dc|>osit is composed of
marketable mica. Mr. W. O. Ifeffer-
nan of New York is entitled to the
credit for perfecting the plan involv¬
ing the successful recovery of the
kaolin, mica and tin from the ore
found on the Lincolnton property. The
successful demonstration of this care-
fully- thought-out plan will no doubt
be followed by others in the Carolina.»
with the resultant stimulation of a
languishing industry.
The general public has a very vague
conception of tin. Tin as n metal has
become indispensable to our modern
civilization. Its use is required in the
conservation of foods in the canning
industry; as the principal component
of antifriction bearings of all machin¬
ery and of the solder with which we
seal our containers, our plumbing, and
('Conlinvi'/f on page twenty-two)
around one per cent
tin. To do this suc¬
cessfully involves a
larg» scale operation
in which the econo¬
mies and the result
of much technical
research must lie care¬
fully observed.
The American Con¬
solidated Tin Mines
Corporation, control¬
ling a large acreage
near Lincolnton,
X. C., which is with¬
out doubt the richest
tin deposit in the
United States, i» pre¬
paring to start opera¬
tion.» on several large
bodies of tin bearing
ore in a manner that constitutes a de¬
parture from practice followed in the
past. The plan of this company is to
so conduct their mining and milling
operations that they will effect a re¬
covery of the kaolin, mica as well as
the tin from all ore that they will mill.
In view of the fact that the kaolin in
Xorth Carolina is superior to most
kaolin produced elsewhere and in view
of the fact that kaolin is, after being
processed, worth $15 and more per ton,
and iu consideration of the fact that
the United States consumes annually
about $1,000,000 worth of kaolin, such
must lead us to conclude that the
kaolin in this particular deposit is a
valuable asset. The mica found is
recovered and finely ground and sold
to the rubber trade and other indus¬
tries. It has been estimated by ex¬
perts that about dO per cent of the
Lincolnton ore, in the altered section,
