SEEK NEW METHODS OF ORE DISCOVERY

Experiments in scientific methods for locating ore deposits are being conducted by the Mining Geology department of the Engineering School. The exhaustion of metal resources which can be discovered by unscientific methods makes the development of electrical and geological methods of discovery vital to the future metal supply of the world.

Electrical instruments responsive to concealed ores have been developed by geo-physics and the Engineering School is making a special study of the various ores in this connection and in related fields.

Professor B. H. McLaughlin has supervision of the experiments, which are being carried on by graduate research students in Mining Engineering.

In explaining the work, Professor McLaughlin emphasized the fact that present mines are being exhausted, while the demand for metals in increasing, and that without positive ways of knowing where, and in what quantities, hidden deposits lie, millions of dollars would be wasted in fruitless digging.

Some deposits which are apparently rich and deep prove to be only a thin layer of profitable ore over worthless rock. Electrical instruments are being devised to register not only the presence of metals, but the extent of the ore pocket, and so prevent wasted efforts. Metals have a decided influence upon delicate electrical mechanism, and the various effects of each metal give a key to the nature of the concealed deposit.

The special study of the Mining Geology department this year is the microscopic structure of ores. A special petrographic microscope is employed, by means of which the peculiar properties of various ores can be analyzed. The distance of a given sample of ore from a center of oxidation, where the ore is most concentrated, can be estimated in this way.