Lake Champlain Iron Region - No. 2. [Volume: 8, Issue: 6, 1890, pp. 322-331]

322

UNITED STATES ASSOCIATION OF

[VOL. 8,

All but 3144 tons out of a total of 819,639 tons, from the Vermilion Range came from its two large producers.
These facts will emphasize the important bearing which the large
producers exert upon the record of the Lake Superior mining
region, a bearing which those interested in "floating" mining
properties evidently fail to appreciate. During the speculative
fever which ran riot in the early history of the Gogebic Range investors were assured that each 40-acre tract was good for an annual
output of 50,000 tons, and mines which were to produce 100,000
tons or more of iron-ore annually were then more numerous than
subsequent results have proven them to be. The same brilliant
future has been or is promised for other sections of the country, and
we merely refer to the Gogebic craze as a notable instance of
promise and performance. Mines which produce 100,000 tons of
iron-ore annually are unusual, and notwithstanding the immense
demand for ore during 1889, not more than thirty (if so many)
American mines can claim to have reached this output. A property
which produces 50,000 tons of iron-ore annually is a big mineuntil the census statistics are collated the number of such mines
cannot be given-but it may be interesting to know that in the
Lake Superior region seventeen mines are credited with outputs
between 50,000 and 100,000 tons in 1889. (f these tel were in
the Marquette Range, two were in the Menominee Range, and five
were in the Gogebic Range.
All of the above figures are taken from the reported lake shipments. When the reports are corrected for local furnace consumnption, all rail-shipments, etc., there may be some changes in the relative position of the different mines, but not sufficient to affect the
general conclusions.-ED.
Lake Champlain Iron Region-No. 2.
SINCE the first portion of this article was published in the JOURNAL (vide pages 218 to 227), an interesting and instructive bulletin
has been issued by Prof. John C. Smock, of the New York
State Museum, entitled, " First Report on the Iron Mines and IronOre Districts of the State of New York." He divides the ores