RE: (erielack) Sterling Mine

["Paul R. Tupaczewski" <paultup_@_optonline.net>]

 Jim Dalberg commented:

> North Jersey was the largest iron ore producing area in the 
> country until the discovery and subsequent development of the 
> Mesabe Range iron ore region starting in the 1880's. This 
> spelled the demise of North Jersey as a major producer, 
> although many mines operated into the early years of the 20th 
> Century, with a few surviving until the '50's and later. The 
> latter included the Washington mine in OXford, served by the 
> DL&W, the Richards Mine until 1957, the Mt. 
> Hope, and the last, the Scrub Oaks about '65 (I went down in 
> the latter in early '62-1100 feet). The last were served by the CNJ.

This is getting REALLY tangential, but there's an excellent book on Thomas
Edison's Ogden Mine in Ogdensburg (a stone's throw from the NYS&W main).
Edison's brilliant plan was to take quarried rock that contained small,
unmineable amounts of iron ore, then crush it up into a powder and have it
fall down a vertical shaft. In the shaft was (surprise!) an electromagnet
that would alter the trajectory of the falling iron particles, separating it
from the non-magnetic dust. The iron powder would then be made into
briquettes and shipped out by rail (Edison's mine railroad connected with
the CNJ, which took the briquettes elsewhere - Allentown?).

As Jim points out, the cheap ore discovered out in the Mesabe Range pretty
much doomed Edison's venture.

	- Paul


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