Alva among the savages
sudburymuseums.ca
sudburymuseums.ca
Summary of Letter from Thomas A. Edison to Mina Edison née Miller September 1901 From Sudbury:
Mrs. Edison had accompanied Thomas Edison to Sudbury in mid August, but left shortly after.
The letter begins with a note that John (John Miller, Mrs. Edison’s brother) was writing to her and that Edison would ‘recite’ all of the events after she had left Sudbury.
1) Trip by carriage to upper Wahnapitae road and Cryderman mine. Survey of the mine and nickel ore exposed.
2) Visit to a "typical Canadian Lumber Camp". Description of buildings, number of horses, narrow gauge railway.
3) Description of flat lands east of Sudbury.
5) Good farms, Massey Reaping Machines.
6) Address to Edison by Mayor and Aldermen, and distinguished citizens on the second floor veranda of the New American Hotel. Reception after.
7) Prospecting trip by rail to Worthington. Hiking south through the "bush". Tenting, boiling
water. "Blazing" a trail. Six pike for breakfast. Trip lasts a week. "Today is Sunday and we keep it Holy"
8) Closes with: "the full amount of love too your ardent lover T. A. E. Love to children and all I am working by a candle that flickers badly."
Sudbury Journal August 15, 1901 A Distinguished Visitor
Sudbury has had many distinguished visitors in its short history, but probably none who have achieved greater distinction than the one who arrived here on Saturday last in the person of Mr. Thomas A. Edison, the famous inventor. Mr Edison, who resides at orange New Jersey, was accompanied by Mrs. Edison, his brother-in-law, Mr. J. V. Miller, and Mr. C. M. Chapman, of the same place, and Mr. Luther Stierniger, electrical engineer of New York. The party are guests at the New American Hotel.
Mr. Edison has heard so much of the Sudbury District his attention being particularly drawn to it by viewing the Ontario mineral exhibit recently at the Pan-American, that he determined to come here and see the country for himself. Already he has visited several of the mines in the neighborhood, and proposes remaining here for some time longer, having rented Mr. Scully’s building on Larch street for an office.
As he uses a considerable quantity of nickel in connection with his various inventions, he purposes, we understand purchasing a property here, on which he will doubtless experiment with his electrical process for reducing the ore.
Mr. Edison has had numerous callers during the week from parties with "prospects" to dispose of. One thing he says, he cannot understand is why those who have these "prospects" do not advertise them, and make some effort to develop them on shares or in some other way, so as to show their value.
From Dip Needle to Deep Ore, Falconbridge Exploration in Sudbury
Binney, W.P. pbinney@sudbury.falconbridge.com
and Green, A.H. tgreen@sudbury.falconbridge.com
Falconbridge Limited
In a mining camp known for its giant ore deposits, Falconbridge has prospered since 1929 by discovering, developing, and mining a series of high quality medium size to small deposits. Although the growth of the company has been driven in part by outside forces creating a demand for our products, a progressive and technologically innovative exploration department has supplied the resources essential for the companies continued presence in Sudbury.
Thomas Edison, drawn to Sudbury in a search for nickel to be used in his alkaline storage battery, is credited with first detecting the orebody that became the foundation of Falconbridge Limited. His efforts in 1901 showed both the promise, and the limitations of geophysics. Using a magnetic dip needle survey he detected the main orebody at Falconbridge but failed in his attempts to prove the source of the anomaly by digging a shaft. After the claims lapsed, RM Bennett and EJ Longyear took up the ground and used diamond drilling to intersect the main Falconbridge orebody in 1916. No buyer could be found for the deposit and the claims remained idle after 1918. Thayer Lindsley, a geologist, mine finder, and promoter, was the moving force behind the development of the Falconbridge orebody, and the incorporation of Falconbridge Nickel Mines Ltd. An option on the property was signed and shaft sinking commenced in 1928. The first production of matte occurred in 1930. Ore reserves were not a limitation to development "…the question of available tonnage is not one that gives us concern. In less than a year we have developed underground enough ore to keep our smelter running at double its present capacity for at least 7 years." (1929 Annual Report, J Gordon Hardy) The Falconbridge Mine closed in 1991, after producing 32.55 million tonnes of ore.
Thayer Lindsley understood the importance of continued exploration for new mines to replace the mined reserves and facilitate growth of the new company. Since 1929, he had been assembling a land position in the Sudbury area. In 1934 a Geology Department was established under the direction of Terrence Connolly. A program of systematic mapping at 1 inch to 400 feet was initiated, accompanied by Hotchkiss superdip magnetic surveys. In 1935 this program yielded results with the first ore discovered on the Hardy property. By 1937 sufficient work was completed at Hardy to report 249,000 tons (225,870 tonnes) of ore from "Outside Holdings", away from the main Falconbridge Mine.
In 1942, electromagnetic surveying became an additional tool to discriminate the source of the many magnetic anomalies detected by exploration. The land acquisitions continued with the purchase of the Mount Nickel property, and the Strathcona property (Longvack mine). An ore zone extending from the Murray Mine was located on Falconbridge property and the McKim mine developed in 1947. This small deposit (1.8 million tonnes) produced the first ore for Falconbridge in Sudbury that came from outside the main deposit in Falconbridge township.
The 1950's and 1960's marked a period of unprecedented growth for the company. The potential of the North Range was being realized with discovery and development of Hardy, Boundary, Longvack, Fecunis Lake, Onaping, Strathcona, North, and Longvack South mines. Exploration combined geophysics, geological mapping, and drilling of trends from established surface showings or underground mines. These ore zones were distributed like a string of pearls stretching from Hardy in the west to Longvack in the east. The most significant deposit from this list is Strathcona. At 28 million tonnes of nickel ore, this was the largest deposit developed by the company since the Falconbridge mine. In 1968, production in Sudbury increased by 45 percent primarily as a result of the first stope ore being extracted from Strathcona mine. Total Sudbury production peaked in 1971 with 4.2 million tonnes of ore treated in company plants.
After the initial prominence of geophysics in the exploration for near surface deposits, by the 1970's drilling and geology became the driving forces behind new exploration efforts. Mine developments followed ore trends (Craig, Fraser) or resulted from the re-examination of old prospects for new potential (Lockerby, Lindsley). The single most important discovery in the 1970's was the realization of economic grades and tonnages in Cu-Ni-PGE deposits up to 500 metres into the footwall below the main contact mineralization. Extraction of the Strathcona Deep Copper zones began in the late 1970's and continues to the present.
The development of powerful, low cost computing systems within the last 20 years resulted in re-establishing a prominent position for geophysics in Sudbury exploration. New information on deep geological structure is generated from surface surveys using computer generated inversions of magnetic and magnetotelluric data. Borehole geophysical systems including electromagnetic, vertical seismic profiling, and radio imaging combine the access provided by deep diamond drilling with the ability of geophysics to detect mineralization unseen by the naked eye. Computers provide the geologist with new ways to compile and visualize information. Many of these tools combined in our successful search for resources at Nickel Rim Depth, Norman West, Fraser-Morgan zone, and Onaping Depth. Although future mine developments are challenged by increasing depth, rising costs, and increasing global competition, some of these deposits may become the mines of the future for Falconbridge in Sudbury.
The central issue that confronted the early explorers remains. It is not enough to have the advanced scientific tools as Edison did. You must combine them with the vision and tenacity of a Thayer Lindsley to achieve success.
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