Manganese Ore In Oregon

Henry M. Parks, director of the Oregon. Bureau of Mines and Geology, has supplied the following information regarding a recent discovery .of manganese ore in Jefferson County, Oregon, about seventeen miles southeast of the railroad at Eagle Point, a station on the P. & E. Railway. The occurrence is about five miles southeast of Lake Creek Post Office and near the confluence of Lost Creek with the south fork of Little Butte Creek. The manganese ore occurs as psilomelane and pyrolusite, disseminated through a flat bed of volcanic tuff breccia; at a point where the bed was penetrated by a churn drill hole, the thickness of the ore-bearing stratum was 30 ft. Development thus far has consisted of open-cuts, one of which exposes a face about 40 ft. high and 75 ft. broad. Other smaller open-cuts have followed the bed for a. distance of 400 yards. The nodules of manganese mineral vary from a maximum of 25 to 50, lb. down to the size of beans and others as small as mustard seed. These grains, when clean, average from 55 to 58 per cent. manganese. A 12-ft. groove sample in the face of the main open-cut yielded 14.86 per cent. manganese. The peculiar occurrence of the manganese nodules should present but slight difficulty in concentration. A small experimental mill was built last winter, comprising gyratory crusher, rolls, and jigs, which,