Shaft Sinking Practice at Inco

Introduction During the past ten years, shaft sinking has been going on continuously at Inco and new shafts and shaft extensions have been sunk under a broad diversity of conditions. The Murray mine and the Stobie section of the Frood-Stobie mine have?been opened and a main hoisting and supply shaft has been sunk at each of these mines; No. 2 shaft at Murray was sunk initially from surface to 1,960 feet and is now being extended; No. 7 shaft at Stobie was sunk from surface to 3,105 feet. No. 2 shaft at Garson has been extended from 2,200 feet to 3,200 feet in depth. At Levack, No. 2 shaft is being extended from 1,860 feet to 2,850 feet for ore hoisting from the 2,650 lev el. At Creighton, No. 6 shaft, collared on 52 level, was sunk 1,740 feet to a total depth of 5,563 feet below surface. It is the deepest Inco working. At Creighton, also, No. 7 shaft is being sunk from surface to the 30 level to handle the ore from caving operations. Ail Inco main hoisting and supply shafts sunk during the past twenty years have been vertical rectangular shafts equipped with two cages and two ore skips. The cages are standard and interchangeable for all shafts except Garson No. 2; they are single-deck, 13 ft. 4 in. by 5 ft. 2 in. inside and are designed to carry a maximum material load of 16,000 lb. The man load is 48 men. Skip capacities at the several shafts vary from 8 to 15 tons. Forty-two hundred feet bas been established as the standard vertical lift, and the permanent hoisting equipment at each shaft is designed for eventual hoisting from that depth.