No. 218.
Mr. Denby
to Mr. Bayard.
Peking, July 9, 1888. (Received August 20.)
Sir: In my dispatch No. 603, of the 27th of March, ultimo, I transmitted for your information a translation of a memorial submitted by the Viceroy Li Hung Chung to the throne on the subject of mining. In the memorial the viceroy referred to the employment of two American engineers—Mr. Church, who has been engaged at the mines at Jeho, and Mr. Ellsworth, employed at certain gold mines at Pingtu Chow in the province of Shantung.
From a report which I have received from a gentleman who has recently returned from the mines under the charge of Mr. Church, I learn that the enterprise augurs well of success.
There are two mines of argentiferous lead, or galena, now being worked with foreign machinery. At each, a shaft about 300 feet deep has been opened from the surface to water-level, and the water which has stood in the bottom of both mines for several years is now being pumped out. It appears that natives had been working the mines for about forty years, and had extracted pretty much all the ore above the water-level, but there they stopped, as they could not handle the water.
The foreign staff consists of Prof. J. A. Church (alluded to above) as superintendent; H. F. Dawes, assayer; an engineer and two miners from the Comstock mines in Nevada—all Americans. Two hundred native miners are employed, on wages. The mines are protected by a guard of fifty soldiers from the garrison at Ku Pei Kou, as the country is infested with robbers who defy the weak and thinly scattered officials, and who sometimes go about plundering in large gangs of scores and hundreds of men.
No ore has been taken out by foreign methods up to the present. Work has been concentrated on sinking the shafts to get at the water with pumps. The shafts have passed through several veins of fine ore, and when the water is out probably richer ore will be found at the bottom, as indications are favorable to this. Rut nothing positive can be said at present. There is about 30,000 taels of pumping and hoisting machinery, made in San Francisco, now at these mines, leaving the [Page 322] concentrating mills and smelting furnaces still to come if plenty of good ore is found later on, which in all probability will be the case.
The Viceroy has furnished the funds for machinery and for working expenses, and the mines may be considered as being worked for him. The ore is rich in lead, which the Viceroy is anxious to obtain, as there are no lead mines yet worked in China, and large quantities of lead are used for military purposes.
All difficulties have been overcome so far, and the first stage of the work is nearly completed, namely, pumping the water out of the mines and seeing what the prospects are under water. I understand that two months more will finish this, and then, if successful, work will begin in extracting and smelting ore. I also learn that it is the intention of the Viceroy to ultimately form and work these mines under a joint stock company.
I am, etc.,