Platinum production in 1910 Page 37



	PLATINUM AND ALLIED METALS.

	By Waldemar Lindgren.

	PLATINUM. DOMESTIC PRODUCTION. CRUDE PLATINUM. The conditions of platinum production in the United States, where the metal is obtained mainly as a by-product in placer-gold mining, did not change materially during 1910. The output, though varying considerably, has been on the whole larger since 1900 than in the preceding decade. The production of crude platinum in 1910 was 390 troy ounces, a decrease of 282 ounces compared with the output of 1909; the reported value in 1910 was $9,507, or $3,296 less than in 1909. The average price paid was $24.38 per ounce, compared with $19 in 1909. Crude platinum generally contains iridium, iridosmine, and gold, besides some remaining black sand. The platinum content of the crude sand varies considerably, the average being probably about 70 per cent. The entire output of crude platinum in the United States is recovered from placer mines in Oregon and California, which also produce gold. The production of California in 1910 amounted to 337 troy ounces of crude platinum, valued at $8,386. Of this, 304 ounces were recovered as a by-product in dredging operations in Butte, Yuba, and Sacramento counties; smaller quantities were recovered from river gravels in Siskiyou and Trinity counties, and a few ounces from workings in beach sands in Humboldt County. In Oregon the principal production reported comes from beach sands near Port Orford, m Curry County, and near Bullards, in Coos County. The quantity recovered in 1910 was only 53 troy ounces, valued at $1,121. No production was reported from the Rambler mine,¹ in Wyoming, nor from the deposit recently discovered in southern Nevada east of Moapa, where a dike of peridotite in schist contains copper minerals and carries a little platinum,² as described in Mineral Rources for 1908 and in a recent bulletin of the Survey.

	' Platinum in Wyoming: Eng. and Min. Jour., Mar. 4, 1911, p. 460. Concentration of platiniferous copper ore at the Rambler mine, Wyo.: Metall. and Chem. Eng., February, 1911, pp. 75-78. * Bancroft, Howland, Platinum in southeastern Nevada: Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 430, 1910, pp. 192-199.

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