Ira B. Joralemon – An Interview by Henry Carlisle

1910, hundreds of thousands of dollars of work and equipment in a 1500-foot shaft, crosscuts and pumping had found only copper-lean pyrite in two cross- cuts, and nothing in a third. Going aimlessly along the third crosscut one day, after looking at the barren face I happened to notice a dark spot in the white limestone, near the floor on one side. I picked, and found it was a little triangle of rich chalcopyrite. Next day I took Bill Gohring, then mine superintendent, in to see it. He said nothing else had succeeded so we might as well try that. The new drift broke into a full face of high grade copper ore in the first round, and continued in rich ore for 2200 feel broken only by a couple of short stretches of lean pyrite. The earlier crosscuts had happened to cut these lean areas. Q: Was there any single thing that called your attention to that little dark spot in the side of the Briggs crosscut, rather than to any other discolored spot? Joralemon: Nothing very definite. Maybe luck, maybe that indefinable subconscious thinking that