First Ore

From a platform high on a limestone cliff at Picton, Ont., Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s President Arthur Bartlett Homer scissored a ribbon one afternoon last week. In the dark waters of the Bay of Quinte at the foot of the cliff, the rust-red lake steamer Powell Stackhouse cast off for Lackawanna, N.Y. with the first load of eastern Ontario iron ore.

The ceremonial sendoff marked the official opening of Canada's newest major mining venture, Bethlehem Steel's open-pit operation at Marmora, Ont., which will provide jobs for some 270 residents of the industry-poor region. Trade and Commerce Minister C. D. Howe, in a speech at the ceremony, spotlighted another point of significance for Canada's fast-growing iron mining industry: "With the opening of Steep Rock in northwestern Ontario, the Quebec-Labrador mines, and this mine,

Canada should this year be a net exporter of iron ore for the first time."

The Marmora iron deposit first appeared as some interesting squiggles on a geomagnetic map drawn after a 1949 aerial survey sponsored by the federal and provincial governments. Bethlehem quietly bought up options, then began probing the subsurface rocks with diamond drills.

Buried beneath a 130-ft. limestone overburden, the drillers found an island of magnetite deep enough to last 20 years or longer at the planned rate of recovery (1,250,000 tons a year).

Bethlehem invested some $20 million stripping off the overburden, constructing ore-loading docks at Picton, 64 miles to the south, and building a mill at the mine site to convert the low-grade (37.5%) ore to pellets testing 65% iron. With ready access to rail transport (through a specially built C.N.R. spur) and a 211-mile water haul through Lake Ontario, the mine emerged as an economical source of ore for Bethlehem's Lackawanna plant, near Buffalo.

As the world's hungry steel mills gulp away the known supplies of high-grade ore, the Marmora operation may point the way to development of other well-located deposits of low-grade ore.

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