PLATINUM FROM A METEOR.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 November 1925, Page 2

PLATINUM FROM A METEOR.

REPORT OF A VAST STORK. As detailed some time ago in "The Observer.” the biggest meteor (hat ever fell from the skies is believed to In* buried beneath the eminence known as Coon Butte, in Arizona, and Coon llutte itself, it; is asserted, was brought into existence as a result of the impact of the meteor with the earth. All around tin* eminenee the ground is covered with fragments of meteoric iron, embedded in which have been found many microscopic diamonds, and the belief that the main mass of the meteor contains diamonds and valuable metals led recently to the formation of a syndicate, which acquired tin* right of. excavating the meteor under the mineral laws of the I'nited States. Shortly after beginning operations at Coon Butte an enormous mass of meteoric iron was located 1400 ft, below the surface, and reliable estimates of the size of the meteor suggest that it was reallv comparable to a minor planet and 1 hat it weighs ai least 1.000.0! 10.000 tons.

Samples of the meteoric body have now been subjected to expert examination, and they have yielded, in addition to a number of small diamonds, one ounce of platinum to every liic tons.

One-filth of an ounce of platinum per ton may seem a very small amount, but it is really quite :t big proportion. Platinum is one of the rarest of metals, and averages only about lidwt. per ton of the ores in which it is found in the Arizona meteor.

If platinum is distributed throughout, the 1.000.000.000 tons of the meteor at. an average proportion of one-lifth of art ounce pert ton. it must

, stain altogether well over 5590 tons of that valuable metal, the value of which at the present price of platinum—about £24 an ounce- is some J 54.800.000.000. ff such an amount of the metal could be made commercially available, there would probably be a big slump in the price, but if it became as cheap as gold, only one-sixth of it- present once, it would yield the Coon Btittee svmlieate something like C 800.000.000. Anyhow, the syndicate has no doubt that it will succeed in recovering the whole of the meteor, and shafts are now lreing sank around Coon Butte in connection with the most remarkable and what, it is hoped, will prove the most profitable mining operations ever carried out anywhere on the earth.