Big Digger This huge dredge does a big share of the work in an unusual titanium mining operation at Clearwater, S.C. The procedure is described as different from any used before in mining titanium. The operation got under way a year ago. The overall measurement of the dredge is more than 200 feet. It was brought from Montana, where it had been used in the gold fields. The dredge digs up and mines about 8,000 tons of earth every 24 hours. Separation of four valuable minerals from sand and earth takes place inside the dredge. The minerals are ilmenite and rutile, the common elements of titanium; zircon, and monozite. After being spewed out of the dredge, the minerals are processed in a dryer house. The operation was set up after two years of prospecting and study by Owen H. Perry, former Montana gold mining engineer. He is vice president and general manager of the operating company, Marine Minerals, a subsidiary of the Crane Co. of Chicago, plumbing fixture Manufacturers.

Associated Press · [ca. June 1956]

[Information from item housing] Dredges