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Show encountered were no novelty to McGraw who spent 21 months in the China- Burma-India theater as a major on the staff in charge of the construction of the famed Ledo Road. McGraw, who was with the first cadre arriving in San Juan in January, is an associate member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and attended The Colorado School of Mines and Colorado A&M. Prior to his four years war service with the Corps of Engineers, he worked on a number of large projects including the Rocky Mountain arsenal, the Corn Husker Ordnance Plant and the Grand Island Army Air Base in Nebraska. His first Latin American experience came after the war when he served as construction engineer in the building of the Sisga Dam some 85 kilometers northeast of Bogata. Mr. McGraw later replaced Mr. Walker as Vice President and General Manager of Marcona Mining Company. Mr. Eugene A. Mills was acting assistant general manager and chief engineer. Mills, who hails from Riverside, California, was a World War II pilot and is a member of the A. I. M. E. A graduate of the Colorado School of Mines, Mills had been with Utah for a number of years and also was on the U. S. Steel iron ore project in the savannas of Venezuela. Mr. Charles E. Callender was the Master Mechanic on this project. The mine engineer and safety engineer was Mr. Luis Remy, a Peruvian. Superintendent of the crushing and Screening Department was Mr. Otto Hunsaker who also worked for Utah previously. Mine Operations - A heavy duty highway extends upward into the hills. Exactly 23 kilometers from the port is the turnoff road leading to the mine, a stretch; of highway six kilometers long. The mine at that time was running tow 10-hour shifts from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m and fro, 8:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. seven days a week. There in an area of 20 by 30 kilometers were estimated at that time reserves of more than 100 million tons of iron ore. Under terms of its contract, Marcona had to ship a minimum of 500, 000 tons a year, but company has since shipped millions of tons a year. The rich ore lay near the surface, covered by an overburden of sand and caliche, a composition of gypsum, lime, and other marine sedimentary materials. This ran from almost nothing to as deep as 20 feet with the average amounting to a thickness of four or five feet. If the overburden was hard, which it usually was, it was first drilled and blasted and then moved with power shovels or drag-lines. Drilling was carried out with an Ingersoil-Rand Quarrymaster with a six-inch bit and a Joy Champion Blast Hole Drill with a 7-3/8 inch bit. There were also a helf-dozen Gardner-Denver S-48 sinkers or rock drills as well as four S-55 hand- held rock drills, a Model F-73 hand-held drill and three 3-180's. Timken drill bits were used on the machines. Stripping was done by tractors and carry-alls. The ore extraction was carried out by two 160 ton Manitowas Diesel-engined shovels each of which had a shovel capacity of over 10 tons. |