Float Copper
Float Copper
I have lived up in the UP most of my life. I have talked to divers that claim that they have dived along the underwater cliffs in the big lake and have seen entire shelves of copper.
In the mines, back in the day, to find a mass of pure copper was a curse. It often took more to chip and break it apart to get it out of the mine than it was worth. They could not blast it apart, tried to use coal mining equipment, which would simply plug up, and found the only way to get it out was by hand. Matter of fact, the cost of mining up there is about twice what it costs to mine copper from ore.
BTW, one of the highest producing Gold mines in the USA was the Michigan mine near Ishpeming back in the day-1800s.
Large finds of silver were also mined. I logged on a large stretch of land that was owned by a silver company. I would bet that someday, some SOB company will renew the site for mining and use my GD ROADS I BUILT TO GET MY LOGS OUT! Man..what a chore logging that hole was. Either on rock cliffs 1500 feet high or up to your .... in mud in the valleys.