[D9234AAP], Letter from Henry C Demming to Thomas Alva Edison, December 6th, 1892
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/D9234AAP
Transcription
[TAE Marginalia] I have been pretty well over the south personally+ I am afraid to go into anything on that region E Ans Dec 16/92 December 6, 1892 Mr. Thomas A. Edison, Llewellyn Park, N. Jersey Dear Sir:-- In my prospecting tours through the South I have found numerous properties of considerable value in a mineral point of view. One of them has been purchased, and is now being developed by our people, and with a very bright promise of highly satisfactory results. Quite unexpectedly I have been offered an adjoining property of more than 6,000 acres in Bracket Township, McDowell Co., North Carolina. From a careful examination, which I have been able to make of only part of the property, I believe it to contain in inexhaustible quantities several minerals in the production of which you have been very much interested, vis: Magnetic iron ore of the richest quality in granite and micaceous rock; monazite, zircon, and other rare minerals of this class. Also gold, silver, copper and galena. Also mica, with strong trace of yttria. I know that some time ago a quantity of free gold was found on this property,--$10,000 worth in ten days, at an expense of less than $100 per day. The property is now owed by several who have no conception of its value. It can be had for $75,000, including machinery now on it, -- a ten-stamp mill, a small saw-mill, etc. I am not able to take it personally at this time; but I would like to have a 10th interest ($7,500.00) in it, and I know another gentleman who will invest 10,000.00 in the property,--a man that you or I would not object to. I can easily manage it in connection with the property in which I am now interested, directly adjoining, and where we expect to have 500 men employed within a year. If you are in a position to purchase, I will guarantee to make the property yield $20,000 a year for mare than 20 years, without the necessity of any of us advancing a single dollar beyond the bare purchase at $75,000; and I will give you free scope as to the magnetic iron ore, which seems to be so richly diffused in some of the rock. Some activity will have to be shown, or we may lose the opportunity of purchasing the property. You may remember me, when I recall the pleasant visit I had with you in your laboratory library, which on occasion I had with me one or two thousand rare North Carolina gems. (I now have over 4,000.) Faithfully yours, H.C. Demming