Talk:Beanland Mine

Requested review

I was asked to review this article by Volcanoguy (talk · contribs). Here are my comments.

Background:

• "This was one of the most active prospecting and mining scenes in the Temagami area during the 20th century." The antecedent for "this" is unclear to me.
• "Beanland correlates with some of the earliest gold mining in the Temagami area" It is the opening of Beanland (an event) that correlates with the earliest gold mining, not the mine itself, right?
• "It was mined both as a primary and secondary product at surface and underground mines." Again, the antecedent is unclear for "it". The structure of the paragraph seems to indicate that "Beanland mine" is the antecedent, but I think it seems more likely that "gold" is meant to be the antecedent here. I might suggest rewriting the first two sentences as: "The opening of Beanland Mine correlates with some of the earliest gold mining in the Temagami area. Gold was mined both as a primary and secondary product at surface and underground mines in the area until the 1970s."
• "Consequently, Beanland is one of the earliest gold mines in Temagami along with Manitoba and Eastern, Cuniptau and Hermiston-McCauley mines." This sentence seems entirely redundant with the rest of the section. I'd just eliminate it.

Mine development:

• "Work began in September 1936 by Goodfish Mining Company Limited." What kind of work? Extraction of materials? Construction of buildings and infrastructure? Also wouldn't hurt to restate where the work began (i.e. "Goodfish Mining Company Limited began <Type of work> at Beanland Mine in September 1936.")

Everything in that paragraph is what Goodfish Mining Company Limited did in 1936. The construction of buildings and infrastructure would have been the first thing they did of course. Volcanoguy 06:41, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, I suspected that was the case. To me, the sentence would read better if you replaced "Work" with "Construction", "Infrastructure construction", or "Preliminary construction". Something of that ilk. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 17:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• Consider using the {{convert}} template for horsepower. Seems the appropriate SI unit to convert to is watts.
• "An average of 17 men was employed for the four months." This is the first mention of a four-month period that I see, so it doesn't seem appropriate to call it "the four months". I assume this is the amount of time it took to construct the buildings and infrastructure. Also, check with an expert on WP:MOSNUM, but I'm not sure it's good practice to mix numerals and spelled-out numbers in the same sentence like this.

Changed to "An average of 17 men was employed in 1936". Volcanoguy 03:52, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

That works. Alternatively, if accurate, you could say "An average of 17 men was employed during the construction phase." Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 17:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• This business of incorporating has me confused. Goodfish Mining Company Limited incorporated as Beanland Mining Company Limited. Does this mean that Goodfish was an unincorporated company and Beanland was just the same company after incorporation?

Again, Beanland Mining Company Limited and Goodfish Mining Company Limited seem to be two different mining companies. I don't know why the companies were changed, but I'm sure there are several reasons for such things. For example, a mining company can become bankrupted (which is the case for Kanichee Mine) or a mining company can sell the mine property to another mining company. Volcanoguy 07:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

This leaves me a little more perplexed. I thought Goodfish was a company that, at the time of incorporation, renamed itself Beanland Mining Company. Is that not the case? Was it instead a case of Goodfish becoming part of another company called Beanland Mining Company? Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 17:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• "Mining operations ceased on April 10, 1938." That was rather abrupt. Any idea why it ceased?

Mineral explorations:

• "Extensive surface work and diamond drilling was performed in 1934-1935" Hmm. This predates the unspecified "work" that Goodfish Mining Company began in September 1936. All the more reason to specify what that work was and how it differs from this.
• I'd wikilink "assayed". I had to look that up.

The assay article dosen't look like it has anything about the defination being used in this article. Volcanoguy 07:44, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Oops. I read "assay" too quickly. What you are talking about in the article is Metallurgical assay, right? Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 17:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• "0.31 oz (8.8 g) of gold per ton and 1.8 oz (51 g) of silver per ton" I know we went over this with Big Dan Mine but some kind of comparison or context to help the reader determine whether this is a lot or a little material per ton would be really helpful.
• Since the mine, the man, and the company could be called "Beanland", it might be best to specify that Beanland Mining Company incorporated as Perron Gold Mines Limited in 1946. Also, since I'm not a business person, I don't understand why an incorporated company would need to incorporate again.

I'm not too sure what you're trying to say here. It seems like Beanland Mining Company Limited and Perron Gold Mines Limited were two different mining companies. Volcanoguy 03:44, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The article says "Beanland was incorporated as Perron Gold Mines Limited". To me, this means that Beanland Mining Company incorporated and renamed itself Perron Gold Mines Limited. If this is the case, I wonder why they needed to incorporate again, since they already incorporated once (changing the name from Goodfish to Beanland, if I understand that transaction correctly). What motivated a re-incorporation? If, on the other hand, Beanland Mining Company incorporated itself as part of another extant company called Perron Gold Mines Limited, I would expect the article to say "Beanland Mining Company incorporated with Perron Gold Mines Limited". Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 17:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

That is refering to Beanland Mine not the Beanland Mining Company. Volcanoguy 05:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

How can a mine be incorporated? I thought that was a business term. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 13:18, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

• "The mill results were not as high as expected." Not sure I understand this sentence. Was the gold concentration not as high as expected?

No they weren't. Volcanoguy 01:16, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'd suggest that this read, "The mill results showed that the concentration of gold in the ore was not as high as expected." The results themselves are not really "high" or "low". Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 17:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• "The cause of this was probably due to a deposit of silver hidden in the very high erratic values of gold and silver." I don't understand this sentence at all.
• "experienced a lot of dilution of ore due to overload of holes" Since I don't know what "overload of holes" means, it's hard to know what the cold had to do with it or why it diluted the ore. Is there a way to avoid the colloquial "a lot"?
• OK, it seems like the cold really fouled up all these tests. Was that a foreseeable outcome? If so, why did the company do them in January?

Regional terrane:

• Is "terrane" a variant of "terrain" that I'm not aware of? (entirely possible)

According to the dictionary, "terrane" refers to "any rock formation or series of formations or the area in which a particular formation or group of rocks is predominant". "Terrain" is "a tract of land, especially as considered with reference to its natural features, military advantages, etc". What would be the best one to use in the title? Volcanoguy 03:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Until now, I wasn't aware that "terrane" was a distinct word. My knowledge of geology is pretty limited, but it seems to me that either definition is applicable, but the former may be more specific to this context. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 17:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

• As usual, the entire geology section is way over my head, so I can't really provide much feedback. If there is any way to explicitly connect the geologic features to the minerals found in the mine, that would be helpful for a novice reader, but I have no idea how feasible that is.

Overall, this article does a good job expounding on a subject that I suspect would be mostly or entirely neglected without your special interest in it (or maybe there is a large community of folks interested in abandoned Canadian mines; I don't know!) That in and of itself is commendable. Good luck should you decide to take this article through one of the Wikipedia review processes (GAC, PR, FAC, etc.) Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 13:22, 1 November 2012 (UTC)