Pyrite Ball ?

Who really discovered the spherical pyrite (pyrite ball). At the time I was the driller with a hydraulic jumbo in the Grange section of the Pierrepont Mine owned by ZCA. We had just started working our way in to what is called the GRC level.

At the time there was just two of us in the area. Pete Cook was the loader operator and we worked well together. When the shot was drilled up and  loaded I would run truck for Pete in order to get our tonnage to the surface for the day. The Pierrepont mine is a decline from the surface. That means you can drive right down in to it.

The actual find was not a glamorous one. Pete and I had gone in to do some had scaling after it was cleaned out with the loader. We hand scale every round before we drill, after we fire to be mucked and then again before I would set up to drill. Last thing you want to happen is to be hit by loose ground above your head. From experience it hurts.

I had noticed part of a round object in the ceiling of the area I was about to drill. Pete and I tried to get it free, but it was still locked in as being very solid part of the hanging. With all the hand scaling out of the way, Pete went to start mucking out another heading I had fired the night before.

It didn't take me long to set-up the rig, you simply plug in to a 480 volt outlet and hook up a water hose in order to keep the dust to a minimal. I happened to see up toward the face some loose ground. Using the hydraulic levers to control the boom ,I raised it almost to the hanging and proceeded to run the drill steel out to bring it down.

As I started to rattle the loose ground, a round object the size of a basketball came rolling down the boom. It had gathered enough steam to come flying by me and bouncing off the back of the drill rig. The pyrite ball was born. I set it aside in the drift to show Pete later that day.

The funny thing is that after firing that shot, hundred of them appeared. At first they were kind of ugly with magnetite mixed in with the pyrite. The next two shots produced the best ones. These were solid pyrite with good polished faces on them, some the size half dollars all over ones the size of basketballs. They came in all shapes and sizes. Some were hooked together to produce the look of barbells.

The smallest being the size of a dime all the way up to just a bit bigger than a basketball. What I can tell you was that it didn't take long for people showing up to grab them up. At times they were in the way of Pete and I getting our work done. Many went through the crushing and milling process at the Balmat mill located at #4 mine.