The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-05-14

parties have run preliminary lines in
there. There are, to the best of my OBJ
servation and belief, no engineering diff
culties in the way. From Snohomish to
the mouth of Silver creek saw no heavier
grades than, in my opinion, have been en-
countered by the railroads building from
Seattle north to the Skagit. Even if a road
were not built in there-and one certainly
will be-the quality of the ore would justify
packing it out to the wagon road, trans
portation by team to snohomish, whence
it could be brought to Seattle by boat. The
smelte- will be built here and road will
be built into the mines unless tidal wave
comes and swallows up this country. /
feel safe in making this assertion.
"The ores of the Cascade mountains l
find to be very favorable to smelling, as
they carry very large percentage of lead,
which1s requisite. This gives us great
advantage over some of the rich districts
of Colorado which have to borrow lead.
l might add in this connection that white
lead works viii follow the operation of the
smelter, and this alone will be of no little
benefit to the country. The iron and
limestone, which are used largely in smelt-
ing, are found here in abundance and
suitable for the purpose. This is another
advantage We have over many other rich
districts. Why is there no smelter at As
pen, which is one OF the greatest mining
camps in the world? Simply because they
lack some of these requisites which we
have right at our hand.
"0ur operations will not be confined to
smelling alone, but to refining. We shall
be able to ship the pure metal from our
works and not simply the base bullion
which comes from the smelter. The ores
/ have seen are of higher average grade
and carry higher values than those of
any other district / have ever seen, except
ing, of course, our carbonates at Leadville,
but We are pretty well through with car
Donates there.
1.-The smelter will be located at Seattle.
It's exact location has not been determined
upon, but it will be Seattle institution.
You ask me why Seattle has been chosen
as the location of these works, and l reply
''for business reasons" Experience has
taught US that smelter must be located
in money center. The product of our
works has fixed market value and fur
nishes sure banking investment. To
successfully operate smelter, hun
dreds of thousands of dollars
in value must be kept in
the dumps, and no company can do this
without the aid of banks. Whenever
smelters have been started back in the
mines. away from the money centers. they
have proven a failure because of the lack
of capital to put in the raw material. Then,
again, Seattle is transportation center
and furnishes facilities that will command
ores from remote districts. We shall draw
our supplies of ore not only from the Sill
yer creek and contiguous districts, but
from Ceur d'Alene, Okanogan, Kootenai,
British Columbia and other districts as
well. The duty on lead. would shut out
the heavy lead ores from British Column
bia, but we would get their dry ores, for
which we have all the materials for smelt-
ing, as the lead derived from our ores will
be more than sufficient for all the dry ores
that may be sent in here / understand
that company has already been formed
to provide sampling works, which furnish
the average value of body of ore for the
smelter.
THE operation of the smelling and refin-
ing works at this point means millions of
dollars to Seattle. l firmly believe that
within five years at least 100000 men will
be engaged in mining in the state of Wash
ington, and that would mean population
of about 100000 persons dependent upon
mining alone. l cannot say how many
men the smelter will employ at first, as
we have not yet decided how large to
build, but the number OF men who receive
pay from the works is but a drop in
the bucket TO the number of men they will
furnish employment for back in the hills.
Say we only employ 100 men at first in
our works. To keep them employed at
least 1000 men must be delving in the
mines and transporting the ores to the
smelter. The Grant works at Denver en-
ploy from 400 to 500 men, but back of them
are the ten thousand or more miners who
draw their supplies from Denver. So you
see that while smelter gives immediate
employment to men by the hundreds, it
furnishes contingent employment to men
nv the thousands