Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1901-12-18
SONORA COMPANIES SHELTER.
Con 0'Keefe Arranging for Plant for the Reduction of Ores, Which Means
 Dividends to Stock Holders.

Con U heele, the man WnO nrSl discovered the famous Cobra GIande copper mine, which was the begin ming from which the great Cananea properties in Mexico had their origi- nal inception, is in town. MT. O'Keefe is here to contract for fifty ton smelter from a local house, which will be placed at his new property in Mexico. This new mine appears, he says, as wonderful a discovery as the Cobra Grande and the Cananea, and has been called by experts the second ''Anaconda."
 After a particularly stormy career in connection with the Cobra Grande litigation, Mir. O'Keefe began to look for something at least as good. He went down to Mexico and found a prospect that was on the site of an old "antiqua," as the smelters used by the conquering Spaniards who first worked the mines in that section several centuries ago were called. He published his notices and the claim was allowed.
 We have over S2,OOO,OOO of copper ore in sight at present." said Mir. O'Keefe, ''and this is only faint in timation of what is hidden in the ground. I know that there is an inn mense property there and it will be worked to the limit. 1 am sending down a fifty-ton smelter, and of a type that represents as much as fully third larger of any other kind. When we first opened the La Fortuna mine I thought we had a valuable silver property. Nine samples that were sent to the assaye- represented from 9.9 to 40.S ounces of silver. This is very rich and we were preparing to look for good results in a silver mine. In the report that William E. Deity, one of the most prominent mining engineers in Arizona, made on the property, there was a comment that there was a probability that copper ore would be encountered.
 "We, however, were not expecting much for this ore, but were mining for the white metal. As we went down, however, we found that the red ore was becoming more prominent and it has absolutely forced us to make this the mainstay of the mine, as it shows the greatest wealth. The copper ore is in carbonates in the form of azurite and malachite. The ores show a percentage of from 5 to s per cent. We are not going to con centrate. By the new process of smelling We can get better results and there is a vast amount of money in sight.
 Besides the Fortuna, we have three other claims that we are de- veloping. These are the Penasco, Quemado and the Berneno. In the first of these We have sunk two shafts about 450 feet apart. One of these shafts is down thirty five feet and the other one fifty feet. There are a number of open cuts or trenches made in the hill where the great out cropping of ore shows on the surface for more than eighty feet in width by 1900 feet in length. Now the average of the samples taken at random, without regard to waste or ore, is above twenty-five ounces of silver per ton. There is another matter to be taken into consideration when the value of mine in Mexico is being [ figured. This is the cost of operation.
 Miners get a dollar a day American money. Surface laborers are only paid 75 cents a day in the same coin age. This when compared with the prices paid on the American side, never less than S3.50 per day for miners, makes the value compara- lively greater even when the assay does not go any higher.
 ''Besldes what l have told you of the Fortuna, there is every reason to suppose that there is gold in paying quantities. We have a shaft down some fifty feet and there we get a re- turn of S3.60 per ton and about seven teen and one-half ounces of silver There is at this mine a depression ou the hillside where the Spaniards ori ginally worked this mine, and we know from experience that they only worked the richest mines.
 About a mile west of the PenascC Quemado is the Serena. We have tunneled here for distance of about 200 feet and have taken out some very rich ore. There are on tht dump about 100 tons that will TUT from $40 to $460 in gold and iron
 IS to 57.5 ounces in silver to the ton i The estimate agreed upon by tho different mining engineers who hay, examined the property of 75,000 tom
 in sight at the present working
 justifies us in putting up plan
 as this tonnage will keep us runnin,
 for fully four years treating fifty ton
 oi ore per day. The Anaconda, on
 of the best paving copper mines il
 ali Montana -howcI signs that wer !