Arizona silver belt., 1901-05-09
NEW COPPER PROCESS.
Senator Clark Secures Option on Process to to Manufacture Bars, Sheets and
 Tubes From Crude Material

to Manufacture Bars, Sheets and Tubes From Crude Material, A London, England, special to the l New York Herald, says: Senate, Clark's visit to Europe is likely to con firm his claim to the title of "Ooppei King' in a way that he did not an ticipate when he set out to round ul the Rio Tinto mine into the new anal gamation. When he returns to Amer. ica not only will he be in position to
 to disregard the opposition of tn. Calumet and Hecla mine, but he will
 be able to dictate terms to every cop
 per foundry in the United States, if d
 deal which heard of recently goes
 through.
 This deal means the acquisition by
 the Montana Senator of newly die
 covered process by which bars, sheets
 and tubes can be manufactured from the crude material almost at the pits
 mouth. This will mean a saving of
 something like e20 (slOO) per ton on
 the finished material.
 The process is electrolytic and is
 closely analogous to the electroly tic
 refining method by which two hun
 dred thousand tons of copper were re- fined in the United States last year
 The new process uses the same amount of electrical energy per ton of met Il as the old, but is worked at rate tel times greater, and in making bar cop per for subsequent melting rate twenty times greater is said to have been successfully used.
 The manufacture of copper articles direct from the crude metal has long engaged the attention of inventors, ill view of the enormous profits accruing. Many attempts have been made, but hitherto all alike have been unsuccess- ful, or only partially successful. The new process is said not only to over come the known difficulties, but by an ingenious contrivance, automatic in its action, to have effected marvellous improvement over all methods hereto fore known.
 Mir. David Cook, an electrical en- gineer, who carried out the ligh hting of the city of London, gave me some important data regarding the process, which, he says, will revolutionize the copper industry. 'I had some tubes made by this process" he said, which stood test up to 5000 pounds per square inch without showing d sign of weakness, the ordinary test being 600 pounds. To show how it would work, say in the Anaconda mine, where loo tons of copper are electro lytically refined daily in l,400 vats, covering something like sixty five acres of ground, only 100 vats would be required by the new process.
 Where, under present conditions, the product requires to go subsequent iy through the process of smelling, drawing, rolling and forging before the finished article is produced, the new process will produce the finished article direct from the vat. This means the saving of from Sl00 to $500 per ton compared with the present method. In fact, the new process practically aboiishes copper manufacturing as at present understood"
 Messrs. Sanger and Blount, govern ment analysts, have been making tests | of the new process in their laboratory | at Westminster. The results of their | test were given me yesterday.
 These show that copper can be de- | posted as a coherent sheet at cur rent density ten times greater than ! that employed in ordinary electro deposition. The copper so deposited is almost chemically pure, and in con sequence of this purity its electrical conductivity approaches the theo- retical limit. The metal is also free from lamination.
 Stripped of scientific verbiage, the new process amounts to simply this:- Where, formerly, or, rather, at pres ent, it requires many days to convert the raw material into sheet copper, which has to be subsequently, put through an expensive process to pro- duce the finished article, the new pro- cess will turn out the finished article by a single operation.
 British and Canadian rights have already been secured by syndilcates, and l understand that Senator Clark has the option on the American rignts, the purchase price running into six figures.