Arizona republican., 1904-02-11

N gulch and sunk on the contact Of the
 schist and porphyry and spent several
 hundred thousand dollars and found nothing. The Calumet and Pittsburg
 sunk along the line of the Queen. also
 the Calumet and Arizona workings
 and have just lately struck some high
 grade ore in large quantities.
 The South Bisbee, about a mile and
 a half farther south. is in good ore, and
 several other good properties are be-
 ing opened up in this district and a
 great deal of prospecting and stalking
 out of claims is going on, some on
 faith or reputation of the surrounding
 country and others or good mining
 knowledge. Water is pumped nine
 miles from the Naco wells and furnish
 es a sufficient amount for all needs.
 The head is about 1900 feet and is smade
 in one lift from Naco, over an eight inch
 pipe line. It is only recently that this
 line was completed and shows the faith
 that the present management has in the
 quantity of ore in the Queen workings,
 which is also corroborated by the erec-
 tion of such an immense smelting plant
 at Douglas No roasting is being done | at present Some of the heavy sul- 1 phides are being shipped to Morenci, !
 to help smelt their oXidized ores there. | After examining the surface workings and viewing rhe country from several
 points of view. the party returned for | lunch and made arrangements with MT. | Lee. the metalluTgist of the company. | to inspect the reduction works after | lunch. Here was where things became | real interesting, as MT. Lee understood l his business and knows how to explain | thinSs in the line of smelting. The shelter is not up to date in equipment, i but the results are first class. We were | told the primary object Was to make it 1 pay and this was constantly kept in .1ind. Some pet theory, that was mag | nificent in conception but commercial! | failure, did not appeal to the owne, s. | This explained several operations that were going on that did not seem just | like we had been told it should be done. All ore as nearly as possible made mp | the charge even though this did not constitute the best charge for fluxing obtainable, and even ran the slag up higher in copper than seemed prac-
 tical at times the percentage of iron i being high in the ore. This is not lost | sight of by Alr. Lee and he makes a | slag that runs high in iron and low in silica, the scarce quantity here, ana 1 lime, which has to be quarried sep arately at additional cost. In this way ! the gangue is made use of as far as 1 possible in the Aux. even if the iron does carry considerable copper away
 with it in the slag. This is substantial ly the proposition, although several nice little details come into the work
 that make the operation particularly | interesting to a close student of met aliurgy.
 The furnaces are six in number and furnish sufficient matte for the five converters. The converters are handled i by carriages run by hand. instead of an electric crane. such as is in Use in Jerome. Morenci. Cananea and other places. This is another instance of aGaptability. as it would mean great | less to shut down and remodel the plant. and the plant was originally de- | signed to make black copper. which is
 a thing of the past in modern copper smeltinc.
 The matte averages about fifty per cent copper and from four to five charges are blown in each converter before refining is necessary.
 ..The converters are of the Leghorne type. five by eight feet. and will afford about three tons Of blister copper at ! each charge. They are originally 1 lined with magnesium brick, imported from Europe. Then on 10 this is packed the silica with just enough clay to hold it together then the whole is baked for several hours and wheeled into the con
 verter stand. and matte is Tapped from the furnace into a ladle and poured by ! the electric crane into the converte.. 1 Here about eleven pounds of compress ed air to the square inch is forced into the molten mass through the TyDple | tuyers, and the charge blown. After it is blown sufficiently until the green | ish flames begin to come off, the slsg | is skinned off. This is largely iron and about thirty per cent silica, with | from one half to one per cent copper.
 This slay is poured back into the set 1 tiers at the base cf the furnace and the charge bloved some mere to drive off ] the remaining sulphur. This takes about thirty minutes and can be Ju3ge | by the drous Of metallic copper which are elected and toInd off and tutn | black, while the slag glows a few sec ! onGs and sticks to the converter sides Then q little more skmming and | the copper is ready to be poured into
 the molds. about 300 pounds capacity each This bullion runs about ninety eight per cent pure copper, with some gold and silver and few other impur- ities. One distinctiveness about the smelling here is that q very low col urnn is maintained in the furnace and only about twenty ounces of air to the square foot is used. as low as six feet. while in Cananea and Fl Paso from eight to ten feet is common practice.
 This makes difference in the amount of flue dust, but most of it is saved in the flue chambers and long stacks and is re-run in the bricquetting plant. About sixty tons of flue dust per month is obtained from the furnaces. Every thing is well planned and works
 with mathematical regularity. Mr. Lee is we'll up in his profession and is get ting fine results from the reduction
 plant, wirch, considerirg its age, is economically planned and in good wo. k ing order. MT. Walter Douglas is gen. eraI manager of works and MT. Clauson