Bisbee daily review., 1904-06-22

The profits to be obtained by cop per producers in the futre will de- pend very largely. as in the past, on the price for which the metal can be sold in the open market The price of copper is determined, as is that of all other commodities, by supply and demand. If, therefore. the prospect is that the future growth of consump- ton will be relatively greater than that of production, we must expect prices to gradually work higher. and. as result. the profits of producers to increase. The improvements in min ing, milling and smelling that are currently being made will tend to reduce prices only so far as they in screase production. There is reason for the belief that these improvements will eventually make it possible to sue -cessfully work lower grade mineral deposits than those from which the world now gets its copper: but the growth in that direction will neces- sarily be very slow, as a considerable portion of the mines now operating. fully half. in fact, would be forced to G1OSt uO~n Oi SAc metal to average for one year below 10 cents per pound.
 Twenty years ago. 1884. the aver age price of copper was 13 cents for the year. or about the same as it has been during the past year. The worlds output of copper is more than two and a half times as great as it was in 1884. As the average price of copper dur ing the 20 years has been very close to 13 cents per pound. it is plain that consumption has grown as rapid ly as production
 Statistics show that the worlds out put of copper doubles about every 12 years The specialists who make a study of copper mines and costs do not believe that the present production of copper can be doubled in the com ing 12 years unless the industry is giv- en the stimulation that comes from more or less steadily advancing prices. Five years ago an era of copper min ing development was entered upon, encouraged by a 17-cent copper mark ct. and out of that boom have come several new producers that are adding considerably to the present volume of output. It required three to five years of development work to make these new mines factors in the copper mark ct At present there are very few new copper mining properties under development. and for the increase of production for the coming five years at least the world must depend almost wholly on the mines that are already producers.
 The larger old mines are not as a rule maintaining their volume of cop per production This is illustrated by the following, giving the date of the largest production. and production last year.
 Anaconda, Montana. 131.471,127. 1879, s3,646,600, 1903.
 Boston & Montana, Montana, 82.00o.- coo, 1903.
 Rio Tinto. Spain. s0.214,40o. 1903 Calumet & Hecla, ,sSfichigan S9,610.963 1899. 7s.4so.sss. 1903.
 Tbarsis. Spain. 2s.o00,0o0. 1898. IT, 154,5s0, 1903.
 Mansfield. Germany. 4e.55s.4oo. 1899 42,500.27s. 1903.
 Mountain Copper. California. 22.- s00,00o, 1900. 15.e44.0o0, 1903
 Copper Queen, Arizona 39,7S1, ,33S 1901, se.ss5.oo0. 1903.
 United Verde. Arizona. 43,ss5.s32 1899. 3o.o00.000, 1903.
 Tamarack, Michigan, 1s.02o.00, 1899 15,2ss.093, 1903.
 Total for the largest years produc- tion. 5S3.152.155.
 Total for the year of 1905. 4ss. s2o.s55.