The daily sentinel., 1905-03-27

Copper is King

About six weeks ago the Western
Slope Copper. Mining & Smelling
Company, who are operating in the
unaweep mining district, Mesa coun-
ty, Colo. instructed their superin-
tendent, w. A. Lynch. to haul down
one ton OF their low grade ore. which
runs about per cent in copper, as
they wished to demonstrate by this
test whether the ores of this district
were self-tluXing. The ore was run
through Mr.. Weir's foundry on South
Seventh street. There were several
prominent mining men present. also
smelling men, and the results were
more than satisfactory to the COM
pany. as il proved a very important
point; that is, that the ores of the
unaweep district contain enough iron
aud lime to iiuN them perfectly. Thos.
Osborne, superintendent OF the Grand
Junction Smelling Company, who was
present, said that in all OF his twenty
years experience he never saw better
results than was obtained by this test.
The Stag was thin, which causes
a perfect separation of the mineral
from the Stag. The results of this
test of . per cent copper produced a
matte running forty-five and two
tenths per cent copper, besides small
values in gold and silver The matte
was bought at the Grand Junction
smelling plant at the rate OF Sl10|
per ton.
There are thousands of tons Of ore
in the Unaweep camp that run from
10 . per cent copper. which is too
low grade to mine and ship to the
smelter. Consequently, the Western
Slope Copper. Mining & Smelling
Company are now building a 5O-ton
capacity matte smelter, which viii
be placed on their properties about
May /. OF course. the reader must
understand that per cent copper,
mentioned in this article, is not the
highest grade copper mines in that
camp. The Nancy Hanks mine has
shipped over twenty car loads to
Pueblo and Denver and the lowest
returns ever received from this mine
was lG per cent copper, but it has
run as high as % per cent. The
Bill Mckinley mine has n large body
Of copper ore that viii run 20 per
cent but on account of the excessive
freight rates to Pueblo they have not
stopped It ont, but have been waiting
for the Grand junction Smelling
Company to blow in.
In talking with f. r. Blaisdell, /
general manager of the Western
Slope Copper. Mining & Smelling
Company he informed us that his
company expects to spend lot of
money in developing these proper
ties the coming summer Their larg-
est ore bodies at present are at the
Nancy Hanks mine. This mine alone
he expects will keep the J0-ton
smelter running steadily through the
summer. Work will be st..ited on
the Mollie Brooks. which is a very
promising mine having 10 feet of
low grade ore in the bottom of the
shaft, at a depth of 160 feet. A
hoist will be installed on the Metallic
mine at the mouth of the big tunnel,
and a crew OF men put to work sink
ing This will make three different
mines this company will operate dur
ing the summer. The matte from
the smelter will be shipped to the
Grand junction smelter In this city,
and It is expected that it will furnish
one-half of the copper that this plant
will require.
The Western Slope company has
done a great deal of Development
work in this camp, but, on account
of the excessive freight rates to
Pueblo and Denver, have not rushed
the work as hard as they could have
done had the smelter been in oper-
alton before; but everything now
looks like clear sailing for the camp
with the market only 23 miles away.
where the highest prices are paid for
copper. 1t certainly looks as though
this camp was having permanent
boom.
This little matte smelter will con
centrate about 9 tons into /. and
team of four horses will haul tons
of the matte to the smelter in this
city. That would mean 40 tons of
crude ore. So it is plain that a re
duction plant of this kind at the
mines will be a great success.
We are very glad to learn that
such active operations are going to
be carried on in the unnweep, as IT
means a great deal to Grand juno
tion, as all the supplies are bought
here and big crew Of men at work
in the Unaweep means that a lot OF
goods will be used to supply them.