The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-03-22
THE AGE OF COPPER.


 Experts estimate that the produc- tion of copper in this country last year was approximately 943,0O0OOO pounds more than in 1904; and it is predicted that this year will show an even larger increase Yet at such a pace is the consumption of the metal growing that the output of ore does not meet our national needs and we are importing larger and larger quantities from across the Atlantic.
 First and foremost this is an neectrical age and the utilization of electricity is largely dependent upon copper Trans mission of electrical energy for use in lighting streets and dwellings, opera ting power plants and railways, and making possible co communication by tel egrapN and telephone, is a prime fac- tor in twentieth century living. Power transmission for lighting and manufac- turing purposes, though It's future pos abilities are enormous, Is largely unde- veloped so to some extent Is the elec- tric railway; so, most of all perhaps, is the telephone, though already the Bell system alone has nearly two and "a half million telephones in use. All of these utilities use vast amounts of copper, not only in the form of wire but in the powerful and mysterious machinery by which they are operated.
 Undoubtedly the telephone system is the largest single user of copper in the country today, and that means the world. Of the heavy copper wire on pole lines, the lighter equipment of local service and the tiny fllaments in the cav bles which constitute half the wire mileage of the Bell system there are upward of 5,O00,OOO miles. One of the great reels of cable you see the con- struction gangs forcing through the subway manholes every day contains enough, if 1t were all in one continuous place, to set up a very respectable sys- tenn by itself. The largest size cable incloses in it's leaden sheath 1,200 sepa- rate wires and comes in 800 foot lengths so that altogether 1t is made up of 14O miles of copper threads; the average length of sections of cables used for underground work in the big cities is 800 feet, which means 120 miles of wire.
 In addition to the copper in the tele- phone lines, there are millions of miles of wire in the intricate apparatus of central offices and the connections on subscribers premises. One of the TO- 00O-line switchboards used in the big telephone centres includes 4,000 miles of wire-enough to reach from, say St.. Louis to Liverpool if it were placed to- gether in a single line
 The switcElboards in the largest ten cities in the country have about 65,OOO miles of wire in them, not counting the tiny copper threads no coarser, in sulation and all, than the finest thread of cotton which the American house. wife uses for sewing-which are found about the magnets and relays of which there is a set for every subscribers line that comes into the board. In single relay is half pound of copper, spun out to a length of three-tenths of a mile. There is from half mile to a mile of wire in each of the relays con- nected with the cords by which the operators at central join two circuits together; and every operator who an- swers calls has seventeen of these cords, while the trunk operators, who connect one central office with another but do not answer subscribers calls