The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-12-30

UNPRECEDENTED prosperity has fol-
lowed the miner through the year; it
has stalked along, arm in arm with the
smelterman; it has been in correspond
ingly close relationship with the pro-
moter, stock broker and the dealer in
mine, mill and smelter supplies. 1t has
been a year of tremendous activity,
and that even more has not been ac-
complished is due altogether to the fact
that, for once in the history of the west
and the country at large, the power OF
money has not been sufficiently potent
TO hurry anything along. None OF the
producing mines in Utah have been
able TO secure miners enough to swell
their outputs to the dimensions desired
The smelteT operators have had the
same conditions to face; so have the
companies building mills and hosting
works. When it has been possible to
get material delivered it has been i'm
possible to get men enough TO handle 1t.
When it was possible TO get mechanics
Il was impossible ii get material deliv-
cred. That is the way it has been with
everything: that promises to be the
case during 1907.
The copper miner has received about
Sc a pound more for his product during
the year than he received during the
year 1905, and he has produced about
10, 600 900 pounds more of the metal.
Silver Miners Prosperity.
The silver miner has produced about
5000 900 ounces more of the white metal
than he did during 1905, and he has re
ceiVed &c an ounce more for that, while
the experts in the metal market are
telling him that, before 1907 is grown
old. he Will be receiving 75c per ounce.
During the past month lead has been
sold at Sc per 100 pounds, the highest
price ever attained for that metal, and
the world is forging ahead so rapidly
and the demand for the metal is out
stripping the supply so far that 1t
seems altogether probable that Sc will
be the settling basis for the COM
ing twelve months. The price last year
was about 1c a mound better than in
1905 and the production was so much
greater that the mine owners addition
al profits amounted to over H,250,000.
While it is hard to get at the real in
crease in the states production of gold,
the increased production OF copper, sill
yer and lead makes II practically GER
tain that when the segTegatiOns have
been made IN the home and outside
state amounts that appear in the
production table, it win be found that
Utah has TO its credit better than
3HN,UJN ounces, winch means gam OF
81 600. 600 over 1905.
Dividends paid by the mining COM
panies of Utah are not much short of
81 600 900 more than they were in 1908.
and there is not q particle of dosdDt
that the twelve months ahead will wit
ness the making Of another new record.
Alta, Bingham, Beaver county and
Tintic have added wonderfully to their
production of metals during the year,
and Park City has more than held its
own. With the complete draining of
the mines by the reOpening of the long
Ontario drain tunnel. with the addition
of the Daly-Judge company to the div
idend list, and with prospects of add
ing new shippers and possibly one or
two new dividend-payers during the
year ahead, this old stGnd-by camp can
he depended Unon to make history for
the future.
Increase of Zinc Product.
Nothing particularly new has devel-
nped in the Zinc-prOducing industry
during the year. excepting the largely
ir-r.raa sod o1ffD4if of the Scranton mines