Bisbee daily review., 1907-10-13

and decline Of the three principal
 sources of the metal since the West
 ern States began to grow into prom
 thence. say. from 1882. We find that
 q that date tths ais supplied supplied fsrssI--
 ores of metallic copper 25,000 long
 tons of copper: Arizona, from OK
 idized ores, 5000 long tons of copper
 and Montana. from sulphide ores
 4,000 long tons. After that. the Lake production relatively declined. The
 Montana production continued to in
 crease rapidly until 1887. when Mon
 tana took the first place with 35,00C
 tons. Lake superior second place with 3i,000, and Arizona third. with 5000
 This order was maintained until 1905
 when Arizona attained the second
 rank.
 Meanwhile. however, notable con
 tribut,ons were made from neglected States which had again become ac- tive producers. or from entirely new territory. Before the Civil War broke 1 out, Tennessee was the largest pro- ducer on the Appalachian Range. The
 active mines shipped during the first
 nine months of 1855, 14,291 tons of | ore of 25 per cent--the Hiawassee
 alone shipping 4.156 tons. Smelling works were successfully started that ! year. and before the war broke out, | the copper produced was being re- l fined on the spot. After the war min i ing declined and for a time pToduc- l tion ceased. But when the mines | were reopened new metallurgical
 methods were very skillfully applied.
 and in 1896 Tennessee made 3,750, ,124 pounds of copper; but last year the | State is credited with 1S,821 900 | pounds. Utah until recently has | made an almost negligible quantity l but last year she added to the na- 1 tion's stock 49,712,00 pounds Cali | fornia in the sixties and seventies | occupied a prominent position. but | her production sank to 120.156 pounds n 1894. The revinval commenced with ! the opening of the Mountain Copper | Mine in 1896 and with a product of 1 1.120.0 900 pounds. which sprung to 14,- 1 100000 in the following year. It now stands at 24,421 900 pounds. What | Alaska will do, the future only will | show. The large lenses of cuprifer- | ous pyrites on the coast in Hetta in- | let sent into the market last year. | S,700,0G0 pounds of copper, most of | 1t treated at the Tacoma works. The 1 largest sources of new supply. which
 can be counted on with tolerable cer. i tainty, will be found in the low grade ores of Utah and Nevada. where 1 works on a very large scale are being planned or erected for their treat ment. It is expected that within two
 or three years 15,OO0 to 20,0OO tons of | ore day. containing not only copper ] but carrying notable quantities of the I precious metals. will be concentrated l and smelted in these two States.
 which should add to our total about | 200. 100000 pounds year.
 ] The presence of small quantities of gold and silver in copper ores, now that the process of electTolytic cop per refining permits these elements to be cheaply separated among the ' impurities, is putting within the range of profitable extraction ores of very | low percentage in copper. When the l Anaconda mine was first opened, and it's rich ores (and subsequently the mates, made from thPm) were ship ped to Europe for refining, the mar | gin of gold and silver deducted from the ton of copper, before any allow | ance was made to the shipper, was | S6.0O. As the deduction was sub | stantially the whole of the precious metals in the Butte copper, the com pany derived no benefit. Whatever I TuaTgIn THeTP WAS TTT Iup S5U oTer anu i above tine heayy cost uf sepdT dti0n went to the refiners. Most of the rich argentiferous copper was then l converted into bluestone. But since l electrolysis has been applied to cop 1 per refining. and the process has been ! I To ftaa ,FsN mercial charges for refining the cop per and separating the precious met
 aIs have been reduced from S60 to | Sl6. and as the value of the electro i lytically refined copper is ordinarily about s10 a ton above that of fur nace-refined copper, copper bars con i taining st in precious metals can be
 economically converted into electro | lytic. and their gold and silver added 1 to the worlds wealth. If the copper bars contain the concentrated gold I and silver of 30 tons of ore, the ore ] need contain only 20 cents of gold and silver per ton to make it profit able to submit the resulting copper
 to electrolysis. The amount thus ex- tracted from domestic and foreign ores in the refsneries of the United
 States is approximately:-fro Mon tara. $6, $50 900: Arizona and Sonora. $2, ,105 900; Canada, $460000: and oth- CT sources S2,500 .000-or over S11 ,000- 000-most of which formerly entered the refined copper and was wasted. While the presence of precious met als in high-grade ores rebounds to the fortunate copper company which
 mines them. when ores of per cent and under (like those of the Bound ary District of British ColI.nbia, or , Bingham Canon in Utah. or Of Ely County in Nevada) are treated. the , addition of 8 or $3 in gold and silver per ton may convert an unprofitable into a very profitable mineral. And from such ores will probably come
 much of the copper from our new
 mineral developments; for t is not
 probable that within the explored ter
 ritory, many new large deposits will
 be discovered which are also of high
 grade. whereas lean ores in very large quantities are known to exist in many districts of the country. Apart from their contents in precious metals. bet ter machinery and improved metal Iurgical methods permit of ores being treated economically today, which would not have been chased as ore a few years ago: and today ores are
 rejected in developed mines, which as no distant day may help us to maintain our position in the copper world
 But as already pointed out. we can not expect to grow as vigorously as