Arizona republican., 1907-11-29
COPPER TALK
 BY FITz-MAC Able Article In the Mininq
 Investor AriZOna's Fundamental A d. vantage Lies In the Low Cost of Production.

Phoenix, AriZ.. Nov. 14.-ls the worlds supply of copper being ex- hausted by the rapid increase of the output in recent years?
 Yes. unquestionably it is. If you have laid in for the winter family supply of ten million bushels of potatoes. you are fairly entitled to begin to worry as soon as the first peck has been consumed, for your store is in a course of being exhausted and it is only a question of time till your beloved fam fly will be out of potatoes.
 How long will 1t be. allowing for the rapidly increasing consumption. before the worlds natural store of copper will be completely exhausted?
 An. the answer to that momentous question is fraught with deepest gloom to the whole industrial world. IL is worrying hundreds of pseudo scientists and pseudo-copper-s statistical experts in all the most enlightened and pro- gressive nations of the world till they can't sleep. But l have figured it out to a negligible fraction. Of course the calculator has to assume some arbi- trary. definite limit to the increase of
 
 Let us. therefore. assume fifty times the present output as the limit of con- sumption. Well at that rate my cal culations show that the worlds natural supply of copper will be. to all prac- tical intents and purposes. completely exhausted in 5000 millions of years. There may be an error of a month or two one side or the other of that limit for I am not infallible.
 After that. good bye to copper min ing.
 II is a saddening thought,
 Now, if you have the brains of a clam in your gifted head, my Christian brother. my answers have opened your eyes to the fact that your ques- tions (which are the same questions that are breaking the hearts of thou sands of pseudo-experts and hurrying them to untimely gravesl 60 not come within 1000 miles of touching the real the practical problem which the case presents.
 The worlds natural store of copper Likewise of gold and of rom is. foI all practical calculations, inexhausti- ble The problem of the supply of fin ished copper to the market Cor of gold or iron) is simply this: What price can the world afford to pay? The quantity of copper which can b. produced at 9 cents a pound is quite large, but would not last many years The quantity that can be produced al I2 cents (always figuring the cost or present methods of mining and reduc- . ing) is vastly larger but not illimita- ble. The quantity available at 20 cents is about five times as large as the quantity that can be produced at l. cents, while at the price of 40 cents the quantity available may safely b. regarded as inexhaustible.
 There is almost no limit to the con- sumption of copper if it can be pro duced at a low-enough cost. But th' supply is strictly limited by the cost ot producing.
 Copper like iron is a metal that can- not be produced at a low cost except where produced on a large scale with a large investment of operative capi- tai The cost of producing copper in the United States is the price at which the refined metal can be laid dowr and sold in the city of New York (tht