Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-10-28
0LD DOMINION
 IN FINE SHAPE
IS ONE OF RICHEST COPPER MINES ON CoNTINENT-EARN. ING $4 A SHARE ON PRESENT METAL MARKET.


 ion is understood to be earning at the rate of 3$.50 share annually on it's stock, and the management believes that 1t will earn s4 per share hereafter as long as copper holds around 13kc. Each cent per pound advance in the price of the metal will add about $l per share to the company's net earn | ings. The statement has been that a cent per pound will add sl.40 per share to its earnings, but this is not correct, as not over 30,000,0O0 pounds of the company's production win come from it's own mines, and on the copper in custom ores the purchase price will ad- vance with the selling price of copper. Unquestionably the Old Dominion en. l terprise is in very much better shape than ever before in its history. It still has the magnificent plant which has been talked about for the last three or four years, and in addition it has con. trol of the water in it's mine, a larger tonnage of high grade ore blocked out than ever before, and has ;ts deep workings in sulphide ores, which means that the company will soon get its sup ply of suiphides, required in smelting, from its own properties.
 The Old Dominion enterprise has been credited with having hoodoo because of the fact that, though large pro- ducer, it has distributed practically nothing in dividends. Efforts to prove that 1t has been mismanaged in the past have resulted in showing extravagance | in certain departments and lack of busi- ness judgment in others, but the real trouble with the Old Dominion ari,es from two great mistakes made by the management years ago, and persisted in until four or five years past
 When Old Dominion fell into the hands of A. S. Bigelow and associates, 1t had in sight considerable tonnage of very high grade oxide and carbonate ores. Every geologist in the country kpew that sulphide ores would be devel. oped if shafts were sunk deep enough to find them, and the management must have had proper advice in this direc- ton. It built a smelter, however. and began the treatment of the high grade oxides, recovering only about two thirds of their copper contents, and making slag which carried fully forty pounds of copper to the ton. The man. agement could have been excused for doing this, if it had steadily sunk it's shaft deeper and deeper. After the company had been under one manage ment for eight years, and had produced l00,000,000 pounds of copper, more or less, it's deepest openings were only 900 to HOO feet. Its shelter, meanwhile, had become antiquated, and ill.advised mining plans had created condition of caving from the surface which had prac tically ruined a number of the mine buildings.
 Under the present management the company has sunk new shaft at point where it is unlikely to cave, and is working persistenly to develop the sulphide ores known o exist at depth [ The hundreds of millions of pounds of copper which has been taken out and i oO'u ot Pi"StShhy no pIOht ChnHOt Ut | put back into the mine, however, and [ that portion of what would be the com pany's assets is gone forever The old . slag dump is being re-smelted, and many { of the old stopes have been reopened f and mined again for good oxide ores thrown away by the early management.
 Fortunately, the Old Dominion prop erty is big one, both in area and in ore. The extension of development work to the west and to depth has opened very large bodies of ore which is avail able now and will be in the future The ! management is progressive, and it will steadily reduce the cost of producing copepr.
 As the Old Dominion ores are very rich, it is quite within reason to be- lieve that the company will ultimately put out it's copper at cost of 9 cents per pound. When it does, it will be ablo to pay $5 to $l0 per share annu- ally to stockholders, the amount depend. ing upon the volume of it's production and the market price of copepr. Some of the enthusiastic believers in the en- terprise predict that the stock will sell at $l00 per share, and see no reason for taking issue with them. The Old Dominion certainly is one of the richest copper mines on the continent, and de-