The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-10-05

to increase the capacity of its treatment
plant, unit by unit, till it reaches 1900
tons day. They have a vast ore body or
they couldn't produce that much ore. The
enterprise is dominated by a great mind
or they never would produce it, no mat
ter how much ore they might have in the
ground.
Charles NJ MacNeill formerly of Phfla-
delphia, later of Colorado Springs and
Cripple Creek, but now of Salt Lake. is
the genius of the Utah Copper company,
which Is distinctly recognized as the fin
est, though not the largest, copper enter
prise in the world today.
Launching Big Enterprise.
The Utah Copper crowd acquired the
Ray property in the spring of 1907. and
number of Los Angeles business and pro-
fesslonaI men were taken in as ground
floor investors-all followers of Seely w.
Mudd and Philip Wiseman. Los Angeles
mining engineers of high reputation.
Mudd & Wiseman, l believe brought the
proposition to the attention of MacNeill
and his Salt Lake crowd. They knew him
from his Cripple Creek days. where all
were bucking their luck in the same
camp. MacNeil's genius always ran to
the handling of lOwgrade propositions.
1t did in Cripple Creek, where he was
among the first to work out the different
problems OF successfully concentrating
the lowgrade tellurium ores of that camp.
handling of very low-grade sulphide cop
per ores. The loss of metal in the process
of concentration-always % to 40 per cent
-appallS them, and the necessity for en-
listing very large capital for the extern
sive and expensive plant required to do
the business on a large enough scale to
show an attractive profit, appalls them
some more. The milling of gold and sill
yer ores has spoiled them for the milling
of low-grade copper Ores-filled their
minds with the ineradicable bigotries of
the gold-silver mining craft-always try
to make too high saving.
You can make just as high a saving
milling copper as milling gold-but il will
not pay. A pound of gold it worth 234O
times as much as pound of copper; con-
sequently you can afford to spend d good
deal more money to recover it.
MacNeilfS great Arizona proposition is
in many points strikingIy like his great
Utah proposition. but it appears to be a
good deal bigger in Volume-three or four
times as big-and a little richer in the
average tenor of the output 1t is dis
tinctly very low-grade sulphide ore, but
II averages six pounds more of copepr to
the ton, and probably from 10 to Is cents
more in gold and silver per ton than the
Utah property. ! would estimate that il
is worth close to a dollar ton more than
his Utah ore.
Needs Big Capital.
1t chances that l had examined and re
ported on this great Ray property for a
client myself before the MacNeill crowd
took ii over, and so / am able to speak
closely as to its merits. l advised my
client to take ii at the price asked but (
advised him also that it would be a hope
less enterprise without a working cap
ital Including cost of operating plant) of
three millions. He was a wealthy man.
having good mining experience, and plen-
ty of courage and he wanted it. but it
got past him somehow and fell to Mac
Neill and his followers.
l am confident that il is destined to
rank ultimately as one of the greatest
producers in Arizona-and Arizona leads
the world It has nOw-prOVed up by
shafts. drifts, tunnels and drill holes over
fOur times the acreage of the Utah Cop
per company-S25 acres as against 300
acres And it has a great acreage unde-
veloped. but believed to be valuable
MacNein took over the property, l think
on the advice of Mudd & Wiseman, and
these naturally drew in their own Los
Angeles following, just as MacNeill drew
in mis- Salt Lake and Colorado Springs
following. as ground floor people" Mudd
is now supervising engineer. and Wise
man engineer in charge. with his resi-
dence at the property Sherwood Aldrich
of Colorado Springs is president of the
company-prObably representing MacNeill.
but himself a man of wide mining exper-
fence and of proven ability. Tney have
been prospecting the ground with about
forty miners and two churn drills for a
year and half, and are now almost
y
scheme of vast development.
Tremendous Earnings Possible.
The ore presents a milling problem
closely Identical with that of the Utah
prOperty-a disseminated sulphide in d
matriX that makes a troublesome amount
of "talc"-really a sericite, hydrated,
white magnetism mica-under the stamps.
This will inevitably entail large loss of
the copper 1t does everywhere. But
they claim to be now saving % per cent
of the metallic values in the great new
concentratOrs at Ely, New. on a similar
ore. and they should do as we'll at Ray.
That means saving on a 2R per cent
ore of about thirty-seven pounds of cop
per TO the ton. l think it perfectly safe
10 calculate on a saving of thirty pounds
of copper the ton and p cents in gold and
silver. That strikes western miners as
hOpelessly low. But it isn't hopeless at
all. Only one mine in the whole Michigan
field averages as high as that.
It requires very nice management-very
SklIfuI. very bold and on great scale
to make a profit on so low A grade of
sulphide ore as that. But it is fully up