Bisbee daily review., 1908-05-10
!. Cost and Price Dis,antIy Related.

1 The cost or copper has very little to do with its market price. During the civil war, from 1861 until 1866, the price of copper did not decline below IT 1-2 cents. and 1t rose in July llS64. as high as 55 cents. At that time miners were scarce and wages high; and uncertainty as to the flu ture of the country had prevented 8 continuation of expansion and prog ress along general business lines, and in the copper producing world par ticularly When business began to revive there was a scarcity of copper, and a sharp advance in price natur- ally followed.
 | The lowest price ever recorded for copper was cents per pound This quotation was made in January, 1894. and was the result of the halt in general business, due to the Bryan silver panic. The lowest price the metal touched at the time of the | failure of the Secretan Syndicate, in 1885, was 3-4 cents.
 1 Steam and Electric Power Factors. While there have been most re- markable strides in the application of mechanical contrivances and or steam and electric power to copper mining, milling and smelting within a quarter of a century, the economies thus achieved have been very nearly copnterbalanced by the advance in the wages of labor. mention labor alone, but wish it understood that the mining companies pay for labor not only in wages at the works. but in the higher prices of steel, coal, ma chinery and practically ali supplies and equipment.
 The high development of meehani- cal, mining and concentrating devices has made it possible to treat very much lower grade of ore than could be handled pro6tably 20 years ago. It therefore has been productive of the custom of mining the lean ore with the rich, thus greatly increasing the ore tonnage handled daily and reduc- ing the general average grade of ors treated in each of the several districts and by every big mine.
 Not Striving to Reduce Costs.
 The arrangements of the big estab- lished mines of Butte. Lake Superior and other districts are not striving to reduce the average cost per pound of the copper produced by their compan- ies. They are interested rather in re- ducing operating costs in every de- pertinent, that by 50 doing they may be able to increase the available ton mage of ore in the mines. To illus trate, suppose that only those portions of a company's ore deposits which as say per cent. or more can be mined and treated so as to yield copper at cost of 10 cents. If the manager sue ceeds in reducing the average cost Of handling a ton of ore by from Fl tG s, he will then be able to mine and treat all the ore in the deposit which contains more than per cent and still produce 1t at a cost of 10 cents. By doing this the total amount of ore available may be increased 50 per cent. and thus may add millions of dollars to the value of the property. For instance, 3,000,0 900 tons of ore sv- eraging 2 1-2 per cent, unavailable when operating costs were S6 per ton, on an operating cost of S4 would yield up its copper at a cost of 16 cents, and would be worth, with cop per at 13 cents, S1.25 per ton net, or 8, 750, 900, as the ore would return this amount in profits.
 Alaska No Menance to Industry.
 The assertion often heard that there is copper enough along Copper river in Alaska to supply the world for a thousand years, should not be taken too literally. There Is enough copper in the Lake Superior district, at Butte and in Arizona to food the markets and close down all the oth- CT copper mines in the world, Bro- vided this copper coul1 all DC Fn- duced immediately at a very low cost. It is probable that : per cent and possobly 90 per cent If aH the copper in and adjacent to the- dis' tricts named is so widely dE;scmi- mated through the country rock as to make its recovery at profit by any known method impossible. You must build mills or smelteFs or both before you can produce copper, ana after they are finished there is limit to their capacity.
 Speaking of thousand years, a considerable portion of this time Will be required to develop, equip and man the copper deposits of Alaska and make them ready for production on any considerable scale. Alaska has the disadvantage of low grade ores and isolation from transportation and supply centres, and the only way to get labor there is to import it, and then make living conditions sufficient ly attractive to keep it thereby 10 means an easy undertaking.
 Expensive to Start.
 It requires from three to ten years to develop and equip large copper mining enterprise Therefore. every time the worlds consumptive de- mand has a sudden and unexpected increase, the price of copper must go soaring into the clouds. On the other hand, whenever there is a sudden contraction in the volume of business of several countries at the same time. the price of copper has severe decline.
 It is not necessary to tell the read CTS of an electrical magazine that the future is assured. The electrical age. upon which we are now entering, of course means an age of copper. As the development of the steam rail- road was predicted upon a profitable iron and coal mining business, so must electrical progress make a mar ket for steadily growing production of copper.
 Cooper Has World Wide Market
 The worlds great copper deposits are HI LAlt OlllCu OldtCo- htbrsi- this country is young, it's mines Io- cated far inland, and it's wage scale higher than any other, it produces about 60 per cent of the worlds out put Copper has the advantage of a worldwide market, always selling on a given day at the same price in Tokio, London, New York and San Francisco. Copper can be shipped half way around the world for per cent of it's value, while it would cost 15n fn 2nn nar cauf of fhP Yalnn of