Los Angeles herald., 1908-04-01
SMEL7ER AT
TIDE WATER
NECESSARY
COKE MAY BE BROUGHT FROM
PUGET SOUND
MINES OF THREE STATES TO
FURNISH THE ORE
Los Angeles Must Encourage SweIt-
ing Industry, Says w. D. Loose,
Mining Man, Who Has Come
Here to Live

William D. Loose. superintendent of
the New Bodie Quartz Mining COM
pany of Mona county is in Los An
geles looking for a suitable home
wherein to install his family, the health
and comfort of the members of which
are his chief interest just now.
In general way Mr.. Loose was in
vited to speak on the outlook for min
ing in California, Nevada and Arizona,
and when piled with the question:
What is the one great need of the
Southern Pacific coast mining inter-
ests? spoke as follows:
IF should condense it all into three
words | would say: "A tidewater
smelter'
Pioneer of Cyanide Process
II have been a practical quartz miner
in all parts of the coast region for
thirty-five years and have also mas
tered the business of assaying. l have
seen mining advance from the primi-
tive uses of quicksilver to the cyanide
process. and that means all of the way.
i was the first man to use the cyanide
process at Cargo Muchacha, near
Yuma, and found we could save 80 per
cent of the values in tailings, which
We're a dead loss under the quicksilver
process, and fro mthat start quartz
mining grew to be the chief industry
on the coast. Under the quicksilver
process. and from that start quartz
the gold, but with the cyanide pro-
cess we can save 80 per. cent OF what
is left by the quicksilver, making 1t
possible to save 96 per cent of all the
gold mined
Remarkable Ten-Day output
my brothers and myself own and
- ,N,tr1 nd nm VI
perience there in 1877 goes to prove how
men wake up to find themselves
wealthy. We could not carry on the
mine profitably and could see nothing
ahead but disaster, and so we sold II
for $4,000 The new owners worked
on for two years without any encour-
agement, till in 1878 they struck values
and took out some $3,000,OO0 in fifteen
days The gold was so thick that they
had to cut it from the slopes with
chisels. The gold had leached from
the vein. being largely wire gold in
decomposed quartz rock. That mine
has paid dividends for all these years
II wonder that Los Angeles capital
does not take up the question of a
tidewater smelter for all the desert
territory in Nevada. as we'll as Ari-
zona and tributary territory south of It,
Coke from Puget Sound
"a tidewater smeter would give fine
shipping facilities and would make
coke cheap, and that is chief element
of cost in smelling. With a wharf to
tie to, line of vessels could carry coke
from Puget sound ports and trade In
general merchandise both ways. There
F. ie an ideal location for huge smelling
plant near San Juan Capistrano. where
it's fumes could not hurt vegetation,
for ii is a desert region and no arabic
land is in striking distance, and such
H.
dition of the American Smelling COM
pany of Salt Lake City, which concern
had to close down and pull down its
plant because of damage suits by the
adjacent farming interests.
Immense Trade in Supplies
with such smelling plant near
Los Angeles the effect on trade would
be marvellous. All the ores of the new
Nevada regions, and much from the
older camps, would come to tidewater
and the vast bulk of supplies for the
mines would, naturally, be purchased
here.
Mining supplies now and twenty
years ago mean vastly different things.
In the earlier days men worked at the
mines just to get a stake and had no |
care for the future. 1t is not so now.
Every mining camp is building up with
homes, and these homes call for the
very best merchandise your merchants
carry. and the free run of the mining
markets for Los Angeles business men
would be safe and growing feeder to
the big city she is destined to be. IT
the financial center can be fixed near
here, and a tidewater smelter will do
that, all other interests must follow.
On with the New
The days of old the days of gold,
And the days of forty-nine.
~ TT.
terests of California, Nevada and Ari-
zona are on a permanent and scientific
basis, and the city that wins the mar
ket trade of these sections must be up
and doing. The bad men of this day,
unlike many have known in old times,
do not attack you with guns but with
wildcat stocks, and their reign is near
its end. A little runt of fellow
named Heenan came from Phoebe to
Bodie in early days and called h;mself
the bad man from Phoebe. This was
easily changed to the bad man from
Bodie,' and so spectacular character
existed there till one of his own kind
killed him. With the tricky bad men
it is more difficult to get rid of them,
but the scores of strong men who have
invested honest millions in mining
properties are determined to drive
these leeches out.
Compare with San Francisco
IF the merchants of Los Angeles
would look up the story of the Selby
Smelling works of San Francisco and
count up the millions 1t has brought to
that city they could form some idea of
what a tidewater smelling plant would
mean to Los Angeles.
81 repeat that ore, coke and supplies
at tidewater, somewhere near Los An
geles, would open up source of per-
manent wealth that would greatly bene-
fit all lines of business and bring the