Bisbee daily review., 1909-07-04

COX or Bowie; and the mines or the Arizona Copper company, were eighty miles from Lordsburg. Coke and sup plies had to be hauled in and copper teamed out those long distances.
 The ores in all three camps were thoroughly oxidized At the time this was supposed to be a condition of the highest advantage, upon which the only possibility of economical treat ment depended; and not without good
 grounds. for the tedious methods of treating sulphide. ore. so expensive in
 labor and fuel, were still practiced. We all, therefore. imagined in our shortsightedness that the day of doom for the copper interests Of southern Arizona would date from the transition from oxidized to sulphide ore. Of the three districts, the only prosperous one during the succeeding fifteen years or so was the Warren. and for
 reasons which we now more clearly appreciate than we then did. The ores of the Copper Queen. or rather such of them as were then selected for treatment, were self fluxing. They contained about 10 per cent of copper
 The slags of that period, which we are
 now resmelting. contained about 2.5
 per cent of copper Assuming the
 slags to represent 65 per cent of the charge, about 16 per cent of the total copper content was being stored away
 fin them. Less favorable conditions.
 however, existed at both Globe and
 Clifton. The ores of both these dis tricts were extremely silicious, and the furnace charge of ore had to be diluted with from 40 to 50 per cent of limestone. The silicious ores as treated were probably af about F per cent.
 The furnace charge was reduced by fluxing to between and s per cent of copper. The old slag-65 per cen; of the total charge-yield at Globe about 3.5 per cent, and therNore must have carried from 30 to g per cent of the total copper fed into the furnaces. We have re-treated all the old slags Of the Detroit Copper compapy, at Mo renci, near Clifton, and know that they carried on an average 4.5 per cent of copper, and must, therefore, have cou- tained at least 40 per cent of the cop per in the ore. At neither Clifton nor Globe was the dust collected. which probably represented loss of another 5 per cent. Considering the high cost of fuel and labor, it is not to be won dered that neither the Old Dominion, the Arizona Copper company, nor the Detroit Copper company, was finan- cially successful for the first fifteen or sixteen years of their existence. It was not until all the richer carbonate ores had been wasted by being large iy converted into slags that the com panies recognized that their salvation depended upon securing sulphide ores: upon making metallic copper through the medium of mate. and throwing away less copper in their slags. So lit- tie, however. was this fact appreciated at first that we all enyied the Arizona Copper company, because it could turn the San Francisco river into its works and granulate and wash away this valuable refuse. And when the Old Dominion mine struck large vol
 tunes of water, the company com mitted the same act of folly, washing its 3.5-per cent slags into PinaT creek. Deficiency of Sulphide Ore.
 Had the companies realized the losses they were incurring and the only remedy applicable, they would have been obliged to close both mines and furnaces; for except at the Copper Queen, where sIlphide ores were en- J countered within three or four years after the mine was opened and were years after the mine was opened and considered nuisance, heavy sulphides are elsewhere rare. Though the Old
 Dominion company has explored it's property to the I6th level, between | 100 and 200 tons daily are imported from California and Bisbee, the com pany's own mines producing only | about 50 per cent of the sulphur re- l quired by the furnaces. And at least
 enc of the Clifton smelting companies | is obliged to draw from abroad by rail. road about 160 tons daily of sulphides i high in sulphur and low in copper. It | follows, therefore, that there was no alternative in the early days between
 either suspending operations or mak ! ing copper in the wastefGl manner
 which the companies then pursued
 Looking at the situation from the standpoint of today, if we place the
 advantages and disadvantages side by
 side, we have on the side of the ad.
 vantages:
 1. The experience which waz
 gained during that long period of ad versity, which is now being turned to good account, not only by the original companies, but by the many other en'
 terprises which have entered the same
 field an dare profiting by the losses
 of the pioneers
 | 2. The southern portion of the Ter
 ritory has increased ir population and
 in wealth, mainly through the exer tions these copper companies, even while they were losing money on the | rnnpor prn1uooA Thor xnf nntt- on, ployed thousands of men, but they
 made a market for the agricultural | development of the small amount oI
 Had the mines of Globe and Clifton
 not been operated because pecuniarily
 unsuccessful. and had not the share holders been willing to accept hope ful promises in lieu of dividends, Ari
 zona would not today be making an unanswerable plea for admission tS
 the Union as state-
 3. The ultimate success has beer
 due to the advent of the railroad; fol railroads are seldom built into unpro
 ductive regions in the expectation oI
 creating traffic that does not exist. | Advantages of Progress.
 If we turn to the disadvantages
 they are of course, palpable. At thu present time, when we are mating oui
 copper ores instead of making blac1 copper direct, the slags from thes<
 three groups of copper furnaces TUT
 from 04 to 0.5 per cent of copper
 Even when the slags are re-treated copper in the slags resulting from thu
 slag treatment runs higher than il
 slags from the treatment or ore. ow ing to the difncuIty of reducing sI
 licates, Thus. when the slass are re