The Ketchikan miner., 1909-03-06
fink Process of
 Smelting Copper

A good deal IS being said In Juan papers concerning the new Fink pro- cess of copper smelting. The results volutionary in their character that the technical journals are holding off ap- parently before giving an opinion as to its merits. Edward Fink, the in- ventor. is well known mining en- gineer and me.allurgist and stands high in his profession. For several years he was in the assaying business in Seattle and has given much atten- tion to the subject of copper reduction both by smelting and electrolysis.
 The Salt Lake News has the follow ing on the subject.
 Through the success attained by Edward Fink at 10 o'clock Saturday night in making blister copper at the experimental plant at Garfield. old principals in the smelting business are to he utilized in new manner which will revolutionize the smelling in- dustry, cut the cost of treatment of ore to one-tenth of what it was under the old process, making dividend pay CTS of properties that have had ore that was too low to work, and bring to Utah one of the largest machinery factories in the country. It IS the in- tention of Samuel Newhouse, who has been the angel" of the experi- mental plant, to promote a company capitalized at from $50, GOO, GOO to $lO0. GOO, GOO to manufacture the smelling machinery in Salt Lake Ci'y and in- stall plants throughout the country.
 After inspecting the big piece of cop per bullion a; his office Sunday morn- ing, Mr. Newhouse was jubilant over the success of the plant. The piece of metal shown him Was 9S per cent pure and was as pure as any produced by the old shelter in five times the time and with nearly that proportion of coal and labor.
 By a single move Mir. Fink was able to make hlster copper from concen- trates from the Boston consolidated mill, while the American Smelling and refining company's plant would have heen compelled to have handled the ore from four to five times. To produce the blister copper product required about an hour and small amount of fuel, while the old process would haze occupied at least five hours. The new shelter has been producing copper matte in twenty minutes for many days.
 ''At the big smelting works, shelter men contend that it costs about $l.75 ton to produce copper matte and not less than B ton to reduce the matte to blister copper. At the Fink smell ter either copper matte or blister cop per is produced by the one operation
 ''Mr. Fink is unwilling to place an estimate on the cost of smelling ore by his process, but it is believed that ore of all kinds can be treated for less than q a ton. At present the cos to the slnelters is Si2 to Sl5 a ton. while the average is S,j and s7 ton.
 Some ui the things that are accom- plished by tie shelter are: Four or five men will operate a l00-ton Fink type of sme.ter, while the ordinary plant requires twenty to thirty men on shift: high grade copper matte is produced in twenty minutes: bu lion in one bout: it does away with the freezing of furnace charges: that by single opl a. inu blister copper or copper matte may b. produced: that sulphur and hue dust are utilized to increase the heat: that TO fumes detrimental tJ vegetation escape from the stack that oil, slack coal, wood or sawdust cIn De utilized for the heating of the furnace: that it will treat silver. lead and gold ores as readily as copper: that time may see 1t save the zinc values: that or can be turned into matte at the rate 50 cents ton. and 300- ton smelter can be built for something like s45. 0C0."