Daily Arizona silver belt., 1910-01-30
MINING INVESTMENTS


 ros and his samples of ore from his new strike. The chances are 10 to I, yes 100 to l, that neither he, nor your friend, nor yourself, will ever get any thing out of it.
 When you come to study mining investment look first to the question of the amount of ore which the proper ty has developed, and the profit per year which it can make. Take into consideration the fact shat if mo ore were found during the i've, or ten or twenty years that the mine will exist, that not only has it got to pay you back interest on your money, but 1t also has to return to you your capital. In this connection l call your attention to the two tables which are published by Mir. Herbert c. Hoover in his book "Principles of Mining" which, like Mir. Finlay's book, was published last year. In this book you will find the first table which shows the present val ue of an annual dividend over nam- Der of years at a certain per cent, and replacing capital by reinyestment of an annual sum at per cent. If, for eX- aclple, you have miro which can pay $l Der share for tweTty years, and you feel that you Wli bi satisfied with 6 per cent interest on you rmoney then you can afford to pay $l06s for each share of stock, and out of the $l.00 which you receive you may consider of twenty years it would produce for you your $l0.6S original investment. l 64 cents as interest on your investment, and B cents as return of capital, the idea being that if this 36 cents were in vested at 1 per cent and each year you compound your interest, at the end say to you that when you buy your mining stock take this into considera- tion, but do not let it be the whole point governing your investment. You must from the reports of the engineers or the manager take into consolidation the possibilities of finding further ore. If these possibilities are good, and if at the same time you consider that the price of the metal which this mine pro duces is going to advance, then you eer- tainly have a good investment. One can get into few businesses and get six per cent return on his money, have absolute security, and at the same time chance of having the business and the profits double or treble as is often the case with good mining investments.
 If you wish to look at it from the other point of view, the third table in Mir. Hoover's book will give you some idea of the means of determining value. Tn other words, take for exam pie stock which is quoted as selling at 80 and is paying $2 in dividends, that is % per cent. You will see from this that in order to return your 6 per cent yearly investment and your capi- tai, that the mine should be capable of keeping up this rate of production for 5.7 years, and if, for example, the engineers reports show that there are four years or even three years ore in sight, sufficient to produce this dividend, and that there are prospects for ore m other directions, either downward or laterally, then you could afford to take the risk.
 pr. J. II. Curle of London, who is considered one of the best valuers of gold mines, considered that any gold mine that looked good in the bottom, and that had 60 per cent of its selling value in sight, was a good investment. Still, however, I do not wish you to be carried away by the idea that ore in sight is of necessity the most important thing in a mine. Some four or five years ago, when the question of ore in sight was receiving great deal of attention by engineers, I wrote an article asking the question, if it might not be possible for mine to have too