El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-06-21

~ ANANEA. IN northern Sonora, is
the most important copper camp
~ of Mexico 1t is in the southern
portion OF the extension of the great
copper region Of southern Arizona. The
most important operations in the camp
are conducted by the Greene-Cananea
Copper company. It is controlled by
the Cole-Ryan people and is under the
management Of DR.. L. d. Ricketts,.
The conditions at the Cananea plant
are normal notwithsta nding the Mex
lean revolution, and five furnaces have
been in use, and the output for April
compared favorably with that Of March,
and the copper production for March
was about $500 900 pounds, and during
The custom house of Aqua Prieta- Ar
engagements have been made to treat
at the Cananea smelter all the copper
concentrates from the Miami mill. The
first lot of concentrates received there
from in April amounted TO- 500 TONS
Perfection of Operations.
Great Improvements have been made
under DIR. r1lcketts's management, and
altogether the smelling plant is con-
sidered one Of the most uptodate and
perfect OF the kind in the world. The
system OF handling the ore charge, TAX
ing IT from the narrow gage railroad
cars. and delivering ii into the bins
over the furnaces. is highly successful
Under the former management of the
company, the present sampling mill,
spreading beds and retaining plant,
were installed. This is the only COM
plete plant OF its type in operation. The
successive steps in the operation are
ID transferring the ore from the rail-
road cars to belt conveyors (2) crush
ing and sampling Cd bedding "a re-
claiming and delivering the charge TO
the furnaces The coke is drawn from
bins and delivered to the furnaces in
hand charge barrows, and speaking OF
ore or charge, the crude ore, concen-
trates and f1ux will be meant The
ore is delivered from the narrow gage
road cars into. receiving bins at the
sample mill; and from these bins into
q 24-inch conveyor belt, which carries
IT UP an incline into the sample mill
to the crushers. Formerly after pass
ing through the crushers the ore was
sampled, the first sample being taken
by hand This sample was cut down
mechanically, until ready for the buck
ing board Recently q mechanical sam
pier has been installed. These sam
pies are used for analyses to determine
the mixture on the beds.
From the sample mill. the ore is con-
veyed on another conveying belt, which
runs across the ends of the spreading
beds to the belt conveyors, which carry
IT out over the beds TIE overhead
belts have special ore. bedding tippers.
which travel forward at a speed Of 500
feet minute. The storage beds under
meath are thus made up by depositing
the charge in long narrow piles Of
angular cross section. The spreading
beds. of which there are three, have a
normal working capacity of 5000 tons
each Everything operates automatic
ally. A transfer car, electrically driv-
en-. placed at the ends of spreading
belts, transfers the machine from one
bed to another. The trench conveyors
at the side of the beds deliver the
charge onto other belt conveyors. which
IN their turn. through another move
able tripper, deliver it into the bins
over the smelter
Important Saving
Eight blast furnaces have been