The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-03-22

various processes until it comes out in copper mates as big around as a bread bowl. ready to be sent down on the cars. The shelter is the largest in South America. It must cover several hundred sacres. It consists of great buildings, col ored black with smoke
 They are walled with glass windows and have roofs of galvanized iron. Rising s5ove them are three mighty smokestacks. each SC big around that you couIo ru.- a Pullman car through 1t without toucIi- ing the walls. These stacks are about sO1 feet high and from them day and night pour out vast volumes of white and yei- low smoke into the clouds of the Andes
 The smeter has the finest of modern machinery and every pound of 1t came from the States. This is so also of the great iron buildings and of the wood for the structures and the railroad The establishment has duplicates of every thing needed for srnelting. It runs three eight-hour shifts and keeps busy Sun day and week days all day and night. I am told that it is the largest copper shelter outside the Uniter States, and that it is patterned after the mighty works al Great Falls Montana.
 In building this smelter the engineers had to contend with difficulties unknown before. No one ever constructed a shelter at 14,00O feet above the sea, and the experts said the furnaces could not be run at that altitude. They claimed that the air was so rare that you would have to blow through the fire several times as much air per minute as is us- uaiiy done in order to secure the oxygen sufficient for the reaction. Nevertheless. the syndicate determined to try it. They got the best men they could find and put mp the buildings. But the furnaces would not work and one engineer after another of !, hands in despair. At last there was a man from Mexico who had passed through. Missouri and had to be shown. He said that he did not believe that the figures told the real story. He was an old shelter man and he said the furnaces did not sound right He began by taking off all the gauges and putting the blasts in such way that he got the right sound. He then started to working and To! the plant did it's work
 Up to that time it looked as though i ese mines, which had already cost tens Of millions, would fail. The capitalists poured in money like water, and they had poured in so much that they could not let go. Since that discovery their fight has been successful and is now a prop ositlon which pays exceedingly we'll As soon as they discovered the secret of the smelting they got an expert engineer. named Frank klepetko, who had been Soiluecleu Wiln the GuSSennelmS, and who had built. I think the shelter at Great Falls, Montana It was he who planned the great buildings here and made them successful. He introduced new in. ventions and put in treatments that are especially fitted for these mines and works high up on the roof of the world. One of the curious things used is called the ein- dering machine. This takes the fine ore and turns it into coke so that it can be easily Smelted
 But wish l could take you through this great working monument of Amer ican industry that has been created away out here on the top of the Andes l should like to show you our men di- recting the work and bossing the mines. l would show you the ore as it flies over an American railroad and we could watch it as it rolls from the cars to the furnaces We might even open the furnace doors and see the crimson copper blazing within We would Feel flames that are seven times hotter than those through which Mash- ach Shadrach and Abednego walk ed and later on in the converters we could watch the liquid gold emptied by a. 'o-ton crane worked from above. We could see the golden sulphur flying off into the air, and the iron slag running away while the pure copper, silver and gold flowed into the molds. We could see the metal change in color as it cooled and watch the round blocks of oVo pounds as they were loaded on to the cars to be shipped to the states.
 spent the better part of day in the snelter, and it made me feel proud that l was an American born. The out put Of the works, as I have said. is now more than 4,000,000 pounds of matte every month, and that means 4000- ooo pounos of copper, silver and gold. It Is equal to more than 133,000 pounds every day or to more than 5000 pounds every hour of the day and the night. Sunday and week days all the year through