The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-09
High Official Recently Here to Investigate the Mar
 ket Possibilities
ALASKA MINES ARE
 RICHEST IN WORLD
Great Stride Taken In Past Few Years In Development of Cop per Industry All Over the
 World
By HOLLAND

1 New York April S.-(Special. .)-Among
 recent visitors from foreign ports to the l United States was a representative of tho finance department of the Chinese gov- ernment He was trained in English 1 speaking institutions and he has good
 knowledge of business methods in the
 United States and in Great Britain. Only I a few business men in this country
 knew of his visit He came for the pur- pose of learning whether there might be market in the United States for cop per mined and smelted fin China, and
 he brought to this country samples of
 copper ore mined in China for the pur- pose of obtaining authoritative tests as
 to their value. He intimated that the time might not be distant' when Chinese copper Is offered to the markets of the world These markets he is familiar
 with and he did not hesitate to predict that vast as is the worlds consump- tion of copper each year it is speedily to be very much greater.
 l When 1t is borne in mind that capi- tai in large amounts is now being in- vested in copper development not only i in the United States, but throughout the world as well, there should be some realization of the magnitude which this
 mining industry Is soon to assume l Copper experts report that the copper | mines of Alaska are undoubtedly the richest ores of the world, carrying a very large percentage of copper Of a kind which requires only smelting to make it marketable. fin South America, 1 l. D. Haggin is developing the inconceiv- ably rich copper mines of northern Peru, and in Chile the Guggenhems have in- vested already little over s14,0O0,0oo in establishing a plant which is to be nti- l lized in exploiting rich copper mine l for which the concession has been ob- tained from Chile. In south Africa, where there are enormous deposits of
 low grade copper ore, American capital, l in combination with that of other lands and in association with Jefferson M. 1 Levy who represents one of the New York districts in Congress, is awaiting the favorable moment when these mines car be operated. So rich are the cop
 per deposits of Alaska that capital was l found in large amount and engineering l skill of extraordinary ability was se- cured for the construction of a railroad l from the mines to the seaport, and it was in part the certainty of the vastness and richness of the copper ores of Alaska 1 that persuaded Congress to authorize the | lCDnSlrutUDn Ol q dltIcdu liDHi tiit Std l coast to the interior.
 James Douglass. president of Phelps l Dodge x Co.,. who are among the largest | of the American producers of copper in l a recent report stated that 1t is inevit- l able that in order to meet the demands | for copper there he acquired additional | mining property, and his intimation in 1 his report was plain that when normal 1 conditions are established once more the l copper industry will find the demand of ] the world for copper greater than the supply.
 Great Copper Fields
 l The certainty of a greatly increased
 demand for copper throughout the world 1 ha: inevitably raised the question
 whether the United States, which is now l the greatest copper producing country of 1 the world, will be arso to maintain its prestige and meet the proportionate part
 of the supply of copper which will be l demanded by the world
 ] In many parts of the southwest and in l some portions of the remoter west there
 are enormous copper properties. But much
 of this ore is. from the commercial point of view, similar to that which the gold miners of the United States found to be l characteristic of no small part of their 1 ores. They could not mine and prepare :, for the market proftably gold whose yield was less than g a ton. Science came
 to their aid and showed them a process, | iinconceivably cheap, by which they could profitably handle ores as low grade as l s1 a ton, or evenless. The government | statisticians and the report of the copper | companies in the remote west and in the i southwest have made 1t possible to obtain
 a fairly accurate idea of the amount of copper ores practically visible or es- l timated with reasonable accuracy which are at the present time valueless on &C., I xt. 4t.x.~ . tl.~. 1 from the ores. These reports show that l the ore reserves of five porphyry mines lin this country are approximately 5So.0o0,- | GOO tons. Of the total copper contents of | these ores little over B per cent is lost under the present methods of treat ment. a proportion somewhat similar to that which the miners of gold were com l pelled to accept before the cyanide pro- 1 cess was introduced.
 Men of science who have been giving
 a careful study to the problem are now | convinced that science is able to show the way by which through teaching process this loss will be less than 10 per cent. If this estimate be correct, the gain upon the total tonnage of 527000. .00t lions
 Science will be doing the United States
 a great service, in the view of all of those
 who have some knowledge of our mining
 and manufacturing industry, if 1t is able
 to point the way by which these enormous deposits of low grade copper ores in the
 southwest and upon each side of thu Rocky mountains are compelled to yield profitably as gold was compelled to yield I their hitherto .unutilized wealth. Tn, I problem is purely scientific one. These ores are what are termed oxidized ores
 unlike those of the Lake Superior copper district or of the Alaska copper district
 Tn the past oxidized ores have been re-
 garded as almost worthless. so great is the cost of extracting copper.
 T By reason of peculiarities of climate ir the United States the accumulation o1
 oxidized ores since the United States be-
 came nation has been stupendous. Sta tistics from Washington not complete
 show that four of the principal copper
 companies of the United States reported in 1911 an accumulation of oxodized ores
 in the aggregate Of nearly 70.OOO0O0 tons
 This is the accumulation of those four
 companies. The average copper contents
 per ton Is little over 30 pounds It is
 regarded as inevitable that science will
 solve this problem and many of those in. that it has been practically solved.
 | The Lake Superior copper properties under the brilliant scientific direction oi the late President Agassiz had for soma years some very difficult problems tt solve. Their ores consisted of native cop per. often an expensive copper to mine Their great smelter plant at Lake Lin den, fin upper Michigan. in spite of thu utmost efforts of men of science to pre- vent lose nevertheless did occasion loss of a considerable percentago of pur,