Mohave County miner., 1915-06-05
Chile Copper Begins Actual
 Operations Mills and the Mines.

dlIeI oSNCIdi ySdio piSpdi ioIioii, lC- suited in recovery in the price of the shares from low of Is l-4$ early in the week to over 19$ toward the week end. The Chile Copper Company of- fees in New York on May IS received cable on Thursday from Consulting En- gineer Pope Yeatman at Antofagasta, Chile, to the effect that the plant of the Chile Copper Company had com menced operations.
 Early in April MT. Yeatman cabled that the giant 5000, ,OOO$ power-plant at Tocopilla would be ready shortly after the middle of the month, and the mines and one of the two 5000 ton mill units at Chuquicamata, 12O miles inland, would begin active production early in May, with the other unit following shortly.
 All of the plans have worked out on schedule time, despite almost insur- mountable difficulties. The machinery for the power-plant was in transit or in Germany-at the Siemens-Schuckert works when the war broke out. Fourteen different German-owned ships carrying different parts of the equip ment were immediately raced into South American ports to escape cap ture and were interned. After finding their whereabouts, the Chile Copper Company, after strenuous diplomatic negotiations, succeeded in transship- ping all the equipment from those ves- sels, and re-assembling also the equip ment which had not yet been shipped from Germany at the outbreak of the war.
 A high-tension transmission line at 100,0 volts pressure, and 120 miles long, connects the power plant on the coast with the mines and mill in the in- terior. The original 5,00O-ton mill unit has been doubled to two such un- its, and ultimately six will be erected. The enormous present ore reserves, ap- proximately 300, ,OOO,OOO tons, justify SuCH SlSdnIlC
 The ore is mined by steam shovel, and four shovels are now ready for pro- duction. Additions will be made to their number. No stripping of over burden is necessary. All the ground is ore. The ore is green and blue sul- phate and the mountain of copper makes very impressive picture. The ore turns to sulphide at depth, which may ultimately necessitate remodeling the treatment method, but that is a matter still remote, not years, but generations in the future.
 The peculiar metallurgical position of the ore makes the usual concentration or oil Notation process impossible and the ores are to be treated by a novel and very simple teaching process. The process was tried out experimentally on a most exhaustive scale, and it was only after several years of testing that | the Guggenheims were sufficiently con- vinced to put about 18,000, ,0OO$ cash HlIo oiS SHCSi piiSc. lhC olC io Slouilu to about one-quarter inch size, deliver ed into enormous acid-proof tanks, holding about 5000 tons and filled with dilute sulphurc acid; the copper is leached out of tEe ore in the space of two or three days, and another day is consumed in drawing off the copper bearing solution and emptying the tanks in preparation for fresh charge. The solution is placed into precipitating vats where an electric current produces electrolytic, merchantable copper in a single step, without the necessity of concentrating the ore, smelting or re- fning. The solution, which has gained in sulphuric acid from the peculiar sul- phate of ore is then used over again.
 The ore runs 2 per cent copper.
 Assuming in actual operations a 75 per cent recovery or 31 1-2 pounds per ton, a 5,0O0-ton plant would produce about 55,000,000 pounds of the red metal per year of $50 days. Tests have demonstrated recoveries of about 90 per cent as against the 75 per cent assumed above.
 The management has figured that with the whole plant in operation cost of 6c pound can be obtalned for