Mohave County miner., 1916-09-16

29 cents pound, touched the mgnest point since 1873, when the cOuntry's total copper output was only 34,OOO,- 900 pounds. It climbed steadily for year and a half regardless of the as tonishing increase in production.
 In 1914 the American mines pro- duced 1,15O,OOO, ,OOO pounds of copper. In 1915 the output broke the record, with 1,3SS, 100000 pounds. This year it will probably surpass 1850, 100000 pounds.
 In 1914 the average selling price was 13.3 cents a pound and the total production was valued at S152, 100000 This year the average price will be close to 25 cents a pound, and the az gregate value should exceed $4OO,OOO,- 900.
 Butte has 10000 zinc and copper miners, where it had only 13,OOO in 1914.
 The extra war bonus paid the men, over and above their regular wages, runs to half a million dollars a month and moves fast.
 Arizona, greatest of the copper states, may increase its production from 4S2,OOO,OOO pounds in 1915 to 6OO,OOO,OOO pounds this year. Its mines are employing the largest num- Der of men at the highest wages on record
 In Idaho the lead and zinc miners are receiving a bonus of S1 day.
 Even the silver mines felt the in fuence of martial prosperity. Since the Indian hints refused to accept sil- yer for the private coinage of rupees in 1893, causing the price to drop from S1 to 62 cents in one week. the white metal has been drifting in the doldrums.
 It reached the lowest price on rec ord-46 cents an ounce, in September, 1915, rebounding to 77 cents in May of this year, though it sagged to 61 cents in July.
 Though conservative mining men expect that peace, if it comes sudden ly, will be followed by period of re adjustment and orientation similar to the industrial and commercial disloca- tion caused by the outbreak of the war, they do not expect the period to last very long.
 After this readjustment they ex- pect the American metal mines to live happily and contentedly forever.
 That a good many wartime zinc l smelters will be as silent and lifeless as Ypres is now they admit, but they maintain that the zinc industry as a whole has received permanent, lasting benefits through the war boom. Il In the Far West the high zinc price has enabled operators to install more expensive and efficient mining and milling machinery, thus reducing pro duction costs permanently. Zine smelters have been built close to the Far Western zinc mines, and large electrolytic plants for the recovery of the metal have been successfully built and operated.
 After the war the American zinc industry, when duly deflated, should be in a better position to meet world competition than before the great boom.
 Lead plugged along contentedly be- fore the war and, so the mining men say, should have no trouble in resum- ing it's former comfortable gait when peace comes, though a sharp, short decline in prices will be necessary to put to sleep once more those zinc-lead mines whose high cost of production causes them to operate only when prices are far above normal. As to silver, metal authorities de- cline to commit themselves. They fondly hope that it will stay above 50 , ents an ounce, but their eyes cannot | penetrate the shifting vapors that veil , the worlds financial future. : Yet, with Europe facing the neces- } sity of reducing the volume of its } paper money and of parting with its , hoarded gold to meet reconstruction D needs, with the movies consuming ever increasing quantities of nitrate ot i silver, and with China and India ir I the market again, producers are con- 7 vinced that the peace cloud will have f substantial silver ining-more espe- |. cially if Mexico continues the con, ' sumption of lead at the expense of sil' yer production.
 !. What of copper, though? The Unit g ed States annually supplies 60 per n cent of the worlds copper production S and world conditions determine th' Q price at which the red metal shall b,