Bisbee daily review., 1918-01-20

of the ground the miners go down a mile from the surface. then as much as half a mile from where they left the skip to the place where they Oper- ate a drill for six hours. punching holes into the experiencing rock. The hCles are filled with powder and the ore blasted down. This ore, locally called rock" is put into cars, pushed to the shaft and dumped into the hOiStiug car, or skip. to be hauled a mile to the surface. At the top Of the shaft the s6ip is dumped again ana the ore goes through a series of crush ing processes in the shaft house itself, after which it Is fed into cars 10 be hauled five or six miles to the stamp mill, where 1t is dumped again, crush ed into small pieces by stamp heads having a pressure Of five tons. jigged and crushed and rolled and washed on innumerahle tables. re-srOund again. and finally put through an acid and llot25ion process to prevent the escape of the smallest particles of copper, Then the concentrate Of native copper is hauled another mile from the mis. to the shelter. where it Is rOsated, treated by electrOlysis. and cast into cakes or bars. as the customer re QUires- Most Of lt Is shipped to New York. For every ton of ore that is blasted down in the miue-lor every 2000 pounds-there is extracted just % pounds. or 1 per cent. of copper. The remainder. 1880 pounds. goes into the lake.
 To the reader of this technical mag. azine these statements sound like the elementary instruction Of a mining college. l am telling it just as l do to every committee from the southern farming or city district of the lower peninsula of Michigan when they come to visit us and want to see a mine They have no conception what ever of the enOrmit< or the problem that takes a speck of copper from a point a mile or two from the surface and puts 1t down on the New York dock at a profit; and too often our hish-grade technical engineer passes over these detaile without a thought giving no consideration 10 the things that gre so obvious to him. accom-. plishments in which he himself has taken part; accomplishments that are so much matter Of reality that Ae fails tO appreciate their impOr. tanCe because of their familiarity.
 A year ago all this was done at a cost Of 10 cents per pound. Now the cost is higher. probably IS cents. That is due to the rise in wages and the increased cost of everything that is used in the operations. The Calumet X Hecla for itself and 10 subsidiaries employing 14.000 men. has just an. nOunce6 a continuation of the IC per cent bonus and the cents per diem increase in pay for another six months.
 In the early days richer ore closer Co surface was worked Then the miner got loo pounds from every ton, and lost 30 pounds in the stamp mill, and thought nothing of it. Now this old tailing is worked over again and it Is paying better than a new mine That fact alone illustrates the metal lUrslcal progress made at this won. derful mine With the greater depth, with the leaner ore. it has been a mans problem 10 keep this great cor pOration up tO its standard of earning capacity. And the man who took charge Of this property when it seem ed to be going the way Of all mines was a Michigan product. James Mac NaughtOn. now the first vice president of the company. Today the total cos; of mining and of bringing the ore to the surface through a mile or two Oi workings is Sl per ton. And the min CTS are the best-paid workmea in the world. Today their average wage is SS ana many of my miner friends are CaShing contract cheeks that run bet ter than SSSe per month
 But the most wonderful thing about the Calumet & Hecla is it's paternal- ism When We had a strike here a few years ago. the only one in the his tory of the enterprise that amounted Co anything. the cry of too much paterDsliSm was raised But it failed. as did the last dying effort of the Moyer-MahOney sang of Western Fed eratiOn agitatOrs. The paternaliSm is not ostentatiOusly displayed. but it is none the less practical and effective. lt gives the Calumet & Hecla the finest class of miners to be found any where.