The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-09-14
Copper Deposits
 in South America
By HOLLAND

Washington, september Is. - tSpe- cial )-When the late William R. Grace,
 who was twice mayor of New York city,
 in association with his brother, Michael P. Grace, and with the aid of English capital undertook to complete the won derful mountain climbing railroad from Lima to the summit of he Andes, 14,000 feet above the sea, he had in mind, as did his associates, the possible high development of the Cerro de Pasco cop per mines. He did not, however, fore see the purchase of these great copper properties by American capitalists.
 thinking instead that England capital
 might secure and develop the mine. MT. Grace believed that with the completion of the railroad from Lima to the divide upon the Andes there would speedily follow railroad construction whereby transportatio would be furnished from
 the mines to the sea coast by way of the National railroad of Peru. He was also persuaded that sooner or later the
 completion of this railroad would be followed by railroad construction into the very rich and virgin wheat belts of eastern Peru, in his opinion unsur passed in their capacity for the pro- duction of wheat of high quality by any other wheat belts in the world The Cerro de Pasco mines yielded rich stores of silver to the SpanEh ladventurers. They obtained and sent millions of pounds of silver to Spain. The only method of transportation from the mines to the sea coast was by the use of the llamer. the principal beast of burden of earlier days in South America.
 | It was presumed that the Spaniards had exhausted the silver deposits in
 this mine, for they abandoned it. But l it was known that it contained very l rich and almost inexhausible stores of copper, but that wasea metal for which ! the Spaniards did not care. As Mayor Grace predicted there speedily followed
 on the completion of the railroad from Lima to the summit of the Andes the l construction of a connecting railroad whereby transportation to and from
 the Cerre de Pasco mines was made possible.
 LONG DISTANCE COPPER l It was evident to the men of large
 business capacity that the advent of
 the era of electricity, the building of | trolley lines. the nationwide exten- sion of telephone systems and the util-
 zation of copper for other purposes
 would create demand for the metal which not even the wonderfully rich
 deposits of the far west would fully meet. Therefore the eyes of the cop lper men were turned to other parts of
 the world. The Guggenheims secured
 concessions from Chile whereby they lare able to obtain great amounts of
 copper, and the value and importance l of the concession are represented by :, the direct and indirect investment of something like $100,000,000 in this Chili copper property.
 But the mines of Chile are no richer
 in copper deposits than those of north- ern Peru, which were secured by 1 American capital At one time it was l the purpose of those who were devel- oping this property to build rail- [ road northwest to a convenient harbor l in northern Peru. Joseph F. Grace, who lhas succeeded his father as the head of l the William R. Grace & Co. corpora 1 ton, is of the opinion that this rail- road will be built and will be operated
 some day
 | The acquisition by American capital
 of these ancient mines in northern Peru
 has made it possible to aid consid-
 erab1y to the worlds stock of copper. These mines and those of Chile and
 probably in few years the very rich I copper deposits of Bolivia will, with the
 vast American output of copper, prob ably make the demand for the metal great as it is sure to be after the war, | fairly we'll met by the supply.
 A NEW AND GREAT SHELTER l Within day or two announcement
 has been made that the Cerro de Pasco
 Copper company is speedily to build
 a new shelter at Oroya, Peru. This 1 town is at the summit of the Andes. | and was the terminal of the wonderful
 railroad which Henry Meiggs' party lbuit from Lima up the mountains and
 which the Grace syndicate finished some
 years ago. The town is connected with
 the mines by the railroad which was
 constructed after the National railroad was brought to the summit of the Andesi
 1 This smelter, it is expected, will have i a capacity of about 12.000,O00 pounds. 1 The magnitude of it is suggested by the fact that it will cost about $6,000,- 900 to establish the plant, and the earnings of the company are sufficient | to make it possible to meet this cost out of the earnings. This fact alone demonstrates the success which the American capitalists have met with in developing this copper mine. When the shelter is completed it is the expecta- l tion that it will make it possible for the company to produce approximately 140,0o0,o00 pounds of copper each ! month. Very likely this work would not have been undertaken at this time had l it not been for the sudden and extra ordinary expansion of the demand for copper which the war has caused and the belief that instead of the demand being lessened after the close of the war 1t will be increased, for enormous amounts of copper will be needed in the work of restoring the devastated coun- tries of Europe and in re-establishing their industries.