Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1922-01-06

III CndfSe or the mine KNOWS most about it. But this is a fallacy that has cost many men hundreds of thou sands to unlearn.
 Mine operations began, and deficits appeared every month on the balance sheet. This continued for two years, with one explanation after another coming from the mine manager to eX- cuse the. conditions. Then one of the directors, wholly untrained in mining but highly trained in the common sense of business, went to the mine to investigate. He was on the ground only a few days till he recognized the inefficiency of the general manager, discharged him, and then on his own responsibility as president of the com pany he hired manager of his own choosing and asked him to work out the problem.
 The new manager, ignorant of his predecessors record, took hold. His first months operations showed a profit of $4500; the next month bet tered this result, and so it continued month by month till net profits were around $10,000 month. This inn provement was effected with no addi- tional equipment and with no increase of force at the mine. It was done simply by skillful reorganization of the men and equipment at hand.
 The successful manager had asked more salary than had been paid his predecessor, the "practical miner", and the directors had demurred. Af- ter the results of the first month of operation were shown, this question of salary increase was never again men, toned. Some months later the man. ager asked the treasurer how it hap pened that the salary was paid with out comment, and the treasurer re- piled: "The month before you took the management of our mine, the net result was a loss of $3000. Your first month of operation showed a net profit of $45OO. The spread of your improvement was $7500 in thirty days. Why should we object to pay ing you $1O0 more a month than we did your predecessor with such a showing as that before us?"
 Improvement Made
 Another even more striking eX- ample of difference in managers came to my attention a few years ago. A certain miner, again a "practical miner," had been in charge of large mine for several years. The mine en- ployed several hundred miners and had earned dividends for the company almost constantly. It is almost axi- omatic in mining, as in other busi- nesses, to "let wei! enough alone"
 But this manager was employing a large force, had expensive equipment in his plant, had many feet of run- nel and drift openings to maintain, and altogether his net earnings were not in proper proportion to the cap ital invested An active director sensed this, and urged change upon his associates, who were finally in fluenced to engage a new manager.
 The new man started his operations under precisely the same physical con- ditions. No new equipment was in stalled; no additions were made to the force of miners; and literally the same outward conditions were unchanged. But by recognizing the details under which work was carried on-by chang es such as engagement of new fore men and shift bosses, by arranging for special days for handling special shipments of ore, by carrying incom- ing freight on empty returning ore cars by speeding up operations throughout the mine through stimu- lating rivalry in the several shifts, and by other similar methods-the new manager greatly improved results. In fact, he increased the net profits in the first thirty days from $30,000 month to $40,OO0-an improvement which opened the eyes of all the di- rectors to their actual losses through ineffective direction.
 Failure Traced
 Another instance might be cited where a group of mine directors had recently purchased property, and were continuing the man who sold them the mine as their president and general manager. He was the only mining man" on the directorate, and therefore, from his superior wisdom and experience, his ideas dominated the board.
 The suggestion was made to this general manager, relic of the metal lurgical days of the 70s, that he would greatly increase his profits by installing a Notation method of mill ing to which his ore was particularly susceptible. His reply was that "flo- tation is yet in it's experimental stages, and I propose to treat my ore in the good old-fashioned way of crushing with rolls and concentrating with jigs." This method he continued