The Daily Alaska empire., 1928-02-01
STERILIZATION OF THE COPPER
 INDUSTRY.

Improved methods of mining. milling, sme ng, organized marketing facilities and growii consumption have brought about marked d gree of stability in the copper industry, sa George E. Eddins of the National Bank of Con nerce in New York writing in the January iss if Commerce Monthly. He analyses the copp mining industry as follows:
 The profound improvement in. the position of the copper industry during the last few years reflects d triumph of technology and productive enicienoy Over well-nigh insuperabe difficulties. Cop per has been selling consistently at prices materially below the pre-war level Wages, the cost of materials con sumed Transportation charges taxes and similar items of expense range from 50 to 100 per cent. higher than before the war. The available averages far lower in grade than formerly was treated. It is in the face of such ob- staees that the industry as whole has won it's way back to a money-making basis.
 Prices of copper within the past three years have moved within more limited range than in any other like per iod in the history of the copper industry. The difference between the annual high and low prices of the electrolytic grade since 1925 has been lower than in any other three-year period Even in the post war period from 1921 to 1924 when the world was trying to absorb the enormous accumulated stocks, copper prices reached higher, as well as lower, levels than in the past three years. This relative equilibrium in prices has been accompanied by volume of production and consumption greater than that reach ed during the peak of wartime demand. Improved metallurgical processes, centralized sales organizations, mass pro duction and volume consumption. all contributing toward lower costs, have been important factors that have stabl- ized this branch of the mining industry. The epochal achievements along these lines in the past few years have sur passed those of all previous periods and the technical progress rivals the accom- plshments of any other outstanding in- dustrial undertaking.
 The chief factors that have revolu- tionized the industry from the produc- tion angle are improved fotation, leach ing and smeting practices, and the broad application of electric and steam power in handling crude Distrbu- tion of copper in foreign markets is now effected largely through organization worldwide in scope. which directs the flow of copper from producers to con- sumers in such volume that the market for this product is now said to be more
 
 other commodity.
 The low price of copper, which at the close of 1927 appreciably below the average price in 1913, has not been unmixed evil. The past few years have not been profitable as wished for in the copper mining industry but the ground work has been laid for a period of unprecedented stabilized opera tion. Low prices have made possible ]. broader field of consumption than would have been possible with the metal at higher level.
 A great part of the improvements in methods of mining, milling and smelt- ing copper has been traceable to the cessity of finding lower production cost methods Low market values have forced the development of cost-saving mining equipment and improved metallurgical processes that have made available the low-grade porphyry and oxidzed cop per ores to offset the approaching ex- haustion of high-grade deposits.
 While Notation and teaching have been at the base of the great change in copper mining practices. other note worthy advances of very recent years have been contributing and correlating factors. Where low-grade copper ores