MINES REPORT ON COPPER, LEAD, AND ZINC.
In
the West gold and silver are so intimately connected with copper, lead,
and zinc that it was found necessary to include these metals also in
the requests for reports of production. Here, again, however, the
smelters report on copper production published elsewhere in this
volume by Mr. L. C. Graton contains the figures of actual production
of metal and is considered as final. The general principles discussed
above as applying for gold and silver apply also to the relation of
smelters report to mines report for the baser metals.
Fairly
exact results are obtainable in the case of copper, for most of this
metal is produced by large companies which own their smelting plants
and which thus report actual output of metal. Michigan is not
represented in the following mines report, but taking the same figure
for that State as appears in the special copper report, the total of
the copper in the mines report is 916,971,387 pounds, whereas the
smelters report, as shown by Mr. Graton, adds up to 917,805,682. This
is an excellent agreement. The mines report gives, in pounds: Arizona,
266,831,864; California, 28,726,448; Idaho, 9,558,913; Montana,
290,700,975; New Mexico, 7,028,670, and Utah, 56,593,576. The smelters
report gives the corresponding figures as follows: Arizona,
262,566,103; California, 28,153,202; Idaho, 8,578,046; Montana,
294,701,252; New Mexico, 7,099,842, and Utah, 50,329,119. The greatest
discrepancy thus appears in the last State. To some extent the delay in
smelting during the winter of 1905-6 was responsible for the
discrepancies noted above. In Idaho the difference was assuredly
traceable to this cause. In Colorado, where the copper is derived from
custom works, the mine returns, as noted in 1905, were lower than the
smelter returns, on account of small percentages of copper for which no
pay was obtained by the mines; but in 1906 the production reported by
the miners remained almost stationary, while that reported by the
custom smelters decreased from over 9,000,000 pounds to about 7,500,000
pounds.
In
regard to lead the relation of mines report and smelters report is less
satisfactory. Practically all lead ores are treated in custom smelters,
which, as is well known, are chiefly in the hands of one company.
According to Mr. Boutwell's smelters report on the lead production,
the Western States yielded 464,076,000 pounds in 1906, while the mines
for the same States, as recorded in the following pages, reported
502,697,405 pounds. This is a very large difference, and to a
considerable extent it remains unexplained. It is true that here, too,
the mines report is several months ahead of the smelters report for the
same year, and that in the fall of 1906 conditions of transportation
and fuel supply were particularly bad. But on the other hand there was
no unusual mine production in any camp during the latter part of 1906.
There is a large difference in New Mexico (mines report, 2,987,369
pounds; smelters report, 1,280,000 pounds), which is only partly
explained by the fact that some lead-zinc ores from the Magda-lena
district are used for pigments. In Colorado the difference is not so
great (mines report, 104,102,269 pounds; smelters report, 100,-994,000
pounds). In Idaho and Utah, the largest lead producers in the West,
however, the discrepancies are most remarkable. Idaho mines report
gives 255,014,446 pounds, while only 234,234,000 pounds is allotted to
that State by the smelter returns. Utah mines report
