The
building of the Nevada Northern Railway coupled with the experience
of the past twenty years in the copper mining camps of the west, has
solved a problem that has been confronting the Robinson Mining District
ever since the first prospector drove his pick into its copper laden
rocks.
A railway into this district would have
been a failure in the days when Eureka was pouring its stream of lead
into the markets of the world, and Virginia City its far mightier stream
of gold and silver into the channels of trade.
Ores that today present no difficulties
from a metallurgical standpoint, twenty years ago were absolutely valueless.
The conditions of today have been brought about by the experience that
bas been gained from the operations in the great copper camps of the
West during the decade, from Butte to Bisbee and from Utah to California.
Had the problem that was presented to me on my first visit to this district
been presented ten, aye even five years previous it’s solution would
have been considered hopeless - in fact I may say that the problems
surrounding the working of these very low grade ores have only been
worked out satisfactorily within the last two years; and it is due to
the Bingham District of Utah more than to any other that we have today
absolute data based upon actual work rather than estimates.
The metallurgy of the high grade gold
and silver ores was successfully worked out upon the Comstock, and the
smelting of lead ores at Eureka, but for the metallurgy of copper, we
must first of all turn to Montana, where the high grade ores of Butte
permitted expensive experimenting, the results of which have revolutionized
the copper industry of the world. From Montana to Arizona, through the
camps of B1sbee, Clifton, Morenci and Globe; also at Granby in British
Columbia and at Bingham, all with their varying problems, both of local
environment and different mineralogical conditions the metallurgy of
copper has been worked out from the high grade smelting ore, both oxide
and sulphide, to the lean concentrating ores that are characteristic
of the Ely District and that are found in identical occurrences in Bingham
and the Clifton-Morenci District of Arizona.
Fortunate indeed has it been for the West
that the great deposits of high grade ore existed which permitted not
only a profit with what appears to have been the crudest of metallurg1ical
appliances, but also permitted of extensive experiments, which in their
sequence have made possible the profitab1e exploitation of these low
grade bodies, which bid fair in ultimate production to exceed the production
of the high grade districts.
Few people realize the evolution that
has been taking place in the copper industry of the west during the
past two or three years. The low grade porphyry deposits which are being
exploited in the Bingham District and in the Ely District, have come
to be looked upon as the future source of the great copper out-put of
the west, and owing to their enormous tonnage, it is possible to forecast
their production as continuing far beyond the life of the present generation.
It would be the height of folly to say
that the methods of handling these ores has been perfected. We are today
confronted at the first step of our process with a loss of from 15 per
cent to 20 percent of our total value, which is carried away in the
tailings from our concentrates.
I know of no field so promising for the
winning of a large fortune in the mining line, as the perfecting of
some method whereby the loss in concentration maybe be eliminated, or
at least largely reduced. The smelting processes are much nearer perfection,
but with all that, it is safe to say that the plant that we are going,
to erect for the treatment of these ores, will within ten years be obsolete.
In fact, I believe that we will within five years see changes that will
materially alter our process in some of its most vital points. We are,
however, building here at this time the very best plant that the combined
knowledge of modern copper metallurgy is capable of producing and I
can say without fear of contradiction that when finished and in operation
it will be the most modern and economical copper reduction plan in the
world.
The task of bringing this undertaking
to successful fruition has not been an easy one. On my first visit,
I saw only the signs of repeated failures; the efforts that had been
made to wring profits from the rocks had been without success and my
first days inspection convinced me that if there was to be success,
it most be along lines radical1y different from those that had already
been tried. After a weeks study, the problem had resolved itself to
a very simple one, save for the unknown factor that must be supplied
in order to make the problem susceptible of solution. I saw before me
a mineralized zone wherein the question of tonnage had even at that
time to my mind been entirely eliminated. The unknown co-efficient for
which I was searching could on1y be determined by extensive development
work; that co-efficient was the average copper content of the porphyry
in large masses. I had seen upon the surface streaks of high grade ore,
that in themselves were interesting, but which did not hold forth prospects
of a tonnage sufficiently large to justify the expenditure that I knew
must be made in order to put the copper into marketable form. I saw
in those early days that the only hope for this district was in developing
tonnage of magnitude and value as would justify the building of a railroad
from the Southern Pacific. This meant the building of a line approximately
one hundred and fifty miles long, to justify the bu11ding of which would
require the development of millions of tons of copper bearing ore. I
had crawled down the Ruth mine 300 degrees on the incline and seen forty
feet of a cross-cut that average approximately 3 percent with apparently
no end in either direction. I had seen this same porphyry upon the surface
leached of its copper value, extending for hundreds of feet in width
and I knew that underground development would reveal enormous masses
of this material, but I did not know what the copper content of it would
be. It was, therefore, necessary first to develop this ore and determine
its value not only sufficiently to justify the building of a railway
but sufficient in quantity to justify the building of an enormous reduction
plant, because profits could not be hoped for unless the ore was handled
by the thousands of tons per day. Over a period to two years this prospecting
work was carried on until a large tonnage of ore was developed. Even
then the railway was not justified, because there was no certainty as
to what could be done with the ore in the concentration. To determine
this factor, a small experimental mill was built at the Ruth mine, which
was operated during a period of three months and most exhaustive tests
and determinations made. The entire mine in fact was sampled by means
of this mill, results compared, tabulated and carefully scrutinized.
That these results were satisfactory is proven by the building of the
Nevada Northern Railway, which was undertaken immediately after these
mill tests were completed.
In the meantime there had been affected
the consolidation of the New York and Nevada and the White Pine properties
under the name of the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company. At Copper
Flat we had not been idle and the tonnage developed at Ruth is more
than equaled by the tremendous body of ore at the Flat, whose 1imits
have not yet been defined. I think you will agree with me that we were
justified in suspending development work when I say that there is developed
at Copper Flat and Ruth ore sufficient to supply this reduction plant
for at least ten years, with the largest part of our ground still unprospected,
but giving every evidence of containing ore similar to that we have
already developed. It was to meet this situat1on and afford means for
working this ore that the Nevada Northern Railway was built.
The railway was started in September of
last year and built, as you know, through a country singularly adaptable
to railway construct1on, over which our maximum grade is but seventh-tenths
of one per cent. Of engineering difficulties we have had none, although
the unprecedented severity of last winter rendered it necessary to suspend
operations for a considerable period.
We have today completed the line into
Ely, and will soon have it completed to the smelter site and to the
mines; and ere another year rolls around, we hope to see completed the
reduction plant with a capacity of five thousand tons of ore per day.
Our work has just began we have linked
this remote territory to the outside wor1d by bands of steel and have
made possible rapid and economical transportation of passengers, supplies
and ore. Without this, the rest would be of no avail, but with it, I
can see in the years to come a population or thousands with happy and
contented homes, not nomadic like the inhabitants of so many mining
camps, but more akin to the population of agricultural and manufacturing
towns, content with the knowledge that their means of livelihood will
continue beyond their day and generation, and if I can impress upon
you that the life of this mining camp will not be ephemeral, I believe
I shall have done you and the District a good turn.
