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Show UTAH METAL OUTPUT SHOWS ENORMOUS INCREASE Utah mines will close the year 1916 with a record-breaking ore output of gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc having a total value of about $97,000,000, as estimated by Victor C. Heikes, of the United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. This record indicates an increase of nearly 77 per cent, or $42,000,000 over the output of 1915. All the metals showed increases in-creases and there were record outputs out-puts of copper, lead and zinc. About 14,000,000 tons of ore were mined in 1916, against 10,451,445 tons in 1915. The mines at Bingham produced pro-duced the larger part of this ore, or nearly 13,000,000 tons, mostly by steam shovel mining. This quantity includes about 12,000,000 tons of porphyry copper ore, the output of which in 1915 amounted to 8.008,-567 8.008,-567 tons. In all districts many of the old mine and tailing dumps were reworked or shipped directly to the smelters. Ore shipments from the Tintic district totaled about 4 00,0'0 tons, representing an increase of J! 8 per cent over 1915. The estimate includes in-cludes a quantity of oxidized iron ore greater than that shipped in any previous year, caused by the demand for flux at the different smelters. Several thousand tons of ore and old dump material that are not included in the estimate were milled in the district. In the Cottonwood and American Fork districts over 47,000 tons of ore of shipping grade was produced j in 1916. Nearly half of the output was hauled by wagon and tractor en-giues en-giues down Big Cottonwood canyon to the valley furnaces. The Park City region produced less milling ore and more ore of shipping grade, which, with concentrates from three ore mills and two large tailing plants, amounted to nearly 00,000 tons, a decrease of about 7,500 tons from the output of 1915. In 191G two new mills were erected at Frisco and Newhouse, in Beaver county, to work tailings yielding copper, lead and zinc concentrates, which, with the ore shipped from the different mines, aggregated 65,000 tons. This is an increase of more than 46,000 tons over 1015. The ore output in Tooele county, principally at Ophir and the Stockton camps, including the smaller districts, North Tintic, Columbia, Dugway and Erickson, amounted to 126,000 tons. This included in-cluded the milling ore of the Ophir and Bullion Coalition properties. There was an increase of 14,000 tons of ore compared with 1915. Some Increase in Gold and Silver The gold output in Utah shows a slight increase, from $3,609,109 in 1915 to $3,647,000 in 1916. Most of the increase Is probably derived from copper ores, as the gold-producing districts were not very active. Bull Valley, Sheep Rock, Annie Laurie and West Mercur mines each produced a little gold bullion. The placer gold production in the state is negligible. The production of silver is S per cent greater, increasing from 12,-?. 12,-?. 13.20 5 ounces in 1915 to 13,357,-000 13,357,-000 ounces in 1916, amounting to an increase in value of over $2,500,000. Among the silver mines the Ontario was producing ore of shipping grade and a large increase may be made from the Cottonwood districts. In the Tintic district silver ores will benefit by the chloridizing-roast.ing process, which was put in successful operation, treating ore and old dump material from the Iron Blossom, Dragon, Swansea and Black Jack mines. Precipitates containing high silver were produced and averaged a car a month before the increase of 100 to 300 tons in the roasting capacity ca-pacity of the plant. Copper, Lead and Zinc Increases Copper production in Utah broke all records, increasing from 187,-671,188 187,-671,188 pounds in 1915, to 242,-000,000 242,-000,000 pounds in 1916, an increase of 2 9 per cent in quantity and over $33,000,000 in value. The gigantic operations by steam shovel at the great porphyry copper mine of the Utah Copper Company kept two railroad rail-road lines busy hauling an average of 31,000 tons of ore daily to its two concentration mills at Garfield, fifteen miles distant. There were days when the ore hauled exceeded 40,000 tons, At Lark, the Ohio Copper Cop-per mill operated on low grade cop- per ores from its mine, which was in the hands of lessees. Lead production also surpassed all former records, increasing from 199,967.437 pounds in 1915 to over 215,000,000 pounds in 'l916, the increase amounting to about 7 per cent in quantity and over $5,000,000 in value. A large increase in the output of lead was made from the mines at Bingham. The principal producers were the Utah Apex, United Uni-ted States, Highland Boy, New Haven, Ha-ven, and Dalton & Lark properties. The production of lead from the Tintic Tin-tic and Park City districts will not be much greater than in 1915. Prices for zinc continued high during the early part of the year and much ore and concentrate containing con-taining the metal was marketed, but the price broke in May and was low in June, when a general falling off of the production was noticeable until un-til the markets became settled. Altogether Al-together there were produced about 29,000,000 pounds of metallic zinc by thirty-nine producers, against 24,292,240 pounds by thirty-four producers in 1915. The increase in value was nearly $1,000,000. No new zinc districts were opened in 1916, and the largest deposits of the higher grade ores were about depleted in several districts. Some spelter w!as recovered electrolytical-ly electrolytical-ly at an experimental plant, and another an-other was about to start at the end of the year, its operators expecting to run it permanently. All the smelter smelt-er plants Murray, Garfield, Mid-vale, Mid-vale, and International were operating oper-ating at full capacity the entire year. Dividends were paid by twenty-two twenty-two mining companies, amounting to about $24,404,320, as against $9,827,524 in 1915. |