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Show S SMELTERS ARE TO BE ENLARGED Tribune.: For the past three months the smelters of the Salt Lake valley have been congested with ore, owing to the unusual activity In mining brought about by the high .price of lead, silver and copper. It Is admitted that the plants have been unable to handle all the ore offered them and have been compelled to refuse re-fuse ores of a grade that was gladly accepted In normal times. But the big problem will soon be solved, .according .ac-cording to an official statement made yesterday by Charles W. Whitley, general manager of the American Smelting &, Refining company, which has its big copper smelter at Garfield Gar-field and also a gigantic plant at Murray. Mur-ray. Mr. Whitley said yesterday that within six months the capacity of the Garfield smelter would be doubled, dou-bled, giving it a capacity of 800 tons of copper every twenty-four hours, or about 48,000,000 pounds per month. The plans are completed, some of the steel is already on the ground and at the end of six months, it is confidently confident-ly expected, the big smelter will be in shape to turn out the 800 tons of copper every day. But that is only part of the difficulty. diffi-culty. Taking care of the lead-silver lead-silver ores from the various mines has proved a problem equally as difficult dif-ficult as handling the output from the copper mines; in fact, one that has caused even greater annoyance, as the producers operating smaller mines scattered over the region tributary trib-utary to the valley have been even more insistent In their demand for accommodation than were the copper people. Mr. Whitley said that within six months the Murray plant would be enlarged to an extent that would enable en-able it to take care of all lead ores that the customers might bring in; he did not care how great the volume might be. The furnaces will be enlarged, en-larged, augmented and Improved and a new stack 450 feet high, the second highest in the world, will be built. Mr. AVhitey sets six months as the time required for the completion of the big task. "We do not expect to be ever again caught in the predicament of being unable to take care of the ores offered' of-fered' us," he declared. The plants at Murray and Garfield employ about 3000 workmen and this force will be enlarged during tho construction period and necessarily Increased after tho improvements are made. As to the possible shortage of coal in the event of a possible railroad strike, Mr. Whitley said that his company com-pany had anticipated this and was prepared to continue operations without with-out delay. |