Show COPPER AT SIX CENTS the only copper mine in the state of michigan that is producing copper at a cost of 0 6 cents in these days of extremely high production figures is not a copper mine at all it is a reclamation plant of the calumet hecla company operating on the old stamp sands in torch lake says homer guck in the houghten michigan mining gazette these sands have been accumulating for fifty years for forty years they were considered worthless now they are helping to augment the output of the big calumet hecla mine and have possibilities that run into millions the company pumps the sands from the bottom of the lake to a shore plant classifies them elevating the coarse sands into the grinding re plant re grinding and washing these coarse sands pumps the tailings of this plant to the leaching plant where they are leached beached and the waste then disposed of all the work is done at a cost of less than 6 cents a pound of course the production is not an important factor in the total output of the lake superior copper district but last year this plant turned out more than a number of mines of the district pounds from tons of tailings the total amount of copper secured since this process was put into operation will amount to pounds the plant is operated with less than a dozen men it is a marvel of efficiency and the profit already made from what was looked upon as absolutely worthless jail tailings is astonishing it might not be amiss to explain that in the early days of the operation of the calmet hecla mine the ore from the mining showed better than pounds of copper to the ton the mills were crude and losses in the mills amounted frequently to as high as thirty pounds to the ton thirty pounds to the ton is a rich mine in this district nowadays the reclamation plant Is not as yet working in the richest parts of the old sand pile |