OCR Text |
Show fl Review of Last Season Shows That Investments Came Out fl Reasonably Well. Hj MARKED INCREASE IN HE DEALINGS EVERYWHERE Kj Tremendous Transfer of Money by Dealing in Coppers of This State. Bjl The year Just ended lias seen a marked Rj Increase in speculation, both on our ex- Hu changes and at London, which is the Ht distinctive mining market of Europe. On HI the whole, a great deal more money must Hf iave been made, though much of It may Hf) be still on paper, for the rise In stockr. Uf lins been based largely on better metal Hf prices and upon actual discoveries of U ore. In the United States the most spec- n tacular dealings have been In the shares HJ of mines situated at Butte. Mont., at Ooldileld, N'ev . and in the Cobalt district BB of Ontario, but there ha? been a tre- Mm Tnendous transfer of money and stocks In connection with the copper mines of I jUichlgan. Arizona, and Utah, and the cold-mining ventures of Houthweslern Nevada, say3 the Mining and Scientific Press. ii At Boston, the shares in the older mines of the Lake Superior region, such ns Calumet & Hocla and Wolverine, pos- Isesslng assured ore reserves and careful management, have seen an advance that seems, warranted; the newer companies, nuch as Copper Range Consolidated, Al-louez, Al-louez, and Mohawk, have been able to fulfill ful-fill expectations l'o'iined at their Notation, Nota-tion, and the rumors of combinations to be formed among groups of adjoining mines has stimulated dealings, especially at the close of the year. But Boston, to which transactions in Michigan copper cop-per stocks are mostly confined, has been optimistic only, not excited beyond reason, rea-son, although there has been some llbernl dealing in a few of the Butte stocks, such as United Copper. Butte Coalition, fin, 5 Vnrtl, TJi.ftn II On the New York exchange the In-I In-I creased dividends of Amalgamated and I Anaconda have provoked the customary I gambling on a large scale, but ihc chief center of speculative purchases of mln-R mln-R Ing stocks ha. been on the curb the I peripatetic mart on Broad street. Here I there have been extraordinary scenes of 1 excitement, especially during the last three months of the year. Dealings have I grown enormously and the number of I stocks quoted has been Increased until the list Is fairly representative of the 1 mining activity prevailing all oer the U North American continent. In the first I half of the new enterprises at Butte. I more particularly thoso corporations that were formed Immcdlatclj after the Heln-fj Heln-fj e-Amalga"nvited truce, In February, were favored by speculators: Indeed, the f; ceeentlon of the cat-and-dog right between be-tween the Standard Oil copper consolidation consolida-tion and Mr Hclnze released a. great deal I of propertiy tied by Injunction and pro-I pro-I duced a most excellent'effect in Montana; 5 as It was almost contemporaneous with Important discoveries of rich ore In the I northern part of Butte and with the ex-I ex-I traction of rich stuff from the bottom jl. workings of the Anaconda mine, the general gen-eral result was to give great animation to the stock market. The extension of the Blsbce copper ' district and the discovery of rich ore- IP bodies in the gToup of mines within the "bonanza circle," prompted active speculation spec-ulation in the shares of the Calumet & Arizona, Superior & Pittsburg, Butte & Arizona, Shattuck-Arlzona. and Denn-Arlzona Denn-Arlzona companies, dealings being scat- tered over many markets, for Michigan, Montana and Pittsburg capital was largely large-ly Instrumental in financing some of these enterprises at their inception, as the names indicate. This tendency of mining min-ing men to go out of their home districts 1h a good feature of the year's progress. I Bit tie money has been put into Idaho, Jor Instance, in the Snowstorm mine and In the Mullan district. Salt Lake capital capi-tal is financing several copper prospects in southern Nevada; money made from Colorado mines has won handsome returns re-turns at Tonopah and Goldfield. This means that the experience of capable , mine operators Is applied to the explora tion of new regions and there can be no j. question that money from such a source is better spent than that of the clerks, i policemen, and cooks that dabble on the margin of ten-cent stocks. Utah and Ely Stocks. The development of tho big copper J mines at Bingham has been reflected 5 by the quotations for several Utah Blocks i that are dealt In at New York and Bos- ton, but there has been no great rise, tho j successful exploitations of the mines be- ing offset, by the litigation with the farm- j ers over smelter fumes, culminating in the unfavorable decision of the local courts. Similar ore deposits at Ely have furnished the basis, together with Guggenheim Gug-genheim control, for great doings in Nevada Ne-vada Copper Consolidated, a stock that rose within a year from fi to 22a, largely on the proof of immense bodies of ore and the completion of the railroad. Two I other established copper enterprises, ex- ' ploitlng low-grade ores of an opposite character, namely, Tennessee Copper, In the State of that name, and Granbv, In British Columbia, have figured on' the share lists, hut without any pvrolechnjc displays, both being held by strong groups of financiers. The California copper mines In Shasta county have played no particular part in speculation, although Lawson said some things about Trlnlfv, ! put to balance this state of affairs, the I Fresno Copper company, a Glasgow en terprise, based upon an unhappy mine In I Fresno county, California, came to a most Inglorious smash, with a drop In Uip , shares, at Glasgow, from two pounds to two shillings within a few days. ' 7,ie,re hns been a healthy market in Cripple Creek shares, bur it has been con fined mainly to the local exchanges, at Denver, Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek. Drainage projects have stimulated stimu-lated purchases of stock and transfers of property: firc3 and flooding of workings have enlivened the market. At Salt Lake there has been an increased business on the local bourse, but; dealings In tho big mines have been made on the Knsturn exchanges and the local speculative move-monts move-monts have been without unusual features. fea-tures. In fact, the new center of tho spirit to get rich quickly by means of the buying and selling of mining shares haa been further West. The gambling In Nevada Ne-vada stocks has been the most notable feature of the year. Tho Goldfield Stock Boom. Discoveries of extremely rich ore In the young mines Of Goldlleld. successful developments de-velopments in the slightly older properties proper-ties at Tonopah. and the finding of rich outcrops In a score of camps scattered over the Nevada desert, created a speculative specu-lative fever that even tho tremendous destruction de-struction of property by the San Francisco Fran-cisco disaster was tillable to check, save for a few days. Shares of all kinds have risen to many times their former price, and in the case of the Mohawk, a stock that sold for J2 In August, rose to $20 In November, The prominence given to episodes of this kind tended to make a market for a number of cheap shares, based upon untried prospects, capitalized for large sums, and recommended in llam-boyant llam-boyant advertisements. Much of this was fraudulent, but so much of It was based on real discoveries of ore that, In face of the public haste to gamble, there wns no effort to make nice distinctions. At the close of the year the occurrence of copper cop-per on the edge of Death valley, at Green-wuter, Green-wuter, was made the excuse for several preposterous promotions, a capital of one or even two million dollars being saddled upon mere outcrops of Jow-grnde stuff. It will take a lot of sober work and honest mining to cure the effects of this speculative debauch, and while a famous development of the desert region has undoubtedly un-doubtedly taken plnce. the present year will have to pay the debt incurred during dur-ing 1006. Contemporaneous with the Nevada boom there was a wild orgy of speculation on the curb at New York, chiefly in shares of mines at Cobalt, tho new camp in Ontario. Nlplsslng, which had been put on the market in May at ?4.8"S, man 1 S5.1 "-. 1 91111 (inn ctini-au nn flilnl. lous finds of silver and on the statement state-ment that the Guggenhelms had bought control. "When the last mentioned transaction tran-saction fell through, there was a collapse and shares fell to 512. "When Nlplsslng began to boom last summer, a score of other Cobalt mines appeared on the curb market and many of these were boosted most successfully. Up to the first of December, the capitalization of Cobalt companies had reached .$200,000,000, while all the ore produced by the district from the discovery to that date barely represented repre-sented $5,000,000. Kven after the Nipls-slng Nipls-slng fiasco, the business of Incorporation went on merrily. In the last week of December, seventeen companies, with an aggregate capital of ?l",lfi0(000, were Incorporated In-corporated In this district, mainly on a slender showing of ore in prospect holes. In conclusion. If we omit the absurdities marking the extreme forms of the essentially essen-tially human desire to make money without with-out work. It can be said that, the speculative specula-tive spirit of 190G has been largely of a productive nature. Below the frothy "talk and reckless doings of the Irresponsible promoter and his easy victims, there has been a broad foundation of exploration and development An adventurous pplrlt is needed in mining, which Is a great quest for gold or the other metals, for without it the Industry would soon shrivel to Insignificant dlmcuslons. During the past year there has been a tremendous uncovering of ore and extension of mining territory, especially In America, and the fruits of it will be manifest in the statistics statis-tics of the future Humanity helng liable to error, especially when excited, there has been much money misapplied: but, having regard to the booms of other days, when greater extravagances and follies were perpetrated, we conclude that 1906 has seen good uso of speculation as applied to mining. |