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Show AFRICA AS A COPPER " FACTOR FAR REMOVED Every once in a while the matter of copper production from Africa conies up like a little cloud, and a few hysterics are thrown until the incident Is forgotten. forgot-ten. Once in a while, too, a person can be found who predicts all sorts of trou-blc trou-blc for the copper industry on account of ihc certain glutting of the market from Africa. A chill traversed the spines of several copper stockholders a week or two ago when some copper was received from Africa and in discussing t Ills event and Its attending results, the Engineering Engineer-ing and Mining Journal says: "So much has been made out of reports re-ports of great quantities of copper '.o come from Katanga and the recent arrivals arriv-als In this country of some shiploads of Otavl ore that It Is a pity that the daily press and other organs of publicity can not take moro trouble to inform themselves them-selves correctly. "Otavl ore has been coming into the market for several years. It is in some respects of peculiar character, being high In both lead and copper. The American Smelting and Refining company has developed de-veloped an advanced and economical method for the treatment of such ore which accounts for its present shipment to this country. "As for Katanga, it is well known that there aro Immenso deposits of copper there, but the difficulties of exploitation are great and it is the consensus of opinion opin-ion among engineers who have visited tbo district that a flood of copper is not to bo expected Immediately fromOil "Africa Is a great undeveloped country, which will doubtless In time to come supply sup-ply the world with a groat deal of copper, cop-per, tin. gold, diamonds and other valuable valu-able things, but neither its copper nor tin is going to figure prominently in tho statistics for 1911 and 1912." |