Salt Lake Tribune | 1916-08-19 | Page 12 | Big Foru Mill is Nearing Capacity

BIG FOUR MILL IS : HIGKITy I Two More Carloads of Con- i centrales Being Loaded for Shipment. i j With two more carloads of concen- ;i tratps being loaded tp ship to tlio smel-! smel-! ter the concentrating plant of the Big j Four Exploration cojnpauy is rapidly ; being brought up to capacity. It is i; located at Atkinson, a station on the i "Union Pacific branch line to the Park city district, and about twenty-two 1 miles from Salt Lake. There is now i' being treated at the plant approximate-I approximate-I y tiOO tons of tailings per day. ; It must not be understood, however, that the plant is as 'yet working con-' con-' tinuously, according to the management. , As with all large concentrating mills, , it has been found necessary to make certain changes of a minor character, which changes have resulted, up to date, in closing down the mill from one to two shifts per week and at times ' for longer periods. For the past two days, however, the mill has .been running run-ning steadily and should reach its ca-i ca-i pacify of 750 tons per day within a - very "short period. : The plant was built to treat a tail ings dump that is three and one-half miles in length, from 00 to 900 feet in width, and from five to eight feet in depth. There are approximately i,030,-000 i,030,-000 tons of material on which the Big Four Exploration company has a lease that runs until 1924. Average samples of the dump show it to contain .015 of an ounce in gold, 3.2 ounces in silver, 1.6 per cent in lead and 4.1 per cent in zinc to the ton. Lead-silver and zinc concentrates are being produced. It is believed from the numerous tests that have been made, and from all indications in the mill, that better than a b'O per cent extraction of marketable zinc concentrates, better than a 50 per cent lead extraction, better bet-ter than a 35 per cent extraction of the silver-gold content, and a good silver-lead silver-lead extraction is being made. Based on silver at 50 cents an ounce, lead at 4 cents a pound, and zinc at $5.40 per hundred, a profit of $14,625 per month will be made, assuming the total costs to be $1.30 per ton. The concentrate produced at present, figured at the low metal prices mentioned, is worth $1.95 per tun.