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Show Spelter Output in 1915 Valued at $121,401,000 Production, Compared to That of 1914, Shows Remarkable Increase in Valuation of 237 Per Cent, With Price Going Up. THERE was produced In the United States during 1915, 4SSnl9 tons of ppIter, an increase of tons over the production in 191-1. according ac-cording to the report just issued by C. E. Siebenthal of the United States geological survey. The consumption In If 15 amounted to 364.3S1' tony, an increase in-crease of 85,257 tons over 1!)H. The value of the spelter produced, calculated on the basis of the average selling price, vas $121,401,000, as apainst S36.U11.O00 in 1014, an increase in value of t."7 per cent. The figures are for primary spelter, which is made directly from ore. At the beginning of August. 191-1. spel- : ter was selling slightly below 5 cents a pound at St. Louis. Mo., and immediately imme-diately following the deelara tion of war the price rote sharply to almost ti cents a pound and then began to recede, until by October 17 it had dropped to below what it was seiling for before t ho ji.se. Since that time it has risen steadily until un-til on June 12, J915. it was selling for more than 25 cents per pound. Price Advancing, By' August it had dropped ba'-k to TiU cents per pound, after which the price of the metal rose steadily until November, when it sold at about IS cein s per pound. The quotation sent out bv (he Engineering and Mining Journal for the week ended Wednesday, April U was 17 cents per pound. The quotation for the week ended yesterday will be received re-ceived from New York some time today. Two kinds of spelter are nrrdm.-ecl in the United States one known as primary pri-mary spelter and the other known as secondary sec-ondary spelter, which Is recovered from such sources as drosses, skimmings and old metals. The number of retorts for the production produc-tion of spelter at the close of 1015 was 156,568, and the retorts to bo added in 1916 amount to 49,612. When the retorts ! and plants for reducing zinc now planned 1 and under construction are completed the . plants for producing- spelter in the United : States will have a yearly capacity of j SS5.000 tons of the metal annually. I Electrolytic Plants. There has been a decided growth In I the number and size of electrolytic plants for the production of high-rade spelter, the recovery bein? very high when compared com-pared to producing high-grade zinc by two distillations. The output of electrolytic elec-trolytic zinc in the United States during 1 f 15 was? only 252 tons, but Mr. Siebenthal Sieben-thal is of the opinion that the production along this line is rapidly increasing and by the end of 191(5 will undoubtedly reach the rate of more than 00,000 tons per year, which, with the output of high-Kt-ade spelter from lead-free ainc ores of the eastern starts, will be ample to sup-: sup-: ply the demands for high-grade spelter in' ordinary times. lie believes that by the end of 1016 the spelter-producing capacity ca-pacity of the country will be considerably consider-ably more than 900,000 tons, or nearly three times the probable domestic demands. de-mands. World's Consumption. The world's consumption of spelter In 1913 was 1.102,456 short tons. He states that It requires no particular Insight to recognize that the end of the war, except for a. single contingency, will bring about the sudden extinction of a large number of the less advantageously advantageous-ly situated smelters. That contingency, which would perhaps justify' this abnormal ab-normal smelting capacity, lies in the conclusion con-clusion of arrangements by which, in the future, practically the whole of the Australian Aus-tralian zinc output would be smelted in the United States. In such an event, it would seem that smelters fired with producer gas and situated on the Atlantic seaboard, with adjacent markets for acid, would ha ve the advantage over the inland smelters, which have to pay railroad transportation transporta-tion charges. |