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Show THE STORY OF TOOELE I 4 :l : ! y . fc I - I if-- ' - i Metallurgy has solved many problems that have lengthened the life of Utah's mining industry and made a market for more varied types ores. Here is one metallurgical operation tapping slag at the Tooele smelter. (Editor's Note : This ts the second of a eries of eight articles titled "The Story ef Tooele".) After World War I, the metal industry in-dustry was faced with a situation that threatened to close most of the mines and smelters. Most of the easily smelted oxidized ores had been mined and much of the future supply of metals, it became apparent, ap-parent, would of necessity have to eome from low grade sulphide lead-zinc lead-zinc ores with higher cost reduction. This presented a challenge to the smelting industry. International Smelting and Refining company met the challenge with metallurgical metallurgi-cal improvements that breathed new life into the mining industry, --not only of Utah but the entire West, Casting aside thoughts of dismantling dis-mantling the Tooele plants, which were then closed down, officials decided de-cided to make a comprehensive survey of the situation. It was evident evi-dent that a new supply of ore would have to be developed and that metallurgy would have to be advanced ad-vanced to a point where it would be possible to properly dress ore before it could be smelted economically. econo-mically. This, it was found, called for the saving of the zinc in lead-zine lead-zine sulphide ores, which heretofore hereto-fore had been subjected to a penalty when this erude product of the mines was shipped direct to smelters. At the conclusion of the survey In 1922, the International Company decided to stay In Utah and launched a two-fold program which required the expenditure of millions mil-lions of dollars. The program embraced em-braced the entrance of the smelting company into actual prospecting and mining to obtain adequate tonnage ton-nage to continuously operate the smelter; and to conduct exhaustive metallurgical research. (This is the second of a series of eight articles. The third will appear in these columns soon.) |