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Show UTAH COPPER CO. MOVES MOUNTAIN AT BINGHAM f-y--f. .,.....,,, ,, r k . . 1 .' . , : Z' ' ,'J-,-,.,''vV -j4-- ; -v ; -.. . - . : . .- . : l Lo ' Grade Croper Ore PtW:- i , ' " - " i p Mii'm ... v, . . XJ J --.r - I ?-, ' ' - - -S""!- By D. D. MOFFAT TWENTY pounds of copper to 2000 pounds o rock! Such is the average content of the mountin at Bingham, Utah, bing shipped and milled by the Utah Copper Co. The net value ot the recoverable copper and the gold and silver in the ore is, at present metal prices, $3. The waste overburden being removed, the ore is drilled, blasted, loaded by electric shovels into railway rail-way cars and transported 20 miles to a concentrating plant. After c-ushing and grinding the ore to a Ue and fineness at which it will pass through a screen with 40,000 openings to a square inch, which fineness of grinding is necessary to liberate the mineral from the gangue, it then is subjected to a process of flotation concentration where the separation of the mineral min-eral takes place, the ratio of concentration con-centration being roughly 34 to 1, that is, from 34 tons of ore 1 ton of concentrate product is produced, containing GOO to 700 pounds of oopper, compared with the 20 pounds per ton in the original ore. The concentrate is smelted, shipped 2000 miles and refined. The $3 metal value must cover all these charges if operation is to be profitable, or even possible. It is this job the Utah Copper Co. has learned to do so well that a once worthless ore body is today one of Utah's valuable resources. At Bingham one sees electric locomotives assembling cars of ore for the mills, hauling waste to nearby gulches and bringing in trainloads of supplies. Hundreds of men are at work. Their needs provide patronage for merchants, professional men and vendors of farm products. Northward, on the shore of Great Salt Lake, hundreds more are employed in mammoth concentrating mills, the world's largest copper smelter, and a powder plant turning out millions of pounds of explosives annually for the mines. The Utah Copper ore body probably prob-ably was first prospected in 1862, by soldiers from Ft. Douglas. A tunnel in the moutainside yielded assays of about 2 copper. In 1887 Col. Knos A. Wall discovered the tunnel and relocated the forfeited claims, with others. He optioned the group to Capt. J. L. DeLamar. DeLamar, who had purchased a gold mine at Mercur from Wall, sent two members of his Mercur staff to Bingham to investigate, little dreaming that they were to change the copper history of the world. Daniel C. Jackling was to supervise super-vise assays and concentration tests, Robert C. Gemmell to report on the ore possibilities ot the property. They completed a joint report in September, 1S99, the first comprehensive analysis of copper production from very low grade ore. Their plan called for the stripping and loading of the ore by steam shovels and its concentration con-centration in a 2000-ton plant near Great Salt Lake. On account, perhaps, per-haps, of the novelty of the scheme and the initial outlay required, DeLamar balked and surrendered his option. Jackling persisted. Experimental data was verified and Colorado capitalists came to his support. A pilot mill at Copperton, near the mouth of Bingham canyon, was completed in 1904. It returned a profit. But tonnage to justify a $4,000,000 investment in a commercial commer-cial plant remained to be demonstrated. demon-strated. Drill tests in 1905 having proved 20 million tons of 1.93 copper ore, the capital was provided pro-vided and Utah Copper became a going concern. Since then hundreds of millions of tons have been added to the original ore body by economies in treatment of successively lower grades of ore, lengthening by many years the life of the mine. A 20-mile 20-mile railroad to transport ore from the mine to the mills was built. In the mills, gravity concentration has been replaced by flotation. The steam shovels have been converted to electric shovels capable of loading load-ing a 100-ton car in 5 minutes and the mine haulage system has been electrified. Since its inception the company-has company-has expended for wages, $112,000,-000; $112,000,-000; for power, supplies, services, etc., $134,000,000; for smelting, freight and refining. $123,000,000 and for taxes, $36,000,000. Of the total, nearly $325,000,000 has been disbursed in Utah. Approximately $10,000,000 is the annual average amount circulated in the community. commun-ity. Wages are now higher than during dur-ing the 1924-192S period and 60 higher than during the years prior to 1912. Common labor is up 130. Supplies, taxes, etc., have also followed fol-lowed the same trend. It is apparent, ap-parent, therefore, that an aggressive aggres-sive policy of continually improving improv-ing methods and equipment must be the rule, otherwise the foregoing factors would force the "highgrad-ing" "highgrad-ing" of the ore body that is, selecting the high grade ores. Such a procedure would materially reduce the life of th mine, with consequent loss to stockholders, and, more serious, a loss to the community in payrolls, supply purchases pur-chases and taxable wealth. |
