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Show THE MARKET AND THE MINES A Salt Lake professional man, some years ago, Having accumulated a few thousands dollars, purchased pur-chased a lot on East First South street and erected a neat house thereon. By close buying and the exercise of a discriminating taste he furnished fur-nished the residence attractively at small cost. The total outlay was about $10,000. The owner had hardly moved in when he entertained a mine operator with a newly acquired Nevada fortune. The miner wanted a home in Salt Lake and the establishment of his host coincided exactly with his conception of extreme luxury. He asked the professional man to name a price. The latter did not fancy the idea of moving immediately and mentioned what he thought would be a prohibitive figure $15,000. To his surprise the Nevadan promptly wrote out a check for the full amount and took tfhe house. The transaction was an inspiration in-spiration to the Salt Laker. His profession has since been a side issue and his real occupation has been the building and furnishing of homes. He and his family have moved many times in the last five years, but every removal has been equivalent equiv-alent to his annual professional Income. & t g Strikingly similar to the methods of our professional pro-fessional man is the business policy of Mr. Jesse Knight of Provo. He ascertained long ago that rich com' mies do not like the risk and annoyance annoy-ance of developing mining prospects, be they never so promising, but are willing to pay generously gener-ously for the trouble involved in raising the prospects pros-pects to the status of mines. He found it so with his famous Humbug claim. It was scorned as a prospect, but gained a ready market as a mine. History is repeating itself in the case of the Colorado Colo-rado property. It was even less than a prospect when Mr. Knight took hold of it and now, after some very inexpensive development, Is likely to be sold on u $3,000,000 basis. Moreover the buyers buy-ers are said to be willing to take the Tintic smelter smelt-er off Mr. Knight's hands at the same time. The latter feature of the deal probably appeals to Mr. Knight more forcibly than the offer for Colorado. Colo-rado. The management of the new smelter and the marketing of its product has been a great worry and, in addition, smelters a la mode have become of problematic value since the demonstration demonstra-tion of Edward Fink's process at Garfield. tS (3 ! The established smelting companies are not blind to the possibility that another year or two may relegate their present smelting equipment to the junk heap and if they pay Mr. Knight's price for the Tintic plant there will bo a reason possibly two reasons. One reason may be.J.hat they hope to make enough out of the Colorado mine to pay for the smelter, and the other may be found in the long time ore-treating contracts that will go with tihe control of the smelting company. com-pany. & & & Important as it is to Utah the inside facts concerning the Colorado option have not been made public. Even the identity of the optioneo is in doubt. In Provo, under the drippings of the sanctuary, the "United States Smelting, Refining & Mining company is said to be the probable buyer. Well informed persons in Salt Lake insist that the International, or Cole-Ryan-Amalgamated, smelting company has the call on the option. If the business methods of Mr. Knight were less puritanical pur-itanical it might be suspected that he had both on the string and was playing each against the other. In this connection brief notice may be given to the ever-recurrent report that the Cole-Ryan interests will not rest content until they have a firm grip on the copper trade in all its branches. It has occurred to some of our thinking machines thait the much-advertlsqd war between the American' Ameri-can' Smelting & Refining company and the Inter- 1 national may be a stage battle that to each has been assigned the duty of corrallng as many small interests as possible and that the final tableau may show the erstwhile combatants in each other's arms. To support this theory it is pointed out that neither of the big corporations is giving support to the metal market. Both, rather, are contributing to its demoralization. The natural effect of the stricken market is a willingness on the part of the small producer to sell his property and, more important still, to create a public demand de-mand for a corporate organization that can and willl-malntalnTa standard price. So many monopolies monopo-lies i have come to grief by materializating in defiance de-fiance of popular sentiment that the idea of creating creat-ing a general desire for a monopoly is a Napoleonic Napo-leonic inspiration. Now that Mr. Knight is all but ,out of the Colorado, Colo-rado, the logical question is: How long will it take him to fatten the Iron Blossom for market? And the next question: "What property will step into Iron Blossom's stall when it is out of the way? opens a delightful vista of speculative possibilities. possi-bilities. The Iron Blossom is expected 'to tap the Colorado ledge at a new point within a week. If the showing at the second point of connection is as good as that already made by the east drift and upraise the property will be a long way on its road to the eastern market. And after Iron Blossom what? Plutus? Black Jack? King David? Or will it be Mountain Lake, or Uintah Treasure Hill, or Mineral Flat? Keen observers are picking the Tintic issues for winners, pointing out that the Knight star has developed no great brilliancy outside of its original atmosphere. & dt & Had the late lamented William Shakespeare been a witness of the recent Daly-West stockholders' stockhold-ers' meeting he could have secured some local hits for his popular farce, A Comedy of Errors. The alignment of H. G. McMillan with the Bamberger Bam-berger forces and of H. R." McMillan with the Daly faction drove the Denver reporters, the telegraph operators and the local editors almost to distraction. distrac-tion. The press dispatches, as they came to Salt Lake, had McMillan of Bambergersus denounc'ng ihe policy of his chief and McMillan of Dalycuse winning a directorship hands down. As a matter of fact H. G. McMillan, who was re-elected to the directorate, was not in Denver at all. The New York publications have not solved the mystery yet and are still expressing surprise at the versatility ver-satility of that man McMillan. In addition to these counterparts of Antlpholus of Ephesis and Antipholus of Syracuse the Daly-West drama had its Dromios. The Daly Dromio was Milton D. Joseph Jo-seph and the Bamberger comedian was Harry S. Joseph. An interview with a Mr. Joseph, in which the statement was made that the Daly-West was to merge with the Daly-Judge' and Ontario, was wired from Denver to the local papers. The great probability that the statement was not true caused everyone to assume that the Daly Joseph had learned to talk at last. It turned out, however, that it was the quiet and taciturn Harry who had broken silence. t & t Had the abstract of the Daly-West's annual statement been published before instead of after the stockholder's meeting the defeat of the insurgents insur-gents would have been the more overwhelming. The figures are a certificate of wise and successful management and when one considers the handicaps handi-caps with which the administration had been laden, lad-en, the showing seems remarkably good. An actual ac-tual gain of $145,000 in wealth is tho most striking fact in tho report. Crude ore to the value of $226,000 and concentrates worth $151,000 were sold during the last year and a great deal of necessary neces-sary development work was performed. The extreme ex-treme depth of the main working shaft is now approximately ap-proximately 1,700 feet. Further operations there' are prevented by water. |