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Show MINING AND FINANCIAL i " a-r- ,' A few things may be said about the Salt Lake f mining stock market this week that are both interesting in-teresting and fit for publication. One observation . that will hardly be questioned is that business is dull. It is said that one of the brokers went to sleep during a call of the exchange the other day, but awakened d'ttiost immediately. He explained that there was so much more noise in his dreams . than he had been accustomed to that the racket w disturbed him. If someone would invent a jK vacuum bottle warranted to keep prices at a sta- W tionary figure for three months the traders, likely, would put on their coats and go home. As it is i now every man of them is afraid to turn his back I lest his brother dealers take advantage of his j inadvertence. Comparing the quotations with those made the first week in January one might almost imagine that a vacuum price bottle was in use. There have been sudden and violent I movements one way and another in the last four J -months, but the leading shares seem to have de- ' scribed a circle and returned within a few cents of the starting point. I $ i Nevada Hills, for instance, was quoted at G5 in January and sold last Wednesday for 66 a share, although within a fortnight it has gone into a merger and performed other stunts that have materially changed its form. Sioux, which ranged from 29 to 31 early in January, is around 37 now; 'Lower Mammoth was 50 to 52 and is now 55; Black Jack was selling for 12 and 15 and brings 11 now. Tintic Central, which has changed formation forty-seven times in the interim, in-terim, was 'selling at 9 cents early in January. It brings 10 now. An exception to the rule is Iron Blossom. Quoted at 75 in January it brings $1.07 and as much more as you can induce anyone to give for it, this weelc. Columbus Con. is another exception. The first of the year Columbus was quite popular at $1.22. Now it is picked up occasionally occa-sionally for junk at 57 and 58 cents. Cedar-Talisman, which was scarcely known on 'change in January, is now one of the upper ten, not because be-cause it is a better mine than it was in January, but because it has been "discovered" by an enterprising en-terprising broker and recommended to the public as a. comer. Good service can be performed by brokers in the picking of winners. In a live region prospects pros-pects are constantly developing into mines. Such transitions give the investor the ideal chance to make good, clean profit with the maximum of safety, provided, of course, no mistake is made in estimating the possibilities of the property and the prices are not advanced to the mine level before be-fore the prospect reaches the mine stage. Any number of cases might be pointed out in which obscure enterprises have suddenly come into prominence and advanced in price because some H ono took the trouble to bring their intrinsic merits H to public notice. At this moment Beaver county H is the section in which the most properties are m ciossing the imaginary line which separates pros- H pecting from mining. m The long silence which followed the reported H strike of a new high grade ore body in a raise H from the 500 level at the north end of the Iron H Blossom has engendered the suspicion that some- H body blundered; that the story of the strike was H a distorted repetition of the news from the south H end where gold ore was encountered by a raise H from the 500 level three weeks ago. There has H been no confirmation of the bullish rumors from H the No. 3 workings and the quick decMne of the H ' shares from the high point of last week bears out H the supposition that the drift on the 500 level of H the north shaft is still innocent of pay ore. De- H spite all possible disappointments, however, the H Iron Blossom is making good in a most practical H way by maintaining an unprecedented tonnage H output, rising last week to a thousand tons. H The anticipation that the Sioux would have H $20,000 left in its treasury after the payment of H its first quarterly four-cent dividend is fully borne H out by the financial statement mailed with the H dividend announcement. In fact the balance on H hand after the profit disbursement will be a little H more than the amount predicted. The average H grade of the Sioux ore is still very low the net H returns per ton not being more than $8 or $9. H Evidently the new blanket vein tapped east of H the shaft by the drift on the 450 level is not Hj . doing much to sweeten the quality of the output. HH Eastern statisticians figure out that the Inter- H national Smelting company is earning 14 per cent H on its ten million dollar capitalization and this H without the Tooele plant, which is still in course H of construction. Two unexpected difficulties have H appeared at Tooele. The first is a house famine. H The company is finding it almost impossible to H shelter in comfort the families of the men em- H ployed in building the smelter. Not a vacant cot- H tage is to be found either in the old or the new H Tooele and the crowding is said to be remindful H of the New York tenement district. Residences are being built as fast as workmen and material M t can be secured and it is expected that the hous- M ing problem will be solved by the time the m smelter actually goes into commission. |