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Show MINING AND FINANCIAL It is reasonably certain thai all the buying on the Salt Lake stock exchange these days is not being done by professionals, and it is equally cer- tain that all the advances in stock prices are not the result of manipulation. These things being true, the market must be improving. A little while back no one could get a rise out of it without with-out a brilliant campaign of exploitation. Now there is no suggestion that the advance of Iron blossom, Colorado and one or two other shares has been engineered from a broker's office. Some of the boys are tossing up their hats and shouting that the winter is over and the market at the threshold of a boom. That listens good, but the boomlet is still very young and tender and there may be some hard frosts before we have a permanent per-manent spring. The fact is that the improver- j ment is tentative, being based largely upon the enhanced value of silver. The rise of the white metal to GO cents an ounce has put many of the Tintic and Park City producers on the velvet and any old market would be compelled to make some concessions to the betterment of earnings. Although the copper magnates leave their orchestras at home when they go out these days to do business, a rattle now and then reminds the public that the amalgamation policy adopted some ten years ago is being followed. In line with the tendency toward concentration of owner, ship is the union announced this week, of the Ray Central with the Ray Consolidated property . in Arizona. All of the advantages which justify combinations seem to accrue in this instance. The Ray Central will get what it needs a concentrating con-centrating equipment out of the deal, and the Ray Consolidated will get some ready cash and large chunks of ready-to mill ore of more than i'ts own average grade. The interpretation by the courts of the Slier man anti trust law interrupted and disorganized the program for the orderly arrangement of copper production. Well-laid plans for reaching far into the future were discarded. The pro moters stood for a time in a daze, uncertain what to do next. But there was no letup of the pressure pres-sure of business necessity which had at first suggested the plans. The isolated instances of combination that have come to notice in the last two years have resulted from circumstances over which individuals have had little or no con , trol. The men in charge of vast interests have been steering between the Scylla of statutory law and the Charybdis of natural law. The consolidation of the coppers has moved on apace, the consolidators doing all they could to hold back the wagon and hoping that the moves they were obliged to make would not be construed by the courts as illegal. The merging of the two Rays, contravenes no statute. The High Grade fever has secured a foothold in Salt Lake City. In a good many offices discus sion of the possibilities of the new gold camp in northeastern California can be heard and not a few practical mining men admit that they intend to be there with pick and shovel and location stakes as soon as the snow melts. J. B. Heston of this city visited High Grade last fall. He is one of those who propose to fly thence with the little birds in the spring. High Grade has three good mines, says Mr. Heston. They form a triangle tri-angle with sidea three miles long. The ore has to be hauled about 80 miles to the railroad, but the rich streaks, 1Q to 12 inches wide, vfill stand this expense. Surface prospecting is difficult because be-cause of the growth of timber and vegetation. The entire district was located in earlier mining ex- citements. Most of the claims have lapsod through non performance of assessment work and there is much ground open to location, according to Mr. Heston. In many instances the prior locations loca-tions will make trouble and Mr. Heston considers the prospects for litigation almost as good as the prospects for gold. All who know anything of High Grade agree on one point, namely, that the district is what its name implies, or is nothing. There are no indications indi-cations of large bodies of milling ore such as characterize Porcupine and Jarbidge. The known veins are narrow and clear cut and carry values in gold running to five figures. The ore being near the surface and free milling, High Grade comes nearer answering the description of a "poor man's camp" than any gold field that has been discovered since Goldfield, Nev. No report was presented at the annual meeting meet-ing of the Dragon Consolidated company, held at Provo this week. In explanation it was stated that the manager, J. William Knight, had not had time to marshal the facts. The report will bo mailed later. Even without an official report the public is fairly well informed as to the conditions at the Dragon and is fairly well satisfied that tho Colorado ore channel, which runs into the Dragon from the Iron Blossom, turns base soon after it enters the Dragon lines. The deterioration commences com-mences in the Iron Blossom, between the No. 2 and the No. 1 shafts, but does not go below the minimum of commercial value in the Iron Bios- som workings. There is the possibility, of course, that better shoots may make in the channel as it is followed through the Dragon, but that would be luck and not the sequel to any indi cation that geological science points out. Local interests take a favorable view of the progress being made toward a reorganization of the Nevada-Utah. It is said by persons who have been in New York lately that provision has been made to settle the Bank of the Republic claim and that the Ohio-Kentucky stockholders are dis posed to be lenient in collecting the sum sti'l due on the sale of their property to the Nevada-Utah. And the Nevada-Utah 1ms a real income. The Day-Bristol company, of which the Nevada-Utah owns half, is shipping more than z usual H amount of ore from the Day mine. Word from H Piocho is to the effect that construction, work on M the Prince railroad is going full blast and there is M no one who questions that the line will be turned H over by the contractors by the first of May, 1912. |