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Show TP'7, STORY OF T00EJ.P. I i I"" . -' On the right is the new slag zinc fuming plant at Tooele an answer to the nation's plea f'jp-tnore metal for the war program. (Editor's Note i This Is the fifth of a lead smelting practice. series of eight articles titled "The Story The plant was COniDleted in 1011 of Tooele".) During the past sixty years the metal mining industry in Utah has been successively forced to the production of lower grade ores, due to the exhaustion of the more easily easi-ly mined higher grade ores. Following Fol-lowing this trend has been successively succes-sively increasing costs inherent in deeper work. With no increase In the market value for its products, changes in mining methods, milling practice, and smelting practice have been necessary for survival. At Tooele, the International Smelting and Refining Re-fining Company, well aware of this from past experience, is constantly striving to improve its smelting practice. Testimony to this may be had from International's latest addition addi-tion to its Tooele works. In 1941 the company began the erection of a slag zinc fuming plant, designed primarily for the retreatment of thousands of tons of slag which contained varying amounts of zinc which had been lost in the regular at a cost of $500,000. First tests, just prior to Pearl Harbor, proved to be successful. The plant could not have been completed at a more opportune time as considerable concern was expressed when the war broke out over the increased amount of zinc needed to keep pace with copper in the manufacture of brass for armament. International's slag zinc plant did much to alleviate what could have been a serious shortage in this strategic metal which forms about one-third of the metal which goes to make up brass, which has been so vital to the success of the war. Since its completion, the Tooele slag plant has added nearly 2,000,-000 2,000,-000 pounds of zinc per month to the zinc production of the nation. Moreover, the plant has made possible pos-sible the treatment of certain oxidized lead-zinc ores which heretofore here-tofore have laid dormant in the mines, and the plant will probably open a new field to Utah and western metal producers. (The sixth article in this series will appear ap-pear soon in these columns.) |