wAIAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, MAROH 22, 1914.
5 B
Cerro De Pasco, Highest Copper Mines in the World, with Great Smelters
4
where th miner yrtn Uklng out ore.
The machinery la of the vtry Uteit in
vention and the drilling It done with
compressed lr. The workmen are Cholon
or native peruviana, who ' are raid from
$3 centa and upward a day. They make
excellent miners and tome of them do
quite as well an men of the name clM
In the states. They work In eight-hour
shifts with two shifts a day. The shtftM
are so arranged that the second stops at
3 o'clock In the morning, eo that all of
the men can sleep a part of the night.
Everything Is manned after the most
approved mints of the states and this
same plan Is preserved In all the opera
tlons of the work. About 160 samples of
ore are assayed every day and the miners
know exactly what they ars dolntr. THey
have a curious way of determining with
out a scientific assay, as to whether the
ore Is valuable or not. This Is by means
of a tallow candle. They light the candle
and by dusting It with the ore the cop
per In It gives forth a green flame, the
color of which shows just about the per
centage of metal the ore oontalns. As I
went through the mine with Mr. Qlldden,
the assistant manager, he made such a
test and told me that the car of oro aver
aged probably about 12 per cent.
Loading ty Gray it jr.
During our Journey wo went from
chamber to chamber,, now walking
through the tunnels and now Jumping
aside to let the cars pass. The whole
of the underground workings nro a bee
hive of industy and the work of getting
out the copper goes steadily on without
friction. The mines are so arranged that
the cars ore loaded by gravity, and tho
mining Is most economically done.
In going through tho tunnls we vsed
acetylene, the carbide for whjch comes
from the United States, and every miner
we met had nn acetylene tamp on his cap.
The managers find that this U much
cheaper than candles. Tho mines are
worked by electricity which Is now gen
erated by steam, but the company Is
Installing a great electric plant at Oroya,
about seventy-five miles away, whero
they own a stream with a fall which will
generate about XB,000 horsepower. Within
i III M
c
(Copyright, 3911. by tfrank G. Carpenter.)
.EBItO DE PASCO, Peru-1
huvo come to the top of tin
Andes to tell you about the
greatest copper mines of this
continent. They lie here on
the roof of the world. They
aro moro than 1,200, miles south of the
Panama canal and something like 3,000
miles from the Strait of Magellan. They
are about 200 miles east of the 'Pacific
ocean and ,3,000-odd miles .from tho Atlan
tic. Their actual altitude Is over 14,000
feet, and one'K&sta'co overa'pass which'
Is 5,6Cj feel above sea level to reach
them. I camo here by the -Central rail
way of Peru. . This brought me over the
Andes and dojvn to the 12,000-foot level at
tho town of Oroya. There I got the Cerro
de Pasco railroad and climbed' up the
plateau 'to where I now am.
Cerro dev Pasco Is the highest mining
town'of the world. It Is three or four
thousand feet above Leadvllle, and almost
twlco as high as Mexico City. Tiere' are
peaks near.lt which are 20,000 feet high,
and Its surroundings are some of the
grandest on earth. Tho town Is right
over treasures of silver and copper of In
calculable value. They have been mining
silver hero for 300 years, and that metal
is almost played out. The outlook la that
they will be mining copper for 100-years
more,' and the copper mines are really
just beginning. Today the town Is like a
great colander, the holes of which are
the openings of mines. The Spaniards
and Indians have been' mining here for
eight generations and now the Americans
liave bought the most valuable deposits
and the outlook Is that they will be min
ing for many generations to come.
Riches In Mines.
Tho etory-of Cerro de Pasco dates back
to 1630. At that time an Indian who was
watching his llamas and sheep, had to
stay hero over night. He built a flro on
tho stones to keep warm and when he
awoke In the morning ho found the rocks
specked with globules of silver which the
fire had boiled out. This story went
forth and as a result something like
1X0,000,000 ounces of silver havo been taken
out of these mines. They are mining
some silver" here now and as I rode on
mule "back about through the town I
could seo great pits large enough to swal
low' tho Vatican at Itomo or our national
capitol at Washington from which that
oro had been taken. The silver oro
comes from a yellowish rock which lies
ner the surface. It disintegrates cosily,
and much of It Is taken out In tho
form of a powder.
The first working was done by tho
Spaniards, who used Indian slaves and
flogged them to kefep them at labor.
Later on the mines fell Into the hands
of Indian Cholos, and when silver was
lilh they were owned by capitalists who
paid the miners something like 40 cents
a ;day for twelve hours' work, with an
ounpe. of coca 'loaves to keep them hard
oi ihe Job. Today tho silver oro and
many of tlie petty copper propositions
are worked by Indians. Outside tho Amer
ican holdings there are many small
ml pes; and the town of 30,000 is so pep
pered with holes hat one would hardly
dare to go about alone after dark. The
native minors do their work In the old
fashioned way. They dig out the best
ore with plaks and carry it up ladders
In rawhide eacks on their backs. I saw
many piles of such ore as I rode through
the oUy, An Indian will carry from sixty
to eighty pounds at a load and they are,
now bringing tho ore out upon ladders
from a depth of 300 feet.
Copper Ore Pound.
Tho ore taken out Dy the Indians Is now
largely copper, although most of It carries
more or less sller. The real vnlue of the
mines Is in the copper, the ore 'containing
more and mors copper as the mining goes
down. The sliver, which neari the sur
face often assayed 100 ounces ta the ton,
has gradually fallen in quality until it Is
now less than ten. All of the ote, how
ever, has more or less gold and silver in
It and the American company finds that
the costs of tho mining are paid by the
precious metals, tho copper being almost
pure profit. The copper Is far richer than
that. In the mines of the United States
from which our grqat supplies come
It was "the great copper ' value that
attracted the attention of American cap
italists to Cerro de Pasco, and today a
syndicate composed of some of our rich
est men have bought the mines here and
they are operating them on a cale such
as exists nowhere else on this continent.
Among the members of the syndicate uro
such men ab J. B. Haggln, Htjnry C.
Frlck, the Vanderbilts, the Hearst estate
and others. These 1 men have already
spent tens of millions of dollors In de
veloping the property and they havo
mines here that aro worth, I am told,
at least $50,000,000. The business is not
a stock proposition. The shares are not
quoted on the exchange and so far as I
know no stock has ever been offered for
sale, The operation of the mines is on
a plain business basis. No expenso Is
spared to produce economic results and
for some years the company sank millions
without being absolutely sure of return.
Today their mines are worked at a profit,
and this has been the caqe for several
years back. In' 1907 they shipped over
20,000,000 pounds of copper and tho smelter
near here Is now turning out 4,000,000
pounds of copper matte' every month.
This matte goes to New York, where, as
I have said, tho gold and silver In it
about pays the expenses of mining and
reduction, leaving the copper as almost
clear gain.
Americans Are .Active.
The extent of the operations of this
American syndicate Is almost inconceiv
able. They havecome here to tho tops
of tho Andes, at an altitudes of almost
three miles abovo the sea, and have de
veloped an industry which would be enor
mous In any part of the world. They
have built a smelter about six miles from
here which surpasses anything on tho
South American continent and which In
many respects Is like nothing else ever
known. 'They have built up a town there
and they practically support this city
Cerro de Pasco, They have thousands of
men in their employ,, and there are per
haps 6,000 or 8,000 Indians or native Peru
vians working in the mines and the
smelter. They have within about twenty
five miles from Cerro de Pasco great
mines of bituminous coal, which they
have connected by railroad with this
town and smelter, and they make their
own coke and .furnish their own fuel.
They have built a standard-gauge rail
road, which Is by far the best In Peru,
from Cerro de Pasco to Oroyo, and they
havo more than 100 miles of track, over
which cars go as smoothly as any
In tho states, and that notwithstanding
the altitude of the road ranges from
12,000 to 14,000 above the sea. It Is this
rood that connects them with the Central
railway of Peru, by which their ore is
taken down to the coast.
In Its purchase of the mines the com
pany included a great deal of land. It
has here a hacienda which covers about
200,000 acres. It would take a day and
a half to ride all around it. This ' ha
cienda Is highly mineralized, but the title
to such lands In Peru gives only surface
rights, and any one can prospect and
claim any mine he discovers. In addition
to the mines the syndicate owns, through
one of Its branch companies, a great
eppper property at Morococha, where, I
am told, the ore Is even richer than that
at Cerro de Pasco. The mines there are
almost three miles above tho sea level
and they aro now being worked. T,hey
are not far from the Central railway and
they will have a down grade all the way
to tho' seacoast at Callao, starting within
a few miles of the mines.
Copper Ore Rich,
Indeed it is hard to realize the values
In the copper which Is being found here
at the top of the Andes. The ore which
is now coming out of Cerro de Pasco
averages from 8 to 10 per cent of pure
metal. That means that there are 200
pounds of copper In each ton From a
single ton of ore they are now gettlg a
product equal to (33 worth of copper, 410
worth of silver and i! worth of gold.
This represents the values Jn the rock at
the mines and, of course, the expenses of
getting it to the market end of smelting
and reducing must be considered. Never
theless; it is doubtful, whether there ti
any other place in the world wh'ch has
such' valuablo copper deposits, and but
.W where" the deposits are of BUch enor
mous extent. Sa far the Americans know
that they have n great mass of ore right
.under this city with veins running out in
a dozen directions. How' big this mass Is
they have not discovered. They have
been going' down deeper and tho copper is
richer all tho way. Said one of the su
perintendents to me:
. "You might compare the copper forma
tions hero to 'your hand. Let the palm
represent the great mass and1 your fingers
the veins; As it Is now we are working
on one of tho veins, and wo have enough
ore In sight to keep us busy for ten years
or moro without doing further develop
ment, and It is my personal opinion that
wo havo not yet scratched the surface of
what is to come. In tho United States
wo think it a good copper mine if the ore
will yield 1 or 2 per cent to the ton. Here
If the oro does not assay more than 3
per cent wo throw It away. Our average
Is about S per cent or more, and we
have taken out somo which' has yielded
10 per cent to tho ton.'
llelo-TF the Surface.
During my stay here I have gone down
into the mines. They already comprise
about forty miles of underground work
ings, although whero they are now min
ing tho operations are confined to a space
of-about ono mile by a mllo and a half.
The mines aro worked from the S00 to
the 600 foot level, and tests have been
made which show that tho copper goes
down far below.
Entering tho shaft, wo dropped to the
400-foot level and then took the electric
trolley which carries the ore through the
narrow tunnels to the shaft. The tunnels
are so small that we could barely stand
upright within them and from the center
of the track one could easily reach the
sides of the walls. Some of the tunnels
are timbered with Peruvian eucalyptus
or with Oregon pine, but everywhere the
work Is so scientifically done that the
rock in most cases upholds the walls.
Here and there we stopped in a chamber
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a short time nil of their works here and
at tbe great smelter and also at tho
atsoclato mines of Morococha will be
operated by tho fall of this river. At
present the steam Is produced by coal
from the company's coal mints, which
are about twenty-five miles from Cerro
do Fasco. They use this to make coke
for the smolter, and they havo groat
quarries of almost pure limestone, half
wny between the mines and tho smelter,
which Is only six miles distant and 200
feet lower down.
Thr Smelters.
During my stay, I havo spent some
time at the smelter. The plnco Is known
by the Peruvian name of La Fumlictlon.
The works are situated on tho stdo of
the mountain, so that tho oro starts In
at tho top and goes by gravity through
the various processes until It comes out
In copper mattes ns big around as a
bread bowl, ready to bo sent down on
the cars. Tho smelter Is the largest In
South America. It must cover several
hundred acres. It consists of great
buildings, colored black with tho smoke.
They are walled with glass windows
and have roofs of galvanlned Iron. Hlslnx
above them are three mighty smokestack
each so big around that you could run a
Pullman car through It without touching
the walls. Theso stacks are about 300
feet high and from them day and night
pour out vaat volumes of white and yel
low smoke Into the clouds of the Andes.
Tho smelter has tho finest of modern
machinery and every pound of It camo
from tho states. This Is so also of the
great Iron buildings and of tho wood used
for tho structures and railroad. The es
tablishment has duplicates of everything
needed for smelting. It runs three eight
hour shifts and keops busy Sunday and
weekdays all day and night. I am told
that it is tho largest copper smelter out
eldo of tho United States and that It Is
patterned after tho mighty works at
Great Palls, Mont.
Kurnnce Problem.,
In building this smelter the engineers
had to contend with difficulties unknown
before. No ono had ever constructed n
smelter at 14,000 feet abovo tho sea and
the experts said that furnaces could not
bo run at that altitude. They claimed
that tho air was so rare that you would
havo to blow through tho flro several
times as much air per minute as le
usually tlono In order to secure the
oxygen sufficient for tho reaction. Never
theless, the syndlcato determined to try
It. They got tho best men they could
find and put up the bulldlnss. llut the
furnaces would not work and one en
gineer after another camo hero and left,
throwing up his hands in despair. At last
thero was a man from Mexico who had
pawed through Missouri and had to bo
shown. Ha said ho did not believe that
tho figures told tho real story. He was
an old smelter man and he said the fur
naces did not sound right. He began by
taking off all the gauges nnd putting th
blasts In such a way that ho got tho right
sound. He then started to working and,
lol tho plant did Its work.
Up to that time It looked as though
thceo mines, which had already cost tens
of millions, would fall. The capitalists
poured In money like wnter, and they
had poured In so much that they could
not let go. Since that discovery their
fight has been successful and It Is now a
proposition which pays exceedingly well.
As soon as they discovered the secret of
tho smelting they got an expert engineer,
named Frnnk Klepetko, who had been
connected with the Ouggcnhelms, and
who had built, I think, the smelter at
Great Falls, Mont. It waa he who
planned tho great buildings hero nnd
made them successful. He Introduced new
Inventions and put in treatments that are
especially fitted for these mines and
works high up on the roof of the world.
Ono of the curious things used Is called
the cindering machine. This takes the
fine oro and turns It Into a coke so that
It can bo easily smelted.
An American Industry.
Dut I wish I could take you through
this great working monument of Ameri
can Industry that has been created away
out. here on the top of the Andes. I
should like to show you our men direct
ing tho work and bossing the mines. I
would show you the oro as It files over
nn American railroad and wo Could watch
It as It rolls from the cars to the fur
naces. We might even open tho furnace
doors and see tho crimson Copper bias
ing within. We would feel flames that
are seven times hotter than those through
which Moshaoh, Shadrach and Abednego
walked and later on In the converters we
could watch the liquid gold emptied by
a seventy-ton Crane, worked from above.
Wo could see the golden sulphur flying
off Into tho air, and the Iron slag runnlni:
away while the pure copper, silver and
gold flowed into the molds. We could
see tho metal change In color as it cooled
and watch tho round blocks of 300 pounds
as they wero loaded on to tho cars to
be shipped to the states.
I spent the better part of a day In the
smelter, and It mado me feel proud that I
was an American born. The output of
the works, as I havo raid, Is now moro
than 4,000,000 pounds of matter evory
month, and that means 4,000,000 pounds
of copper, sliver and gold. It Is equal to
more than 131,000 pounds every day or to
moro than 5,000 pounds every hour of the
day and tho night. Sunday and week
days, all the year through.
FRANK O. CARPENTER.
Sanatorium
This institution la tho onlr ono
In tho contra! wont with eoparato
buildings situated In tholr own
umplo grounds, yet entirely dis
tinct, and rendering It possible to
classify cases. The one building
being fitted for and devoted to tho
treatment of non-contagious and
non-mental diseases, no others be
ing admitted; tho other Rest Cot
tago being designed for and do
voted to tho exclusive treatment
of select mental cases requiring
for a tlmo watchful caro and spe
cial nursing.
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