Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/805

Rh in 1880 to 9 cents in August, 1886; and in the case of no other single commodity is the connection between the decline in price and the increase of production so well established and so significant. The increase in the copper product of the world is estimated by Mr. Sauerbeck to have been 97 per cent in the thirteen years from 1873 to 1885, inclusive; while according to the report of the United States Geological Survey, 1886, the increase from 1879 to 1885 was nearly 47 per cent (46·8). The countries which have most notably contributed to this increased product have been the United States, Spain, and Portugal; the increase in the case of the former having been from 23,000 tons in 1879 to 74,053 tons in 1885; and in that of the latter, from 32,677 tons to 45,749 in the same period. As in all other like cases, the disturbing effect on the industries involved—mining and smelting—contingent on this rapid and remarkable fall of prices, was very great, and in all quarters of the world. In Montana, the Montana Copper Company, with an annual product of 8,000,000 pounds of pure copper, entirely suspended operations; and the Anaconda Company, with an annual product of 36,000,000 pounds, shut down 20 out of 28 furnaces, and discharged most of its hands at the mine. In Chili, production during the year 1885 was diminished to the extent of about 10 per cent. In Germany the great Mansfield mine, which reported gross profits in 1884 of 5,675,000 marks, sustained a loss in the operation of 1885 of 653,338 marks; and its managers have since sought relief by petitioning the Imperial Government for the imposition of a higher tariff on the imports of copper into the empire. For the years 1881-'83 the great San Domingo mine in Portugal paid annual dividends of 12 per cent; in 1885 the annual rate was reduced to 3 per cent. It is important also to note, as throwing light upon the problem of the recent reduction of prices, that while in the case of copper the increase of product has been confessedly immense, three other agencies—one permanent, and the other two of a temporary character—have contributed to its recent decline in price. The first is, that there has been a reduction in the cost of mining, smelting, and marketing copper at the principal mines of the world, owing to improved processes, and reduced rates of transportation contingent on railroad construction. In the case of the Lake Superior mines, this reduction is very striking; in the "Quincy" mine, for example, the cost of production in cents per pound having been reduced from 10·03 in 1881, to 7·50 in 1885; and in the "Atlantic" from 13·80 to 9·37 in the corresponding period. Second. The recent discovery and rapid development of new and rich mines in Montana, Arizona, the Dominion of Canada, and elsewhere, have left a feeling of apprehension in the world's market as to the conditions of the supply of this metal in the future. Third. The consumption of copper in Europe, for the year 1886, fell off 14,000 tons below the average for the two preceding years—a result attributed mainly to the dullness of ship-building, and the various metal industries.