The chief ports of this region are Iquique and Antofagasta, Pisagua being a smaller port visited only by the caletero or the strictly freight boats. Iquique is a more agreeable city than in former days, when water was sometimes $2 a gallon, and people drank champagne, they said, because water was too expensive. Now the dust of the streets is laid by sprinklers, some people have bath rooms, a few even fountains in patios. Antofagasta is also a desert place, unattractive to look at, but with good shops, business houses, and fair hotels. The water comes a distance of nearly 200 miles, the source more than two miles above the sea.
Potash. In addition to nitrates Chile possesses extensive beds of useful potash one of which is estimated to contain nearly 7,000,000 tons easy of exploitation.
Copper. The property of the Chile Copper Company (one of the Guggenheim interests) at Chuquicamata is said to be the largest copper deposit known in the world. About 2000 of the 9600 acres of the claim are mineralized. The outcrop of copper is one and a half miles in length. It has been proved below to a width of 1800 feet and a length of 7500 feet. Ten of the 2080 shafts are over 1000 feet in depth, and at 1500 feet the ore is of commercial value. Over 700,000,000 tons of positive and probable ore have been developed, carrying an average value of 2.12 per cent copper. The reduction plant has a capacity of 15,000 tons a day, the refinery of 180,000,000 pounds a year. With a 90 per cent extraction the yield is 96 pounds of copper per ton. At the port of Tocopilla, north of Antofagasta, the Company has a power station where oil from California is used to generate a power of 24,000-27,000 kilowatts needed at Chuquicamata. This is transported by wire across country a distance of 100 miles. At normal prices the cost of copper production with delivery in New York or Europe is $121 a ton, or about 6 cents a pound; higher with war time conditions which still obtain (1921). From the 15,000 ton plant in full service 175,000,000 pounds of copper would be produced annually. In 1920, 55,617,000 pounds were produced, the largest amount from any mine in Chile. In 1916 important mines belonging to the Calama Mining Company were added to the Chile Company’s holdings.
The Braden Copper Company, another Guggenheim interest, owns about 2300 acres in the Province of O’Higgins. They have a concentrator, a smelting and converting plant, a hydro-electric power plant with 800 kilowatt capacity and an electric and a steam railway; the latter, 43 miles long, connecting the property with Rancagua, which is on the Central Railway 43 miles southeast of Santiago. The ore is of concentrating copper, a sulphide in brecciated andesite, around an extinct volcano. It runs about 2.5 per cent, with an earlier production cost in New York of 6.5 cents a pound, but now higher. In 1916, 1500-1800 men were employed. The plant, recently enlarged, is not working to capacity. In 1917, 64,000,000 pounds were produced, over 77,000,000 in 1918, with diminishing demand, 40,000,000 in 1920.
Another American syndicate has acquired the Tamaya Copper Mines in the Province of Coquimbo between Ovalle and Tongoy, the latter, a minor port 27 miles south of Coquimbo, sheltered from north winds, with smelting works in the place. With an efficient pumping plant and other improvements installed, the mines are expected to yield large production. Other companies, native, British, and French are engaged in copper mining at Carrizal and elsewhere.
Iron. Coquimbo, a Province with local importance for agriculture, is notable for its deposits of iron ore, said to amount to a billion tons. Only one of these has been worked, a deposit located at Tofo, about four miles east of Cruz Grande, and 30 north of the city of Coquimbo. This property was leased in 1913 by the Bethlehem Steel Company from a French Company which had developed the mine to some extent and produced ore. The ore appearing as the top of a large hill will be mined by electric shovels and transported by an electric railway to docks at Cruz Grande. The amount of ore is very large though with exact tonnage undetermined. The Company is still exploring the deposit at depth.
The mines and railway are completely equipped. At Cruz Grande a basin dock has been constructed with large storage pockets into which the ore will be discharged from the railway cars, and from which it will go directly into the vessels. The Steel Company is constructing steamers of 20,000 tons to carry the ore to the United States for use in their furnaces. The ore is very pure averaging about 67.50 per cent iron. It is a dense ore reddish black in color, a mixture of magnetite and hematite.
The French Company formerly controlling Tofo had erected a steel plant at Corral intending to transport the ore thither. There is no iron ore near there and the plant is not operating.
Of the other deposits in Coquimbo and farther north some are of considerable size, but none is located so near the coast as Tofo and none has been developed.
Other metals existing in Chile are at present of less importance and slight operation. A moderate gold output accompanies the production of copper, and there is some placer mining, especially in the south. Deposits are known to exist in many Provinces from Tacna to Tierra del Fuego. Silver too exists, but its production is chiefly as a by-product. Lead, zinc, molybdenum, and tungsten are exported in limited quantities.