Tungsten is a metal which has been finding more and more uses of late years, but the production has remained quite limited. Three-quarters of the world's total production in 1911 came from a small district in Boulder County. Colorado. The quotations on this metal are given in dollars per ton of concentrated ore, and the price is for a certain percentage of WO3, the oxide of wolfram (tungsten). The schedule of prices announced in April, 1912, for Boulder County ores and concentrates provides as follows, a unit being understood to mean 1 per cent or 20 pounds per ton: For material assaying 10 per cent WO3, $3.50 per unit; for 20 per cent WO3, $4.40 per unit; for 40 per cent and more, $4.90 per unit. Ore containing, say, 50 per cent of the tungsten radical is thus salable at $245 per ton, the mineral itself thus bringing a price of 24-1/2 cents per pound.
Although copper is used and sold in very large lots commercially, it continues to be quoted upon the pound basis. The United States produces about 60 per cent of the whole amount mined in the world and the prices are made in New York daily. The amount of copper mined in this country in 1911 was 1,431,938,338 pounds and the price varied between 11.989 cents and 13.768 cents. There are always at least two quotations every day on copper, one being on "lake" and another on "electrolytic". By these terms are meant, respectively, copper produced in the Lake Superior region and the copper from other mines. The Lake Superior copper is the purest in the world and it always sells for a fraction of a cent per pound more than the other coppers which are refined by electrolysis.
Metallic iron is reduced from a number of different ores, but by far the bulk of pig-iron is made from the oxides and carbonates of iron. Such ores, in the United States, are obtained principally in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Alabama. As already stated, the quotations on iron are based upon the ores rather than the pig-iron, and there are two types of such ore recognized. If the ore is suitable for the making of Bessemer steel, it is given a certain quotation per ton, while if it cannot be used for such a purpose, it is given a non-Bessemer rating and is used for casting. The greatest iron-mining region in the world is in the Lake Superior country. Here are a number of districts that are known as "ranges." In some of these ranges mining is by underground methods, while in others the excavation is entirely in the open by the use of great steam shovels. The outputs of these ranges go by rail and water to the great smelting points along the Great Lakes and at Pittsburg.
The metallic zinc on the market is known as spelter. All quotations on this metal are given in two systems, the "pounds Sterling per long ton" and the "cents per pound." The average prices during 1911 were respectively, £25.281 and 5.758c. The American quotations are frequently given in the unit of dollars per hundredweight. This offers no confusion, whatever, for under this nomenclature, the average price for 1911 would be stated as $5.758. In the zinc-mining regions of the Mississippi Valley, the producers of ore have a practice of putting the mines' products through their own mills at the mines and making concentrates of the zinc mineral, which is usually blende or "jack," and this concentrated stuff is then sold to smelting companies at the daily quotations per ton of 60 per cent ore. During 1911 the average price paid in the Joplin District was $41.45. Since this amount bought 1,200 pounds of metallic zinc, it is evident that the miner received only about 3.45 cents per pound for his metal, the discrepancy between this sum and the New York quotation being consumed in costs of smelting and shipment and in profits to the middlemen.
Lead is sold upon a plan exactly similar to zinc. It has the same various quotations. For example, the 1911 prices in London, New York, and Joplin averaged, respectively, £13.970, 4.420c., and $56.76.
Quicksilver is sold by the "flask" of 75 pounds. The price ranges in the neighborhood of $43 to $45.
There are numerous other metals, but the more common ones are given above. Below is given a graphical exhibit of the course of the prices of lead, spelter, standard (electrolytic) and lake copper, pig-iron, and tin for a number of years. A study of this chart is interesting in noting the waves or fluctuations that have covered periods of years. This chart is reproduced from The Engineering and Mining Journal.
Diagram of Metal Market for One-third of a Century