A COPPER MINE OF THE LAKE SUPERIOR REGION.
It may be said of a copper mine, as of a coal mine, an iron mine, or anything else of the sort, “it’s nothing but a hole in the ground;” but if you should ask, as my friend did, “What’s the use of going there?” I think in many instances the owners could point to fine houses and heavy bank accounts, to show you, beyond a doubt, that there is a good deal of use in visiting the mine, or, at all events, in owning it.
HEAVY DIVIDENDS IN COPPER STOCK.
Copper mines, some of them at least, are very good things to own, while others are very good to let alone. Many a speculator has come to grief by dabbling in copper stocks, while many another speculator has made a great deal of money by it. Copper mining is very much like a lottery; there are prizes, and very valuable ones, and there are also a great number of blanks. In Cornwall, the Great Consolidated Mines, as they are called, made a profit in twenty years of three millions of dollars, and their product in one year was half a million dollars. In the next eight years the dividends dwindled down to a very small figure, owing to the expense of working, and for six years afterwards no dividend was declared; then, immediately after, rich deposits were found, and enormous dividends paid. An idea of the extent of these mines may be formed when it is known that the aggregate length of the underground workings is more than seventy miles.
One company in Cornwall paid in five dollars on each share, and its stock consisted of one thousand shares. In the first three months of regular working the amount cleared was seventy-five thousand dollars. In the following year it cleared one hundred thousand dollars. Five years later the dividends amounted to seventeen hundred dollars a share, and each share was worth two thousand dollars. This was a very fair profit on an investment of five dollars.
In another mine the shares originally cost twenty-five dollars each, and a few years later they were worth five thousand one hundred and seventy-five dollars a share.
One copper mine in Australia was opened in 1845. The whole amount of capital paid in was sixty thousand dollars, and the dividends up to March, 1850, were nine hundred thousand dollars. None of the dividends were less than fifty per cent. on the capital, and some were at the rate of two hundred per cent. Half a million dollars remained undivided, so that in five years the total profits amounted to nineteen times the whole amount of capital invested.
The copper region of Lake Superior contains almost the only mines that produce this metal profitably worked in the United States. The existence of masses of native copper had been known for a long time, but nothing was done towards mining in that region until the Indian title was extinguished, in 1842. Immediately after this the country was rapidly taken up by adventurers from the Eastern States, and mining operations were begun. The state geologist, Dr. Houghton, had examined the country, and located the productive region on the range of the Trap Hills commencing on the south coast of Keweenaw Point. From Keweenaw Point the Trap Hills run in two or three parallel ranges, extending westward more than one hundred miles. There are other trap formations presenting some mineral indications, but most of the profitable mines are in this narrow belt. A great many mines have been opened, but comparatively few of them have been found profitable.
HOW COPPER ORES ARE FOUND.