The items of larger cost are: Labor, $2; interest, $1.32; expressage, $1.10; parting and brokerage, $2; reworking by-products, $1.50; total, $7.92. The general manager usually attends to the items of interest, expressage and brokerage, leaving the questions of labor and working of by-products to the metallurgist.
The cost quoted for smelting practice, as employed at Denver, will differ necessarily from those at other localities, where the cost of labor, freight rates on spelter, fuel, etc., are changed. Refining can doubtless be done at a lower cost at points along the Mississippi River, and even more so at cities on the Atlantic seaboard, as Newark or Perth Amboy, N. J.
The consolidation of many of the more important smelting plants of the United States under one management will doubtless alter the figures of cost given above, particularly as the interest cost there stated is at the high rate of 10 per cent., a condition of affairs now changed to 5 per cent. Other factors have lessened the cost of refining; the bullion produced at the present time is softer, or contains a smaller amount of impurities, and admits of easier working with shorter time and less labor. By proper management larger tonnages are turned out per man, and the Howard stirrer and Howard press have simplified and cheapened the working of the zinc skimmings. To illustrate the comparatively recent conditions of cost I have compiled the following table for each month of the year 1898:
COST OF REFINING DURING 1898, INCLUDING LABOR, SPELTER, COAL, COKE, SUPPLIES, REPAIRS AND GENERAL EXPENSES.
| January | $3.59 | May | 3.38 | September | 3.35 |
| February | 3.28 | June | 3.56 | October | 3.45 |
| March | 3.26 | July | 3.65 | November | 3.20 |
| April | 3.59 | August | 3.54 | December | 3.56 |
| Average cost during the year, $3.45. | |||||
It is understood, of course, that these figures do not include cost of interest, expressage, parting, brokerage and reworking of by-products.
[Although this article refers to conditions in 1898, since which time there have been improvements in practice, the latter have not been of radical character and the figures given are fairly representative of present conditions.—Editor.]