Southwestern Oregon, and are even richer there than in California. Copper has also been discovered in Eastern Oregon. Washington Territory has its full share of copper, though its mines are as yet undeveloped.

Both Idaho and Montana are rich in copper, both in combination with silver and alone. Montana parts her copper from the silver in some of her smelting-works and ships it to the East.

So far as yet discovered, the copper in Dakota, at the Black Hills, is mostly combined with gold and silver, but deposits of it, not thus alloyed, may yet be discovered. In Minnesota the great copper field is around the shores of Lake Superior; the copper deposits of the Ontonagon district in Northern Michigan, dipping under the lake, and reappearing on the Western shore.

Proceeding southward, Iowa has some copper, but not developed. Missouri, large beds of it, formerly worked extensively, but now of such low grade as not to be profitably exploited; Nebraska only a small deposit in the southeast; while Kansas, which abounds in lead and zinc, has not yet developed any copper. Wyoming is abundantly supplied with most of the ores of copper. In Colorado, from $90,000 to $120,000 value of copper, parted from silver and gold, is sent to market every year. There are also mines of copper alone. But New Mexico, while all her mines of gold, silver and lead are rich, excels all the other States and Territories of the West in the wealth of her copper mines, which are now in a fair way to be developed on a large scale. Arkansas has large deposits of copper ore among her other mineral wealth; it is found, though not developed, in the Indian Territory, and Texas can furnish a supply, not only for all the copper-heads, but for all the copper-bottoms of the world.

Lead is as widely diffused as copper; perhaps even more extensively. Wherever silver is found, lead is almost invariably present, either as sulphuret (galena), carbonate, or oxide. And where silver is absent, or present only in infinitesimal proportions, as in Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri, and in some of the mines of Wyoming, Dakota and Montana, the lead puts in its

LEAD, ZINC, IRON, STEEL.

121

appearance, as sufficient of itself, without the more costly metal. The quantities of it parted from silver are enormous, the supply from two districts of Nevada alone being nearly sufficient for the American market, and that of Colorado nearly a million of dollars annually. The other great mining regions add to this vast total, and Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and other States east of the Mississippi, aid in rolling up an immense aggregate. Fortunately the demand for lead is great and constant, not limited to the arts of war and the slaughter of game, but extending also to many of the arts of peace, being used in rolls, sheets, and piping and tubing, furnishing the basis of nearly all of our paints, and of many of our drugs.

Zinc is not quite so widely distributed, but is often found in combination with silver and lead. It is also found by itself, or with lead in the form of sulphuret (Blende), silicate (calamine), or carbonate (Smithsonite). It is mined and reduced quite largely in Kansas, and to some extent in Missouri and California.

The resources of our Western Empire, for the production of Iron and Steel, have no parallel on the globe. No one of the States and Territories composing it lacks deposits of iron ore, in some of its many and varied forms; and in many of them it is found of such excellent quality, and in such immediate proximity to coal-beds, and the necessary fluxes, that the cost of production is reduced to the lowest minimum. The great railways which traverse the continent can have their iron and steel rails manufactured within 500 feet of their tracks, and of such quality as cannot be obtained at any price abroad. The mountains of iron ore yielding from fifty to ninety per cent. of the pure metal, which are found in Missouri, Utah, Oregon, California, Wyoming, Texas and Montana, only needed the present demand for iron and steel to stimulate their development, and in a short time there will be enough iron and steel, of the best quality, produced in these States and Territories, to supply not only all the iron and steel rails (and it is estimated that nearly 2,000,000 tons of these will be needed the present year), but all the machinery for mining, milling, manufacturing and agricultural purposes, all the

iron and steel for steamers and ships, whether for commerce of naval purposes, all the steel guns, all the bridges, all the buildings, all the hardware, car-wheels, cutlery, and all of both metals that is needed for any other purpose under the sun, not only within the limits of our Western Empire, but all the world over. Duty or no duty, neither England nor any other nation of Europe can compete with furnaces, where the ore, fluxes and coal can be thrown directly into the furnace through chutes, without handling, and the prime cost of all the material and its conversion into steel, need not exceed from $10 to $12 per ton, while the product is of the very best quality. But the first cost of the establishment of these furnaces, and the rollingmills, machine-shops, foundries, etc., etc., is very large, and requires, and will require, the investment of many millions of capital, though, once under way, the returns will be enormous, and the rapid growth of these establishments will be gigantic. European capitalists are already transferring their furnaces and workmen to this country in large numbers, and they are wise in doing so. Within the next five years there will be a demand for the services of every skilled worker in iron and steel who may land in this country, and at good wages.

The consumption of iron and steel, of our own production, and imported from abroad in 1879, was 4,410,000 tons, of which 510,000 tons were imported; we are perfectly safe in predicting that, in 1889, it will exceed 12,000,000 tons, and all of it will be raised from our own mines, and smelted in our own furnaces.

Platinum is found pure, and in combination with gold, iridium and iridosmin on the coast of California and Oregon, and in some of the gold mines of Colorado and Arizona and perhaps elsewhere. The quantity is not large, indeed it is a rare metal everywhere, the Russian mines, which furnish from 4,200 to 5,000 pounds annually, producing about four-fifths of the whole amount yielded by all countries. The whole quantity produced in the United States does not probably exceed 450 or 500 pounds. Mr. Edison, the inventor, in 1879 desired to use platinum wires for holding the carbons for his divided electric

PLATINUM, TIN, Nickel, iridiuM.

123 lights, and addressed inquiries to all parties connected with gold-mining operations in regard to a possible or probable. supply of the metal. He found that it was much more widely diffused than had generally been supposed, but that it was found in such small quantities that any considerable increased demand would enhance the price beyond the limit which he could afford to pay, and he substituted a less expensive material for it. Platinum is now worth from $70 to $75 per pound.

Tin is not found in large quantities in any part of the United States, but the greater part of what does occur is in California, Nevada, Idaho, Missouri, Arizona and Texas. It is also found in the State of Durango, in Mexico. It is mostly found in its best form as cassiterite or oxide of tin, and is classed as mine tin, stream tin, and wood tin. This ore contains about seventy-eight per cent. of pure metal. The entire production of the world. is from 28,000 to 30,000 tons, of which more than three-fifths comes from the East Indies, from Banca and the straits of Malacca. The American production is not sufficient to exert any appreciable influence on the market.

Nickel, which is now becoming a metal of so much economic value in the useful arts, is found in our Western Empire, as elsewhere, in combination with several of the ores of iron. It forms but a very small constituent in these ores, from two to five per cent., and occurs oftenest in the argillaceous ores. By proper treatment of the ores, it is removed in the slag, and is concentrated by various processes till the matte contains about thirtyfive per cent., when it is dissolved out by acids. Its use in electro-plating is very important in the arts, and requires considerable skill in its successful manipulation. Nickel in a pure state is worth about $3 a pound.

Iridium and Osmium, or rather the compound known as Iridosmin, which contains both metals, and usually a small percentage of rhodium, and sometimes ruthenium, is found in small hard grains and sometimes in scales, in the placer deposits, and associates with platinum. The alloy is the hardest of known metallic bodies, and is infusible except under the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe. The iridosmin is used in its native condition for pointing the nibs

of gold pens, being as nearly as possible indestructible either by accidents, or by the chemicals in the ink, and being very hard. Only the rounded particles are suitable for this purpose, and these constitute only from one-fifth to one-tenth of the whole. The price a few years since was $250 per ounce. From three to eight ounces are obtained at the Assay offices in the melting of one million of dollars of gold. The iridium, when isolated, furnishes the basis of a black used in decorating porcelain, which when baked in, is indestructible.

Tellurium is found in combination with both gold and silver as tellurides of those metals. It belongs to the same class of elementary bodies as sulphur, and imitates it in most of its compounds. It has little economic value, but is a great source of annoyance in the reduction works, in California, Colorado, and Montana, from the intensely poisonous and fœtid properties of its compounds. It is found sparingly in most of the larger gold deposits.

Antimony, Arsenic, and Manganese, are found as sulphides, sulphates, carbonates, oxides, and in rarer forms, in combination with silver, copper, lead, zinc, and iron, sometimes impairing, at others enhancing, the value of the compound. In most cases the antimony and arsenic are expelled in the smelter's furnace. The manganese in its combination with iron is, to a certain extent, beneficial.

Sulphur, in the form of sulphides and sulphates, is present in a large proportion of the silver, lead, copper, zinc, and iron ores. But it is also found in a native state in large masses or deposits, in those portions of California which were formerly subject to volcanic eruptions, in Humboldt county, in Nevada, at several points in Utah, especially in Millard county, where the deposit is more than twenty feet thick; at Brimstone Mountain in the Yellowstone Park region, in Dakota, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. Sulphuric and muriatic acid are produced at some of the smelting works from the sulphurets of iron, copper, and lead; while the sulphates of soda, magnesia and potassa, are obtained in a nearly pure state in the alkaline lakes of California, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. The sulphate of lime (gypsum or plaster