80 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. viii. 



whereby not only all the original capital, but also all the earnings 

 have been squandered. Some mines have been worked £or 20 years, 

 but, in all that time, only enough copper has been won to keep 

 them open, and now we find nearly a score of mines where work is 

 being carried on but not paying dividends. Since 1845 over 

 200,000 tons of copper have been extracted, having realized $90,- 

 000,000, and the present annual yield is not far from 1 9,000 tons. 

 As far as known the assessments on the shareholders have been 

 about $20,000,000, leaving seventy millions more which have 

 been spent in extracting the copper, making improvements, and 

 in paying dividends, by which some of the companies have been 

 handsomely reimbursed. The mining population required to 

 obtain this amount of copper, including the families and 

 those indirectly living by the mines, is nearly 25,000 persons, 

 scattered over three principal centres — Portage Lake, Keweenaw 

 County, and Ontonagon County, besides a small population on 

 Isle Royale. 



The Calumet and Hecla Mines, discovered about 14 years ago, 

 are situated 13 miles north of Portage Lake. The original sum 

 paid into the company was $800,000 ; and since that time 

 $9,000,000 have been paid in dividends. This lode yields 4 per 

 cent, of copper. The Minnesota Mine in Ontonagon County 

 paid $1,700,000 over the original capital paid up, and when 

 nearly exhausted, it was sold for $2,000,000 more. The other 

 mines, which have paid handsome dividends, are the Quincy, 

 Franklin and Pewabic, on Portage Lake ; the Cliff, Central and 

 Copper Falls, in Keweenaw County, and the National in Ontona- 

 gon County. 



Only about 1.15 to 1.25 per cent, of all the rock broken, (or 

 23 to 25 pounds per ton) at the Quincy Mine is copper ; yet by 

 economy and skilful management the mine has paid upwards of 

 $1,800,000 in dividends, while the paid up capital amounted to 

 only $200,000, and about $600,000 more were taken from the 

 winnings to make necessary improvements on the property. 



The quantity of copper in the Lake Superior region may be 

 considered inexhaustible. Hundreds of valuable veins, as well 

 as beds, exist, on which no work has been done, and on both sides 

 of the lake many of these are awaiting future development, 

 for which large capital will be required before success can be 

 hoped for. Recently on Isle Royale, promising discoveries have 

 been made. On the Canadian side there have been few attempts 

 at copper-mining, but in the future the lessons learned by our 



