682 EEPORT — 1880. 



Two tables were here given, showing what time is lost between the delivery of 

 the ore and the settlement of the assay and price. 



During the whole of these nmnhers of days, ranging from sixteen, which appears 

 to he the shortest, up to sixty-two days, we cannot deliver our invoices, and have 

 to ^vait for our money all that time. This great hardship is further aggravated to 

 the importer who sells his raw ore to the sulphuric acid makers for sulphur value 

 only, and takes back the cinders. These have to be again sampled and assayed, 

 with the delays repeated. If he is also a copper extractor, as I am, and sells his 

 precipitate, that has again to be sampled and assayed, and the same delays re- 

 peated, so that it niay be qiute a common event that from the time of landing till 

 the time of realisation eight months may elapse, and the same copper be assayed 

 three times. The costs by sale at public ticketings are very considerable, amounting 

 in Spanish ores to fully half the freight, which, with present low prices of copper, 

 may be all the profit. This is not the custom when sold by private bargain, as 

 these sales as a rule are generally ex ship. It is, therefore, evident that if an 

 importer can sell his ores to arrive e.v ship by private bargain, lie will not send 

 them to the Swansea sales ; and surely this is not a state of things conducive to the 

 prosperity of Swansea or its industries. 



2, 3. Sales by pfivate bargain at Swansea and elsewhe^-e based on Swansea sales. 



The great bulk and value of these sales are made elseivhere than at Swansea 

 and the preceding sale ; or, if any Swansea sale takes place on the day of sampling, 

 that sale is taken as the basis of price. The object is, of course, to save time, and 

 one has to take the risk of a rise or fall in the price of copper between the dates of 

 sale and that of delivery. Our friends the copper-smelters at Swansea will, how- 

 ever, admit that so far as the produce of Spain and the economical treatment of the 

 raw Spanish or Portuguese ores are concerned, or even for the smelting of the burnt 

 ores, the processes of Swansea were quite unable to deal with the large quantities 

 in any economical way. With the raw ores, as a rule, the very large percentage of 

 sulphur, viz. 48 per cent., would have been worse than wasted, as it would have 

 cost something considerable to calcine such ores, rich m sulphur and poor in copper, 

 down to the point to make them produce per se (or even mixed with other calcined 

 ores) a sufficiently rich regulus. Besides the enormous increase of nuisance, and 

 even when in later days the sulphuric acid manufacturers came to use the sulphur, 

 the cinders still contamed 60 per cent, of metallic iron, and which when sent to 

 Swansea, from such distant places as Newcastle and Glasgow, at heavy freights, 

 only 4 per cent, to 6 per_cent. of the weight was paid for, and the whole of the 

 iron contents were lost. By the introduction of my wet process at this juncture, 

 the shipment of these burnt ores from all the districts of large consumption was 

 rapidly stopped, and the ores treated on the spot, saving the freights and iron ore, 

 and yielding much more perfect results for copper — thus preventmg very large 

 quantities of ores coming to Swansea. And so in like manner the enormous yields 

 of the Spanish and Portuguese mines (which are constantly increasing), over and 

 above their possible sales for sulphuric acid purposes at home and on the Con- 

 tinent has gradually led to great extension of the slow process of cementation from 

 the poorer grades of ore, produced at very small cost, in enormous quantities, 

 reckoned by hundreds of thousands of tons, for each of the uncovered mines per 

 annum a very large and increasing annual production of copper, as precipitate, of 

 from 50 to 75 per cent, produce is annually obtained. 



Another reason why the public sales at Swansea have decreased, and are there- 

 fore no longer a fair basis for private sales made elsewhere, is the most serious of aU. 

 By the_ opening up of short railways to the mines, and the great development of 

 coal mining. Chili now sends most of her produce to this country, as Chili bars, or 

 in blocks containing about 96 per cent, pure copper. So serious is this production, 

 that it may be stated roughly as a fact that Chili exports as much copper in ores, 

 reguluses, bars, and ingots as all the rest of the world produces, and almost the 

 whole of this is sold by private bargain, and the price is regularly quoted every busi- 

 ness day, and virtually rules the price of copper. 



