GREAT COPPER MINE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 69, 23 March 1931, Page 9

GREAT COPPER MINE

DOCTOK'S LUCKY SHOT

THE BRITANNIA, CANADA

(From The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, 18th February. An Englishman, Dr. Forbes, roaming over the mountains within120 miles of Vancouver in 1888, shot a buck. Aa he -was dragging the carcase down the slope, the horns uncovered a greenstained rock, and resulted in the discovery of the Britannia, the largest copper'inline in^the British' Empire. In the succeeding 42 yeai-B, the Britannia -Inls. continuously been in production—the longest span of production of any contemporary mine. . During the prevailing depression, when the price of copper has glissaded to a point far below the normal cost of production, and when copper mines all over the world have been closing down, the Britannia has not retrenched. The astonishing fact is officially recorded that the Britannia has cut production costs without increasing th© output and without reducing the workers or their wages. The property comprises 25,000 acres extending from Howe Sound, an estuary of the Gulf of Georgia, over precipitous cliffs to the Britannia Mountain, two and a half miles above the beach. The mountain reaches to a height of 4400 ft in the brief space. Tho number of employees ranges from 1200 to 1300, divided into six camps. Those employed in the mill, foundry, and shops reside at the beach settlement. At the head of the incline railway, a mile east and 1600 ft above the beach, train crews and car shop mechanics live near the portal of the main haulage tunnel on the 2700 ft level. Supplies and passengers are carried over an electric switchback railway, three and a half miles long, which connects the Incline Camp with the Tunnel Camp. PERCHED UP ABOVE THE FOREST. About 1000 people live in the mountain village at the Tunnel Camp 2200 ft above the beach, cut off from the outside world except for the narrow-gauge track leading to the waterfront. Continuing through the 2200 ft tunnel for a distance of two miles, and thence mounting by a shaft, one reaches the Victoria Camp. At other levels, and equally inaccessible, are the EmpreSß and Barbara camps. During summer a logging camp is maintained three miles from the Victoria Camp. From all these giddy perches the miners and their families look down spruce and pine-clad slopes on seascape views comparable with the Norwegian fjords, Mil ford Sound, or Table Mountain. The mill is in the shape of a mammoth staircase ascending 300 ft above the beach. At the wharf arc the general stores, a co-operative concern which pays the consumer a dividend from 10 to 17 per cent. At the grinding machine 250 tons of stcol balls,-made from scrapped rails, are worn out monthly. Electricity is provided from a 7500 horse-power plant. The pipe-line from the storage lakes in South Valley is four miles long, and cost a million dollars. The copper-precipitation plant is an ingenious structure, consisting of 26 water-tight tanks built of wood, containing not a single nail. The water drained from the mine contains a small percentage of copper, a few specks to the gallon. When tho water flow reaches 40,000 gallons per hour, the amount of -copper recovered is considerable. Tho Britannia has mined rock containing 1 per cent, copper, which means that of every ton mined, 19 4-scwt is tiseless rock. This rock has to lie drilled, blasted, drawn through raises to tho 2700i't level, hauled to the _ incline dumped, crushed, loaded into trucks at the 4100 ft level, hauled to tho mill, ground as fine as sand, passed through the flotation process, and the concentrates, shipped to the smelter— all done to an ore which carries a value of 33 4d to tl« tra{