Copper Smelting in Canada

Abstract

THE Canadian Department of Mines has issuedan interesting report of some 184 pages, profusely illustrated, upon the copper smelting industries of Canada, from the pen of Dr. Alfred W. J. Wilson, Chief of the Metal Mines Division. This report forms a valuable record of the position of Canada as a copper producer at the date at which it was written, namely, the close of the year 1912. As the author very truly observes, “the period of time which necessarily elapses between the writing, and the publication and distribution of Government reports is usually too long to make them an important medium for the distribution of new knowledge in an old and well-established industry,” and indeed the present report well exemplifies the correctness ofthisview, therebeing nothing in it with which copper smelters throughout the world are not thoroughly familiar, its chief value lying accordingly in the fact that it furnishes a trustworthy “record of the status of the industry at the time it was prepared,” which Dr. Wilson puts forward as the chief purpose for which it was written.