_Expressage._—This item, as a rule, is large, and should be taken into consideration in the original plans for the location of the refining works.
_Parting._—The item of parting and brokerage is the largest of the refinery costs, and for obvious reasons a modern smelting plant should have a parting plant under its own control.
_The Working of the By-Products._—This constitutes a large item of cost, and considerable attention should be devoted to the improvement of present methods, which seem faulty, slow and expensive.
_Summary._—The items of smaller cost with their respective amounts per ton of base bullion treated are: Spelter, $0.85; coal, $0.50; coke, $0.50; supplies, repairs and general expenses, $0.35; total, $2.10. It is doubtful whether much improvement can be made in the reduction of these costs.
The items of larger cost are: Labor, $2; interest, $1.32; expressage, $1.10; parting and brokerage, $2; reworking by-products, $1.50; total, $7.92. The general manager usually attends to the items of interest, expressage and brokerage, leaving the questions of labor and working of by-products to the metallurgist.
The cost quoted for smelting practice, as employed at Denver, will differ necessarily from those at other localities, where the cost of labor, freight rates on spelter, fuel, etc., are changed. Refining can doubtless be done at a lower cost at points along the Mississippi River, and even more so at cities on the Atlantic seaboard, as Newark or Perth Amboy, N. J.
The consolidation of many of the more important smelting plants of the United States under one management will doubtless alter the figures of cost given above, particularly as the interest cost there stated is at the high rate of 10 per cent., a condition of affairs now changed to 5 per cent. Other factors have lessened the cost of refining; the bullion produced at the present time is softer, or contains a smaller amount of impurities, and admits of easier working with shorter time and less labor. By proper management larger tonnages are turned out per man, and the Howard stirrer and Howard press have simplified and cheapened the working of the zinc skimmings. To illustrate the comparatively recent conditions of cost I have compiled the following table for each month of the year 1898: