CHALLENGE IN THE EARTH

[Music] uh [Music] so [Music] isn't that something [Music] the years [Music] days were true [Music] but there was more another change in store a miracle to put the past to shame for soon the electric light would brighten up the night and the years ahead would never be the same [Music] [Applause] yes there were miracles of plenty in those days and they were miracles for better or worse the lady of the house became a housewife the machine age was on us and with it the brand new problem of quantity production making products in large enough numbers to supply a huge market america needed the raw materials to mass produce its future the answer was here as it always had been in the richness of the earth here were the metals that industry needed they had to be mined and smelted and refined but in a better more efficient way and on a scale to meet the challenge of the 20th century and the years ahead would never be the same the years ahead would never be the same [Music] that's the name we'll call it american smelting and refining company and with it we will organize the principal lead and silver smelting works in the united states to build a stronger smelting industry don't you think you're biting off more than you can chew mr rogers in these days only the world finance can survive but it's a big job putting anything this size together how do we know we can make it work we have no choice we have to grow with the country just think of the lead they'll need for electric cable and i heard that ransomwares is building a motor car plant in detroit next year and that could be a big algebra our new venture will strengthen the industry and it will strengthen us 11 companies were included to form a sarco but within a year they were on the rocks enter the men who saved them daniel guggenheim and his brothers the guggenheim's were no strangers to the metal business 20 years earlier their father meyer guggenheim had invested in two lead and silver mines in colorado on the western side of the great divide where the trees grow tall and skinny on the western side of the great divide where the trees grow tall and skinny meyer guggenheim got himself two mines the a y and the mini the a y and the mini they were flooded out and there weren't much doubt their silver days were over they were but meyer said he would go ahead and soon he'd be in clover and soon well he got himself a good engineer and they unflooded the mine but the water came back so they had to start all over again but meyer said keep at it boys i'll pack you to the limit keep badges boys [Music] and then one day meyer got a telegram from the mine superintendent struck rich ore in a y shaft number one you have a bonanza [Applause] there's no ifs or but it takes a lot of guts if you want to get into mining there you go it takes a lot of gusts if you want to get into my news gotta hang on tight parcha here just right to find that silver lining gotta hang on tight find your hair just right to find that silver lining today a sarco's leadville plant is recovering metal values from waste dumps at the old a.y and many mines by 1901 meyer guggenheim's sons had three mines four smelters and a refinery these holdings plus new capital and the properties of the original rogers venture all came together to form the new asarcom ready for the challenge of the time and the times were moving fast in 1902 there were two million telephones in the united states but more or less horasarco that year met a new lead plant near salt lake city the wright brothers make history and realize one of the ancient dreams of man flight a sirloin steak cost 24 cents in 1906 automobiles are in the news again asarco continues expanding to meet the needs of a growing nation a drop in the bucket meant something else to a miner motor cars are selling like crazy people ate in them slept in them even got married in them in 1908 hollywood quickened the pace of american life and kissing took on a whole new style [Applause] by 1920 every other car in the world was a ford model t the building boom was on for a sarco this meant a new zinc plant in amarillo texas from progress and prosperity to near starvation the depression brought us up sharply like a kick in the pants and the dreams of a madman led the world into war it demanded greater efforts from the people of asaku our corpus christi zinc plant was completed just in time to aid in the struggle for freedom [Music] the technological revolution after the war meant new applications for the products of asarco plants like our lead smelter in glover missouri provided the material for man to make miracles the miracles keep coming but the metals and minerals that make it all possible still must come from the earth ilmanite coal bismuth [Music] cadmium selenium gold tellurium lead [Music] copper zinc silver these are the products of a sarco today 24 metals and minerals [Music] but the first thing is you got to find [Music] them [Music] when i was a lad they said to me gold is where you find it so i looked real hard at every rock and twice as hard behind it never sound a blasted shrimp but now i can tell where the oar is found if only you will listen like pie in the sky or the rainbow's end it's right there where it isn't they used to call it prospecting now it's exploration science has taken over here's one way we look for ore a special helicopter with electromagnetic detectors built into it it's interesting work but it's still a long tough job and it's a challenge we don't find ore every day or even every year but we make a good strike every once in a while it's a big business exploration at a sarco we have about 90 geologists plus a technical staff to back them up and field offices around the world it's a massive effort we look for ore in a lot of different ways for one thing we take samples of silt and soil and streams because if there's ore around tiny amounts of the metals can actually show up in the sediments the company's geochemical laboratory analyzes our samples with all kinds of tests here's a place in arizona copper country this whole area has been heavily explored for years by a lot of companies but we spotted an outcrop you could actually see from the road no ore in the outcrop [Music] but some good hard geologic deduction [Music] told us there ought to be ore in the ground [Music] there was you find it and then you've got to get it out you're down here maybe three thousand or four thousand feet and it's like another world i guess we just sort of take it for granted but most people never see this site in their whole lives for a lot of us mining runs in the family my father was a miner for a sarco i have a brother and a brother-in-law they're minors too is galena out in idaho second biggest silver mine in the united states [Music] the ore has copper in it too where there's silver there's often some copper and vice versa this is the mission copper mine in arizona open pit mining is different the problem is moving vast amounts of ore and rock there's a long gap between discovery and production sakitan went into production in 74. when it comes to equipment we don't fool around [Music] take one of these loaders nine cubic yards of ore in one bucket full [Music] those tires are eight feet high a good shovel runner can load 125 to 140 trucks during his shift here at the mission mine in arizona we have processed as much as 36 million tons of ore and waste in one year the reason for all this tonnage is the low copper content of the ore out of this 85 ton truckload for example will come only a half ton of copper [Music] near lakehurst new jersey in 1957 we discovered ilmanite gives us titanium dioxide for use in paints conservationists make much of the fact that mines tear up the land the fact is that if you took all the mines and plants that have produced all the mining materials in the united states since 1776 the total land area disturbed has been less than zero point three percent and one third of that has already been reclaimed by man or healed by nature asarco beautifies or reclaims mining land whenever possible [Music] sarco owns or has an important interest in 38 different mining properties in the united states and in many other countries you're in british columbia in the winter as much as 80 feet of snow can fall here in one season the grand duke copper mine 50 owned by a sarco is a triumph of man over nature eleven thousand feet up in leadville colorado a sarco mines lead zinc and silver [Music] this is the silver bell mine in arizona [Music] the copper from this mine is processed in the concentrator nearby a sarco has been in mexico since the company was founded in 1899 first with smelters and then with silver-led mines the names are music pepezella sierra mojada santa eularia chihuahua aguascalientes monterey some of the mines are gone now but others have taken their place santa barbara toxico now these operations are majority owned by mexican capital and run by mexican management tokyo peru where southern peru copper corporation 51.5 percent owned by asarco mines copper high in the andes [Music] nearby the quahone project is being developed [Music] you're in australia now the mount isa mine in 1930 a sarco's participation with new capital saved mount isa from going under today it employs more than 7 000 people it is managed entirely by australians and there is widespread australian ownership [Music] mount isa helps make australia one of the world's principal producers of copper zinc silver and lead at black lake in quebec canada asarco mines asbestos and serving all the metal mines 22 smelters and refineries [Music] turning ore into usable metal was the first activity of a sarco in 1899 and it remains a vital part of the company's business [Music] [Music] so [Music] this country has grown and the sarco has grown with it in the 75 years between 1899 and 1974 asarco's u.s refineries alone produced 26 million tons of refined copper 26 million tons of lead 6 million tons of zinc and 6 billion ounces of silver that has been the challenge in the earth [Music] but today at many asarco plants something else has been added these unusual structures have nothing to do with smelting and refining themselves these are sulfur recovery plants installed at tacoma hayden and el paso to absorb much of the sulfur dioxide released by those copper smelters [Music] the gas is transformed into sulfuric acid or liquid sulfur dioxide for use by industry it's part of a sarco's continuing program of environmental control of course when it comes to pollution few people realize that nature itself is one of the worst offenders more sulfur was put into the atmosphere by three volcanic eruptions in this century than has ever been put there by all of industry since the beginning of time [Music] not all of the sarco's metal comes from mines the federated metal division treats non-ferrous scrap collected from all over the country [Applause] the recycling of metals by the way is a big help in reducing this country's waste disposal problem making ore into usable metal it sounds simple but behind the processes lie a lot of complicated chemistry and physics and metallurgy and plenty of problems to solve [Music] most of the problems usually end up here at a sarco's central research laboratory in metal research you never know what the next day will bring sometimes we're analyzing copper samples or we're testing the physical properties of all types of metals or trying to improve a process or whatever [Music] through its research asarco invented the continuous casting process for copper [Music] a major metallurgical advancement another result of metal research has been the vertical shaft furnace one of the most outstanding developments in the last 25 years of course there is another angle to research and that's the mineral side where we help the mines and exploration and so day after day research goes on always looking for better ways better ideas here's something kind of different an electric car we helped design it you know how much it costs to drive it all the way across the country about 35 bucks we figured that's not just anti-pollution that's anti-inflation sarco products touch the lives of everyone in america this is the jackson family on a typical saturday afternoon maybe not so typical dad has actually got junior to wash the car let's play a little game can you guess how many objects in this car contain a circle product in some shape or form there's zinc in the grill zinc oxide in the tires zinc in the carburetor in the handles and the trim in the dashboard and the windshield wipers there's asbestos in the undercoat and brake linings there's copper in the car wiring the generator and the radiator lead and zinc oxide in the paint lead in the batteries of course not everything beautiful is made out of a sarco product oh yeah mom's camera has silver on the film capping him in the flash selenium in the photoelectric cell [Music] and now let's play another game suppose these uh gentlemen remove some of the objects from the house that are made with or contain a sarco products well there goes the gold tray and the brass fireplace set in the silver tea set now they're taking the copper lamp the lebron's ash tray even dad's last beer solder in the can you know no more tv today dad camp me over the fastest mom they're going after your kitchen oh yeah from the kitchen the toaster the coffee pot and the blender they even tore the walls apart to get at the copper wiring and plumbing before they left of course we've said nothing so far about silver-plated bearings in modern aircraft or lead shielding in atomic submarines [Music] or supplying so many essential metals for the united states space program or the new thermoelectric pacemaker for damaged hearts it uses bismuth and tellurium or lead protection against x-rays the list is endless there isn't a single major industry which doesn't use the materials we produce we were standing on the hill looking at the sky and thinking about spacecraft and pictures from the moon and all those amazing things she had her head on my shoulder she was looking a long way off and then very softly she said i wonder where the world is headed how far can we possibly go how far to the farthest start how far to a dream how tall is the mind of man how grand is [Music] how far do you want to go how much will you pay how long one day it's hard to predict the future in 1947 the statisticians predicted that the united states would use up its supply of most metals before 1972 today mineral reserves are being mined that weren't even dreamed of 25 years ago asarco is constantly searching for new fields and is just as constantly expanding with major construction underway around the world [Music] it takes a lot of work and a lot of good hard-working people as it always will but isn't that the story of the world oh the world keeps rolling on this old world keeps rolling on and a man does what he can does his part to keep it spinning good and strong puts a handle in the earth and he turns for all he's worth and the world keeps on rolling rolling on his hands then he's folks took a pilot to the state of washington and there can't be any doubt what's the whole thing's all about that the world will keep a rolling rolling on there's a giant in the ground he [Music] it was a sleepy time till 1899 [Music] and the years ahead would never be the same the years ahead would never be the same you