Innovation, Productivity Growth, and the Survival of the U.S. Copper Industry

Mining is widely viewed as an old industry with mature and stable technologies. Companies and countries with the best deposits are the most productive and efficient producers. As these deposits are depleted, mining shifts to countries with the next best deposits. This tendency to exploit poorer quality ores tends to push productivity down and the prices of mineral commodities up over time. Copper mining in the United States, however, calls into question this conventional view. After leading the world in output for decades, the U.S. industry lost its ability to compete and suffered a major decline during the 1970s and early 1980s. In the face of predictions of complete collapse, it staged a remarkable revival, and today mines more copper than in 1970. A handful of companies achieved this recovery, in large part through their efforts to introduce a wide range of cost-reducing innovations. These efforts, in turn, helped double labor productivity in copper mining during the 1980s. The known copper endowment of the United States hardly changed over this period, aside from the depletion arising from mining, and had little to do with either the decline or the recovery. The experience of copper mining in the United States holds a number of lessons for countries competing in global mineral markets and for countries striving to raise their labor productivity and standard of living. In particular, it highlights the stimulating influence of global competition on industry productivity and comparative advantage, even in the mining sector where mineral endowment is widely thought to be of overriding importance.

The Extension of the Wisconsin Drift Southwest from Des Moines

At the last meeting of the Academy I called attention to an extension of the Wisconsin drift south, past Valley Junction into the region which was generally understood to be within the area of Kansan drift. It was with a view to extending observations further south in that direction than was possible in the time previously at my disposal that trips were made in 1914 extending the area examined east to the Army Post, west to the ravines in the southwest portion of Polk county, and, as far south as Norwalk, Cummings and Orillia in Warren county and west to Madison county

Letter from John L. Tilton

Letter of recommendation for A. G. Reid

The First Reported Petrified American Lepidostrobus is from Warren County, Iowa

One day in the summer of 1904 a broken Lepidostrobus petrified nicely by iron pyrites was sent to me by Mr. Samuel Spear, then residing four miles south of Indianola. Each year the specimen was exhibited to the class in Geology when Carboniferous plants were illustrated and the explanation given that it was a remarkably rare and choice specimen of a cone, the like of which I had never seen in any museum; but the real value of the specimen was not fully appreciated till I handed the specimen to Professor Stuart Weller at The University of Chicago in December, 1910. I had taken it with me that day, intending to carry it over to Professor Coulter for further information with reference to it. On seeing it, Professor Weller exclaimed that it was the very kind of a specimen that Professor Coulter had been seeking for years, no petrified Lepidostrobus having ever been reported in the United States. On Professor Coulter\u27s request to section the specimen and describe it he was given full permission to do whatever was necessary to secure from it all the information possible. As the result of that work upon it we now have the splendid description and illustrations published by Professor Coulter and Dr. Land in the Botanical Gazette, Vol. 51, June, 1911

A Pleistocene Section from Des Moines South to Allerton

1. A valuable series of exposures is now to be found along the, railroad from Des Moines to Allerton. 2. A detailed description of some of the outcrops. 3. General observations and relations

A Problem in Municipal Waterworks for a Small City

The problems of a municipal water supply, not only for fire protection but also for domestic use, are important ones confronting numerous towns in Iowa. The attempt to solve those problems at Indianola presents features of general as well as local value

An Area of Wisconsin Drift Further South in Polk County, Iowa, Than Hitherto Recognized

It is commonly understood that the Raccoon River, where it flows through Des Moines, lies just south of the southern limit of the Wisconsin drift sheet in Iowa. North of this river the upland of Wisconsin drift presents the character of a youthful ground moraine, marked by gentle sags and swells, with undrained depressions here and there, features that are conspicuous even in so short a distance as that from Des Moines to Ankeny. South of Raccoon River the level of the old Kansan drift plain is still marked by the level of the upland; but the land is well dissected by erosion and the upland in the area of Kansan drift is thoroughly drained by the numerous ramifying ravines. These contrasts are evident, even within the area of a single topographic sheet, that of the Des Moines quadrangle

Second Record of Oscillations in Lake Level, with Record of Lake Temperature and of Meteorology, Secured at the Macbride Lakeside Laboratory, Lake Okoboji, Iowa, July, 1916

In the \u27\u27Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science\u27\u27 for 1916 may be found a somewhat similar title for a paper in which data obtained in July, 1915, were discussed. It is the purpose of the present paper to present the records of a second year. These records were obtained in part for personal information, and in part for reference by students at the laboratory. It is believed that the records (and also those of last year) are sufficiently accurate for use by those studying the limnology of the lake and possibly by those who may work on the heat budget. The computations of volume, given in the last paper, are here omitted. Unfortunately it was not convenient to obtain records the fifteenth of August, nor near that date, the time preferred for such records

Notes on Conditions at the Head of Flood Plains

Flood plains are said to exist along the courses of rivers where in time of flood deposits are laid down on the flooded areas. Following such a flood plain up-stream the plain is said to become narrower till reduced to zero. In working along tributary ravines in Warren and Clarke Counties, Iowa, a different relation is noted that it appears to the writer should be emphasized