In 1899 the Amalgamated Copper Company was formed in the United States. This corporation was established in view of the enormously increasing production of the West, and of the extensive development of electrical industry which involved a greatly increased consumption of copper; and it was probably designed to control the world’s copper industry. Prices were raised gradually for some time, but in 1901 the Trust, as then constituted, failed, owing largely to trade depression in Europe. Heavy losses resulted, as well as expensive law suits, and the price of the metal dropped again with great rapidity. Trade subsequently revived and expanded, the consumption of copper increased and appeared to overtake the rate of production, whilst stocks diminished and the price advanced, until, in 1907, copper was sold at well over £100 per ton. The American financial panic in the autumn of that year again reduced prices to a comparatively low figure, and they have, on the whole, remained fairly steady since, though showing a tendency to decrease. Production has, meanwhile, increased very largely, and a steady price of 12 to 13½ cents per pound yields handsome profits to most of the larger concerns. The present situation in the copper market is such that the enhanced production has again resulted in an accumulation of stocks, which has occasioned restricted output on the part of many of the principal smelters until briskness of trade development shall call forth increased consumption and more satisfactory prices. The question of price is one involving certain considerations to which attention may be drawn. The present conditions and the comparative steadiness in the copper market have been shown in a recent review to result in part from:— (1) The concentration of the copper industry in a few strong hands, which, whilst maintaining healthy competition, keeps the market free from such outside pressure as would reduce the price too much, and by restricting unprofitable output, brings production and consumption into equilibrium, making for stability. (2) The comparative cheapness of money, which has allowed of the financing for large production, with the prospect of absorption not being long delayed. At the same time, some of the richer and more cheaply worked mines of former times are gradually approaching exhaustion—recent instances of this will be readily recalled, whilst the disadvantages of having to work lower-grade deposits at greater depth have also tended to increase the price of metal. These conditions, on the other hand, have been counterbalanced by improvements in the mining and metallurgical processes concerned, by the opening up of new districts, and by the economies resulting from amalgamation of interests, involving closer organisation and enormous outputs of material.