The electrolytic refinery control of the copper production of the United States is shown by the 1917 figures. In that year the production of electrolytic copper was 1,452,744,593 pounds; of Lake copper, 238, 508,091 pounds; and of casting copper, 152,293,487 pounds. Electrolytic copper thus constituted 77¹⁄₂ per cent. of the total. _Control Through Selling and Distribution of Copper in Finished Form._--Groups owning mines, smelters, and refineries invariably also control or own the selling agencies that distribute the product to the consumer. In these cases, control through selling is the same as control through mine ownership, but is increased by the copper in ores received at custom smelters. Control through selling, then, is identical to the control shown in Table 38, so far as groups 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 are concerned, if certain additions at the expense of the other groups are made. But every producer of Lake copper controls the sale of its product, because Lake copper needs no electrolytic refining. Hence in groups 5 and 9 mine ownership and control through selling are identical. This is a fact of considerable interest and confirms the fact of control through refinery ownership. Groups 6 and 7 (Table 38) are large producers, and although they do not own refineries they are able to control the sales of their product. The refineries are willing to refine their copper on toll and return the marketable copper to the mine owners, who make sale to the trade. Groups 2, 3, and 7 now control copper even further, as they own brass mills, wire and rod mills, etc. They manufacture a part of their production and sell it as copper wire, finished brass, etc., instead of making sales to the brass and wire mills of ingots, bars, cakes, etc., which is and has been always the general practice. There remains to consider the control, through selling, of the six uncertain groups (total production 63,820,173 pounds) and some of the 134,458,614 pounds of copper produced from custom ore. A large part of this, as noted, is lodged in groups 1, 2, 3, 4 and 8. For many years three concerns affiliated with the German metal combines (Merton Co. and Metallgesellschaft, of Frankfort-on-the-Main, and Aaron Hirsch, of Halberstadt) have been active in the copper business of the United States. Their activity has been confined to selling of copper produced in this country, and to ownership and selling of copper produced in foreign countries but brought to the United States for smelting and refining. One small refinery is or was owned by this group in the United States, and two smelters, treating mainly foreign ores. It also owns smelters in Mexico and South America, and had close connections with two large refineries in New Jersey, so that it sold all the electrolytic copper produced by one plant and an important part of the production of the other plant.