one of the most valuable products a country can have.... The copper mines of Montana and Arizona have proven of more value than the gold mines, regardless of the fact that the copper had to be hauled two thousand miles by rail to the seaboard, and the coal and coke to smelt it hauled hundreds of miles to the mines. So far as natural difficulties are concerned, this northern field can be fed from the coal deposits of the valley of the Zambezi [Burnham had previously discovered massive coal fields at Hwange], and the product shipped to the East Coast at a less expense than the product of Montana and Arizona can be laid on the dock at New York. Many years later, the British South Africa Company built towns along the river and a railroad to transport the copper through Mozambique. Geology During the 1950s, the Copperbelt was the largest copper-producing area in the world, including the Roan Antelope Mine, Nkana Mine, Nchanga Mines, Mufulira Mine, and Rokana Mine. Chalcopyrite, bornite, and chalcocite are found in the metamorphosed calcareous shales and arkoses of the Lower Roan Formation in the Katanga System. See also Kolwezi Mine Dikuluwe Mine Konkola Copper Mines Luanshya Lumwana mine Sentinel mine Kansanshi mine Copperbelt Province Chambishi Anvil Mining Domeyko Fault Glencore Camrose Resources Limited Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK) Xstrata Sir Robert Williams, 1st Baronet, of Park References External links Descriptive Models, Grade-Tonnage Relations, and Databases for the Assessment of Sediment-Hosted Copper Deposits, with Emphasis on Deposits in the Central African Copperbelt, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia Belt regions Copper mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Copper mines in Zambia Copperbelt Province Haut-Katanga Province Lualaba Province Geology of Africa Central Zambezian miombo woodlands