Keith Merrifield, age 9, of Redmond, Wash., for his question:

Do they find copper in the ground?

Every scrap of bright copper is made from tiny atoms. All copper atoms are alike, and WE cannot make them. We cannot make copper, but there is plenty to be found in the ground. We find some of it in lumpy chunks or hidden in mixtures of other materials.

Copper is a bright, reddish gold metal. We need lots of it to do a long list of chores in our everyday world. We find all our copper in the ground. Sometimes WE have to hunt for it, and WE must know just how and where to look for it. Most of the Earth's copper is mixed with other materials, and we must knowork how to separate it.

Rocky mixtures of useful and useless materials are called ores. Copper ores are mixtures of copper and maybe sulphur, iron or oxygen. Most of the copper ores are handsome colored rocks with fin£ sounding names. Cuprite is a richbrownish red, and its rocks may have filmy skins of green. It is ca11ed red copper ore, and its rich copper must be separated from oxygen. Chalcopyrite is called yellow copper ore. Its glossy rocks are brownish yellow and often green andblack. The copper in chalcopyrite ore must be separated from iron and sulphur.

Purple copper ore is bornite, and its copper also must be separated from iron and sulphur. Bornite is bright chestnut brown, and its skin may be tarnished with blue. Dark gray chalcocite is streaked with sooty black. It is made from copper and sulphur and chalcocite ore is ca11ed copper glance. Tetrahedite is called gray copper ore, although it is blotchy brown. It may be shaped in little, pointed pyramids and along with the copper there is sulphur and antimony, maybe iron and zinc, lead and mercury and sometimes silver.

The peop1e of old cherished glossy stones of azurite and malachite. The Earth used its own recipes to make both these semi precious stones from copper and oxygen. Azurite glows with the deep blues of the ocean and the rich blues of a cloudless sky. Malachite is a shiny blend of leaf green and peacock green.

Here and there WE also find lumps of plain copper mixed with nothing. The coppery red lumps look like frozen sponges. Sometimes they look like miniature cubes of rusty; red sugar.

The United states mines more copper than any other country. Our biggest copper state is Arizona. Copper ores also are mined in Utah, Montana, Nevada and other western states. There also are copper mines in many Eastern and southern states. And lumps of plain copper may be found in many places, especially around lake Superior.