at the right is shown the vast panorama of the iron ore open pit strip mining operation being conducted by utah construction company at its iron springs mine near cedar city utah during this fiscal year 506,000 ¦ - ' ¦ ,| industry from thi income from mining continued to be an important factor in the net profits of the company shipments of iron ore from the iron springs mine near cedar city utah and coal shipments from the ozark-philpott mine in arkansas benefited from the high operating rate in the steel industry this enabled an improvement in profits over the preceding year from these two sources the balance of our mining activities is carried on through subsidiary and affiliated companies our share of the undistrib uted earnings from these companies dropped sharply from the preceding year primarily because of 1 a lower volume of sales and shipments 2 higher costsof ocean transportation 3 year end adjustments attrib utable to last year but made after the close of utah construction com pany's fiscal year and therefore reported during 1955 4 dividend dis tributions which were conservative in relation to earned surplus but siz able in comparison with earnings for the current year canadian iron ore operations in february 1955 argonaut mining co ltd was merged with utah co of the americas and thereafter these two wholly owned subsidiaries were operated as one company during the year the argonaut mine ex ported its output to the japanese market and with increased efficiency from new milling processes recorded a sizable improvement in profits over last year reserves are limited but exploration activity is being car ried on in the area utah construe n company with cyprus mines corporatio