consolidated earnings jo our share holders on behalf of your board of directors we submit to you a report on the progress recorded by your company in its 61st year ending october 31 i960 highlighting the performance of our 1960 fiscal year were consolidated earnings reached a new peak surpassing all previous years the merger of utah construction & mining co and lucky me uranium corporation signing of a long term coal mining and sales contract with arizona public service company commencement of construction on 22 million ore beneficiation plant for our affiliate marcona mining company expansion of ocean shipping capacity by our affiliate san juan carriers ltd corporate expansion prior to february 1 i960 utah construction & mining co owned 60 of the equity stock of lucky me uranium corporation on that date with the overwhelming consent of the shareholders of both companies your company acquired the remaining 40 of lucky me stock through the exchange of 242,533 shares of its stock on a 1 for 10 basis and the two companies were merged . consolidated earnings at the recommendation of our independent auditors earnings for this and future years will be reported on a consolidated basis to reflect more accu rately the financial results of our diversified operations particularly those carried on through subsidiary and affiliated companies in the accompanying balance sheet there are included the assets and liabilities of the parent com pany and its wholly-owned subsidiaries and the current book value of our interest in affiliated companies similarly the statement of income includes the consolidated earnings of the parent company its wholly-owned subsidi aries and its share of the earnings of affiliated companies included in the provision for income taxes is the estimated amount that would be payable on distribution of these earnings paced by increased earnings from iron ore and ocean shipping consolidated earnings for the year reached 9,134,687 this is equivalent to 4.41 per share after giving effect to the merger and to the increase in shares resulting from the 2 stock dividend distributed to shareholders in july i960 for purposes of comparison the earnings of 1959 have been recast to show what the results would have been if we had owned all of lucky me during that year instead of the 60 that we held prior to the merger this treatment of merged operations is known as the pooling of interest theory and is explained by the notes which follow the accompanying audited finan cial statements on the same basis restated earnings for fiscal 1959 were 8,362,137 or 772,550 below those of the current year dividend distributions during fiscal 1960 cash dividends paid to shareholders of the company totalled 2,496,702 or 266,751 more than paid during 1959 when fewer shares were outstanding the dividends paid on the common stock during both fiscal 1960 and 1959 amounted to 1.25 per share paid at a quarterly rate of 25c with an extra dividend of 25c paid in october of each year on july 29 1960 persons who were shareholders of record on june 24 1960 received a stock dividend paid at the rate of 2 or one share for each fifty shares held on the record date fractional share interests were settled in cash at the rate of 48.50 for one full share and amounted to 27,749 for each of the 40,025 shares issued and distributed pursuant to this stock divi dend 48.50 or an aggregate sum of 1,941,213 was transferred from the earned surplus account of the company to its capital stock and capital surplus accounts at the rate of 2.00 and 46.50 per share respectively review of operations and activities mining the record earnings performance attained for the year just ended was primarily attributable to better results from our diversified mining oper ations within this area of corporate activities the mining and sales of iron ore made the greatest contributions to net profits these operations are con ducted in the united states at the company-owned properties near cedar city utah and in peru through our interest in marcona mining company the next largest segment of 1960 gross profits from mining activities was returned from uranium mining milling and sales operations conducted in wyoming where our company is now the largest operator again the earn ings were derived from two sources the lucky me mill and its properties in the gas hills area and secondly the newly opened underground shaft mining operation in the shirley basin area earnings from domestic copper mining were neariy twice those of 1959 and were derived through our 25 per cent equity interest in pima mining company which is situated near tucson arizona during the period under review pima's profits were 1.7 million the highest since operations com menced in early 1957 coal mining operations in arkansas conducted on a profitable basis for the past eleven years were concluded at mid-year due to the exhaustion of reserves ocean shipping and ore sales this category of world-wide activities earned next to mining operations the largest contribution to 1960 consoli dated net profits our participation in these operations which includes ocean transportation and sale of peruvian iron ore purchased from marcona mining company and the movement of other bulk cargoes between world ports is through our equity interest in compania san juan s a the substantial increase in earned revenues of this company during fiscal 1960 is attributable