I. IRON Broad allowances for incomplete information must be made when considering iron ore resources. While no new immense iron ore fields remain to be discovered in either Europe or North Amer ica the remaining four continents are still largely unsurveyed. Of known iron ore reserves 15,000,000,000 tons occur in North America, 12,000,000,000 in Europe and 7,000,000,00o in South America. If it be assumed that the remaining three continents are proportionately as well supplied—and against this assumption there is no geological argument—the conclusion is reached that the world iron ore reserve is a total of 90,000,000,00o tons.
The world, in 1936, produced 141,000,000 tons of iron ore and, in 1937, 172,000,0o° tons for a new high record. This production was supplied by many mines, but a few great ore fields were re sponsible for the bulk of the tonnage. The Lake Superior Region shipped, in 1936, over 40,000,000 tons, and the Lorraine field of France and Luxembourg over 35,000,00o. Soviet Russia has risen to third place among the nations with 28,000,000, the British fields ranking fourth with 13,000,00o. Sweden shipped over II , 000,000 tons, Germany (including Austria and Czecho-Slovakia) 8,000,000, and the Alabama fields about 5,000,000. After these, ranging down to about 2,000,000 come North Africa, British India, western France, the New York-Pennsylvania magnetite fields, the Malay States and Australia.
The localization of demand may cause more concern than ex cessive total consumption, for a few ore fields are being drawn upon in exceptional tonnages while other large fields are practi cally unused. For example, if the present-day drafts continue, our current estimates of known ore reserves in the different great fields suggest that ore of present day grade will be exhausted in the Lake Superior region within 5o years, in Spain and Great Britain within the century, and in Lorraine in less than 15o years.
As against this far-off threat, it may be seen that on the basis of present drafts the Alabama fields should last 30o years or more, while the vast reserves of Brazil, Cuba and Newfoundland have not yet been drawn upon seriously. It is safe to say that the United States can retain its present leadership in iron and steel manufacture for several decades more. It is probable, however,
that soon the old primacy of Great Britain and the present Ameri can leadership will, in these heavy manufacturing lines, be chal lenged by a new European competition based on the Lorraine and Norman ore fields, and upon west European coals and cokes.
With regard to the four continents which are less well known and less developed industrially, existing knowledge of relative ore and fuel supplies permits certain deductions of considerable validity. It may be safely assumed, for example, that the known coal supplies of Asia, particularly in China and India, will justify and encourage a large iron and steel industry as local consumption increases; and that under certain conditions the excess product may be exported so as to become a serious factor in European and North American trade and industry. With regard to South Amer ica, Africa and Australia, present knowledge of raw material re sources suggests that while Australia may easily become self supporting in the way of steel and iron products, the other two are likely to become important as exporters of iron ore to coal rich areas, but not as serious producers of iron and its products. Older conclusions as to iron ore exhaustion have been modified seriously by the fact that, within the past two decades, their bases of deduction have been strikingly changed. For 150 years the world iron industry had increased at the rate of 5o% each decade; and most earlier estimates prolonged this past rate of increase into the indefinite future. Now, for the first time in the history of modem industrialism, there has been experienced a period of 15 years in which the world iron industry has not progressed ; and there is no reason to assume that, whenever this dead point is finally passed over, the old rate of increase will be resumed. It is indeed far more likely that in the future the iron industry of the world will increase at a far slower rate, possibly not above that of the rate of increase of world population. If so the known ore reserves will last for very many generations. (E. C. E.)