The petroleum beds of Mexico and Peru are important sources of fuel oil, the Mexican fields occupying fourth place in the records of the world output. The Mexican field at Tam pico contains one of the most productive wells ever opened, yielding 105,000 barrels per day. The total capacity of the wells now producing in Mexico is not far from 600,000 barrels per day. The 1915 output is given authoritatively at 35,000,000 barrels. The only considerable active oil production in South America is in the Lobitos fields of Peru; their yearly output is about 3,500,000 barrels. In Bolivia, however, there is an immense oil belt 150 miles long and this continues over the national boundary into Argentina to Comodoro Rivadavia where the Government is pushing development. In Co lombia, petroleum has been found-in the upper Magdalena district, and at Santander an oil area 100 miles in length and 60 miles in width has been located. It contains many sponta neous oil springs. Another large field has been located in Venezuela near the city • of Mara caibo, and in the River Limon district in sev eral places near the asphalt lake oil oozes from the ground. There is also a small refinery in active operation at Santa Elena in . Ecuador. On the island of Trinidad the development has reached an output of 700,000 barrels annually. The Guatemala oil fields are controlled rigidly by the Government, and the output is small present. With exceptional prospects for a great oil industry all Latin America, with the exception of Mexico, cannot be said to have seen even the first .stages of its possible development.
Other Metals and Minerals.— Foremost among the lesser mineral products of Latin America stands nitrate of soda, or %Chile nitrate."' The only locality in the world where this invaluable salt is found in considerable quantity the Atacama desert in northern Chile, an interior dry valley between the Coast ranges and the Andes. Associated with the nitrate (29 per cent) is sodium chloride (43 per cent), sodium sulphate (5 per cent), and calcium sulphate (4 per cent). A small pro portion (1/10 of 1 per cent) of sodium iodate supplies the world with iodine—about 450 tons, valued at about $2,000,000 annually. These nitrate deposits supply not only the larg est part of the world's nitric acid for indus trial purposes, but also the bulk of the nitro genous fertilizers for the world's agriculture. With the outbreak of the European war a great demand sprang up for Chile nitrate as a source of the ingredients of explosives, and previous exports were trebled to meet this demand. In 1916 the output of the nitrate fields was about 3,000,000 tons.
Iron, which has been well called the foun dation of all modern civilization, exists in enormous quantities and of unrivaled quality throughout all Latin America, awaiting devel opment. In the Brazilian plateau are billions
of tons of ore carrying up to 50 per cent of the metal, but coal and transportation are lacking for its successful utilization. Great iron de posits are found also in Chile, and some ore is exported. At Tofo the explorers' drills have blocked out a mass of Bessemer-grade ore calculated to contain 100,000,000 tons. Here, too, a lack of coking coal is holding back development. In the province of Atacama deposits of iron ore aggregating 500,000,000 tons contain gold in the proportion of one ounce up to 16 ounces per ton. In Venezuela a start has been made, and a million tons of 67 per cent ore are being shipped annually. In the southeastern part of Cuba has been located an immense body of iron ore estimated at 300, 000,000 tons, carrying 1 per cent of nickel. In •915 Cuba shipped 830,000 tons of iron ore, and 200,000 tons of manganiferous iron ore. Other important deposits have been found in northern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and Peru.
After the outbreak of the European War and the consequent advance in the price of antimony from 6 cents to 40 cents a pound, many antimony mines •throughout Latin Amer ica, unprofitable at the old prices, went into active operation. The effects were most marked in the increase of Bolivia's exports of ore (50 per cent) from 205 tons in 1914 to 19,786 tons in 1915. The antimony ores are found in the same localities as the tin ores, but in different veins. Mexico also has rich anti mony deposits, and in normal times exported upwards of 4,500 tons of metallic antimony annually. Since 1911 the production has been greatly reduced.
About half the world's supply of borax is produced by Chile. The western range of the Andes, known as the Cordillera Occidental, traverses Peru, Bolivia, Chile and extends into Argentina. Many of the peaks of this range were volcanoes, and at their bases, at eleva tions of 12,000 feet above the sea, are a suc cession of lakes whose waters are saturated with borax, which thickly encrusts their shores and forms a thick pellicle on the surface. Lake Ascotan in Chile is capable alone of sup plying the whole world's demand for borax for many years to come. Bolivia and Peru have similar lakes, and in Peru are dry beds' of lakes which formerly existed there, now a mass of borax and other salts.
Four-fifths of the world's supply of vana dium is produced by a single mine in Peru, which yields about 3,000 tons annually. The mine has much greater possibilities if there were a larger market for its product.
About one-tenth of the total production of tungsten is supplied by Latin America; Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil joining to make up their yearly output of 1,200 tons of 60 per cent ore.