OCR Text |
Show 0F UlhES J u. 4 : SALT LAKE : ,h:A! CITY op'Vi s 'ALLEY' SMELTER nicies ....'. COrrEI ....mil LEAD, per , . fiOLP '.( ZINC' MRSTERN MINERAL SUE VEX I It Iht tahi.Hi 0 Utah the MTaeL M wirier V SAMe 1LT7W- inM - SMS BASSe A SILVER (prr M. aew mimti) W.Hr '.SIABc SILVER (per mu epet) relapmeale Features. Mining, Oil, Financial VOL 14, NO. 9 Salt. Lake City, .Utah, February 26, 1943 1 f tbe wtittaliii It b rarrM rack week. $2.00 Year, $1 .00; 6 Mos. American West Has Store Of Vanadium Industry Sets Records , Production, For Year Highest Ever Made Wyoming, Idaho In the last twelve "months the United States has overtaken and passed its enemies in Tthe output of every category of .weapons the and war materials, states current issue of The - Guaranty Survey, published by. the Guar anty Trust Company of New WASHINGTON A striking piece of geologic .research by government scientists who combed through former ocean beds, now forming the states of Idaho and Wyoming, has ."hit a jack pot" of a vital war metal vanadium a report to Secretary of Contribute Metal Ore -- - . T Yor The-- country is now1 building ships at the rate of 14,400,000 tons, a year, almost a million more - than the combined tonfleets nage of the merchant of Germany ,Italy and Japan in 1939. The Survey - continues. This record has been achieved despite her. fac that more than 90 per cent of the workers in the industry have had to , be trained for the jobs they are Every world ' record for merwas chant ship construction broken in 1942, according to Admiral Emory S.' Land,' chairman of the . Maritime Commission. At no- - time in history-no- t even during the greatlast-shipbuilding - war-ha- s program of the any country ever built so much merchant shipping in a single year. The .presidents eighMnll-l- i n objective was slightly exceeded by. the. completion of 746 atffs of dead weight tons. This total is exclusive of the vessels built for the armed forces and 800 small craft. The year's production represents an increase of more than 700 per cent above the 1941 figure. In addition to the new ships built, the industry serviced, more than 15,000 vessels. At tlie end of the year the construe: tion program was going forward at the rate of four ships a day. Another industrial record, was broken last - year by the- production of more metals and minerals than ever before in the hisof the United States.' The ' tory value. of all mineral products, according to the Bureau of Mines, exceeded 10 per $7 billion, , cent above the and 8 per cent above. the previous peak in 1929,. when prices were abnormally high. Among the outstanding gains were those in aluminum and magnesium pro- duction, which reached totals . equal to several times the 1940. figures. Record output was re-also for iron ore; pig Iron, ported ferro-alloycopper, chromite, vanadium, tungsten potash, phosphate rock and a number of other products. The production of domestic manganese ore was the largest since theilast war. Expansion in Metal Industries The United State& ' i produced more than a billion pounds of aluminum in. 1942, according to the . a review, made public .by Aluminum Company of America. This output represents an annual rate greater than that of all Europe and is believed to equal eight times the Japanese production. When the 1943 peak is reached, the producing . capacity of this country will be more than two billion pounds annually, exceeding by 63 per cent the entire world output in 1938 and representing a volume that the Axis cannot hope to . All Out For Victory!t Hie . Tintic Standard it tyjHcal of metalliferous mines of the West that ere playing inch e vital role in the war effort by producing, euential metals in. maximum quantities. now;-doin- . ion-to- . . - 1941-total- . . . s, Nazi-controll- . ed . achieve. Expansion of fabricating facil ities is keeping pace with that of metal itself. One sheet mill alone Is producing . monthly one and one-hatimes as much alloy sheet, the type used in military aircraft, a$ the entire country used annually before the war. Despite the enormous demand, the price of the metal has been substantially reduced. At the beginning of the present war, aluminum ingots sold for 20 cents a pound; four price See GUARANTY On. rage 2 high-strengt- h lf . -- - I the Interior Harold L. Ickes showed today. The discovery, which should go far toward making the nation in a crucial war necessity, was made by the Geological Survey. Vanadium, more precious' than gold to the steel makers of America, is a "tough-ener- " for armor plate, guns, machine tools and other ingredients of victory. .Up to this time the country has been dependent' for an important part of its supplies upon importing the substance from foreign lands across submarine-infested sea routes. Reporting . the - important strike" to- Secretary Ickes, the Geological Survey estimated that the ore bed discovered in Idaho and Wyoming can yield many millions of tons of ore that con tain valuable percentages of vanadium. Its utilization would free valuable war shipping space tor other much needed . uses. vThe story,-.whic- h got its start millions of years ago at the bot- tom of a prehistoric sea extending ever portions of what are now four states, is a saga of patient and careful work . by a scientific government bureau whose job K is to find out what is in the earths, crust.'-IIs a fragment from a larger story of one of the greatest combinings man has ever given the earth in a quest for war metals. It showed how a search that started after peacetime farmers phosphate fertilizers led down a trail that was followed over mountains and valleys, in burro wrings in hillsides, through laboratories, institutions and universities. It involves searches in governmental records until the puzzle was solved and the obscure vanadium-bearin- g beds revealed. One of those useless scientific facts" turned up in research work a couple of wars ago was the first clue that started the searchers down the long trail. "Back in 1911." the Geological Survey reported, "survey geologists were studying the phosphate beds of Idaho and Western Wyoming in preparation for the day when our eastern phosphate beds would be depleted and full knowlreserves edge of our Western would be suddenly demanded. As is usual, samples of the phosphate rock .were carefully analyzed in the surveys chemical laboratories. Those analyses revealed among other things the presence of small amounts of vanadium with the phosphate. The phosphate rocks exist as beds a few feet thick, interlayer-.ewith several hundred feet ot .other rocks that collectively, are known to geologists as the Formation. This Phophoria formation is made up of layers of phosphate scattered rock through the beds of shale, mudstone and impure limestone, but little different from the surface rocks of much of the surrounding cattle and sheep country. They were deposited on the, sfea flor many millions of years' ago. "Studies of the. phosphate deposits were continued 3ear after year as a part of the surveys classification of public lands. Analyses were made by chemists of fhe survey, the Department of Agriculture and others, including private companies. In 1925, a commercial mining company, aware by that time of the traces of vanadium in the phosphate See VANADIUM On Page 4 self-sufficie- nt . k nhm Young Names War Mineral Committee of the minerals and metals advis- ory committee and the mineral re sources operating committee was announced today by Howard f. Young, .director. Mineral Resources Division, WPB, and chairman of both committees. Function of the committees, as outlined by WPB Chairman Donald M. Nelson on Jan. 30, is to coordinate and' correlate the broad programs of all govemmen tal agencies for increasing 'the supply of essential minerals and metals .The larger advisory committee, composed of twelve governmental agencies, is to consider broad general programs, with specific operating plants left to the smaller operating committee. Minerals and metals advisory . - committee- - ' War Department Herbert G. Moulton, consultant to the resources and production division. Lieut. Department Navy Comm. E. H. Augustus, chief of materials branch; office of procurement and material.Board of Economic Warfare-- Dr. Alan Bateman; dhiefof metals and minerals division, Office of .V. . Imports. Reconstruction Finance Corporation Dewitt Smith; vice president, Metals Reserve Company Bureau of Mines Dr. R. ri. Dean, assistant director. Geological Survey Donnel FT Hewett, geologist in charge, section of metalliferous deposits. Bureau of Foreign & Domestic Commerce Walter Janssen, Chief, metal and minerals unit. Office of Civilian Supply. WPB Adams, director, Stanley metals and minerals division. .Office of. Production Research and Development, WPB Dr. C. K. Leith, chief, metals and minerals branch. , Facilities Bureau, WPB Fred Searls, director. . Labor Production Division, WPB Wendell Lund, director. and TransportaStockpiling tion Division, WPB Dr. W. Y. Elliott, director. The operating committee will be composed of Dr. Bateman, Mr, Smith, Dr. Dean and Dr. Harvey N. Davis, director, Office of Production Research and De velopment, WPB. - -- . . . . - Pointing out that the supply of native bauxite for aluminum in the United States is limited. Dr. R. S. Dean, assistant director of the Bureau of Mines, today reported to the annual meeting of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, at New York City that the bureau has formulated a master plan whereby" sufficient amounts of this vital war metal can be obtained through utilizabauxite and other tion of domestic clays, alunite, second-gradWASHINGTON Membership Washington Early Development Of Utah Alunite Seen - high-grad- e e materials.the nonferrou before Speaking metallurgy group of the AIME, Dr. Dean explained that the bureaus program resulted from pilot plant and laboratory research by its chemists and engineers and from the finding of additional millions of tons of available raw materials ' by mining engineers of the bureau. The plan, he said, involves questions of major policy with respect to allocation of construction materials, priorities and logistics which are within the jurisdiction of other war agencies. The bureau of mines program, he stated, has six principal phases: 1. Further exploration of. do mestic bauxite to find increased (first-gradreserves of bayer-grad- e bauxite needed for existing plants now capable of using bauxite in proonly bajrer-grad- e ducing alumina, to supply bayer-grad- e bauxite for Canadian plants and to provide more high-grad- e bauxite, for. use in abrasives In Americas war plants. 2.- ' A fourfold increase in .the bureau's., exploration for second-grad- e bauxite for use in bayer plants now ebeing converted to use this second-gradmaterial. This should . keep reserves virtually alumina-bearin- - g e) - cpnsfSnt. 3. Construction of a plant to mill several millions of tohs of high-silic- a bauxite- - and proud re bau<e 1,800 tons of first-grad- e concentrate daily to supply existing bayer plants until they can be converted. Such a milling plant could be constructed in three months, would be located in an- area which has abundant rehigh-silic- a serves bauxite, and would utilize idle milling equipment. 4. Consiructon of commercial plants foiMhe production of alumina iron domestic clays. - a. ation J of commercial plants fpr extracting alumina from alunite. CL Continued research in metaland milling problems to lurgical assi-the entire aluminum indus- - ''Explaining that high - grade bauxite, much of which is import is the principal source of alu- (for aluminum) in the .United States, Dr. Dean asserted: "Our 1aixite in supply of high-grad- e Ihe United States is limited. IIow: limited, I am not permitted to say, but there is a very definit limit to the length of time our high-grad- e bauxite resources will last at the present rate of exploitation unless supplemented, even though exploration projects of die bureau of mines have considerably increased the figure on re serves." "It is worse than precarious to depend e on imports bauxite), Dr. Dean continued. "So we turn to our e bauxite, which is high in silica or iron, to alunites, to limitless resources of clays, halloy-itand the like." The bureau of mines has reported to Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes that the conversion of bayer plants may take a year, whereas if the bureau's milling plan were adopted, dewould be pendence lessened within three months ' time, the United States would have a continuing Source of high grade bauxite concentrate for abrasives, chemicals and for shipments to Canada, and this nations aluminum-producin- g plants would be able to reach capacity production much sooner, In urging the utilization of alunite and clays, the bureau has pointed out that even with intensive exploratory work for new bauxite, a milling program, and the conversion of bayer plants, the United States still, cannot produce sufficient- alumina "to place us in a.- secure position for a loilg war.- The WPB recently received - detailed proposal bas ed in part on. bureau research suggesting the construction of a plant ho .produce, alumina from the Hobart butte clay deposits in Oregon. The bureau has urg ed that the ammonium sulfate process be used in treating the Hobart butte ore. Meanwhile, the bureau is 'continuing its studies of clay deposits of the nation and is ascertaining their Availability and suitability for the production of alumina by various profor cesses. Suggestions other for and other processes plants known clay deposits are being formulated. Exploratory work of the bureau revealed the availability of millions of tons of alunite in (of water-born- e high-grad- low-grad- e . upon-import- - - See ALUMINUM Oa Page 2 t . - . d , . , : |