| Show cinc its present present bosl position tion and its prospects the following article is in composed of excerpts from remarks made on the subject of zinc its present position and its prospects by aar it ingalls at the recent meeting of the new york section of the mining and metallurgical society of Ai america and published in the last issue of an by permission of the society there Is much interest ing information to the miners of zinc and zinc lead ores in what mr ingalls relates in speaking on this subject in the space of half an hour I 1 assume that my treatment of it must be economic time will not permit me to go into the technologic although that has direct ceo economic bearings first let us consider what are the uses of zinc in the united states we employ it most largely for the galvanizing galvan zing of iron and steel next in importance is brass making these two uses account for about 80 per cent then comes sheet zinc taking about 11 per cent the remainder of the consumption is distributed among zinc white atomized zinc dust die castings slush castings and for the of lead it is helpful to analyze these uses about half the zinc employed for galvanizing is for coating sheets next comes tubes then wire and wire cloth then the coating of shaped articles such as pole line hardware general hardware hollow ware and chaims chaipis chai ais the sheet zinc is used for roofing flash ings floor coverings wash boards fruit jar covers batteries and a myriad of things in europe a great deal of sheet zinc is used for roofing much more than with us and for that reason the proportion of zinc rolled there is larger than with us it appears thus that zinc is a metal of very diverse use different kinds of zinc here I 1 must digress long enough to refer to the different kinds of zinc copper is copper and lead is lead but commercial zinc may be several things commercial zinc is commonly called spelter and the ordinary product is is an alloy of about per cent zinc and about per cent lead plus some impurities neither copper nor lead is so employed i e as such an alloy we have also what we call high grade zinc which is refined or is produced naturally to a degree of about per cent of zinc and thus approaches the refinement of commercial copper and lead cadmium the commonest impurity of spelter teri has a hardening effect if the spelter be burned for zinc white it has a discoloring coloring dis effect the difference between pure zinc and spelter of per cent zinc is astonishing shelters Sp elters of per cent and per cent are like two different metals even the common spelter may be distinguished as hard and soft and the sheet zinc rolled from it may be hard or soft these differences play a good deal of a part in the uses of the metal zinc is not characterized by such indispensable uses as copper and lead I 1 mean uses for which nothing else will suffice we are not constrained to use galvanized iron except to a limited extent for much of our galvanized sheets we may substitute painted black sheets for many of the uses of sheet zinc we may employ other things in the making of brass zinc in variable proportions is an essential constituent but brass itself is an alloy that in many respects courts competition and is confronted by substitutes As a pigment zinc oxide is a competitor of white lead As an ingredient of rubber it is itself subject to the inroads of carbon black we may say of lead that for some of its most important uses it must be had at any price we should not be safe in saying the same of zinc anyway not in peaceful times zinc consumption and production in recent years we have been using per head of population about 9 lbs ibs of zinc as spelter and about 1 lb ib in the form of oxide and made directly from ore our consumption of lead is about 14 lb ib and of copper about 12 lb ib of each of these metals we use more per person than does any of the principal countries of europe the worlds production of spelter from 1913 to 1924 both years inclusive was about metric tons consumption was about the same in 1913 production was about one million tons that figure was recorded again ag ain in 1917 and once more in 1924 outside of the united states which produces about 50 per cent of the total the worlds spelter is produced to a large extent in countries different from where the ore originates commercially we look to the smelters shelters sm elters who produce the metal but economically we should rather eye the miners who produce the ore outside of the united states the largest zinc producing district in the world is broken hill new south wales which in 1924 delivered ore containing about metric tons of zinc reckoned as extractable poland and polish silesia produced about tons italy the remainder of the worlds zinc production was accredited to 15 different countries no one of which produced so much as tons however this year canada will produce in excess of that quantity only a few great zinc mines there are but few great zinc mines in the world meaning single mines of large ore development the broken hill lode has been and still is the greatest other major mines are the franklin and sterling in new jersey the butte superior and now probably the orphan girl in butte the sullivan in british columbia the blei scharley and mathilde in upper silesia the baldwin in burma the Ridd ersk in siberia the monteponi Monte poni and malfitano Malf idano in sardinia what we call the tri state district of the united states is an extensively mineralized region but the individual mines are relatively small A large part of the zinc production of the world comes from a great many small mines mines smelting smelling Sm elting end suffers from overbuilt condition the american zinc smelting smelling sm elting industry st still ill suffers fron from the overbuilt condition in which it has been since the war at the middle of 1925 there were in the united states six zinc smelt eries idle with an aggregate of about retorts there were 23 in operation with an aggregate of 01 about retorts with an average of 69 per cent of 01 their capacity then in use the american capacity for el electrolytic ec tro zinc production was then about tons tolls per annum the ane which will be increased to tons soon after end of this year the total capacity of active plants in the united states at the middle of 1925 was for the production of tons of zinc per annum soon to be about tons the 1 he actual production in 1925 has been about tons pe per month such partial operation of course produces an ad a overhead rheid verse effect on the cost quotient in respect of over ove g which is equivalent to saying that the american zinc indus binau try as a whole is overstaffed over staffed bould u the correction of the unsatisfactory situation situ atlon wo n naturally be consolidation and concentration of production in a relatively few plants such a plan is now and a ever in this industry owing to divergence of interests the extent to which the zinc smelt eries great individually as they are exist as mere appendages of greater enterprises elimination of surplus capacity can be brought about therefore only by the natural process of competition and the survival of the fittest As a consequence of such constraint all smelters shelters sm elters have operated on narrow margins and not a few have been in red ink the only concerns that have been in a comfortable position are those possessing a completely integrated business i e producing and their own ore and perhaps manufacturing products from their metal another consequence of the severity of competitive conditions is the frantic efforts that are made by everybody to improve methods in trying to do that an obstacle is the attitude of labor which tries to seize for itself the benefit of any improvements or else opposes improvements for the sake of its own ease in working electrolytic producers immune the electrolytic producers are immune from such obstacles st acles for by their process the labor requirement per ton of ore is much less than in the distilling process and the labor requirement is so organized as to be under better technical control for this reason among others electrolytic production increases and thereby adds to the competition that the distillers have to meet for brass manufacture electrolytic zinc is now especially favored and the export trade is largely in that grade of metal electrolytic zinc is now being produced or is going to be produced in several small works in europe in american and australian experience an electrolytic zinc plant must be of large size in order to be profitable but the lower wages in europe and some other favorable factors may lead to the enjoyment of a different experience there in distilling or smelting smelling sm elting as it is commonly called the average cost in europe appears to be about the same as in the united states in so far as we may generalize in respect of that intricate and variable subject but the european employs more men per ton of ore in germany this has been to some extent the means of affording employment during the immediate postwar post war period and as german industry revives more economy of labor and at the same time higher wages may inay ensue both in belgium and germany strenuous efforts toward metallurgical improvement are being exerted an interesting feature of 1925 has been the vigorous steps that have been taken toward increasing zinc smelting smelling sm elting in great britain another interesting event has beebi the negotiation by an american banking house for an important interest in gieschen Gie erben which is one of the large zinc zinc smelters shelters sm elters of upper silesia and owns the most important zinc mines in that province the transfer to poland of a part of upper silesia included all of its zinc smelt eries and nearly all of its bince mines since which time they have passed extensively into french and other foreign hands good prices and new mines while the metallurgical division of the zinc indest industry ry has been troubled in 1925 the mining division has been quite prosperous the price for zinc was high in the early part of the year around midyear mid year it fell off in the autumn it rose to a higher level than for a good many years zinc mines then became very profitable I 1 think that zinc is working into a co condition edition similar to that which is prevailing in lead but in a milder way this mis may be illuminated by a comparison with copper with no thought of indicating what may be the position of f copper 10 without doubt production P ro reduction or 20 years from now any would be increased quickly and largely if there were demand for it and that would happen at not much advance advance a at tall all not so with over a price perhaps at no either lead or zinc for present ore developments are not adequate flotation helping in supply new mines are being developed at butte and in idaho A large new supply of zinc ore is being drawn from the region gion around salt lake city in utah by virtue of enterprising application of the flotation process and such application elsewhere is perhaps one of the most hopeful things for bringing out increased ore supply in upper silesia there are great accumulations of low grade dumps that may be capable of concentration for zinc extraction perhaps by flotation perhaps by rough reduction and burning perhaps by both zinc mines are being developed on the west coast of tasmania electrolytic zinc production from an important mine in rhodesia will soon begin there are supposed to be zinc resources in eastern canada and the initial production may ere long begin from them with the help of the water power development up tle the nay river on the other hand we exhaust old reserves the butte superior mine is nearing its end the broken hill mines are waning their present production of about tons of ore per annum being less than half what it was a few years ago when about tons of concentrate were drawn from them the production of tons of spelter in 1924 is far below that of tons in 1913 the present development of mineralized area in districts of oklahoma and kansas indicates a life of only a few years for them As regards market prices I 1 have no idea that the world is not going to be able to get in one way or another all the zinc that it needs I 1 do see hover a present condition that is likely to continue and is going to constrain us to go further afield for supplies to such countries as mexico bolivia and china which indeed we are already doing we shall be further constrained to increase efforts to treat poor ores all of this means a higher range of price such a one as will constitute the impulse to do those things I 1 made this prophecy more than a year ago it is no longre a venturesome one lor for those very things have happened and are happening I 1 do not mean to air imply aply that a ac price for spelter is is at present a proper price and that the market will go higher I 1 am not making any immediate market prognostication whatsoever for the immediate market price is always made by other considerations than the economic what I 1 do mean is simply that we should be prepared for a higher level of zinc prices than in the past and that we mav consider that for some time to come the general trend will be upward |
