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Show Lpil INI TO BKpiD Large Federal Appropriation Appropria-tion Provided to Develop Vast Resources. WILL SAVE SHIPPING Metal Necessary in Manufacture Manu-facture of Steel Subjected to Intense Strain. By FREDERIC J. HASKIN. Special to The Tribune WASHINGTON, D. C, May 11. Do you know what vanadium is: Did you realize that without this rare mineral the. Germans could never have manufactured manu-factured the. great cannons with which they have been shelling Paris, because vanadium must be employed in the manufacture man-ufacture of any steel subject to intense ik .ated strains'? Have you ever pfheard that in the summer of 191G the German merchant submarine Deutsch-laad Deutsch-laad loaded fifteen tons of metallic vanadium aboard their craft at Baltic more and were decorated by the kaiser on their arrival at Bremen because they had brought to Germany a supply of a mineral essential to war, of which not a trace is' to be found in any of the central powers'? The fifteen tons of vanadium which were carried from this country in the hold of a single submarine constituted three per cent of the present total annual production of the mineral in the United States. Our entire native production produc-tion of 550 tons in 1917 could have been shipped abroad on a 3000-ton freighter. Until the scarcity of ships it impracticable, wa were importing about 3000 metric tons of vanadium a year from Peru, where the richest known deposits are found. Deposits in Colorado. Nevertheless, this metal is present in large, undeveloped sources in San Miguel county, Colorado, where the ore was mined in 1910 for forty to fifty-cents fifty-cents a pound. Since 1912 these deposits depos-its have been allowed to lie idle, notwithstanding not-withstanding the fact that vanadium now fetches four dollars and more a pound, and is in tremendous demand. Vanadium is but one of a hundred minor minerals necessary for war purposes pur-poses which are present in large quantities quan-tities in the United States, but have hitherto been largely imported from other countries. On the last day of April the house of representatives passed a hill providing for the development of these resources under government copfctol. and carrying an appropriation jffTten million dollars for this purpose. To Make U. S. Independent. j. It is the expectation of Secretary of e Interior Lane that with the work-ingwout work-ingwout of this measure America will becoSie independent of importation for practically every important mineral, except, tin, of which hardly a trace is to be found anywhere in the United States. Moreover, officers of the shipping ship-ping board estimate, if the vessels now employed in bringing to this country from Africa. South American and Asia minerals which are already present here in large quantities are set free, upwards up-wards of 400,000 tons of shipping will be saved for transporting men and supplies sup-plies to France. For these reasons the mineral bill has been stamped essential war legislation by President Wilson, and has gone to the senate with this indorsement. Under the terms of the legislation every encouragement will be given by the government to the development of the deposits of these minerals in America. Amer-ica. In the words of Secretary Lane, Uncle Sam wishes to be able" to say to the small miner and the captain of industry alike, "Gentlemen, atahe present time we cannot build a batne-shipor batne-shipor turn out a field piece without Importing materials necessary to their Manufacture. If you will dig into our mineral wealth and bring -out for the nation what we have hidden away in abundance, ! will see that you are not ruined by the oonipatitibn. of foreign countries. T will assure you that during dur-ing the war your industry will be so stabilized that you will have no difficulty dif-ficulty iu getting your money back.'' Big Profits Barred. This is the meaning of the government govern-ment control provided by the bill. To insure against profiteering, tho secretary secre-tary of the interior is empowered to punish with at $5000 tine or two years' imprisonment any individual or corporation corpora-tion that takes "advantage of the government gov-ernment license to make unjust or unreasonable un-reasonable profits. Antimony, bismuth, cerium, chromium, chro-mium, graphite, iridium, manganese, pyrites the names of the minerals specified spec-ified iu this "bill, read like the table of contents of a mineralogy. Yet their importance to the nation now is great, despite the fact that most of the people in it never heard of them. Shutting off manganese and chromite from our munition plants would stop the war programme of America within a month. For the manufacture of 'every ton of steel from 14 to 15 pounds of pure manganese is required; and although the ore is found extensively through the south and west, America last year produced pro-duced only 32 per cent of her total consumption of almost a million long tons, importing hundreds of thousands of tons from Brazil and a large quantity quan-tity from India. Before the war the average price of manganese ore was about $12 a ton. Nowr it is fetching five times that sum and supply is unable un-able to meet demand. Essential for War Needs. Chromite is essential for war needs from the fact that every shell must be tipped with it, and every piece of armor plate must contain it as a strengthening factor. Vet in 1913, out of 50,000 tons of chromite used in this country, all but 255 tons, or less than half of one per cent, were imported, mostly from Asiatic Turkey. The average price was $16 a ton. Last year 200,000 tons of chromite was used and the demand de-mand far from met. Cutting off the Turkish supply resulted in the importation impor-tation of inferior ore from South Africa and Australasia. Meanwhile, the cost has soared to $80 or $90 a ton, and the bureau of mines predicts that before January chromite will be fetching $150 a ton. Besides its war use, this mineral is invaluable iu leather tanning, which is one explanation of the rising cost of shoes. It is indispensable in the manufacture manu-facture of any steel where extra hardness hard-ness and non-fusability are required. The Electro-Metallurgical company of Niagara Falls has informed the war industries board that it must have 90,000 tons of chromite during the next twelve months a demand which, at present, cannot possibly be met. The influence the mineral bill is destined des-tined to have in developing native ores is shown by a single incident. Company Is Organized. Since the introduction of this measure a company has been formed in Philadelphia Philadel-phia to get out large, undeveloped chromite deposits in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, which, it is believed, will yield at least 10,000 tons of the metal yearly. Prior to the civil war these deposits yielded large quantities of chromite. The history of the rise and fall of the workings read6 like a romance. In the summer of 1827 Isaac Tyson of Baltimore saw in Belair market, near that city, a cart containing a large barrel of cider, held from rolling about by several heavy black rocks. Tyson had studied chemistry in Paris, and" one glance at the stones assured him that they were rich in chromic iron, any one of them worth the cart and cider barrel put together. Worked Before Civil War. Tyson investigated and found that the " stones had been taken from the surface of a farm in Lancaster county, close to the Maryland border. He immediately im-mediately purchased the property. Scattered Scat-tered among the trees in a pasture lot used onlv for grazing cattle there lay in a rude circle nearly thirty tons of stones rich with chromic iron, which then formed the total supply of chrome iron known to exist on the American continent. The value of these stones alone was several times the purchase price paid by Tyson for the entire farm. Until the' civil war large quantities of chrome were taken from the mine which Tyson established on his prop- erty, and many of the first railroad tracks in the United States were hardened hard-ened in manufacture with the ehromit-y crushed from these "black stones." At the outbreak of the civil war, however, the Maryland authorities, sympathetic with the south, refused permission to work veins running across the state border. About the same time large deposits of chromite were discovered in Asiatic Turkey aitd were worked so cheaply as to discourage competition from a nation in the throes of a great war. After the war the workings fell into complete neglect, and lying in an almost al-most uninhabited section, were almost forgotten until F. Lynwood Garrison, a Philadelphia mining engineer of wide reputation, made a recent survey. In his opinion, past extractions have hardly touched the surface of the deposits, which he estimates will easily produce 10,000 tons a 'ear of chrome ore of the very highest quality. A company has now been formed to get out his invaluable invalu-able mineral and transport it to the great sfeel mills of Pennsylvania for war uses. Hidden away all over this great country coun-try are equally valuable deposits of almost al-most all the minerals which America must now import from the ends of the earth. It is the purpose of the govern ment that this development of native resources, undertaken as a war necessity, neces-sity, shall be of lasting benefit to the nation. |