366 ANNALS NEW YORE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



active worker, the producer, geology has become the colleague and helper 

 of the economist, the statistician and the philosopher. 



Like all other changes in fundamental points of view, this one has not 

 come with absolute suddenness. As far back as 1879, certain geologists 

 and engineers began to raise and discuss the question of the duration of 

 the Penns}dvania anthracite. In 1894, the late Eichard P. Ptothwell, 

 long the able editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal, gave these 

 coal fields a future of 70-100 years. Thus, for over thirty years, the 

 question of their death has been a very live one. Even earlier, the future 

 of the coal-fields of Great Britain came up for discussion. A parlia- 

 mentary commission was appointed in 1866 and reported upon the ques- 

 tion in 1871. For forty years, anxiety has prevailed regarding the con- 

 tinued production of our petroleum wells, and naturally so. The very 

 means of production of this useful source of heat and light starts a train 

 of thought along the lines of its permanence. 



Some ten years ago, the question of our reserves in iron ore began to 

 excite interest. Mr. Andrew Carnegie gave most forcible expression to 

 the feeling of alarm in his rectorial address in 1902, at the University of 

 St. Andrews, Scotland. Mr. Carnegie was known from one end of the 

 world to the other as one of our greatest ironmasters, and his words made 

 a profound impression. In his address, he assigned us only enough first- 

 class ore to last for sixty or seventy years and only enough of the inferior 

 grades for thirty years thereafter. We all trembled for some years with 

 the prospect of seeing our greatest industry in the production of metal 

 disappearing within a century. Many thoughtful people began to wonder 

 what would become of us with its extinction. 



I have thought, therefore, that it might be not without interest if we 

 take up this evening the more important of our metals and pass in review 

 some of the fundamental facts of their production, the yield of their ores. 

 the foreign sources, the future probabilities and the effect upon the civili- 

 zation of our own and other lands which would result from their curtail- 

 ment. In a word, we may for a time discuss geology and economics. 



The iron industry in the United States took its rise in the colonies 

 along the Atlantic seaboard and at the outset was based upon the mag- 

 netic ores and brown hematites there occurring. For one hundred and 

 fifty years, its growth was slow. In the decade of the forties and fifties 

 of the past century, it had spread to the Adirondacks and in the fifties 

 began its development in the Lake Superior region. Xot until after the 

 close of the Civil War and the resumption of peaceful activities did this 

 great industry manifest its possibilities. With improved facilities of 

 navigation wliicli placed Lake Superior in easy communication with the 



