IKON-ORE RESERVES. 209 



industry to the present time the reserves of unexplored countries are 

 likely to be developed only so fast as the population requires it. In 

 this case such new discoveries will not figure in the reserves available 

 to the countries at present producing iron ore. The gene"ralization 

 might perhaps be made that each continent must ultimately depend 

 on its own resources of iron ore and can not count, to any large 

 extent, on drawing supplies from other parts of the world. 



It is of interest to apply the same method of calculation used for 

 world's supply and consumption to the United States. If the rate of 

 increase of consumption be projected for the next one hundred years 

 on the basis of the increase for the past thirty years — that is, the 

 period used by President Hadfield, and the lines superposed upon his 

 diagram — it would appear that the rate of increase of production for 

 the United States is greater than that of the world. Also the rate 

 of production for the United States is greater than that of any other 

 comitry. With the total reserve of iron ore in the United States 

 estimated by Tornebohm at 1,100.000,000 tons, the supph^ would be 

 exhausted in less than twenty years if the calculated rate of increase 

 of production holds.* With the reserve estimated by Tornebohm, 

 up to the present time 39 per cent of our total supply has been used, 

 and 29 per cent has been produced during the last thirty years. 



The late Edward Atkinson estimated that if the per capita con- 

 sumption remains the same the average annual increase in population 

 of 2,000,000 for the United States calls for a yearly increase of pig 

 iron of half a million tons, and that when the probable increase in 

 per capita consumption is taken into account the total production of 

 the United States Avill increase at a considerably greater rate. 



Professor Shaler concludes that the iron-ore supi:)lies of the United 

 States are not likely to last for more than a century. 



Others have reached similar conclusions as to the relatively early 

 exhaustion of the ore deposits, few venturing to predict a longer life 

 for the known deposits of more than one hundred years. The 

 strenuous efforts of larger interests in recent years to secure ore 

 deposits and to explore ore-bearing fields are evidence that the pos- 

 sibility of the early exhaustion of the ores is appreciated by many of 

 the companies most concerned. 



The situation is probably not so unfavorable as the above esti- 

 mates would indicate. The assigned rate of increase of production 

 may be too great, for the development of the iron industry of the 

 United States for the past thirty years has been a phenomenal one. 



oDr. William Kent calculates a pig-iron production of 07,340,000 tons in the 

 year 1920 on the basis of the rate of increase of production since 1880. Iron 

 Trade Review, Jan. 10, 1907, pp. 72-78. 



SM 1906 14 



