70 



NATURE 



[October 14, 1915 i 



skiold's list, will be a boon to students, especially 

 in conjunction with the comparative table of maps 

 in other known copies — one in the collection of 

 the Royal Geographical Society — lately supplied 

 by Dr. Wieder, of Amsterdam. Other additions 

 are the rare first edition of Ortelius, and six 

 further editions of Mercator. The most complete 

 of the latter (1639), of which a copy was lately 

 acquired by the Royal Geographical Society, is 

 not, however, to be found, any more than in our 

 own national collection. We still miss a much- 

 needed guide to the arrangement in the form of 

 page-headings. 



L.ord, Kitchener and his Work in Palestine. By 

 Dr. Samuel Daiches. Pp. 88. (London : Luzac 

 and Co., 1915.) Price 2s. 6d. net. 

 This lecture will serve admirably to acquaint the 

 general reader with a little-known aspect of Lord 

 Kitchener's great capacity. His Palestine ex- 

 ploration work falls in the years 1874 to 1878, and 

 the success which attended it revealed him as a 

 successful surveyor, a scientific observer, and a 

 writer of convincing and trustworthy reports. 

 The book provides an interesting and instructive 

 account of his contributions to our knowledge of 

 the geography, geology, and natural history of 

 Palestine. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



The Manganese-Ore Requirements of Germany. 



Prof. Carpenter, in his article on " Munition 

 Metals " in Nature of July 15, gives estimates of the 

 resources of the enemy countries in the metals required 

 for war purposes. This information will doubtless 

 prove of great value, especially to those whose duty 

 it is to study the weak points in the armour of our 

 enemies and to devise methods of accentuating those 

 weaknesses; it is consequently desirable that the in- 

 formation so gathered together should be as accurate 

 as possible. In summing up, Prof. Carpenter states 

 that the enemy countries can certainly produce five 

 out of the ten metals considered, without having 

 recourse to imports, these five being Iron, manganese, 

 chromium, zinc, lead ; whilst he regards it as doubtful 

 whether they can produce from domestic sources suffi- 

 cient of the remaining five metals — nickel, copper, 

 aluminium, tin, and antimony. 



In the course of a lecture delivered in Calcutta 

 recently I had occasion to review the situation as 

 regards manganese-ore, and arrived at the conclusion 

 that the internal resources of the enemy countries In 

 manganese-ore were inadequate to supply more than 

 a small proportion of the internal requirements ; so 

 that In my opinion manganese should be transferred 

 to the second group of metals noticed by Prof. Car- 

 penter. Consequently it seems that a short review of 

 the facts of the case will not be out of place 



In the following table are collected statistics stated 



in metric tons of the steel production of the world, of 



Germany, and of Austria-Hungary, the manganese-ore 



production of the world, and the manganese-ore 



NO. 2398, VOL. 96] 



secured by Germany, and by Austria-Hungary, for Jj 

 each of the eight years 1906 to 19 13 : — - ry 



^__ li 



Aoie.— These fij-ures are based on statistics given in the "Mineral 

 Industry." [See also "Records, Geolog. Survey, India," xlvi. pp. 144 

 "45, (1915)]- the German " Manganese-ore secured " is the excess of im- 

 ports over exports, the German ''Manganese-ore" being excluded as 

 referring mainly' to manganiferous iron ore, which is excluded from this 

 table. The Austrian *' Manganese-ore secured " is the excess of production 

 //us imports over exports. 



From this we see that the German steel industry 

 has shown a remarkable expansion, and that conse- 

 quently In order to estimate the German requirements 

 we should use only the most recent statistics. In the 

 three years 191 1 to 1913 Germany produced an annual 

 average of 17-4 million tons of steel, and secured 

 possession of an annual average of 622,400 tons of 

 manganese-ore, of which 532,500 tons were imported 

 chiefly from Russia and India, and the balance of 

 about 90,000 tons (consisting, by the way, not of high- 

 grade manganese-ore, like the imported material, but 

 of manganiferous iron-ore) was won in Germany. 



Turning to Austria-Hungary, we find that during 

 the same three years she produced an annual average 

 of 2-6i million tons of steel, and secured possession of 

 100,200 tons of manganese-ore, of which 69,400 tons 

 were Imported and 30,600 mined within the empire 

 (including Bosnia-Herzegovina). 



Assuming, therefore, that the two Teutonic empires 

 require approximately as much manganese-ore when at 

 war as in times of peace, it is evident that they have 

 to provide 532,500-1-69,400 = 601,900 tons of ore to re- 

 place their imports In time of peace. There are four 

 possible sources to be considered : — 



(i) A development of Internal resources. 



(2) Imports from their ally Turkey, which posseses 

 manganese-ore deposits. 



(3) Imports from neutral countries. 



(4) Accumulated stocks. 



(i) A consideration of the German deposits of man- 

 ganese-ore as at present described shows that they are 

 all of small Importance. The manganese-ore usually 

 occurs either in Irregular lenticular or nodular deposits, 

 or In thin veins, In no case In sufficient quantity to 

 permit of work on a really large scale, whilst a large 

 proportion of the so-called manganese-ore is of very 

 low grade, and more aptly termed manganiferous 

 iron-ore. It does not seem probable that Germany 

 could increase her annual average production of 

 90,000 tons by more than a few tens of thousands of 

 tons. 



The deposits In Austria-Hungary (especially In 

 Bosnia) contain some hig-h-grade managanese-ore, but 

 the published accounts of these deposits do not Indicate 

 that an annual production of a little more than 30,000 

 tons could be Increased to several times that amount. 



Perhaps by Intense activity the Teutonic empires 



