October 14, 1915] 



NATURE 



171 



might increase their output of manganese-ores and 

 n uii^aniferous iron-ores by 100,000 tons annually, but 

 <cems exceedingly unlikely, both from the char- 

 of the deposits and from the fact that in times 

 ace the existence of a large market for manganese- 

 iiust have created every incentive towards intensive 

 <ing of the domestic manganese-ore deposits. 

 Turkey is known to have manganese-ores at 

 .1] localities, but information is very scanty. Of 

 it years no production has been reported, but a 

 \ ears ago Turkey produced from 14,000 to 49,000 

 of ore annually. Of the jiroducing localities the 

 one mentioned in Turkey-in-Europe was the 

 indra district, which is now part of Greece. In 

 Minor manganese-ores have been worked in the 

 prcvmces of Trebizond and Aidin. In view of Russian 

 naval activity in the Black Sea and the absence of 

 railways, the Trebizond ores must be cut off from 

 Constantinople. Aidin is, however, connected to Con- 

 stantinople by rail viA Smyrna, and ore from this 

 region could consequently be forwarded, as long as 

 Arough traffic is permitted at Smyrna by the Allies. 

 But as the .'\idin ores are reported to occur in pockets 

 in limestone, no considerable develooment in this area 

 seems possible. Ores have also been reported as 

 occurring at one or two localities in the country to the 

 south of the Sea of Marmora, and might supply a 

 certain quantity of ore for shipment to Constantinople. 

 Considering, however, the undeveloped state of Asia 

 Minor and the bad communications, it seems improb^bl'> 

 that Turkey will be able to aid her allies to any marked 

 extent. 



(3) The third possible source of manganese-ore is 

 imports from neutral countries. Now by far the 

 larger proportions of the world's output of manganese- 

 ore comes from three countries, namely, India, Russia, 

 and Brazil, which during the five vears 1008 to igi2 

 (I have not yet been able to obtain complete figures 

 for 1913) contributed respectively d-^-S per cent., 372 

 per cent., and 12-5 per cent., totalling 935 per cent, 

 of the world's total production.^ 



The export of Indian ore is prohibited to all destina- 

 tions except the United Kingdom and France; the 

 export of the Russian manganese-ore to enemv coun- 

 tries is doubtless prohibited, whilst the hard facts of 

 the geographical situation prevent its export to all 

 neutral countries except Rumania and Bugaria,^ and 

 we can trust our Allies to see that no managanese-ore 

 finds its way to Germany and Austria through this 

 route. There are two reasons whv Germanv and 

 Austria cannot fall back on Brazil for their supplies 

 of manganese-ore, namely, the British Navy and the 

 that Brazilian ore must be more than ever in 

 nd in the United States of America, always its 



; customer, now that .America is cut off from the 



Indian and Russian supplies, for the United States, as 

 T»r>!nted out in the footnote, has no domestic man- 

 -e-ore supplies of her own worth mention. 



• f. Carpenter overlook* the Brazilian production, amounting roughly 

 ^X5 tons annually, and name« the United Stales of America as one of 



rre chief nroduce-s of manganese-ore in iqi3, whereas the 1913 pro- 

 1 of the United States of America was the insignificant amount of 



■■ ns out of the world's total production of over two million tons. 



error is doubtless due to a misleading habit on the part of certain 

 American compilfrs of statistics of includinc manganiferous iron-ores 

 under the term manganese-ore. This manganiferous iron-ore production 

 ranges from five to nine hundred thousand tons annually, but the percentage 

 of manganese presfcnt in this iron-ore is only from 2 to 20, and such ore 

 cannot be regarded as a manganese-ore, is doubtless never sold as such, and 

 must be excluded from the world's totals of manganese. ore production. 

 Another slight error has ajso crept into Prof. Carpenter's article : he states, 

 referring to the production of Russia, India, and the United States of 

 America, that " the raw material is pyrolusite, a ' straight ' manganese-ore 

 corresponding when pure to Mn02." This is true only of the Russian ore ; 

 the American ore referred to is a manganiferous hematite, whilst the Indian 

 «re is of mixed mineralogical composition. Although some of the Indian 

 manganese-ore is pyrolusitic, by far the larger proportion is a mixture of 

 hraunite and psilomelane, whilst in some localities hollandite is an important 



'- [.Since t*>is letter was written, Bulgaria has ceased to be a neutral 

 country. — En.] 



NO. 2398, VOL. 96] 



The 65 per cent, of manganese-ore not produced 

 by the three countries mentioned is obtained from 

 Austria-Hungary, Spain, Japan, Greece, France, the 

 United Kingdom, Sweden, and Italy. Of the three 

 neutral countries amongst those enumerated, Sweden 

 is the only one conveniently situated for Germany. 

 The Swedish annual production is a litth more than 

 Sooo/tons, and, judging from observations made during 

 a visit to the Swedish manganese mines, I should say 

 that the Swedish production was capable of but ver\- 

 small expansion. Manganese-ore deposits are also 

 known to occur in Bulgaria, but they are of low grade 

 and small extent, so that they could not prove of much 

 value. It seems evident then that Germany and 

 Austria cannot find salvation in neutral countries. 



(4) As the three possible sources already considered 

 do not appear to hold out hope that Germany and 

 Austria could obtain their peace requirements of man- 

 ganese-ore in time of war, it is possible that the 

 enemy countries made provision for this disability by 

 accumulating large stocks of manganese-ore in times 

 of peace. Whether this has been done or not can be 

 deduced only indirectlv. From the table on p. 170 we 

 see that during the years 1906 to 1913, taking the 

 world as a whole, 3-15 tons of manganese-ore were 

 produced for every 100 tons of steel made, whilst 

 curiously enough the figures for Germany alone for 

 the same period show that that country received 

 exactly the same proportion of manganese-ore per 

 100 tons of steel, namely, 3-15 tons. 



Assuming that German metallurgy requires for its 

 various purposes as high a percentage of manganese 

 as the rest of the world, it seems reasonable to deduce 

 from the foregoing figures that Germany actually con- 

 sumed most of the manganese-ore received during the 

 eight years in question, and that therefore by the end 

 of 1913 she could not have accumulated any consider- 

 able stocks of manganese-ore. I must note that in 

 making the above calculations I have excluded figures 

 for man£?aniferous iron-ores from both the German 

 and world's figures' as confusing the issue. During 

 the eight years in question, however, the German total 

 production of so-called manganese-ore (mostly man- 

 ganiferous iron-ore) was 622,500 tons. But there is 

 no reason for regarding this figure as a measure of 

 accumulated stocks. It is instead rather a measure 

 of the fact that Germany really requires a higher 

 amount of manganese-ore per 100 tons of steel pro- 

 duced than most countries, owing to the necessit}' of 

 adding manganese-ore or manganiferous iron-ore to 

 the blast-furnace burden in smelting the sulphurous 

 phosphoric minette iron-ores of Lorraine. During the 

 same eight years, 1906-13, Austria-Hungary obtained 

 420 tons of manganese-ore for 100 tons of steel made. 

 I have no information available to show whether or 

 not there are any peculiarities in Austrian metallurgy 

 requiring the use of a larger amount of manganese- 

 ore than usual. If there are not, then these figures 

 suggest an accumulation of stocks to the extent of 

 about 175,000 tons by .Austria by the end of 1913. 

 The conclusions arrived at are admittediv open to con- 

 siderable doubts, but it seems probable that by the end 

 of I9i3the Teutonic Powers had not accumulated more 

 than 200,000 tons of manganese-ore, and possibly con- 

 siderably less. 



.\t present I have been unable to obtain statistics 

 relative to German imports of manganese-ore in 1914, 

 except that there was nothing abnormal in the amount 

 sent from India up to the outbreak of war. Had 



3 Manganiferous iron-ores are produced by the following countries :— 

 r Average for 



1908-12 



United States of America 686,302 metric tons 



Germany 81,040 ,, 



Greece 41.842 1 



Italy >S.i65 .> 



