JUEYEry,-1905)| 
NATURE 
8) 

munition needs if she could obtain sufficient man- 
ganese. In the second place, the last-named metal 
is relatively widespread and occurs in many 
minerals. It is only the limited demand and the 
abundant supply of high-grade ores to draw upon 
which have confined marketable ores to such pro- 
ducts. The enemy countries will in all probability 
be able to supply their needs by mining lower- 
grade ores within their own territories, and their 
metallurgists will no doubt have been able to make 
the requisite changes in the technology of steel 
manufacture to meet the altered conditions—quite 
apart from any stores of pure ore that may have 
been accumulated before the outbreak of war, and 
apart from any substitutes that may have been 
discovered. 
The case of nickel, however, is very different. 
It is an indispensable constituent of gun and 
armour-plate steel, and of the modern bullet and 
armour-piercing projectile. In all these instances 
its action is specific, and it is doubtful whether any 
satisfactory substitute is known. It is therefore 
a munition metal of the highest importance. The 
world’s production of nickel in 1912 was about 
26,500 metric tons (a metric ton equals 2204 lbs.). 
Of this, Canadian mines and smelters produced 
55 per cent. in the form of a copper nickel matte 
(sulphide), 89 per cent. of which was refined in the 
United States and the remainder at Clydach in 
South Wales, with the production of the pure 
metals, New Caledonia supplied almost all the 
remaining ore required, this being shipped to 
Europe and smelted there. Judged by Canadian 
standards the Norwegian production of nickel was 
very small, the output in 1912 being only about 
400 tons. 
The position, therefore, is that fully 98°5 per 
cent. of the world’s output of nickel ore was being 
produced in the Allied countries before the war 
broke out, and that the remainder was furnished 
by a neutral country. So far as Canada is con- 
cerned the situation was dominated by two com- 
panies, the International Nickel Co. and the Mond 
Nickel Co., while the production of nickel ore in 
New Caledonia was monopolised by two large 
French companies. The only nickel ores situated 
in the enemy countries are kupfernickel (NiAs), 
cloanthite (NiAs,), and nickel glance (NiS,+ 
NiAs,). Each of them can be worked for the 
production of nickel, but how inadequate a source 
of this metal they were may be judged from the 
imports of ore and metal into Germany in 1913. 
In the first six months she imported 6643 metric 
tons of ore and 3416 metric tons of metal. (It 
is to be noted, however, that her exports of the 
same metal were 2409 tons in the same year.) 
The Norwegian nickel production may still be 
available for Germany, but this is nothing like 
enough for her requirements, and apart from pre- 
war stocks she will have to fall back on the above- 
mentioned native ores to furnish the requisite 
quantity of this metal. 
Scarcely less important than nickel is the metal 
chromium, which, though it finds no application 
in the pure state, is an essential constituent of 
armour-plate, armour-piercing projectiles, and 
NO. 2385, VOL. 95] 
high-speed tool steels. Rhodesia and New Caledonia 
furnish between them the bulk of the principal 
chromium ore, chromite (an iron chromium oxide). 
Russia produces substantial amounts, while 
Greece and Asia Minor used to do so, though 
their output has diminished in recent years. It is 
more than likely that the requirements of the 
enemy countries are resulting in an increased out- 
put from the last-named countries, and it will be 
observed that even if Greece joins the Allies the 
Asia Minor supplies, which are sufficient, will still 
be open to the German and Austrian armament 
firms. Chromite is worked up into an alloy of 
iron and chromium (with or without carbon) known 
as ferro-chrome, and applied in this form to the 
production of the particular steel required. 
All shells, whether shrapnel, high-explosive, or 
armour-piercing, are fitted with a copper band 
which serves a double purpose. It prevents con- 
tact between the shell and the gun-barrel, and, 
owing to its great ease of deformation undeér 
| stress, accommodates itself to the very rapidly 
altering stresses set up in the tube after firing, 
making good contact with the rifling of the barrel, 
and thus preventing the rush of gas out of it 
in advance of the projectile. Before the war it 
was customary to use not pure copper, but an 
alloy containing a little zinc, as the material of the 
band, not because the zinc improved the properties 
of the copper, but because it was a cheaper metal, 
and a certain proportion of it could be used with 
only a slight sacrifice of ductility. Now that zinc 
has become much more expensive than copper 
there is no object in doing this. Copper is also the 
main constituent of cartridge brass and shell fuses, 
Admiralty gun metals, and high-tension hydraulic 
bronzes, so that from the point of view of both 
branches of the service it is a most important 
munition metal. 
Of the normal annual world’s output of copper 
about one million tons—the United States of 
America produced 55 per cent. in 1913. They 
are by far the greatest producers of this metal. 
Next came Japan with 7°3 per cent., followed 
closely by Spain and Portugal, Mexico, Aus- 
tralasia, Russia, and Chile, each of which supplied 
between 5 and 4 per cent. Of the Allies Italy 
furnished 0°16 per cent., Great Britain 003 per 
cent., while France was a non-producer. Of the 
enemy countries Germany’s output was 2°5 per 
cent., and that of Austria-Hungary o'4 per cent. 
None of the belligerent countries except Japan 
supplied its needs from internal sources in 1913; 
all of them except Japan imported copper from 
the United States of America; in that year Ger- 
many took 137,000, France 71,400, Italy 18,500, 
Austria-Hungary about 17,000, and Great Britain 
15,000 tons. 
The Allies are able to take delivery of such 
copper as they need, thanks in the main to the 
British Navy, whereas the enemy countries have 
found it increasingly difficult to import this metal. 
The position probably is that they have succeeded 
in obtaining through neutral shipping and neutral 
| countries more than is generally suspected, but 
' nothing like enough for their war needs, more 


