ORIG-IIN" j^JL, ARTICLES. 



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I. — Recent Iron-ore Developments in the United Kingdom. 1 

 By Dr. F. H. Hatch. 



WHILST the basis of the prosperity of a country is admittedly 

 agriculture, its industrial growth is founded on mineral 

 resources, and its participation in the world's markets is chiefly 

 dependent on the extent to which these raw materials can be applied 

 to home manufactures. 



It is true that the first historical reference to this country mentions 

 the export of tin from Cornwall and that Great Britain's production 

 and export of copper in the early part of the nineteenth century were 

 the largest in the world; but for its modern industrial pre-eminence 

 this country is undoubtedly indebted to its coal and ironstone. 



The cheap manufacture of iron and steel in this country was greatly 

 aided by the providential dispensation that the ironstone was so 

 closely associated in nature with the fuel required to smelt it that the 

 factor of transportation was practically eliminated. 



But the gradual exhaustion of the richer blackbands and clay iron- 

 stones of the Carboniferous formation, and the introduction of the 

 Acid Bessemer Process of steel manufacture, which requires a pure 

 ore free from phosphorus and sulphur, made it necessary to find other 

 sources of iron-ore supply. For many years the United Kingdom has 

 been dependent for 30 per cent of the iron-ore used in its blast- 

 furnaces, on foreign countries. Foreign ore plays even a bigger role 

 than at first sight appears, since it contains 50 percent iron as against 

 an average of 30 per cent for home ores. The importation of 

 haematite, rich in iron and low in phosphorus, from Spain and the 

 Mediterranean, has built up the big iron industries that are engaged 

 in the manufacture of steel by the Acid process in South Wales, on 

 the North-AVest coast, on the JSTorth-East coast, and in Scotland, where 

 the ports of Cardiff, Port Talbot, Whitehaven, Barrow, Middles- 

 brough, Newcastle, and the Clyde, situated in close proximity to an 

 ample supply of labour, enable foreign ore and native coal to be 

 easily assembled and cheaply handed. 



Cheap water-transport is the basis of the successful importation 

 of foreign ore. Its importance may be illustrated by the develop- 

 ment of the great iron and steel industry of the United States. In 

 that country the ore is brought in 10,000-ton boats from the north 

 end of Lake Superior, where it occurs in great abundance, to Chicago 

 and Pittsburg, where there are ample supplies of fuel and labour. 

 In 1916 as much as 64 million tons of iron-ore were conveyed in this 

 manner. 



In the case of the United Kingdom, ocean-transport was found to 

 have its drawbacks when the War broke out; and the scarcity of 

 ship-tonnage, which resulted from the activity of the enemy sub- 

 marines, raised the cost of imported ore from about 20s. (at which 

 Best Bilbao ore ruled in British ports in 1914) to an actual price of 



1 A lecture delivered at the Eoyal School of Mines on May 27, 1919. 



