516 F. H. Hatch — The Iron Ore SujDplies of the World. 



at low cost by water transportation to the Company's ironworks 

 at Port Waratah near Newcastle in New South Wales, where it 

 is smelted to basic pig for open-hearth steel manufacture. Work 

 at Iron Knob is at present restricted to quarrying, and the output 

 is about 300,000 tons per annum. No figures as to reserves are 

 available. 



Conclusions. 



Summarizing the estimates for the great ore-fields of Europe 

 and the Americas (namely, the United States, Cuba, Newfoundland, 

 Brazil, Scandinavia, Central Europe, the United Kingdom, Spain, 

 and North Africa) we arrive at the following round figures : — ■ 



Million tons. 

 High-grade low-phosphorus ore . . 6,740 



High-grade phosphoric ores . . 6,460 



Low-grade ores .... 17,100 



Total .... 30,300 



Another 1,500 million should be added for the small ore-fields of 

 Russia, Austria, and Greece in Europe, and Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, 

 and Canada in America, making a grand total for the two continents 

 of 31,800 million tons, of which the equivalent iron is 14,310 million 

 tons, or, on the basis of a pig-iron production of 70 million tons a 

 year, sufficient to last over 200 years. 



The resources of the continents of Africa, Asia, and Australia 

 are unknown, but it has been shown in the foregoing that important 

 deposits exist in South Africa, Australia, and India, and others are 

 known, for instance, in China, Korea, and Japan. Moreover, having 

 regard to the very large unexplored areas of these continents the 

 existence of great reserves as yet undiscovered is very probable. 



An ingenious method suggested by Sjogren and used by Eckel 

 enables the iron-ore resources of the unknown continents of Africa, 

 Asia, and Australia to be roughly estimated on the basis of the 

 known resources of Europe and America. It is assumed that the 

 resources of these countries are likely to be in some proportion to 

 the areas, which, as the geological principles involved are the same 

 in both cases, is not too unreasonable an assumption for the purpose 

 in view. The ton-mile factor for the known continents works out 

 at 1,646 tons per square mile. Applying this to the areas of the 

 unknown continents we get a figure of 52,200 million tons for the 

 reserves, which, added to the figure already obtained for Europe 

 and America, gives a grand total of 84,000 million tons for the 

 world's resources of commercial ore, in the sense of the present- 

 day usage of the term. 



On the whole adequate iron-ore supplies for the chief smelting 

 centres of the world seem reasonably secure for a remote future. 

 One fact, important for the makers of haematite steel, clearly emerges, 

 and that is the relative scarcity of low-phosphorus ore. Excepting 

 the great reserve of the very highest quality ore in Brazil the known 



