y^ FROCEEDIXGS OF THE BALTIMORE MEETING 



As domestic manganese deposits had supplied but a small part of the needed 

 ore since 1892, it was difficult to convince those charged with maintaining 

 supplies for the industries that the known domestic deposits were capable of 

 supplp'rg a considerable part of the needed ore. This, together with the 

 slightly inferior quality of most of the domestic product, greatly hindered the 

 maximum rate of production until the summer of 1918. During 1918 domestic 

 mines supplied about one-third the needed high-grade manganese ore. 



Presented in full exTemporaneously. 



ECOXOMIC LIMITS TO DOMESTIC IXDEPEXDEXCE IX MIXERALS 

 BY GEORGE OTIS SMITH 



{Abstract) 



The war demands placed on the United States created many new problems 

 in connection with the supply of raw materials. To meet the war demand for 

 every mineral raw material was the larger task set before the mineral indus- 

 try, and the degree of success attained and its cost are the basal facts in any 

 inquiry as to the economic limits that must be recognized in developing the 

 domestic supply. Both economic law and business sense were being applied 

 to new problems and in new ways in obtaining the raw materials for a na- 

 tion's expanded industry. Under these special conditions of supply and de- 

 mand some minerals have taken on new values — indeed, certainty of supply 

 has had larger significance than price. 



The war program, with its reaction on industry, has opened the eyes of 

 many to old facts. Mineral raw materials have won a recognition based on 

 the new realization of their value. De Launay's recent and apt characteriza- 

 tion of coal and iron as the two "grand seigneurs" of the mineral world is in 

 strong contrast with the ancient idea of nobility among metals. The new 

 measure of value is usefulness. 



Economic geology is useful geology — the theoretical science applied to meet 

 the material needs of man. These human needs as presented in the last four 

 years have demanded a specialized type of geology — the application of geology 

 in terms of commerce. Geology to be most useful in these days of world prob- 

 lems must take the world view of values, and we find ourselves working in 

 commercial geology — that is. geology applied in terms of commerce. The world 

 is the field of commerce, and the requirements of commercial geology are 

 simply that the geologic relations of a Nevada ore deposit, for example, must 

 be observed with an eye trained to see far beyond the basin range : the geolo- 

 gist needs to compare the quality and quantity of the unmined ore here with 

 similar facts of nature that give value to the ores in other districts, as in 

 Peru or Burma. 



Geology must needs continue to furnish the basal facts, but the geologist 

 has a call to go further than he has gone heretofore in the interpretation of 

 his facts — not simply by translating his technical words into the language of 

 the market-place, but. more than that, by showing the relation of geology to 

 national life. 



The practical question concerns not simply the quantity of metal present in 

 the ore. but the quantity that can be won to the profit of mankind. First of 



