228 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 1919. 
Had Germany won and held the minette ores of eastern France 
she would now be in possession of 45 per cent of the iron-ore reserves 
of Europe and could have supplied 77 per cent of her requirements 
from her own ores, as contrasted with 56 per cent before the war. 
There has never been a balance between German iron ores and coal, 
the excess being largely on the side of coal. She had, however, access 
to the rich iron ores of Sweden and through her alliance with Turke}^ 
to the chrome ores of Asia Minor. As A. C. Spencer, of the Geo- 
logical Survey, says : " Truly iron entered largely into the underly- 
ing strategy of Germany's attempted conquests: First, providing a 
reliable industrial basis for war ; second, offering a means of quickly 
disabling France ; and third, proffering a grand prize in the minette 
ores oi Muerthe-et-Moselle, which if attained would insure indus- 
trial supremacy against all rivals." 
Among mineral resources Germany's monopoly was potash, and 
even this is now likely to be broken with the passing to France of 
the great deposits of Alsace and the stimulus given to potash pro- 
duction in this country by the war. Even more significant is the 
fact that, except for coal, cement, and possibly zinc, Germany has 
always been forced to import mineral supplies to supplement the 
deficiencies of her own production or reserves. As to essential war 
minerals, like tungsten, manganese, copper, nickel, tin, platinum, 
chromite, sulphur, and petroleum, German resources were either 
wholly inadequate or totally lacking. As a necessary preliminary to 
any serious war Germany had therefore to build up through im- 
portation great stores of these war minerals, and it is highly sig- 
nificant to note that German importations of nickel, manganese, 
brass, sulphur, and tin showed large increases during the immedi- 
ate prewar period. For example, the average increase in the general 
trade of Germany with the United States was only about 7 per 
cent a year, whereas shortly before the war German demands upon 
us for war minerals and metals jumped suddenly in some cases 
several hundred per cent. 
Moreover, a few years ago, Germany, like all the rest of the world 
outside of Scandinavia, was dependent upon Chile for sodium nitrate 
as a source of the nitric acid which puts the energy into explosives. 
In view of this dependence, and through fear of diminishing sup- 
plies, the attention and effort of chemists were directed to the atmos- 
phere as a source of nitrogen through fixation of this component 
as ammonia, nitrate of lime, or otherwise. 
Up to about 1910 or 1911 there was practically no fixation of 
nitrogen outside of plants in Norway and Sweden, but about 1912 
Germany, which had been experimenting with the arc process, had 
one quite large Haber plant in process of construction. In 1915 
