Political and commercial geology and the world's mineral resources
Science
Political and commercial geology and the world's mineral resources
Geology, Economic; Mines and mineral resources
_Germany._--In Germany the antimony output is too small to affect
appreciably the world’s market, but a few localities have possibilities
of production when the price of antimony is sufficiently high. One
plant in the Eifel district in 1915 was producing 25 to 30 tons of
regulus and 60 to 70 tons of oxide a month. There was, however, a
production of antimonial lead from the smelters that may amount to
1,000 tons or more of antimony a year. This is derived in part from
German ores, especially the lead-zinc ores, and in part from ores of
foreign origin.
Germany’s interest in the antimony market is chiefly that of the
smelter and middle man. Average annual imports, 1910-1913, were as
follows: Ore, 3,668 tons; metal, 3,398; salts, 668. The exports
averaged, ore, 566 tons; metal, 331; salts, 1,226. The principal
purchasers of metal were the United States and Russia; and of salts
Russia and England.
German interest in foreign deposits was not extensive. The
Metallgesellschaft seems to have had some connection with an Italian
company, the Minière Fonderie d’Antimonio, owning mines in Italy and
France, and Beer, Sondheimer & Co. was recorded as the owner of one
Algerian mine.
_Great Britain._--Although deposits were formerly worked in Cornwall,
Devon, and elsewhere, no antimony has been mined in England since
1892, but before the war England was the chief smelting center of
the world, and several brands of British antimony, such as Cookson’s
and Hallett’s, had a world-wide reputation. Deposits of considerable
importance exist in many of the British possessions.
Cookson & Co., of Newcastle, control mines in the Catorce district, San
Luis Potosi, Mexico, and operate a smelter, the output from which was
shipped to England for further refining until 1915, when the supply was
in large part diverted to the United States.
England, through her smelting interests, has played an important
part in the antimony trade of the world. Seven smelters in England
refine ore and crude metals that come chiefly from China, but also
from Mexico, Australia, and Hungary, and, during the war, in large
quantities from Bolivia and Spain. The better British brands have been
considered more pure than other grades, and before the war virtually
monopolized American markets.
British trading interests have exerted important control both in
securing raw material for British smelters and in obtaining markets
for British metal. Until 1914 the Chinese Eastern Antimony Co., a
subsidiary of Cookson & Co., held contracts for the production of the
Wah Chang Mining & Smelting Co., the most important antimony producers
in China. In 1914, the Wah Chang Co. established an independent selling
agency in the United States. During the great demand for antimony in
1915 and 1916, British interests secured the greater proportion of the
output of Bolivian mines and completely controlled the industry of that
country.
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