Until very recently, zirconium has been of minor interest in this country, the monazite sands having been exploited for their thorium contents only, not for zirconium. However, Germany and Austria seem to have placed considerable value upon zirconium-bearing sands, and, as shown by the attached table, more was produced in 1913 than in all the time prior, and practically all the material produced during that year went to Germany. This is in accord with the efforts of Germany, just before the war, to obtain tungsten and molybdenum, and is an evidence of preparations long before hostilities began. =India.=--Before the war, the German users of monazite were in control of the Travancore, _India_, deposits. That control of course ceased and the contracts were cancelled. The India Office decided that, in the future, all directors of the company must be British born, and that the company must be ready at all times to sell monazite sand to British firms, direct, at a fair price. =United States.=--It is hardly probable that the deposits in the _United States_ will be able to compete, on a commercial basis, with the Brazilian ores; but, if the necessity should arise, this country can produce, within its own borders, enough zirconium to manufacture many thousand tons of zirconium steel. The cordial commercial relations between the United States and Brazil will probably protect this country from any undue restraint on exports from South America. =General.=--All of the large countries interested have facilities for making the ferro-alloy. Numerous alloys of zirconium have been made, and a number of patents, both foreign and domestic, have been issued covering various alloys, both ferrous and non-ferrous. No secret processes, as such, are known to the writer. TABLE 34.--PRODUCTION OF ZIRCONIUM MINERALS IN THE UNITED STATES AND BRAZIL, 1902-1916[104] ----+------------------+-------------------- | United States | Brazil +------------+-----+------------+------- | Quantity |Value| Quantity | Value Year|(short tons)| |(short tons)| ----+------------+-----+------------+------- 1902| ... | ...| 12 |$ 3,947 1903| 1¹⁄₂ |$ 570| 7 | 1,947 1904| ¹⁄₂ | 200| 9 | 3,935 1905| 4 | 1600| 18 | 5,506 1906| ¹⁄₂ | 248| 26 | 5,041 1907| | 46| 38 | 8,756 1908| 0 | 0| 275 | 15,151 1909| 1 | 250| 117 | 11,838 1910| 0 | 0| 128 | 23,271 1911| 1¹⁄₂ | 802| 45 | 16,169 1912| 0 | 0| 43 | 14,772 1913| 0 | 0| 1,119 | 54,767 1914| 0 | 0| 237 | 14,903 1915| 0 | 0| 8 | 2,915 1916| 0 | 0| 104 | 16,647 ----+------------+-----+------------+-------