In spite of the fact that this ore was found to be equal to the best Swedish, and that nature in her own laboratories had supplied the requisite amount of nickel and manganese, making these mines of Oriente perhaps the most valuable in the world, but little attention has been paid to this marvellously rich source of minerals, beyond those few who are drawing dividends from the industry. The recent purchase of the Spanish American Iron Company’s holdings at Daiquiri for $32,000,000, however, has called the attention of mining interests in the United States to the fact that millions of tons of untouched ore still lie in the eastern provinces of Cuba. Twenty-five percent of the area of Oriente contains wonderful deposits of ore, mostly iron, and awaits only the necessary capital to place it on the markets of the world. This nickeliferous iron ore, in which the presence of nickel, so essential to the making of steel, has been contributed by nature in just the right proportions, is found in large quantities also in the provinces of Camaguey and Pinar del Rio. The extent of these mineral deposits is not yet known, but millions of tons are in sight, awaiting only cheap transportation to bring them into the markets of the world, where the grade and quality of the ore will undoubtedly command satisfactory prices. Up to the present time nearly all of the iron ore exported from Cuba comes from the large deposits of Oriente. The iron on the south coast is loaded into the steamers from the wharves at Daiquiri and Juraguay. That on the north coast, brought down from the Mayari mines, is shipped from the harbor of Nuevitas. Below are given the tons of copper and iron shipped from Cuba during the year from July, 1917, to June, 1918: IRON COPPER tons tons July to December, 1917 272,403 41,809 January to June, 1918 218,301 52,569 Total 490,704 94,378 On the south side of the Sierra de Cubitas, in the Province of Camaguey, a distinctly marked zone of this excellent iron ore runs parallel to the main chain of the Cubitas for many miles. Grass covered hills, rising more or less abruptly from the surface, seem to be composed of solid masses of iron ore. So great is the value of this mineral zone that the North Shore Road of Cuba, now under construction and practically completed from its eastern deep water terminus on Nuevitas Harbor to the Maximo River just east of the Sierra de Cubitas, was primarily intended as a means of exploiting and conveying the ore from this zone to the sea coast. In the western portion of the Organ Mountains of Pinar del Rio, other deposits of nickeliferous iron have been denounced and registered, although the cost of building a railroad to deep water on the north coast up to the present prevented the development of the mines, located about 20 miles southeast of Arroyo de Mantua.