MINERAL PRODUCTS. 
15 
According to present information, 1 there are strong indications 
that American steel is already needed abroad. Inquiries for steel 
products are being received by domestic manufacturers from con 
sumers in England, Scotland, Japan, and South America. Con 
sumers in England whose supply from Belgian mills has been cut 
off are placing orders for their immediate needs with American 
manufacturers. The demand for steel products on the Pacific coast 
became very active after the declaration of war; therefore the open 
ing of the Panama Canal becomes at once a factor of great impor 
tance to the steel industry and should result in the permanent trans 
ference to American mills of a large part of the Pacific trade hereto 
fore placed with mills in England, Germany, and Belgium. 
The United States has heretofore had only a fraction of the trade 
with South America in iron and steel and machinery, but our man 
ufacturers are now actively canvassing the possibilities of extending 
this trade, and the prospects for increasing our share of it are bright. 
MANGANESE. 
A serious phase of the interruption to commerce caused by the 
European war is the shutting off of the foreign supply of ferro 
manganese from the steel manufacturers of this country. The do 
mestic marketed production of ferromanganese and spiegeleisen in 
1912 and 1913 was 227,939 long tons and 226,475 long tons, respec 
tively, and the imports of these alloys for those years were 100,152 
long tons and 128,147 long tons, respectively, of which ferromanga 
nese constituted 99,137 tons in 1912 and 128,070 tons in 1913. The 
imports of these alloys therefore constituted 30.5 and 36 per cent, 
respectively, of the available supply in 1912 and 1913. England and 
Germany have furnished most of these imported alloys in recent 
years. By far the greater part of the ferromanganese produced in 
the United States is manufactured by steel companies for their own 
consumption, so that those manufacturers who have heretofore de 
pended on foreign supplies must either make arrangements to pur 
chase the needed alloys from other domestic companies or else enter 
the field as producers themselves. In either event much more ferro 
manganese may have to be manufactured in the United States if 
the foreign supplies are cut off for any considerable period. Added 
impetus has thus been given to certain projects which are under 
way for the utilization of the manganiferous iron ores of the Cuyuna 
Range, Minnesota, in the manufacture of high-manganese pig iron 
and ferromanganese at Dunbar blast furnaces in Pennsylvania. 
With regard to manganese ores, the situation presents features of 
still greater interest. Notwithstanding the abundant supplies of 
manganese in the United States, its domestic production has been 
relatively small, but the imports have been so large as to indicate a 
Iron Trade Review, Aug. 20, 1914 ; Iron Age, Aug. 20, 1914,