Our mineral reserves

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 867029366

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93011

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Smith, George Otis http://d-nb.info/gnd/117634530

Title:: Our mineral reserves

Place of publication:: Washington, DC

Publisher:: Gov. Print. Off.

Year of publication:: 1914

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (48 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

MINERAL PRODUCTS. 47 there is little opportunity to substitute the American product. The Arkansas output of diamonds is valued at only a few thousand dol lars a year, and this sum is exceeded by the value of the annual pro duction of emerald, ruby, opal, tourmaline, and turquoise. The sapphires from Montana constitute the only domestic factor of im portance in the precious-stone market, stones valued at about $200,000 being mined each year. Common salt continues to be imported in considerable quantity, more than a million barrels coming to Atlantic ports last year. The country is amply able, however, to supply the entire home demand, as the capacity of its salt mines and works is in excess of the present output. The imports last year were only 3.2 per cent of the total consumption, whereas in 1890 the percentage was 17.2. Secretary Lane has called particular attention to the “ long-felt want” in the United States of a chemical industry based on coal tar, a raw material of which our gas and coke retorts yield an abun dant supply. The commercial production of coal tar in 1912 was about 125,000,000 gallons (approximately 1,000,000,000 pounds), to which should be added the tar that is at many works burned for fuel or allowed to go to waste. The extent to which this tar is manufactured in the United States is practically limited to simple distillation for recovery of the light oils (such as gasoline), creosoting oils, and pitch. Coal tar is the raw material from which carbolic acid is manufactured, and the crude tar contains about 10 per cent of this extensively used chemi cal, yet, so far as the Geological Survey is informed, no carbolic acid is made in this country, the acid in the tar going into the creosoting oils used in the preservation of railroad ties, bridge timbers, and other wood exposed to the decaying action of air and water. We exported last year 36,500,000 pounds of coal tar, 30 per cent of it to Germany and 20 per cent to Belgium, for which we received $150,000. Of carbolic acid alone we imported over 8,000,000 pounds, one-third of it from Germany, for which we paid, exclusive of freights, commissions, and profits, $675,000. We imported alto gether chemical products of coal tar, including dyes, colors, and medicinal preparations, to the value, duty paid, of about $12,000,000 at the points of shipment. The need of aniline color and dye works in the United States is now self-evident, as is also the opportunity for other branches of the chemical industry. Several medicinal articles of which petroleum forms a large per centage have been imported, especially a very carefully refined oil having about the consistency of a very light lubricating oil. This has been made, for convenience, in Baku, Russia, and some of it has been manufactured in the United States from petroleum distillates imported from Russia, and has been sold as “ alboline,” “ petrolatum

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