. None of these has yet contributed largely to world
production, and their distance from the principal consuming countries
bordering the North Atlantic basin is so great that there is not likely
to be any great movement to this part of the world. On the other hand,
some of the South Sea islands have large reserves of exceptionally high
grade guano and bone phosphates, which will doubtless be used in
increasing amounts for export to Japan, New Zealand, and other nearby
countries. The most important of these islands are now controlled by
Great Britain, Japan, and France.

A striking feature of the situation is that the central European
countries, which have been large consumers of phosphate material, have
lost not only the Pacific island phosphates but the Lorraine phosphatic
iron ores, and are now almost completely dependent on British, French,
and United States phosphate.

In the United States, reserves of phosphate are very large. They are
mined principally in Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina; but great
reserves, though of lower grade, are known in Arkansas, Montana, Idaho,
Wyoming, and Utah. There are possibilities for the development of local
phosphate industries in the west, in connection with the manufacture of
sulphuric acid from waste smelting gases at nearby mining centers. The
Anaconda Copper Mining Company has taken up the manufacture of
superphosphate as a means of using sulphuric acid made in relation to
its smelting operations. The United States is independent in phosphate
supplies and has a surplus for export. This country, England, and France
exercise control of the greater part of the world's supply of phosphatic
material. In competition for world trade, the Florida and Carolina
phosphates are favorably situated for export, but there is strong
competition in Europe from the immense fields in French North Africa,
which are about equally well situated.

GEOLOGIC FEATURES

Small amounts of phosphorus are common in igneous rocks, in the form of
the mineral apatite (calcium phosphate with calcium chloride or
fluoride). Apatite is especially abundant in some pegmatites. In a few
places, as in the Adirondacks where magnetic concentration of iron ores
leaves a residue containing much apatite, and in Canada and Spain where
veins of apatite have been mined, this material is used as a source of
phosphate fertilizer. The great bulk of the world's phosphate, however,
is obtained from other sources--sedime