ana and the Cuyuna Range of
Minnesota; there are also scattering supplies in Virginia, Arizona,
California, and many other states. The use of domestic ores has
sometimes been unsatisfactory, because of frequent failure of domestic
producers to deliver amounts and grades contracted for. It has been, on
the whole, cheaper, easier, and more satisfactory for the large
consumers to purchase the imported ore, which is delivered in any
desired amount and in uniform grades, rather than to try to assemble
usable mixtures from various parts of the country.

Before the European War, the United States produced only 1 to 2 per cent
of its needed supply of manganese, the rest being imported mainly from
India, Russia, and Brazil, in the form of ore, and from England in the
form of ferromanganese (about half of the total requirement). The
partial closing of the first two and the fourth of these sources of
supply under war conditions made it necessary to turn for ore to Brazil
and also to Cuba, where American interests developed a considerable
industry in medium-grade ores. At the same time steps were taken to
develop domestic resources; and with the high prices imposed by war
conditions, the domestic production, both of high- and low-grade ore,
was increased largely, but still was able to supply only 35 per cent of
the total requirements of manganese.

At the close of the war sufficient progress had been made--in the
discovery of many new deposits in the United States, in the use of
low-grade domestic ores, which before had not been able to compete with
imported ores, and in the increased use of spiegel, allowing wider use
of low-grade ores,--to demonstrate that, if absolutely necessary, and at
high cost, the United States in another year or two could have been
nearly self-sufficing in regard to its manganese requirements. The
release of shipping from war demands resulted immediately in larger
offerings of foreign manganese ore and of ferromanganese from England,
at prices which would not allow of competition from much of the domestic
or Cuban ore production or from the domestic manufacture of alloys. The
result was a rather dramatic closing down of the manganese industry,
with much financial loss, the passage of a bill for reimbursement of
producers, and a demand on the part of the producers, though not of
consumers, for a protective tariff. In the questions thus raised it is
desirable that geologists and engineers professionally con