POTENTIAL WEALTH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 31, 7 December 1943, Page 8

POTENTIAL WEALTH

AUCKLAND'S NATURAL DEPOSITS

GLASS. CLAY AND IRON

There was a surprising lack of knowledge among New Zealanders regarding the minerals and raw materials of their own country, said the Secretary of the Auckland Manufacturers Association, Mr A. F. T. Chorlton, Avhcn addressing the Auckland, Creditmen's Club.

The Auckland Province' had a huge deposit of practically the iincst glass sand in the world. It was over 99 per cent silica. The Nelson lime used in the glass making process was considered the finest for this purpose, in the whole, world. Owing to the ample raw materials and to the efficient organisaion of the glass industry, New Zealand was at the present time better supplied with bottles than any of the. other belligerent countries. The New Zealand raw materials were eminently suited to the production of all types of glass products, 'including extraordinary developments such as armour plate glass and foam glass now being jjroduced in U.S.A. and in Australia.

The Auckland Province had also huge deposits of daeite. pottery clay from which could be made all types of earthenware, pottery and porce-. lain of the. very highest quality.

Considerable geological investigation is being made, of these deposits at the present time.

New Zealanders would be interested to know that many'of the very successful- Russian tanks are being made from iron ore almost identical in constitution to our iron sand. The ore is smelted electrically and the titanium material in heavy demand for paints, is extracted. New Zealand lias* thousands' of millions of tons of iron sand just waiting for the cheap electric current of the Otago Sounds to produce the cheapest pig iron in the world. This current could also be used to extract magnesium and bromine from sea water and. nitrogen from the air.