METALS OF SPAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 153, 2 December 1938, Page 20

METALS OF SPAIN

SCIPIO TOOK THEM, TOO

The presence of foreign troops in Spain—the results of whose fighting may affect the distribution of that country's mineral wealth —might find its prototype as far back as 200 B.C. when Scipio successfully campaigned the Iberian Peninsula, says the "Christian Science Monitor." The lure of precious metals had drawn him to Spain, as it did the Phoenicians and. the Carthaginians; and when he returned to Italy, he paraded victoriously through the streets of Rome with chariots filled with silver from the ransacked peninsula. | But today the lure of metals more precious than "precious metals" is responsible for foreign "volunteers" in the Spanish conflict. The dire need for basic metals, felt especially among the authoritarian Powers, has turned many longing eyes in the direction of the rich resources which make Spain a veritable treasure chest. More than twenty of Spain's fifty provinces contain, among other deposits, copper, lead, zinc, iron, coal, and potash, according to a recent bulletin from headquarters of the National Geographic Society. The Insurgents, holding a territorial majority, now control a major percentage of the mineral resources. Oviedo, in north-west Spain, with its extensive iron and coal fields, was considered a heavy loss by the Loyalists; as also was the British-oWned Rio Tinto copper mine in Huelva in the south-west. Basque iron mines, almost entirely in Insurgent hands, produced about 1,600,000 tons of iron ore annually before the war. ALMOST HALF ALL MERCURY. In normal times, nearly 50 per cent, of all mercury produced comes from Almaden, about 125 miles south-west of Madrid in the Loyalist-held province of Ciudad Real, the "National Geographic"" Bulletin says. Because of the high industrial value of mercury— both for wartime and peacetime purposes—this section has been subjected to an Insurgent drive for control. There are other Loyalist-controlled mines, particularly potash and lead, which still bear economic fruits. There are lead mines at Gerona, on the French border in the far north-east, with an important by-product of fluor spar, used in making steel. Lignite coal, lead, and potash deposits are fouiid next door in Barcelona. Further south, Murcia is rich in zinc, lead, and sulphur, while its neighbour, Jaen, also contains much lead and some iron. In Granada, whose north portion is still Loyalist territory, are quantities of iron and some lead. Much of the mineral industry in Spain has been in the hands of foreign investors. More than half of all copper mined in this country before tho revolution was from British-owned mines, the Bulletin states. Lead operations were about two-thirds in the hands of French concessions, and nearly all of Spain's silver and zinc output in recent years prior to the war was mined by French companies. Ninetenths of the country's potash wealth was recorded as under the control of a Belgian group.