A VALUABLE MINERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 59, 9 July 1915, Page 4

A VALUABLE MINERAL.

Severn! references have been mad* in the "Lyttelton Times" to the Dominion's resources ami possibilities in kbe matter of minerals which are becom-

ing more valuable as the war goes one. To the list of ores which are being used in vast quantities and which are increasing in price with the increase of armaments and the huge losses by the war is to be added scheelite, ami this raw material, as a correspondent 'of the -'New Zealand Herald" points out. is found in great quantities in New Zealand. From scheelite. or tungsten of linue, com-

mercial tungsten and special steels hardened with tungsten are very largely manufactured in Germany, and this country prior to the war sup-

plied practically all the rest of the world with metallic tungsten. Of this, 90 per cent, was used exclusively for steel hardening; the rest, because of its high melting point, chiefly for electric filaments. Germany acquired and held in reserve very considerable stocks of scheelite, consequently has been able to use tungsten liber-, ally as a constituent in the casting metals of her big guns, while Britain has bad to economise because of her meagre supply. To-day tungsten is commanding a big price in Britain! and France, and in fact in all the great manufacturing lands of the north. There are scheelite mines in New Zealand, but the industry is still in a very crude state; and per-| baps there is a Held here for legiti-j mate enterprise by the State, which' in this way could do the Empire some, service. It is a lamentable fact, the Times adds, vouched for by Mr J. L.j Stevens. Australasian secretary of the. Institution of Technologists, that large quantities of scheelite have been drawn from Australia by Germany, especially during the period immediately preceding the outbreak of war, only to be made use of against Britain and her Allies.