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ABSTRACT ATTENTION may be directed to Bulletin No. 666 of the United States Geological Survey, recently issued, entitled “Our Mineral Supplies,” which gives a brief account of the mineral
resources of the United States, compiled from the point of view of the importance of rendering the United States economically independent of the rest of the world so far as mineral output is
concerned. Even before America took part in the war it was recognised that her stocks of imported minerals were likely to be exhausted, or at any rate seriously depleted, and that it was
necessary to take measures to ascertain how far it was possible to replace these minerals from home resources. Certain minerals were imported from choice rather than from necessity, because
they could be obtained of higher grade, or more conveniently, or more cheaply from abroad, and in these cases it was only necessary to stimulate the home production. In a lew other cases the
minerals were imported because they either did not occur at all or did not occur in workable quantities or under workable conditions within the United States. The list of such minerals is,
however, surprisingly short. All minerals are here classified under three heads, namely: Class 1, domestic mineral supplies adequate to all probable peace and war needs of the United States;
Class 2, domestic mineral supplies sufficient for a large part of the peace and war needs of the United States; and Class 3, domestic mineral supplies inadequate in quantity or quality, or
both, for the peace and war needs of the United States. This last class includes only asbestos, chromite, graphite, manganese ore, monazite, nickel, nitrates, platinum, potash salts and tin,
and in only three of these, namely, monazite, nitrates and potash, was there no production at all in 1913, and only in the case of nitrates was there no production in 1917. In many cases,
even amongst those minerals that occur but sparingly, the production had increased immensely during those four years. Thus, for example, the production of chromite was 255 tons in 1913 and
43,725 tons in 1917. Although not written with that object, this bulletin gives a vivid impression of the wonderful natural resources of the United States. Access through your institution
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and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Mineral Resources of the United States. _Nature_ 106, 679 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/106679b0 Download citation * Issue Date: 20
January 1921 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106679b0 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Get shareable link Sorry, a shareable link
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