GREENLAND HAS LARGE DEPOSITS OF CRYOLITE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 211, 6 September 1941, Page 11 (Supplement)

GREENLAND HAS LARGE DEPOSITS OF CRYOLITE

EXTENSION of American protection to Greenland has thrust this possession of Germanoccupied Denmark before the public eye. One of Greenland's claims to recognition lies in the fact that it is the only place on earth which produces cryolite in large-scale commercial quantities. Although cryolite is one of the lesser known minerals, it is a highly important ingredient in the manufacture of modern aluminium, porcelain, glass products and certain insecticides. It is hard, translucent and has a comparatively low melting point. Chemically, it is a double fluoride of sodium and aluminium, being a compound of these two metals and fluorine. Cryolite is quarried at Ivigtut (also known as Evigtok), on Arksut Fiord, in the south-west section of Greenland. Its name derives from a combination of Greek words meaning "frost" and "stone." White and Colourless It is usually pure white or colourless but sometimes it is tinted in shades of pink, brown, or even black, and having a lustre like that of wax. Eskimo natives of Greenland long thought of the substance as a peculiar form of ice because of its snow-white appearance and the readiness with which it melted in a candle flame. The Danes discovered cryolite in Greenland in 1794. The mine at Ivigtut belongs to the Danish State. In recent years it was operated as a concession, but in 1939 a stock company was set up jointly by State and private interests to take over its management.

Outside Denmark itself, the United y / ar , the best customer o. the Greenland cryolite quarries, Canada is a heavy buyer, too. The balance of the Greenland output has been taken in the past by Japan, Russia, Poland. Norway, Australia Britain. The total income from the product something less than £350,000 annually—may not loom large in the world economic picture, but cryolite has long been an item of vital im-

portance to a country whose only other exports are fox and bear skins, eiderdown, seal blubber and some marble. Cryolite is now being produced synthetically in several countries, ineluding the United States. Spokesmen for the aluminium industry in that country say that if the present supply of the pure product from Greenland were cut off, the synthetic substance would serve verv well instead.