GOOD NEWS FOR GAS CONSUMERS

Evening Star, Issue 12625, 3 October 1905, Page 7

GOOD NEWS FOR GAS CONSUMERS

There is (or ought soon to bo) a good time coming for thpce house-holdera who are large cWßUineis. la future there is to ha sharp compaction in tha incandescent mantle business. . The announcement vanmade modestly enough at the annual nutting of the (South Metropolitan Uts Company, of London, in August, there wore spine items in the balance-sheet under the beading of " MonazU* i&M Account, mid the chairman of tho company told the shareholders briefly what they meant, It was well known, ho aaid, that the salvation af gas had been the incandescent mantle. By the use of the mantle, ■gas was found to \» superior to eleotric light. Mantks were made of thorium, which was a rare earth, and only found in workable'quantity in monaiita sand. The sand from which the thorium used in Europe was extracted was obtained in Bcazil, and was jn the haajds of two concessionaires. They supplied the monaaate to a number of chemists m (mrmauy, who sold the sand to a group of Continental arms who worked together and wero known as the Thorium Convention. Thorium was in the hands of four or five arms, and two or throe years ago it was sold at 34s per kilogram. Later tho price was 425, and now it waa Ms. Tlicto was au absolute monopoly in it. The directors of the company had sent an agent to Brazil to endeavor to obtain a concession to export mpnaaite sand, tout without result, and 60 far as Brazil was concerned the monor poly would continue. Happily, however. monazjte jand bad been found in North and South Carolina, and a serious attempt was being made to work it- The company had acquired a concession, and had had erected the machinery for working tho deposit. By taking thts step, continued the oharrmsn, they wonld'have no difficulty in obtaining the mantles in the future. They had not got the monazite sand yet, but they bad made arrangements with a reapansibls firm to convert tho sand into thorium, ajid they had monaziie sand to give them toorhjm for a generation or more. Tho London company have already sp««jt £20,000 in exploiting their Carolinan oooceswon, and if their chairman's anticipations are reajreed they will make a big fight with the Continental Thorium Trust. So mote it be.