EMPIRE RICH IN PLATINUM

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 July 1936, Page 3

EMPIRE RICH IN PLATINUM

PRODUCES MORE THAN RUSSIA. Developments in Canada and South Africa have relegated Russia, formerly responsible for over 90 per cent, of tiro world’s platinum supply, to a .-econdary position. British Empire countries are now the. greatest suppliers of platinum and its associated group of metals.

Tlno.se facts arc mentioned in the second edition of “Platinum and Allied Metals,” issued by the Mineral Resources Department of the Imperial Institute.

Platinum is found in most parts of the British Empire, states the book, but not always in commercial quantities. Traces of it have been recorded in the alluvial deposits of streams draining the serpentine area of the Lizard district of Cornwall, in the Urr

Water, Kirkcudbrightshire, and in the chromite deposits of Unst, in the Shet-

land Islands, but the occurrences have no economic significance. | Although no platinum has ever been won here. Great Britain has always been an important refining and trade ( centre. At the present time practic-l ally all the platinum metals produced] in the British Empire are refined and) marketed by firms in England. In addition, much of the Abyssinian ma terial used to reach this country.