WHAT IS WORLD’S MOST PRECIOUS METAL?

Northern Advocate, 9 January 1936, Page 10

WHAT IS WORLD’S MOST PRECIOUS METAL?

THE ANSWER IS TIN ! Without‘tin, modern civilisation as we know it would cease to exist, says a writer in the “Illustrated Tasmanian News.” ' J ' Funny, isn’t is ? Repeat that rather ponderous statement in company and you will probably be laughed at. “Tin,” dome scornful sceptic will tell you with a sniff; “why, that’s the stuff the Ancient Romans came to Britain for! ” Of course it is; and the Modern Romans, still come to Britain for it, as well as most other countries, considering that 85 per cent of the world’s total production of this valuable metal is controlled by Britain. Actually, although we seldom think of it, we are living in the Age of Tin. If you don’t believe it. picture this typical domestic scene.

J ] Any Modern Home, The place is any modern home; the time is This Year of Applied Tin; and the curtain rises on a bedroom set just as the chief characters are finishing their dressing. (But for the censor we might have a bed scene, because the springs of the bed are coated with tin to prevent rust; and the silk pyjamas, like the silk stockings now being’ straightened by the leading actress, Mrs 1935, contain tin salts to hold the loose silk fibres together.) Still, we can imagine the preliminary scenes. Take the toilet: The bath is coated with oxidised tin, the toothpaste has come out of a tin tube, the husband has shaved with a razor which is keen-edged thanks to tin, and the same applies to the scissors the wife has just put back into her manicure set. Drama Of Tin. From that moment until the day is done, the drama of tin unfolds itself. It is dished up in the morning paper, because type means tin, as well as in the kitchen, where it is found in cooking utensils, in the tin-foil wrapping countless forms of food—not foi’getting the canned fruit or fish

or vegetables which account for 120,000,000 tin-cans every year in Britain alone, and 3,000,000 tons of tinplate for the world’s cooks. The list is almost' endless—for we find tin in the telephone, wireless, motor car, typewriter, the electric light system. As an alloy it rules aviation, transport, toyland, fireworks, marine engineering. It ornaments the millionaire’s palace and brings comfort to the humblest home. And research is. extending its uses still further. Two years ago the tin producers co-operated in forming the International Tin Research and Development Council. That body, with the aid of skilled scientists, is finding more and more applications for the metal. Laboratories are now exclusively engaged in finding- out fresh wonders, of tin in Great Britain, America, France, Germany and Holland. Already it has been proved that tin is steadily increasing the standard of living for the whole world. Older Than History. Probably no other metal has had as big a share in the buildirig of the modern world as tin. Its story is older than history; bronze, which is an alloy of tin and copper, has been unearthed from the ruins of ancient Nineveh. Yet the metal is as modern as 1936, because science is always carrying it further and further ahead. The method of winning it from the earth are as paradoxical. Primitive tools and instruments, are still used by the Chinese tin miners in Malay, while in the larger fields, particularly in the chief tin land, Bolivia, the very latest appliances, are in operation. Until recently a dredge could dig to a depth of 30 or 40 feet and turn over some 100,000 cubic yards of ground in a month. Today, engineers have evolved a giant electric dredger which will dig down to over 100 feet and excavate 300,000 yards in a month. From Above And Below. To carry the paradox still further: the metal is mined from mountain sides and taken from the depths of the earth. In Bolivia they obtain it at a height of 12,000 feet—and in

Cornwall they go down 1000 feet for It.

America, which consumes over 50 per cent of the world’s, output, has no native tin deposits. Whimsically, Nature has endowed that country with almost every mineral you can think of—and denied it the most important of the lot. United States engineers have spent thousands of pounds in searching for it, but the Malay States, Dutch East Indies, and Bolivia continue to supply the market. At Washington, the Government is perturbed about the position and the search for a substitute has begun, lest the outside supply should fail for some reason or other.

Only a few months ago it was declared that America had only two months’ stores of tin within the country. Supply Still Holding. Happily, at the moment, there is not the slightest fear of the tin supply petering out. But it is remarkable that during the last twenty years, despite world-wide exploration and boi’ing, not 'one new source has been discovered. And as the uses multiply, the consumption mounts up feverishly. If the day ever comes when the panic cry of “No more tin! ” goes up from the world’s cities there will be ssch a chaotic upheaval in the scheme of living that human existence will, not be worth —well, as one expert put it, it won’t be worth an old tincan.