MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17126, 30 October 1917, Page 3

MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD.

Considerably more than half th© world s yearly gold supply (between sixty and seventy per cent, to be precise) is produced by the British Empire But science has taught us quite recently that there are many metals more precious than gold even, and these curiously enough, are also found largelysome entirely—within the confines of xhis wonderful Empire of ours.. Tungsten, for instance, a very rare and exceedingly costly metal, has so far been found m workable quantities in Burma, Australia, and New Zealand and nowhere else in the world. This means that we hold the monopoly of it Tungsten is the metal that is used for the filaments for electric lamps. It is also invaluable for hardening armourplates, for making high-speed cutting steel tools, and for surgical and dental instruments.

'Then, again, there is thorium, from .which incandescent gas mantles are 'made. The world's supply for this precious mineral is now obtained principally irom certain mines discovered at Travancore, in India, only a few years betore the war broke out.

Similarly, molybdenum, a mineral used ra the manufacture of a special bind of high-grade steel for guns, comes from British Columbia. There is also the group of rare metals of which platinum is the best known.