GENERAL FEATURES
Iron and steel and their alloys are the most generally used of the metals. The raw materials necessary for their manufacture include a wide variety of minerals.
Iron is the principal element in this group; but in the manufacture of iron and steel, manganese, chromium, nickel, tungsten, molybdenum, vanadium, zirconium, titanium, aluminum, uranium, magnesium, fluorine, silicon, and other substances play important parts, either as accessories in the furnace reactions or as ingredients introduced to give certain qualities to the products.
Nearly all parts of the world are plentifully supplied with iron ores for an indefinite period in the future, but their abundant use has thus far been confined mainly to the countries bordering the North Atlantic,—the United States, Germany, and England,—which, possessing ample coal supplies, have had the initiative to develop great iron and steel industries. China has abundant coal, moderate quantities of iron ore, and a large population, but a low per capita consumption of iron and steel products. Development of its iron and steel industry is just beginning. Japan has neither coal nor iron in sufficient quantities, and hence the Japanese effort in recent years to control the mineral resources of China and other countries. As a result of the war Germany has been largely deprived of its iron ores, and France may assume somewhat the rank in iron ore production once held by Germany. Sweden and Spain have been considerable producers of iron ore, but both lack coal, with the result that their ores have been largely exported to England and Germany. With increase of per capita consumption in outlying parts of the world, iron and steel industries are beginning to develop locally on a small scale, as