it. With increasingly precise and rapidly changing metallurgical requirements, this field calls for scientific development.
Geographic distribution of iron ore production. Iron ores are widely distributed over the world, but are produced and smelted on a large scale only in a few places where there is a fortunate conjunction of high grades, large quantity, proximity of coal, cheap transportation to markets, and manufacturing enterprise. Over 90 per cent of the iron ore production of the world is in countries bordering the North Atlantic basin. The United States produces about 40 per cent, France about 12 per cent, England about 10 per cent, Germany before the war 15 to 20 per cent, and Spain, Russia, and Sweden each about 5 per cent. Lesser producing countries are Luxemburg, Austria-Hungary, Cuba, Newfoundland, and Algeria; and insignificant amounts are produced in many other parts of the world. Of the world's iron and steel manufacturing capacity, the United States has about 53 per cent, Germany 16 per cent, England 14 per cent, France 10 per cent, the remainder of Europe (chiefly Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Belgium) 7 per cent. The absence of important iron ore production and of iron and steel manufacture either in the southern hemisphere or in any of the countries bordering the Pacific is a significant feature, when we remember what part iron plays in modern civilization. Japan, however, is beginning to develop a considerable iron and steel industry, which promises to use a large amount of ore from China, Manchuria, and Korea, and possibly to compete in American Pacific Coast markets.
In the United States about 85 per cent of the production, or one-third of the world's production, comes from the Lake Superior region, a large part of the remainder from the Birmingham district, Alabama, and smaller quantities from the Adirondacks. For the rest of the North American continent, the only largely producing deposit is that at Belle Isle, Newfoundland, which is the basis of the iron industry of eastern Canada. Cuba supplies some ore to the east coast of the United States.
In Europe there are only three large sources of high-grade iron ore which have heretofore been drawn on largely,—the magnetite deposits of northern Sweden, the hematites and siderites of the Bilbao and adjacent districts of northern Spain, and the magnetite-hematite deposits of southern Russia. The first two of these ores have been used to raise the percentage of iron in the low-grade ores which are the principal reliance of western Europe. The Swedish ores have also been necessary in order to raise the percentage of phosphorus and thus make the ores suitable for the Thomas process; on the other hand the Spanish ores and a small part of the Swedish material have been desired because of their low phosphorus content, adapted to the acid Bessemer process and to the manufacture of low-phosphorus pig. The Russian ores have largely been smelted in that country.
The largest of the western European low-grade deposits is a geographic and geologic unit spreading over parts of Lorraine, Luxemburg, and the immediately adjacent Briey, Longwy, and Nancy districts of France. The ores of this region are called "minette" ores. This unit produces about a fourth of the world's iron ore. Low-grade deposits of a somewhat similar nature in the Cleveland, Lincolnshire, and adjacent districts of England form the main basis for the British industry. There is minor production