No Need to Import?

Beside the long-abandoned Maclntyre iron mine in New York's Adirondack vacationland--of all places--National Lead Co. last week put the finishing touches on a mill that will make the U.S. independent of imports in two critical materials and crack wide open two war-effort bottlenecks: vanadium and titanium.

The Indian who discovered the mine back in 1826 got $1.50 and a pouch of tobacco for his pains. The State of New York got 10-c- an acre for the land. Even so, for 116 years it was a bad investment. The mine went through the wringer many times, closed down in 1914. One trouble was the cost of getting rid of the titanium in the ore, for nobody wanted titanium then.

National Lead bought the property in September 1941. Before it could start building, it had to spend $480,000 for an 8 1/4-mile road to the nearest highway, $500,000 more for a 42-mile, 100,000-volt high-tension line. Meanwhile its engineers lived like explorers in tents and ghost-city shanties. Now the huge crushing plant, wet mill and dry mill are almost complete; operations will be full-scale by mid-July. Total cost: $9,000,000--every cent from National Lead's own till.

Titanium. National Lead was after titanium when it bought the mine, and it expects to get over 100,000 tons of titanium dioxide a year to sell at 14 1/2-c- a Ib. Almost unknown to most U.S. citizens, dazzling white titanium dioxide is so opaque that it has ten times the covering ability of white lead. Three-quarters of it is used in paint; another big use is in paper. Before the war it was found on beaches in India's native state of Travancore, hauled halfway round the world to the U.S. Maclntyre alone will soon yield almost enough to supply all U.S. demand, which has shot up fivefold since 1929.

Vanadium. National Lead got a windfall in the vanadium at Maclntyre. It hopes to get 3,000,000 Ib. a year, worth $2.90 a Ib. as ferro-vanadium. This white metal is vitally needed to increase the tensile strength of steel. As such it will be snapped up like soda pop at a ball game; sale of this by-product alone will rake in almost as much cash in one year as National Lead has spent on the whole Maclntyre development.

This all looked so good to the Government that the Defense Plant Corp. is spending $2,500,000 to run the Delaware & Hudson's tracks 33 miles from North Creek right into the mine.

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