GENERAL INFORMATION.

Description. The car wheels in general domestic use are either of chilled cast iron, cast steel, or rolled steel. A car wheel made with a cast or forged center piece, about which a steel tire is shrunk, is used to some extent. Locomotive drive wheels are of this type.

Production.-It has been estimated that 3,000,000 chilled cast-iron wheels, valued at $40,000,000, were produced in 1917.

Pennsylvania has a larger number of producers than any other State; Michigan, New York, and Ohio follow. European manufacturers have not developed the chilled cast-iron or rolled-steel wheels which are the predominant types here. The bulk of foreign production has been the steel-tired wheel. Such wheels are likewise made here, and (according to report) before the war could be produced as cheaply as in Europe.

Imports of wheels for railway purposes in 1918 were valued at $194,316, over five times the value of the imports in 1914. These figures include wheels, tires, and axles inserted in wheels.

Exports of car wheels in 1917 were valued at $2,385,973; in 1916 at $741,542; in 1918 at $5,220,704.

INTERPRETATION AND COMMENTS.

Cast-iron car wheels ready for use as imported, save that the diameter of the hole in the center requires to be increased from one-fourth to three-eighths of an inch in order that the wheel may properly fit the axle, are dutiable as wheels for railway purposes under this paragraph. (Abstract 43133, of 1919.) Axles, not inserted in wheels, are dutiable under paragraph 121. (See par. 119.)

Description and uses.-Aluminum is the lightest of the common metals. It is white, strong, very malleable, slightly softer than silver, and can be drawn, punched, rolled, extruded, or spun into almost any form. Highly noncorrodible, it is but slightly affected by the atmosphere or by vegetable acids. One of the important uses of aluminum is as a deoxidizer in steel manufacture; another is in the form of wire for transmission lines and other electrical purposes. Large quantities are consumed in automobile manufacture, partly as sheet and partly in the form of castings. Aluminum vessels and utensils are used in the household and in breweries, sugar refineries, and chemical works. There is a considerable consumption in the making of novelties. Aluminum foil is used to some extent as a substitute for tin. The metal is used in important alloys, notably, with magnesium, tin, copper, zinc, and nickel.

Production.-All the aluminum now manufactured is made from purified bauxite in electric furnaces. The production is a matter of companies rather than of nations. The North American output comes from one American aluminum company, which developed its process of manufacture, introduced the metal on the market, and has built up an enormous business. Three large financial groups, involving French, British, and German capital, control some 14 producing companies in Europe. There is also a small independent company in Italy and another in Norway. Prior to the war the European producers were well organized and controlled production and prices on the Continent.

The successful production of aluminum involves heavy expenditure for plant and requires dependable supplies of raw materials (especially bauxite), adequate transportation facilities, and cheap electric power. The American company has all these essentials, but is at some disadvantage compared with the foreign companies in the cost of assembling its bauxite and coal at East St. Louis for purification and the subsequent transportation of the purified material to the various eastern reduction works, where it is made into metal. In addition to its large holdings of bauxite deposits in Arkansas, the Aluminum Co. of America owns extensive deposits in Guiana. Utilization of these South American ores, which will be refined at Baltimore, should reduce the disadvantage of the domestic producer as regards the supply of raw material. Extensive deposits of high-grade bauxite in southern France afford cheap raw material for most of the European plants, whose operating cost in many works is probably a little less than in the United States.

The war demand for aluminum resulted in an expansion of capacity here, which now exceeds normal demands. Prior to the war the domestic consumption exceeded production. Continental countries,

notably France and Great Britain, are equipped to produce in excess of European requirements.

There is a large quantity of secondary or scrap metal, amounting in 1917 to about 25 per cent of the total consumption.

Plates, sheets, bars, strips, and rods can be grouped together as semifinished shapes obtained either by rolling or extrusion.

The

Imports are largely from Canada and represent merely interplant relations of one American large-scale producer. This metal is ultimately exported, almost wholly with benefit of drawback. Competitive importations previous to 1914 came from Europe, especially from Germany, Great Britain, and France. The maximum importation was in 1913, amounting to 26,642,112 pounds, valued at $4,247,580. war cut off imports from Europe, but a little scrap aluminum came from near-by countries, mostly exported with benefit of drawback. Imports of plates, sheets, bars, strips, and rods, chiefly from Germany and England, reached a maximum of 2,775,804 pounds, valued at $654,765 in 1914, and at $510,455 in 1918.

Exports.-Aluminum in crude or semifinished form was not exported in any considerable quantity prior to 1914. In that year the exports of all kinds of aluminum metal and manufactures were valued at $1,101,920. The enormous demand and high prices abroad resulted in a large increase in exports during the war. In 1918, 21,207,628 pounds of aluminum "ingot, metal, and avoys," valued at $8,611,447, were exported. The exports of plates and sheets amounted to 1,633,854 pounds, with a value of $783,836, and of all other manufactures of

aluminum, $1,804,632.

the Allied Governments.

Practically all the ingot metal was sold to

ALKALINE EARTH AND ALKALI METALS.

Description, uses, and production.—Barium is a soft, yellowish white metal, prepared (generally in an impure state) by reducing the oxide with magnesium. It has been suggested instead of calcium as a lead-hardening constituent in alloys of the Ulco metal type, and for other purposes, but there is no known commercial consumption. Barium compounds are important commercial products prepared from barytes; they bear no industrial relation to the metal, which is more or less a laboratory curiosity.

Calcium is a lustrous, silver-white, brittle metal which is a little harder than lead, but can be cut with a knife. Its only important use is as a reducing agent. It is a powerful deoxidizer and has been used abroad as a substitute for ferromanganese in the manufacture of steel. In this country it is used to some extent in the manufacture of certain chemicals and dyes, replacing sodium. Ulco metal, an alloy of lead of important industrial application, containing a very small percentage of calcium, was developed during the war period as a substitute for bearing metals containing tin. Metallic calcium is produced by the electrolysis of the fused chloride, which is a byproduct of several industries. If there were an extensive demand, it could be produced very cheaply on a large scale. A promising field for its future use is as a scavenger in melting and casting brass and other metals.

Magnesium is the lightest of the known metals that withstand atmospheric corrosion. It is silver-white, tough, malleable, and, when heated, ductile. There are three forms on the market: (1) A silvery powder or gray granular substance, (2) narrow ribbon, and (3) round or square sticks. Flashlight powder used in photography comes in the first class, and powdered magnesium, on account of the intense white light, rich in chemical rays, is much used in various pyrotechnical mixtures and in explosives. Ribbon is used chiefly in chemical laboratories and for the ignition of thermite. Magnesium in stick form is used in alloys, both as a constituent and as a deoxidizer or scavenger (especially for nickel-copper alloys), as a dehydrating agent for oils and coal-tar derivatives, and in various electrolytic processes (as cathode). The growth in the quantity and diversity of the consumption has been very rapid, and is likely to continue with the lessening of production cost. The most important alloys of magnesium are those containing aluminum, widely used in airplane and automobile construction.

Production of metallic magnesium is a new industry in America. Prior to the war the limited demand was supplied from Germany, the sole producer on a commercial scale. Domestic production by three firms began in 1915, with 87,500 pounds, valued at $440,000, and sold at an average price of $5 per pound. The price declined a little in the following year, and production decreased slightly. But in 1917 the quantity increased to 115,813 pounds, and in 1918 to 284,188 pounds. The latter output included considerable magnesium powder, increasing the average value to $2.16 per pound, whereas magnesium in stick form was sold at from $1.85 to $2 per pound.

Two companies, operating three plants, contributed the total output in 1919. Two of the three plants utilized electric power from Niagara Falls, and the third, located at Rumford, Me., has hydroelectric power. Magnesium chloride, from which the metal is derived by electrolysis, is a by-product from salt works, and is obtainable cheaply and in great quantity in this country. This salt can also be produced from dolomite and magnesite. Present sources suffice for a considerably expanded demand.

Prior to the war the entire supply of this country came from Germany; the elimination of that source of supply caused England, France, and Italy to turn to the United States and Canada (which has one plant). The quantity exported is not known.

Sodium is a very soft and light metal, silver-white on a freshly cut surface, but so easily oxidized that it must be kept covered by a liquid like benzene to protect it from the action of the atmosphere. There is a considerable consumption in the manufacture of cyanides, sodium peroxide, dyes, and coal-tar derivatives. Sodium amalgam, obtained by adding small pieces of sodium to gently warmed mercury, is frequently used for chemical purposes instead of the metal (since its decomposition is not so violent) and occasionally in the amalgamation of gold ores in order to cure the "sickening" or fouling of the quicksilver. Amalgams are made with varying percentages of sodium, but generally they contain not over 10 per cent nor less than 2 per cent. An alloy (NaK2) with potassium is prepared commercially by fusing sodium with caustic potash at a temperature of 350° C. This oxidizes spontaneously on exposure to the air, yielding a mixture of the peroxides of the two metals, which is used for the regeneration of deoxygenated air in life-saving apparatus, gas helmets, etc. The metal is usually. produced by electrolysis of fused caustic soda, although sodium chloride (common salt) is occasionally employed. The competitive conditions are essentially those connected with the production of caustic soda.

Potassium is the lightest metal (excepting lithium), with a specific gravity of only 0.865. It is manufactured like sodium, by electrolysis of fused caustic potash. The metal is not in very great demand, as it is generally found that sodium, which is cheaper and, weight for weight, more active, will serve the same purposes. The abundance of potassium salts in Stassfurt gives Germany a considerable advantage in the production of the metal as well as of its compounds.

Imports.-The alkaline earth metals, barium and calcium, and the alkali metals, sodium and potassium, are specifically mentioned in the act of 1913 along with magnesium, and are also grouped together in the statistics of the Department of Commerce. Magnesium and sodium are the only ones that are at all important industrially at the present time. The maximum importation of the group was in 1913, amounting to 36,529.3 pounds, with a value of $37,595.

66

INTERPRETATION AND COMMENTS.

Aluminum disks are not plates, sheets, bars, strips, or rods within this paragraph, nor are they aluminum in crude form or an alloy (5 Ct. Cust. Appls., 514, of 1915); nor are aluminum blanks, square or circular, sheets," but articles or wares composed of aluminum partly manufactured (4 Ct. Cust. Appls., 245, of 1913). The same has been held concerning aluminum in coils (6 Ct. Cust. Appls., 85, of 1915), and so-called sheets cut to size, 96 by 26 inches (Abstract 42587, of 1918).

Aluminum foil.—Aluminum in the form of sheets or strips, even though not cut to size, if in fact foil, is excluded from this paragraph and dutiable as a manufacture of aluminum under paragraph 167. Aluminum in the form of sheets or strips not more than 0.0015 inch and not less than 0.0003 inch in thickness is considered as foil. (T. D. 35517, of 1915.)

Aluminum scrap.-The bent, twisted, and broken aluminum framework of a destroyed Zeppelin, brought to this country for exhibitive purposes, was found in its imported form and condition to be scrap fit only for remanufacture and held dutiable as aluminum scrap under this paragraph. (G. A. 8203, T. D. 37803, of 1918.)

Aluminum is grouped with articles of minor relative importance and with which it has no economic connection, to wit, barium, calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium, and alloys of which said metals are the component material of chief value. At the present high prices of aluminum materials, whether crude or partly finished products, the specific rates imposed in this paragraph are disproportionate to the ad valorem rates imposed in paragraphs 114 and 167. The words or any of them" might be inserted after the word "metals."

66

ACT OF 1909.

PARAGRAPH 144.

173. Antimony, as regulus or metal, 11 cents per pound; matte containing antimony, but not containing more than 10 per centum of lead, 1 cent per pound on the antimony contents therein contained: Provided, That on all importations of antimonybearing ores and matte containing antimony the duties shall be estimated at the port of entry, and a bond given in double the amount of such estimated duties for the transportation of the ores by common carriers bonded for the transportation of appraised or unappraised merchandise to properly equipped sampling or smelting establishments, whether designated as bonded warehouses or otherwise. On the arrival of the ores at such establishment, they shall be sampled according to commercial methods under the supervision of Government officers, who shall be stationed at such establishment, and who shall submit the samples thus obtained to a Government assayer, designated by the Secretary of the Treasury, who shall make a proper assay of the sample, and report the result to the proper customs officers, and the import entry shall be liquidated thereon, except in case of ores that shall be removed to a bonded warehouse to be refined for exportation as provided by law, and the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to make all necessary regulations to enforce the provisions of this paragraph; antimony, oxide of, 11 cents per pound and 25 per centum ad valorem.

ACT OF 1913.

144. Antimony, as regulus or metal, and matte containing antimony but not containing more than 10 per centum of lead, 10 per centum ad valorem; antimony oxide, salts, and compounds of, 25 per centum ad valorem.