The Nenana daily news. (Nenana, Alaska) 1918-1921, 1918-05-24
CHANCE FOR ALASKA

Of particular interest to Alaskans
at this time is the statement of DR..
Colin G. Fink. president of the
American Electrochemical Society,
who makes it plain in an article re-
Gently published by him, that tung-
stem, a metal occurring extensively
in the territory, is the key metal Of
the present day and may prove in
valuable to the United States in ten
war against Germany:
Every age has had its key" SUBJ
stance, on the existence Of which
its civilization has in some measure
depended. In the stone age the
tribe that found the best flint-de-
posts had the upper hand until some
other tribe discovered bronze. Bronze
as a 'key-metal' was displaced by
steel, which in turn gave place to
lead when the bullet won over the
sword. Still later, copper became
the key, because it made possible
the invention of the percussion cap.
And now comes tungsten. with which
many Interior Alaskans are already
familiar.
Most of the elements of the mod
ern breech-loading and magazine
rifle were known at an early pc,
Rod" says the writer, but they
remained undeveloped for lack OF
means to do infinitely accurate work.
Tool development is a parallel phen-
omenon. Some essential properties
of tungsten steels have been known
for over fifty years-self hardening
steel tools were invented by Robert
Mushet between 1860 and 1870.
Not until the Paris Exposition of
1900, however, did the modern era
in tool steel begin; then Taylor first
exhibited to the astonished gaze
of incredulous machiniSts the spec
tacle of a tool cutting so fast and
deep that it delivered chips at a
blue heat anl II amazing quantities
Since that time the introduction Of
modern scientific shop-management
has been going on apace, wholly made
possible by the use of these high
speed tools cutting four times as
much metal as the best of the older
carbon steels Whereas, in the wars
of the past, copper, tin, and lead,
were, next to steel, the most i'm
portant martial metals today tung-
stem alloyed as high-speed steel is
the dominating factor. To deprive
nation Of tungsten is to cripple
its military power in time of war,
and its industrial power in time of
peace. Without high-speed steels,
machine tools could not be produced
nor operated in sufficient quantity
to make the 'seventy-five' and its
thousands of shells, the rif'a AMI
machine gun and its millions Of
cartridges, nor could automobile,
farm machinery, ships, or engines
be replenished after the sword haS
been happily sheathed."
Germany, this noted authority in
forms US, was the only nation which
PROPERLY appraised this situation in
1914. At that time she had prac-
teal monopoly of the worlds tung-
stem production. The mines of Bur
ma, in English territory, were con-
trolled and operated by Germans
and the ore shipped to Germany for
treatment. Even the Cornish tung-
stem ore was shipped to Germany
for refining and then sold back to
England. He goes on:
''At the outbreak of the war;"
DIR. Fink tells US, tungsten output
actually declined as the German
controlled mines stopped producing,
and it was not until the middle of
1915, after a years hostilities, that
England finally awoke to the i'm
portant of the situation by noting
that no more tools were to be had.
'The occurred a violent specu-
lative rise in price accompanying
insistent demands of the war boards