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Mineral Mastery: Discovery and Control of Ore Deposits After the Baltic War

Written by Iver P. Cooper

 

 

 

Introduction

 

Kipling may have thought that only "Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all," but there are quite a few minerals which will be of military and economic importance in the "new" 1630s.

This essay updates the economic geography of the 1632 universe from the end of 1632 (see Runkle, "Mente et Malleo: Practical Mineralogy and Minerals Exploration in 1632," Grantville Gazette 2) to the end of the Baltic War, and looks at the strategic minerals situation of all the major powers, not just Grantville.

Which deposits were known to the down-timers and which weren't? Which "new" deposits can be located, with reasonable exactitude, from up-time texts? Given the transport network of the time, which can be developed readily? And which mines are controlled by which of the great powers?

 

Economic Warfare

 

In the seventeenth century, governments took a nonchalant attitude toward trading with the enemy. It wasn't a crime; at most you might have to pay extra fees for the privilege. Not only could you sell iron, you could even sell weapons.

But by the eighteenth century, Britain recognized the strategic importance of America and the Baltic as sources of naval stores: lumber for masts; turpentine and tar for waterproofing the hull. It became British policy to ensure that no other European power controlled the Baltic.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Union blockade of the Confederacy was intended to block cotton exports, and imports of strategic materials (the South received 60% of its arms, 75% of its gunpowder, and more than a third of its lead, from abroad). (Naylor, 15).

One of Germany's goals in the peace negotiations which concluded the 1870 Franco-Prussian War was, arguably, to deny France the coal and iron of Alsace-Lorraine. (Cerf, 121).

In the twentieth century, Japan excused its land-grab in southeast Asia as necessary to protect its supply of oil, rubber and tin (and surely recognized that at the same time, it was denying them to Britain and the United States). The United States has stockpiled strategic materials since 1939, to reduce its vulnerability to wartime interruptions of its foreign commerce.

The sovereigns of Europe, and their ministers, have been avidly reading about up-time history, and some, at least, have learned to think about denying resources to their enemy while protecting their own supplies. A case in point is the French raid on Wietze, during the Baltic War.

 

Dependency on Foreign Imports

 

Even if the monarchs of Europe don't stop the practice of selling to the enemy, they are certainly subscribers to the mercantile philosophy of reducing dependence on foreign imports. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both England and France attempted to coax Venetian glassmakers to desert the Most Serene Republic. In the eighteenth century, the Bourbons offered a prize for whoever could make "soda" (sodium carbonate) from seawater, at a price competitive with foreign soda (which was made from the ash of the Spanish saltwort or Scottish seaweed).

 

Political Restrictions

 

We can distinguish several different levels of political restriction on mineral availability:

● Current Control - the mineral can be found within the present territory of the power.

● Effective Control - the mineral is in a location which only the power in question can readily acquire.

● Open Access - the mineral is in a territory which is controlled by a friendly power, and not readily interdicted by an enemy power.

● Debatable Access - the mineral is in a territory controlled by a neutral power, or in a territory for which the trade route is interdictable by an enemy power, or in an up-for-grabs region.

● Access on Sufferance - the mineral is in a territory controlled by an enemy power.

 

Economic Restrictions

 

There are also economic restrictions on the practicality of mining a deposit. The price which the metal can be sold for, the value of associated metals, the level of demand, the size of the deposit, the cost of extracting the metal (and perhaps associated metals) from the ore (either near the mine site or elsewhere), and the cost of transporting the ore to the smelter and the metal to its market, dictate what is the minimum acceptable grade. In the early twentieth century, one might want an iron ore which was at least 25-50% iron, but accept lead at as low as 5% ore. Cripple Creek's average ore was 1.5 ounces gold/ton. (Lindgren 14ff; Beyschlag 206; Crane 602).

Only those deposits which are near the coast, navigable rivers, or the new railroad lines are likely to be developed rapidly. See Cooper, "Hither and Yon" (Grantville Gazette 11). Proximity to a population center helps in terms of providing miners and logistical support.

Also, while the demand for the "new" metals will increase much more rapidly than in OTL, and they will command relatively high prices, it may still take a decade or more for a "new" metal-based mining colony to turn a profit. And the same is true, albeit to a lesser degree, for any mining settlement outside the homeland.

Up-time knowledge will change the demand for the metals, and the efficiency of extraction and transport, and thus affect the mining industry in a complex manner. During the nineteenth century, world production of iron, lead, zinc, copper and tin doubled every twenty years. (Beyschlag 207), but changes will be faster in the new time line, at least initially.

In 1600, Western European iron production was about 125,000 tonnes (1.6 kilograms/person)(Prak 81), and per capita consumption was probably similar. In 1900, per capita iron consumption was about 400 pounds in America and Great Britain, 60 in Russia. (International Yearbook).

Any rapid increase in iron production will require both conversion from wood to coal as the energy source (already underway pre-RoF in England) and a concomitant increase in coal production. Coal consumption in 1900 America was 3.5 pounds/person. (National Conservation Commission).

Consumption of metals used primarily in steel alloys will be proportional to steel consumption. For some metals, it could take decades for European production of steel to reach the point that it is necessary to import supplies from overseas. Nonetheless, I expect that the development of these overseas sources will begin in the 1630s. Many OTL European colonies were established without knowing whether there were any useful minerals in the vicinity, and quite a few colonization and trading "companies" came to grief. The NTL colonies, founded on the basis of up-time information, know that there is a metal, which is or ultimately will be of commercial value, to be found, even if they aren't precisely sure when the demand for that metal will be sufficient to make the colony profitable. If investors are willing to take the long view, they have a good expectation of success.

 

Key Minerals

 

My present interest is primarily in those minerals, especially scarce ones, whose desirability or availability could affect stories set in 1635-39. But bear in mind that it was de rigeur to start colonies which could not be expected to have significant exports until 5-10 years later.

 

Table 1: Key Minerals
Minerals/Metals	Old and New Uses
	Structural Metal	Alloying Element	Other
Important even in 1631-35
gold, silver			currency, conductor
coal, oil, natural gas			fuels, organic chemical feedstocks
iron	X
copper	X		conductor
tin		X	plate, cans
lead	X	X	bullets, ballast, electrodes, liquation, optical glass
zinc		X	galvanization
antimony			harden lead, smoke bombs, primers (Gregory 264)
mercury			amalgamation, fulminate
salt			food preservation, inorganic chemical feedstock
borates		X	borosilicate glass, detergents, fire retardants
potash, soda, elemental sulfur and pyrites			inorganic chemical feedstock
In 1635-39, we can expect to see increasing interest in
aluminum	X		conductor, pyrotechnic; aluminum oxide--refractory, abrasive
magnesium	X		pyrotechnic
platinum			catalyst, chemical handling
tier 1: manganese, nickel, chromium		X
tier 2: tungsten, cobalt, molybdenum		X	tungsten-light filaments, tungsten carbide cobalt-magnets
tier 3: vanadium		X
mica			insulator
graphite			refractory, electrode, lubricant, carbon fiber reinforcement
nitrates, phosphates			fertilizer
asbestos			fire retardant

Italicized minerals/metals are especially critical.

 

A few comments. . . .

 

Aluminum. To make aluminum, you first need to extract alumina from bauxite. Large-scale commercial production of aluminum then requires electrolytically refining aluminum from alumina, which requires great quantities of electricity, and cryolite as a flux. Cryolite is found in commercial quantities only in Greenland. In Mackey, "Land of Ice and Sun" (Grantville Gazette 11), a De Geer-sponsored expedition mines cryolite for a season, and in Offord, "Dr. Phil's Family" (Grantville Gazette 10), cryolite is synthesized.

Alloying Elements. In 1919, the world production of manganese was less than 1% that of iron, and of chromium less than 1% that of manganese. Molybdenum, tungsten and cobalt production was even smaller. In 1907, nickel production was 0.02% iron. (Beyschlag 207). Even in the modern USA, while annual consumption of iron ore is over 50 million tons; consumption of manganese is only about one million, chromium 600,000 and nickel 200,000; that of each of the "tier 2" elements is in the tens of thousands, and of vanadium in the thousands. (USGS). So we should be able to make do with small deposits of the tier 2 and 3 ores for quite a long time.

Copper, Lead and Zinc. These have uses other than an as additives to iron, but in 1890 world production was 1%, 2% and 1.5%, respectively, that of iron.

Magnesium. Extractable from salt brines, and hence available to all of the coastal nations. Hence, I haven't paid much attention to the location of magnesite deposits.

 

Vicarious Prospecting

 

By vicarious prospecting, I mean the identification of mineral localities by studying up-time books. Commercially exploitable concentrations of useful minerals are found on less than 0.1% of the land, worldwide (SME 21), so it helps to have a few useful hints from the future.

In the more populated regions, many of the deposits of gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, tin, sulfur and mercury which could be identified by "vicarious prospecting" are already known to the down-timers. The same is true to a lesser degree for coal, oil, antimony and zinc ore, which were specialty chemicals as of the RoF.

That said, even in Europe, there are many mines which, in our time line, were discovered after 1631. These include Kiruna in Sweden (ore seam is 4km long, 80-120m thick, >60% iron), Chalanches(silver discovered 1767 by goatherd searching for strayed kid) and La Gardette (gold discovered 1700) in the French Alps (Isere), and Hiendelaencina, Guadelahara, Spain (silver discovered 1843).(Phillips, 231, 249, 367).

The up-timer's identifications can be classified as follows:

old mine, old metal—these just reassure the down-timers that the up-timers know what they're talking about. It should also be acknowledged that there will be seventeenth century mines which are not shown in the up-time texts. Perhaps the mine was too small by twentieth century standards to list; or by the twentieth century it was uneconomical to exploit because of the depletion of the economically useable ore or competition with newer mines.

old mine, new metal—The Koppartorp in Sweden started as a copper mine (1420s), but subsequently (1750) produced cobalt. New metal isn't necessarily one which is truly new, it can be one which just wasn't considered useful previously, like nickel.

You may take advantage of metal associations (associated metals grouped in same column of table below: ** strongly * weakly; e.g., manganese, iron and cobalt are weakly associated; manganese and iron strongly):

 

Metal

Associations

Titanium

*

Vanadium

*

Chromium

*

Manganese

*

**

*

Iron

*

**

*

Cobalt

*

**

**

Nickel

**

**

Copper

**

**

**

**

*

*

Silver

**

**

**

**

**

*

Gold

**

**

*

Mercury

*

Lead

**

**

*

Zinc

**

Tin

*

*

 

new mine, old metal— the silver mines of northern Guadelahara, Mexico

new mine, new metal—all the deposits in Australia

"Old" is in the eye of the beholder. For example, the iron deposits of India may be well known to the Mughals but not to Europeans, and platinum is a new metal for the Europeans, but not necessarily for the Indians of Columbia.

 

Accuracy

 

Most encyclopedias just identify the country, or even the U.S. state or Canadian province in which the mineral is located. But that isn't precise enough by itself to make prospecting feasible. It is useful as a clue as to the geographical region on which to focus additional research, but if you can't find anything more, all you're going to do is tell your agents in that region, "be on the lookout for X." (I found the short-entry Columbia Encyclopedia (ColE) surprisingly useful in identifying the locations of mines, given a country of interest. )

Even when you have an encyclopedia which names a specific town, or an atlas which has a locality icon on a map, you shouldn't go shopping for a yacht. The town may be just the closest settlement to the mine, which itself is miles away. And you better be able to find the town on a map. The atlas economic map may seem more reliable, but you don't know whether the icon is centered on or merely touches the deposit, and the scale of a map (miles per inch) makes a big difference in how well the deposit is pinpointed. And even with scanners and image processing software, transferring the location to the main map isn't trivial.

At best, you probably know the location of the deposit within 10-20 miles. That implies a search area of 300-1200 square miles, and depending on the areal extent and surface signs of the deposit, and the difficulty of the terrain, it could still take months, even years, to find it.

 

Texts

 

The up-time texts fall into three major categories: encyclopedias, atlases, and books for rockhounds and geologists.

Encyclopedias. There are at least ten different encyclopedias in Mannington WV, and therefore in Grantville (see Appendix 1).

Grantville has at least the 9th, 11th (EB11) and 15th (EB15) editions of Encyclopedia Britannica. Just to complicate matters further, the big encyclopedias are partially revised each year, even though they are nominally the same edition. EB11 often states specific ore localities, but of course is unaware of post-1911 discoveries. EB15 has resource maps for all continents save Africa. It also has a long article (Industries, Extraction and Processing) which provides a useful summary of refining methods, but is often too vague as to the source of the ore.

The World Book Encyclopedia (WBE) offers some economic maps (e.g., California, Japan), and also gives USGS data for which countries are the leading producers of particular metals.

There may be CDROM versions of EB15, WBE, and several digital only encyclopedias (Grolier's, Compton's, Encarta) in Grantville.

Secondly, with the exception of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (EB11), they are likely to have a bias toward North America (and EB11 has a clear bias towards Britain). That's nice if the expedition is going to Maryland for chromium, but not so good if you want to find nickel in New Caledonia.

You are warned that Grantville's encyclopedias are biased toward

* sources in England (EB11) or United States (others)

* "current" sources of the metal (thus ignoring deposits which were exhausted by the time of publication but which may be perfectly viable in 163x).

* the "important" deposits and may ignore a minor one which is nonetheless important in the 1632verse because of its location (e.g., bauxite in the Vogelsberg).

Atlases. I have reviewed over a dozen atlases, and only a handful provided economic maps identifying where specific minerals might be found. The others are useful only for finding localities mentioned by the encyclopedias, and getting a sense of the local terrain. The Hammond Citation World Atlas (HCWA), known to be in Mannington, was by far the most useful. The 1987 edition had 49 economic maps at the country or larger scale, as well as individual economic maps for each American state and Canadian province.

The careful reader will find that geographical names can be rather suggestive. For example, the gold seeker might be intrigued by the California county named "El Dorado". South of St. Louis, we find the towns Hematite, Valles Mines, Mineral Point, Potosi, Leadwood, Leadington, Ironton, Rivermines, Mine, and Cobalt City.

Rockhounding, Mining and Geology Books. There are several rockhounding books in Mannington libraries (Appendix). There are two problems with these books. The first is that they have a American bias, and the other that they are more interested in show specimens than economic mining. The mining books are about coal, or the American West.

There will also be high school earth science and a few college geology books in town. The latter will typically have one chapter on mineral deposits. Gilluly, Principles of Geology offers a U.S. coal map, a world oil map, a plan of the Sudbury formation (but without any reference points), and a few other tidbits.

****

I think we can usefully distinguish three levels of vicarious prospecting:

Level I: Casual Search

A casual search, by definition, is one looking at only a few of the reference works in Grantville. A casual search may be prompted by access problems, language difficulties, time or budget constraints, laziness or prejudice (if the first encyclopedia confirms what you wanted to find, you might not keep looking and risk finding something contradictory).

Level II: Exhaustive Search

Scaling up from level I, you can look at more reference works, and you can use their indexes to find articles which aren't primarily about the metal or the ore but which mention them.

By 1634, there are professional researchers in Grantville who (for a stiff price) will "mine data" from the library materials. If the ore essay refers to a particular geographical region, naturally they will look it up, too. For example, EB11 Chromite" mentions Unst, in Shetland (Scotland). But the article on Shetland says that chromite is also found at Hagdeale and the Heog Hills. Likewise, EB11 "Haematite" cites Lancashire, but the article on "Furness" is much more specific.

It helps, of course, if some up-timer remembers the geological importance of a particular locale. The EB11 "haematite" article doesn't even mention the hematite deposits at Birmingham, Alabama, although the essay on that city directs attention to Red Mountain, a little to the south.

Until the encyclopedias are scanned and OCR'd so that they are electronically searchable, some of the relevant citations will be difficult to find. For example, Norway was the first importance source of nickel. EB11 and Encyclopedia Americana don't even list Norway as a source. ColEdoes, but if you want to know where in Norway to look, you would have to find the entry for Aust-Agder (Nedenes) county. Which isn't easy unless that entry is indexed under "nickel," you have browsed the entire encyclopedia, or you can do a computer search.

There should be limited online search capability even in 1631 (at least Grolier's Multimedia Encyclopedia and Encarta, and perhaps also World Book and the New Encyclopedia Britannica, on commercial CD-ROMs). The smaller, "short entry" encyclopedias (like Columbia) will probably be converted for online searching by 1634-35, and the others later in the decade.

Level III: Extraordinary Knowledge (Lucky Break!)

Like level II, but also consider the personal libraries of those with relevant occupations and hobbies. Access to these will be more limited.

Specialist works (like Bateman, Economic Mineral Deposits) are unlikely, but if anyone has them, it will be Quentin Underwood (B.S. in Mining Technology) , Ron Koch (M.E. in Mining Engineering) or Lolly Aossey (B.S. in geology, former oil well logger). However, it isn't guaranteed, as a review of the required courses for those majors makes clear. And even books on mineral deposits may have more to say about how the minerals are formed than exactly where to find them.

 

Aerial Prospecting

 

 

Since a few airplanes and airships are available in NTL 1634, it should soon be possible to do aerial prospecting, and thus cover a lot of territory in a short period of time. Large concentrations of the iron ores magnetite, pyrrhotite and ilmenite can be detected with a magnetometer, and material of unusually high (various metal oxides, carbonates and sulfides) or low (salt) density with a torsion balance or gravimeter. Aerial prospecting will probably first be used in Russia, which has airships and has lots of land to survey.

 

Mineral Resources Within or Near the Territories of Selected Powers

To ascertain who controls a particular deposit, it is necessary to know the borders of the various world powers. For the purpose of this article, I assume that central European borders are as shown in Gorg Huff's 1634 Peace Map. (Note 1). I have used other maps and histories to figure out as best I can the borders elsewhere in the world.

In general, it's easier to say what a country has than what it lacks, because small or low concentration deposits are often disregarded until necessity forces their exploitation.

Exhaustive searching for the "knowable" sources of all economic minerals, in all countries, would require far more time than I could justify investing in this article. Hence, I mostly consulted one atlas (HCWA) and the element and ore entries in two encyclopedias (EB11; Encyclopedia Americana) in order to compile the deposit information for each country. No doubt additional deposits can be located if the characters go beyond this sort of casual search.

 

EUROPEAN POWERS

United States of Europe

At the conclusion of the Baltic War, the USE controlled most, but not all, of modern Germany. The exceptions were the states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Bavaria, but these weren't quite coterminous with the modern states. The USE also included a part of northeastern Poland.

Leisering's 1550 economic map of central europe shows that many iron mines were being worked in the belt running from Namur (modern Belgium) to Soest (Westphalia). It also shows active coal mining between Duisberg and Soest, and quicksilver (mercury) extraction somewhere between Trier and Worms.

Much attention will be given, post-RoF, to the "Agriculture, Industry and Resources" maps in the Hammond Citation World Atlas (HCWA). The one for Germany shows, with reasonable particularity, the locations of major deposits of coal, salt and potash, and lesser ones of those minerals, lignite, silver, copper, iron, lead, zinc, natural gas and oil.

EB11 is also useful, as its essays will usually identify at least the district, and sometimes the town, in which a particular metal is mined. Besides giving locations for minerals already mentioned, EB11/Germany advises that "nickel and antimony are found in the upper Harz; cobalt in the hilly districts of Hesse and the Saxon Erzgebirge; arsenic in the Riesengebirge; quicksilver in the Sauerland and in the spurs of the Saarbrucken coal hills. "

The most important mining region of the USE is the Harz, on the border of Lower Saxony (not to be confused with the Electorate of Saxony) and Thuringia, and in the HCWA, this is shown as having deposits of iron, zinc, copper, lead, and silver. EB11/Harz Mountains says: "The Harz is one of the richest mineral storehouses in Germany, and the chief industry is mining, which has been carried on since the middle of the 10th century. The most important mineral is an especially argentiferous lead, but gold in small quantities, copper, iron, sulphur, alum and arsenic are also found. Mining is carried on principally at Klausthal and St Andreasberg in the Upper Harz." The 1550 Leisering map shows silver mines flanking Goslar, and copper mines on the road between Erfurt and Magdeburg.

In northwest Germany, we have oil and gas fields which, as explained in Cooper, "Drillers in Doublets" (Grantville Gazette 4), are associated with small salt domes. The Wietze field is referred to in 1632. The USE's Upper Rhenish province (created by the peace treaty, 1634: The Baltic War, Chap 68) includes (in the County of Hanau-Lichtenberg) the oil field of Pechelbronn, NNE of Strassbourg, which in OTL was one of the principal French fields.  This province also includes the Saar coalfields. In Westphalia we find coal, lead, zinc, and iron, and Hesse has iron, oil and gas. (HCWA).

Nickel and cobalt ores are known to the German copper and silver miners, but are considered to be waste material or worse. Once uses were found for these metals, the old mines were combed for nickel and cobalt. (The same associations of course occur elsewhere, too, including Austria, Hungary, France, Silesia, Sweden and Norway.)(Howard-White 50ff). Douglas Jones suggests that where electricity is available (Grantville and Magdeburg, initially), it will be economical to recover them in substantial quantities by electrolytic refining.

Pyrolusite (manganese ore) can be found at Ilmenau, Thuringia (EB11/Pyrolusite), and there is manganite at Ilfield in the Harz and in Ilmenau (EB11/Manganite). Spurr (107) says that Germany has extensive deposits of iron-bearing manganese ore of 12-30% manganese content. In 1908-13, it produced 260-330,000 tonnes of such mid-grade material (probably from Hessen and Waldeck in Rhenish Prussia), and 2.3-3 million of low grade (5-7%) ore (from Siegerland and Nassau). Its high-grading holdings are "negligible", but apparently are to be found in Sachsen-Gotha, in veins weathered near the surface, and in Hessen and Waldeck. (96).

There are substantial deposits of salt and potash in the USE, e.g., at Halle and Stassfurt. Germany was the principal source of world potash until OTL 1925. (Bateman 802ff).

There are low-grade (iron-rich) bauxite (aluminum ore) deposits in the Vogelsberg Mountains. (Spurr 330, EB11/Laterite).

The Mansfeld copper mine (near Halle) is famous, but German copper production is relatively small and in the very long term (decades) the demand will outstrip the supply (Gregory 256, Weed 90). As long as the USE is allied to Sweden, that isn't a serious problem.

There is iron in the Upper Palatinate (HCWA). These mines are referred to in both 1634: The Baltic War (Chapter 6) and 1634: The Bavarian Crisis (Chapters 20, 21), and two sites are on the Leisering map.

I confess to having been puzzled by the USE's obsession with importing zinc from Japan (Flint, 1634: The Galileo Affair). There's plenty of zinc ore in Germany, as illustrated by Offord, "Dr. Phil Zinkens a Bundle" (Grantville Gazette 7). Germany accounted for 25% of 1913 world production (Spurr 298).

The telephone people in Grantville wanted graphite, because of its electrical properties. By April 1634, the USE embassy to Venice had ordered a supply of "good English graphite." Flint and Dennis, 1634: The Galileo Affair, Chapter 29. Thanks to the USE's military successes in the Baltic War, it can now mine graphite closer at hand, in Bavarian Passau (HCWA).

 

Greater Sweden (the Union of Kalmar)

 

The child of the shotgun marriage of Denmark and Sweden, the Union of Kalmar, controls Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Estonia, and the coast of modern Russia between Estonia and Finland.

The mineral resources of this region are quite impressive. They include major deposits of titanium (30 million tons ilmenite! —Bateman 625) and molybdenum (Stavanger-Oslo), and iron (Kiruna), and lesser ones of silver, gold, cobalt (SE Finland), chromium (head of Gulf of Bothnia), copper, iron, nickel (SE Finland), lead, uranium, vanadium (central Finland) and zinc (HCWA). Unfortunately, all the oil and gas appears to be well offshore. (HCWA doesn't plot all of the EB11 mines, perhaps because of twentieth century depletion.) EB15 Europe map reveals a nickel deposit in southwest Finland (the Vammala Nickel Belt).

EB11/Sweden provides locations for iron, silver, lead, copper, zinc, iron, gold, coal, and cobalt. The cobalt site is Tunaberg; copper has been mined there since 1420s (286 tons ore/year in 1880s), but cobalt since OTL 1750s (mindat; Phillips 394).

There is also coal, silver, copper and iron in named districts in Norway (EB11/Norway). EB11/Finland is vaguer, but "Some gold is obtained in Lapland on the Ivalajoki."

Some of the Swedish mines are quite old, such as the copper mines of Falun, or silver-lead mines of Sala (latter not shown by HCWA). However, I want to direct attention to the iron of Kiruna. This was discovered in 1647 (showcaves.com), but wasn't really exploitable until transport problems were solved. "[i]n 1903 the northern railway was completed . . . , and the vast deposits at the hills of Kirunavara and Luossavara began to be worked. These deposits alone are estimated to have an extent exceeding one-quarter of the total ore fields worked in the country. The deposits are generally in pockets, and the thickness of the beds ranges from 100 to nearly 500 ft. at Kirunavara, up to 230 ft. at Gellivara, and in the midland fields generally from 40 to 100 ft., although at the great field of Grangesberg, in Kopparberg and Orebro Lan, a thickness of nearly 300 ft. is found. Nearly all the ore is magnetite, and in the midlands it is almost wholly free of phosphorus. The percentage of iron in the ore is high, as much as 66% in the Kirunavara-Luossavara ore; and little less in that of Grangesberg; this far exceeds other European ores. . . ." (EB11/Sweden).

Vicarious prospecting will also pay off in new copper finds in Norway at Sulitelma (OTL 1858, Wikipedia/Sulitjelma), Røros (OTL 1644, www.rorosinfo.com ), both shown by HCWA . Fortuitously, there is also chromite in the Røros district, with 15,000 tons produced 1830-75 (USGS1918, 682).

There are only small, low concentration (~1.5%) nickel deposits in Norway; nonetheless, 400,000 tons of nickel ore was mined in Norway up to OTL 1909. (Spurr 134)

The principal Norwegian iron mine is Klodeberg near the port of Arendal. Total production 1620s-1870s was 2-3 million tons ore (42-49% iron). (Beyschlag 294). The silver of Kongsberg was discovered (by children?) in 1623. Main mine produced ~2600 kilograms native silver and 670 tonnes of 0.28% silver ore in 1879. (Phillips 102, 386).

 

Overseas Activities

 

A Swedish colony has been planted at Paramaraibo, Suriname (Cooper, "Stretching Out 1: Second Starts," Grantville Gazette 11), and is exporting bauxite ("Stretching Out 4: Beyond the Line", Grantville Gazette 16). The returning vessel, on the way home, mined tar in Trinidad (and pirated gold and silver from Nicaragua).

Sakalucks, "Northwest Passage, Part 1" (Grantville Gazette 22) describes the early organizational efforts (1633-34) of a Danish-based company which intends to start a colony at the south end of Hudson's Bay, which will "provide a base for expeditions to locate and start mining operations for nickel and gold deposits." (See "Up for Grabs," below. )

 

Bohemia-Moravia

 

This is the kingdom ruled by Wallenstein; Bohemia and Moravia are, roughly speaking, the modern Czech Republic. It has deposits of coal, lignite, iron, silver, lead, zinc, uranium, graphite and natural gas (HCWA). EB11 is complimentary concerning the resources of Bohemia: "Except salt, which is entirely absent, almost every useful metal and mineral is to be found. . . ." and Moravia has its own endowment.

Leisering reports sixteenth century exploitation of quicksilver south of Prague, and of silver in five deposits within about eight miles of the capital.

On the border between Bohemia and Saxony, we have the Erzegebirge Mountains. "As its name (Ore Mountains) indicates, it is famous for its mineral ores. These are chiefly silver and lead, the layers of both of which are very extensive, tin, nickel, copper and iron. Gold is found in several places, and some arsenic, antimony, bismuth, manganese, mercury and sulphur." (EB11/Erzegebirge). Silver was discovered at Joachimstal in 1516 (SME 9), and tin was worked not far away (Leisering).

 

Netherlands 

 

My initial perception of the geological potential of Don Fernando's new kingdom, encompassing modern Holland and Belgium, was unfavorable. However, Phillips (251) says that "taking into account its limited area, Belgium is, in respect to its mineral wealth, one of the most productive countries of the world." It offers coal (near Limburg, Mons and Liege), and, on the modern Dutch-German border, salt, oil and natural gas (HCWA). There was mid-sixteenth century exploitation of iron, coal and copper near Dinant, Namur and Luttich/Liege (Leisering). There is also lead and zinc. Indeed, the zinc has been mined at Kelmisberg since the fifteenth century to supply calamine (zinc ore) "to the foundries of Aix-la-Chappelle", which, without knowing of its zinc content, "employed it in the manufacture of brass." (Phillips 258).

Then there's Groningen, in the northernmost province. This currently ranks as the fourteenth largest natural gas field (discovered 1959, OTL) in the world. HCWA provides the location of the main accumulation which is over 20 miles long. Overall, one of three wells drilled is productive in this region. (Breunese).

Still, the absolute mineral wealth of the Dutch is limited. On the other hand, they have a huge merchant navy, and thus the ability to import many minerals, and to pay for those imports with other trade goods. The Dutch are quite heavily involved in the gold trade in Africa, and have made inroads into the Portuguese trade with Asia.

 

Great Britain

 

The tin of Cornwall has been exploited since Phoenician times (SME 20). Coal was used in Roman Britain as a gemstone, and very occasionally as a fuel. (Freese 15).

Serious coal mining began in the 1200s, and the principal source was the Newcastle-on-Tyne field (23). As a result of timber depletion, coal became the main fuel in England by the end of Elizabeth's reign (Freese 33). In 1610, it was predicted that because of drainage problems, the Newcastle supply would become unworkable in 21 years (53). By 1650, English coal output was over 2,000,000 tonnes (Smil 159). Coal production in 1700 was perhaps ten times greater than in 1550, and Britain was mining five times more coal than the rest of the world combined (Freese 56).

In 1550, there was mining of salt near Chester, Stourbridge and Boston; lead on the Trent; iron west of York and Doncaster; silver and lead in Cumbria; and of course coal near Newcastle. There was also gold mining southwest, and silver ESE, of Edinburgh. (Leisering).

The British have iron, coal, lead, tin, zinc, potash, natural gas, salt, and fluorspar deposits in England proper, and there is peat, lead, zinc and barite in Ireland (HCWA). Many of these deposits are not shown on the Leisering 1550 map.

As usual, HCWA doesn't tell the whole story. For example, there is copper, antimony, and manganese in Cornwall (EB11/Cornwall); copper, manganese, and arsenic in Devon (EB11/Devonshire (Devon)); graphite in the Borrowdale mine of Cumberland (EB11/Pencil).

 

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