Japan, with the best organization, industrial development, and consuming power, has little iron within its own boundaries, and has been attempting to make up its deficiency by bringing, in iron ore in large quantities from Chosen, China and the Straits Settlements. The distance might not prove insuperable obstacles in these days of transportation, and, there are many examples of long-distance hauls of iron ore in great bulk. But the political difficulties involved are not likely to be surmounted for a long time to come.
It is a common belief that Chosen has large reserves of medium-grade iron ore, and may meet the large part of the Japanese requirements for iron ore when the time comes.
Iron ore in the peninsular is magnetite, titaniferous in certain cases hematite or limonite. Titaniferous magnetite occurs always in, or at the margin of a basic plutonic rock, while non-titaniferous magnetite is found in the Pre-Cambrian Sedimentaries in bedded form, and hematite and limonite mostly in the Great-Limestone Series also in belded or lenticular form, in some cases showing that it is an alteration product of siderite or pyrite; among these, limonite in the Great-Limestone holds first place in the annual production of the peninsular.
There are eight active mines and one iron-and steel-works (Ken-ji-pho Iron Works) in the peninsular; in 1933 the former produced 552, 553 tons of iron ore, of which 258, 267 tons were transported to Japan and the remainder smelted in Ken-ji-pho blast furnaeps.
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