SEDL / STP / STP141-EB / STP44045S

Tin Production and Resources

Miller, F. Stuart
Vice-President, Pacific Tin Consolidated Corp., New York, N. Y.

Pages: 22    Published: Jan 1953

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Abstract

Tin was one of the earliest metals used by man. The Bronze Age began when prehistoric man added a small proportion of tin to copper and thus produced the first widely useful metallic implements and weapons. Tin in large quantities has generally been found in places remote from the centers of civilization and has required transportation over the longest routes of international trade. The Phoenicians and Romans went to Spain and then to Cornwall in England for tin to supply the Eastern Mediterranean civilizations. Now the industrial nations of Europe and North America must turn to Southeast Asia, the high Andes of Bolivia, and Central and West Africa for their principal supplies of tin. Not one of the leading industrial nations, including the United States, has any large remaining source of tin within its borders.