CRUDE PLATINUM.
Mine
returns for the year 1921 indicate a production of crude placer
platinum as follows: California, 821 troy ounces; Oregon, 91 ounces;
Alaska, 65 ounces—a total of 977 ounces for the United States.
Platinum
refiners report purchases of domestic platinum in 1921 as follows:
California, 847 ounces; Oregon, 96 ounces; Alaska, 78 ounces—a total of
1,021 ounces. From this quantity of domestic crude platinum purchased
813 ounces of refined metal was recovered, as follows: Platinum, 580
ounces; palladium, 3 ounces; iridium, 99 ounces; osmiridium, 119
ounces; osmium, 12 ounces.
Besides
the crude platinum of domestic origin, refiners report purchases of
56,645 ounces of foreign platinum in 1921. Of this quantity 55,286
ounces is reported as of Colombian origin, 1,286 ounces as Russian, and
63 ounces as Canadian. The total imports of platinum from Colombia in
1921, according to figures of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic
Commerce, Department of Commerce, were 31,840 ounces. It hardly seems
reasonable to believe that any such quantity as 23j446 ounces of
Colombian crude, imported prior to 1921, had been held by agents or
banks, in view of the continually falling market. It is more reasonable
to interpret the refiners' reports as carrying duplication in sales of
crude platinum from one refiner to another; such duplication was not
brought out in the answers to the questionnaire.
From
the foreign crude platinum reported refined in 1921 was recovered a
total of 48,605 ounces of metals of the platinum group, a recovery of
approximately 85 per cent.
REFINED PLATINUM METALS.
NEW METALS.
Reports
of refiners of crude platinum, gold bullion, nickel, and copper
indicate that 56,370 ounces of platinum metals were recovered in 1921,
an increase of 14,826 ounces, as compared with recoveries in 1920. As
will be seen from the following table, the largest part of this
increase was in platinum.
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