Gulf Magnesium

Modern technology is rapidly solving the problem of handling low-grade ores (see above). Last week piles were driven for a $5,000,000 plant to work what is probably the lowest-grade metallic "ore" (aside from radium deposits) yet worked commercially.

The builder: highly successful Dow Chemical Co. The site: Freeport, Tex., on the Gulf Coast 50 miles southwest of Galveston. The ore: sea water, containing one-tenth of 1% of magnesium. The extraction method: electrolysis. Dow's reason for picking the site: the "availability of an unlimited supply of raw materials."

No experiment, the plant will more than double Dow's annual magnesium capacity: 12,000,000 Ibs. now obtained along with bromine from brine wells in Michigan. Chief use for the magnesium: as a component of Dowmetal, lightest structural metal in commercial use (for airplane engines, vacuum cleaners, etc.).

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