AS DOMESTIC SUPPLIES of iron ore suitable for feeding directly to furnaces dwindled, it was quite natural for U. S. makers of steel to turn to Canada for sources that could augment domestic deposits. But our foreign explorations did not stop with Canada. We also looked farther afield and today are importing a somewhat larger volume of ores from countries overseas than from our neighbor to the north. Ten years ago these imports amounted to only 1,650,000 tons, which came primarily from Chile. Last year the United States imported approximately 17 million gross tons of iron ore, exclusive of Canadian sources. This is a ten-fold increase in a single decade. Over half of the 1956 tonnage from overseas came from Venezuela, with lesser tonnages from Peru, Chile, Brazil, Liberia, Sweden and other countries. With the exception of Sweden, the major growth in iron ore production in these foreign countries has been brought about through United States private technical aid and capital investment. In the years ahead we can look for further increases in our volume of overseas imports. While our relative reliance on other countries will probably not increase as rapidly as our ore dependence upon Canada, American companies are continuing to explore for good, workable deposits in a number of foreign lands. Many considerations had to be weighed when a choice presented itself between beneficiation of low grade domestic ore, or going to Canada, or moving farther afield. Let us consider briefly the factors that normally influence a decision to undertake mining in a distant land. Being a geologist, I place the quantity and quality of ore, either proved or potential, at the top of the list. More often than not it is an undeveloped or partially developed prospect that is being weighed. Granted that the geology is favorable, risk money must be spent to determine whether the prospect can be proved up to become a mine. But even before proving up a deposit, there are pertinent matters to be weighed. An ore body may look huge and it may be rich, but if other features stand in the way of profitable operation, there is no benefit in drilling or tunneling or sinking test shafts to establish a firm ore reserve. Transportation facilities needed to move large tonnages of the ore to our shores are of prime importance. Here at home, when a ton of Mesabi ore reaches a furnace at Youngstown, Ohio, the rail and lake movement and the handling between the mine and furnace make up 43 percent of the delivered cost. Where vastly greater distances are involved, shipping costs are an even greater part of the total. If transportation were less of a problem, we would doubtless be using far more of the high grade Brazilian ore in the United States today. At the foreign sources developed by American steel and mining companies in recent years, there has been a great contrast in the new installations needed to get the ore aboard ocean carriers. At the port of Monrovia, Liberia Mining Company had only to install stockpiling and loading equipment. At San Juan harbor in Peru, Marcona Mining Company found a good natural harbor and had no great difficulty constructing a dock with conveyors to load the ships. At the other extreme, Orinoco Mining Company dredged many miles of channel in the Venezuelan River and had to install a huge floating dock to compensate for the seasonal rise and fall of more than forty feet in the river's level. One hundred and twenty miles of new rail lines span the gap between this dock and the mine at Cerro Bolivar. Marcona moves its ore from mine to port in 50-ton trailer trucks over 17 miles of asphalt-paved road. The Liberian development and Bethlehem's mine in Venezuela each called for railroads about 40 miles in length. These examples illustrate the variety of transportation problems that occur in foreign ore developments. No two are alike; and whenever an American consumer or miner looks at a foreign deposit, a sound plan for getting the ore here and corresponding cost estimates must be developed.