Element of Tomorrow

Under the burning sun of California's Mojave Desert last week, power shovels chewed into a sticky, greyish substance at the bottom of a quarter-mile-wide, 137-ft.-deep crater in the desert floor. In the past year huge machines had scraped off 7,000,000 tons of earth to expose this mineral prize: the world's largest known deposit of borax. To the housewife, borax is merely a household cleanser, 'but to industry it is the chief source of boron, a new wonder element and Jack-of-all-trades that can be used in everything from drugs and plastics to the super-powered rocket fuels of the future.

To meet the rapidly expanding demand for borax. U.S. Borax & Chemical Corp., the world's largest borax producer, last week began operating a huge new plant perched on the edge of the crater at Boron, Calif. It will process ore straight from the open-mine pit, thus cut transportation costs, eventually replace facilities elsewhere. U.S. Borax intends to boost production 30% through its $20 million expansion program at Boron, knows now that it will have no trouble selling all it can turn out.

Exciting Future. The most exciting new use for boron is in exotic fuels (TIME, April 1), in which it is joined with hydrogen or other elements to generate infinitely greater power with less volume than present fuels.* The U.S. Defense Department has already invested $100 million in high-energy fuel development. U.S. Borax & Chemical is negotiating with top chemical firms to commit part of its borax production (70% of U.S. output) to making high-energy fuels. Should boron become the key element in the fuels of the future, the industry estimates that demand for borax, which has already doubled in ten years, would jump from its present 1,000,000 tons annually to some 8,500,000 tons.

Even discounting high-energy fuels, borax production is already based solidly on the requirements of more than 100 industries, ranging from glass to pesticides, fertilizers to soaps. And further uses for boron are being found every day. Standard Oil Co. (Ohio) has developed a boron additive for gasoline to provide better economy and lower engine maintenance, is marketing it through Richfield Oil Corp. and Sunray Oil Corp. Though boron for gasoline this year would account for only $500,000 of all borax sales, U.S. Borax hopes to sell the boron additive directly to dealers, swell boron gas into a healthy market. Boron is also being carefully researched for use in new plastics with high-temperature melting point, in atomic energy (since they absorb neutrons, some boron compounds can be used as reactor shields), in fire-retardant additives for plastics and paints, in new steel alloys. Says U.S. Borax President James M. Gerstley: "Unless the past reverses itself completely, we have to expect that the demand will at least double again in the next ten years."

Death Valley Days. U.S. Borax is only a corporate infant--formed last year by the merger of oldtimers Pacific Coast Borax Co. and U.S. Potash Co. But it has close to a natural monopoly, holds 63% of the free world's deposits, including the only big deposit of sodium borate ore (at Boron), the cheapest and easiest type of the mineral to mine and process. The company's ancestry is the story of borax mining in the U.S. The discovery of borax in a California hot spring in 1856 set off feverish prospecting and mining that eventually made the U.S. the world's leading borax producer. Among the most successful of the earlier prospectors were Francis Marion ("Borax") Smith and William T. Coleman.

Smith began marketing borax in the East with the bland promise that "a thimbleful of borax" kept cream sweet, a borax shampoo cured "nervous headache."

Coleman acquired a deposit in California's Death Valley. In 120DEG heat he began mining borax in the valley 280 ft. below sea level. To transport the ore over jagged peaks and through the desert to Mojave, Calif., he formed the famed 20-mule team (actually 18 mules and two horses), was soon hauling out 2,500,000 tons of ore annually.

Go for Broke. Poor financing did what the elements could not, and by 1888 Coleman was bankrupt. Borax Smith took over Coleman's mining properties, consolidated all his mines into the Pacific Coast Borax Co. and, to boost European sales, merged with a British chemical company headed by James Gerstley, father of present U.S. Borax President Gerstley. But Smith also overextended himself, also went broke. To pay creditors, he was forced to sell out his stock to Gerstley and other Britons with holdings in the new company, which eventually became known as Borax (Holdings) Ltd. Domination of U.S. borax mining passed to the British-- and stayed there, largely because of new finds such as the boron deposit that allowed Borax (Hofdings) Ltd. to cut costs, forced borax prices down over the years from about $4,000 to $38.50 a ton. The younger Gerstley came to the U.S., took over the Pacific Coast Borax division, became a U.S. citizen. In 1956 Borax (Holdings) Ltd. decided to make Pacific Coast Borax a U.S. company to gain the advantages of U.S. businesses, e.g.,, depletion allowances, defense contracts. They formed Consolidated Borax, Inc., which engineered last year's merger, owns 74 1/4% of U.S. Borax & Chemical Corp.

Because U.S. Borax's expansion will not hit its full stride before the company's fiscal year ends in September, President Gerstley foresees earnings for this year "about the same" as last year's $1.47 a share--a healthy 13.5% on its net sales. But he expects to step them up in the future, has set up a $1,000,000 research center to discover more uses for boron. To make sure that he can provide the borax, he planned the present expansion so that production can easily be stepped up another 25% to 50% for only $4,000,000 or $5,000,000, should the demand exceed even his sanguine expectations.

* Boron's principal value in high-energy fuels is its ability to bind hydrogen into a liquid or solid form, thus harness hydrogen's energy (52,000 B.T.U. per Ib. v. 18,500 for kerosene).

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