Significant features of the tin situation in recent years have been a decline of production in the Malay States, and a large and growing production in Bolivia. Malayan output has decreased because of the exhaustion of some of the richer and more accessible deposits; certain governmental measures have also had a restrictive effect. Bolivian production now amounts to over a fifth of the world's total and bids fair to increase. About half the output is controlled by Chilean, and small amounts by American, French, and German interests. A large portion of the Bolivian concentrates formerly went to Germany for smelting, but during the war American smelters were developed to handle part of this material; large quantities are also smelted in England.
The United States produces a small fraction of 1 per cent of the world's tin, and consumes a third to a half of the total. The production is mainly from the Seward Peninsula of northwestern Alaska. For American tin smelters, Bolivia is about the only available source of supplies; metallic tin can be obtained from British possessions, but no ore, except by paying a 33-1/3 per cent export tax. The United States exports tin-plate in large amounts, and in this trade has met strong competition from English and German tin-plate makers.
A world shortage of tin during the war required a division of available supplies through a central international committee. Somewhat later, with the removal of certain restrictions on the distribution of tin, considerable quantities which had accumulated in the Orient found their way into Europe and precipitated a sensational slump in the tin market.
The principal mineral of tin is cassiterite (tin oxide). Stannite, a sulphide of copper, iron, and tin, is found in some of the Bolivian deposits but is rare elsewhere.
About two-thirds of the world's tin is obtained from placers and one-third from vein or "lode" deposits. Over 90 per cent of the tin of southeastern Asia and Oceania is obtained from placers. Tin placers, like placers of gold, platinum, and tungsten, represent concentrations in stream beds and ocean beaches of heavy, insoluble minerals--in this case chiefly cassiterite--which were present in the parent rocks in much smaller quantities, but which have been sorted out by the classifying action of running water.