Harvard Business School -7- the East, and Korea or Australia on the West. We are engaged in construction work of almost all types, but in addition we have added to our operations a substantial mining development and a large scale land development program. It is on the latter two that I would like to dwell at some length. Let's start with mining, a field that we entered into in 1946. For years prior to that and still to this date, we have performed a great deal of work as a contract miner, moving earth owned by others for a price and earning the contractor's profit for doing so. We decided to utilize the men and the equipment that we had that were skilled in this art to move some earth that we owned, rather than confining our efforts to earth owned by others. We acquired an iron ore property in Utah, a metallurgical coal deposit in Arkansas, and later a small iron ore mine in British Columbia. Gradually we have built up a top grade geological department and more recently a skilled metallurgical department. Our mining operations have prospered and in 1952 we developed a large-scale iron ore deposit in Southern Peru. The project was beyond our financial means to undertake alone, so we were joined by Cyprus Mines, and together we have developed a very substantial operation. The majority of the ore is sold to mills in the eastern United States, but now we have developed a sizable volume of sales to Germany and to Japan. We soon learned that one of the important keys to operating a Peruvian iron ore mine successfully was to gain control of our ocean shipping costs, which were our major costs and which were subject to wide fluctuation in the charter market. As a result we have now entered through another affiliated company the field of ocean shipping and are busily engaged in the purchase and operation of ships. We have ordered 4 large specialized ore carriers and have converted one tanker to a bulk ore carrier. Of course, the natural consequence of operating ships going north fully loaded is to seek cargoes south-bound so that the ships will not come back empty, so again we find ourselves entering into a new field.