Abstract
IT is impossible to imagine a more concise, more intelligible, or more inexpensive collection of comparative mineral statistics than is contained in the General Report on Mines and Quarries prepared by Dr. C. Le Neve Foster for the Home Office, and it would be difficult to find an editor possessing in a more marked degree the requisite technical knowledge, literary skill and critical acumen for the difficult task of abstracting and collating the heterogeneous official mineral statistics of foreign countries and of rendering them intelligible to the general reader. In many countries the statistics published are imperfect or antiquated. Nevertheless, as regards output, Dr. Le Neve Foster has succeeded in getting together a mass of figures which, in the case of the more important minerals, may certainly be regarded as trustworthy. He has brought into one focus a representation of the present position of the mining industries of the world, and has thus rendered it possible to comprehend the enormous development that has taken place within recent years. The statistics given are of the greatest importance from a commercial point of view. In the United Kingdom alone the value of the minerals raised in 1899 was 97,470,000l., and the vast sums representing British capital invested in mines in all parts of the world will be readily appreciated. Some indication of the remarkable strides made by the mining industry during the past ten years is afforded by the following comparison of the world's output of metals in 1889 and in 1899:—
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
BROUGH, B. The Mining Statistics of the World . Nature 63, 551–552 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/063551a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/063551a0