Abstract
THE presidents of the technical institutes most closely connected with the production and utilisation of our mineral resources have addressed to the Advisory Council for Scientific Research a memorandum advocating the establishment of a central Government Department, the duty of which should be to foster the development of the mineral resources of the British Empire. Whatever form such a department may take, the need for its creation is very obvious. In Great Britain no such department exists. The Geological Survey, under the Board of Education, records the existence of mineral deposits, but always from the point of view of the geologist, whose main interest lies in their mode of occurrence and not in their exploitation. The Inspectorate of Mines under the Home Office is concerned only with the due policing of mines from the point of view of safety; its ideal would be a state of affairs in which mining accidents were reduced to zero; and even though this were brought about by the cessation of all mining, the Inspectorate of Mines would have fulfilled the object for which it exists. The Board of Trade, the Imperial Institute, and many other departments of the Government take a more or less desultory interest in mineral production, but there is no one department the special duty, of which it is to watch over the development and proper utilisation of our mineral resources.
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LOUIS, H. An Imperial Department of Mineral Production . Nature 98, 91 (1916). https://doi.org/10.1038/098091a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/098091a0
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