The deposits themselves are, for the present, geologically and 
geographically determined; they cannot be altered, and there 
only remains for us to aim at a closer acquaintance with them, a 
more perfect system of working, an increasing of the field and, 
altogether, to put them to the best use in the interest of the com- 
mon wellfare. — When, at home, they have become exhausted in 
quantity, or one special kind has given out, the further demand 
must be provided from abroad. This meeting of the local demand 
from abroad sets in as soon as the prime-cost including the freight 
(calculated for theunit of the valueof the produce) in the place where 
it is needed becomes higher for local material than for imported, 
The rights of disposal or of ownership in regard to the deposits 
are the result of historical developments; accordingly, like all mat- 
ters pertaining to history, they may develop further, undergoing 
alterations, Jimitations or expansions, becoming subject to new 
conditions or ridding themselves of previous ones. And they do, 
in fact, go on developing constantly and everywhere, at the same 
#ime as the economic, the social and with regard to progress of 
civilization, 1. €. at the same time with the increasing of the import- 
ance of the sources of power and raw material of an anorganic 
kind for the tremendusly growing demands of mankind in the 
line of industry; at the same time, and yet not in parallel line with 
this: on the contrary there appear frictions between the importance 
of a deposit at a certain period and the existing right of disposal, 
resulting in disharmony and probleme. 
These frictions between more recent economic, national and 
social claims, and the older mininglaws still in power, together 
with the prevailing traditions and opinions on the subject con- 
stitute the “problems of the deposit-policy”, 
Such economic problems and frictions can neither suddenly be 
solved nor relieved; at best they may gradually be overcome by 
reforms. If conditions are unfavourable their influence continues, 
they become more pronounced, and increasing in significance, 
they, at last, lead either to solutions closely relative to a catastro- 
phe brought about by “coups d’&tat”, revolutions, civil wars and 
wars of conquest, or else, like a slow disease they feed on the 
ER