W ITHOUT mineral wealth, modern man would not exist. True, man could survive on a stoneage basis with an average !ife expectancy of, say, 25 to 30 years - once he got past infancy. However, no metal would tip his arrow in a hunt for protein; no steel plough would break the soi! for the organized planting of seed; and no coal, nor oil, nor natural gas nor uranium fuels would provide him with light or beat or safety from either beasts, or other men, or an unkind nature that threatened him and his family.
