with them; increased production still required more

materials and there are limits to the rate at which

land can be made to produce organic materials and to

the quantities of concentrated inorganic materials that

exist.

 Increased production of electrical apparatus

required increased quantities of copper, just as

increased production of automobiles required more iron

ore, manganese, coal, and other raw materials used to

produce steel. In short, increased output required

increased input of raw materials, and as the stock of

goods on hand was increased, the amount of materials

going into those goods was increased as well. The

quality of material goods could be greatly improved

by cleverness, but if more material goods were to be

produced, some kind of material had to be available

from which to make them. The initial requirement of

the productive process, by which raw materials become

finished goods, was, and is, as simple as that; and

the first step in the conversion process is extraction,

the drawing forth of materials from the earth.

 Let us consider more closely the relationship

between production and the extraction of natural wealth.

Wealth may be divided broadly into two categories,

natural and man-made. Included in the first may be

everything of value that occurs in a natural state and

in the second anything to which man has lent his