for their maintenance upon minerals and fuels, and those countries that
propose to manufacture and to transport must either produce minerals
themselves or depend upon some other country that does produce them. In
practice, a few countries are enabled to produce more of the minerals
and fuels than they themselves use, and to sell the surplus to their
needy neighbors.

With the spread of the industrial system, this dependence will increase
rather than diminish because of the way in which the reserve supplies of
minerals and fuels are distributed. The principal deposits of iron,
coal, copper and petroleum are apparently in the Western Hemisphere, and
particularly in North America. In so far as this is true, the remainder
of the world will be compelled to look to the Americas for these basic
commodities. Out of a total world product of iron ore (1913) of 177
millions of tons, the United States produced 63 millions (over a third)
because that country is far better supplied with available iron ore
deposits than is any other country. Since the war, France holds the
second largest deposits, but the third largest are in Newfoundland, the
fourth largest in Cuba, and the fifth largest in Brazil, whose "enormous
deposits are almost untouched" ("Atlas," p. 26). As for coal, about
three-fourths of the world's known reserves are in North America. The
largest known reserves of copper are in North and South America--those
of Canada and Mexico are comparatively important; those of Chili
probably greater than any other country except the United States.
Petroleum is also highly localized. Between 1857 and 1918 the world's
production of petroleum was 1,005 millions of tons. Of this total,
three-fifths came from the United States, while seventeen-twentieths
came from the United States and Russia. Indeed, resources are limited
and localized to such a point that the economic survival of many parts
of the industrial world depends upon the continued importation of raw
materials from other countries or from other continents.

This localization of resources has resulted in a corresponding
localization of many of the basic industries. Germany thus became a
manufacturing center and Argentina a producer of food. Necessarily these
two countries exchange their products, the Germans eating Argentinian
wheat reaped by German machinery. So complete has this specialization
become, that industrial communities, and even industrial countries, like
Britain