ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a little of the history and the nature of materials which make up the soil, the ocean, and the air. Such ‘chemical changes’, in which atoms are shuffled around from one kind of molecule to another but without the atoms themselves being changed at all. Chemical industries, concerned both with breaking up old molecules and with forming new ones, began to grow up in the nineteenth century because the substances formed out of the changed molecules were found to be useful – for example lime could be used by the farmer to sweeten sour land. Atoms which form comparatively volatile substances, sulphur for example, have become deficient in the surface rocks, while some atoms, barium for example, have developed considerable excesses. The United Nations therefore thought it unnecessary to refer to its own Charter on the rights of self-determination of indigenous populations.
