ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the background for an extensive discussion of W. R. Sorley's analysis of the nature of mineral rent. It reviews the Sorley's contribution to the historical development of the economics of exhaustible resources. Sorley commences his discussion of the rent of mines with the observation that mine rents are usually treated by economists as an appendix to the theory of agricultural rent. Sorley continues his discussion of the rent of mines by considering the source of differential royalties. For various reasons, says Sorley, the 'good' mines are monopolised by large capitalists who have the 'chief say in determining prices'. Sorley's economic analysis of mining represents a watershed which divides the work of his classical predecessors from that of his successors who took an increasingly neoclassical approach to analysis of the economics of mineral extraction.
