Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel; Eastern question (Balkan)
Servia’s mineral wealth is well known to geologists. Gold, in diluvial
and alluvial deposits, is being worked at Timok, at Pek, and at other
places, while cinnabar is found at Avala, near Belgrade, and in the
villages of Brajici, Bare, and Donja Tresnica. At Podrinye, at Lyuta
Strana, at Zuce, at Crveni Breg, in the region of Avala, at Rudnik, at
Kopaonik, at Djurina Sreca there is lead; at Zavlaca and Kucajna, zinc;
and at Povlen, Suvobor, Cemerno, Aldinac, Majdanpek, Bor in Timok and
Rtanj, large deposits of copper. Arsenic is found in various regions,
but principally near Donja Tresnica, in the department of Podrinye;
while antimony is known to exist in the Zajaca region. Rich iron is
waiting to be exploited upon the Kopaonik, in Vlasina, Rudna Glava,
Crnajka (department of Krajina), on the Vencac, in the centre of Servia,
and on the Boranja (in Podrinye); while there is coal in places too
innumerable to mention in this work.
All this enormous mineral wealth might well be exploited by British
capital. The Servian Government are, however, very careful to whom they
give concessions, and will not entertain, for a single moment, any
application, unless the applicant is properly introduced and can give
undeniable proof of his _bona fides_. Therefore the adventurer who
thinks he will, without capital, be able to make a “good thing” will
find himself sadly disappointed. The Government is extremely anxious to
receive _bona-fide_ proposals, and as His Majesty himself informed me,
will grant concessions, but only to firms or companies who mean serious
and legitimate business.
The Servian State is owner of all the subsoil of its territory, and can
give what rights it thinks proper to foreigners to prospect and work.
British capitalists would do well to make inquiries, for, from certain
information I gathered in Belgrade, I have no hesitation in saying that
great returns await those who commence serious mining operations in that
rich and inexhaustible field.
As the future wealth of Servia will depend to a large extent on the
exploitation of her mineral resources, and as Englishmen must, ere long,
be interested in her mines—as they are in mines all over the world—a few
facts concerning the Mining Law of Servia may not be out of place here.
The Government grants two kinds of rights to make researches, the
“simple right” and the “exclusive right.” The former is given for one
year, and may be extended to two years, and is limited to the three
communes indicated. The second lasts a year, but is renewable each year
as long as required, and it gives a right to explore over 500,000 square
metres of mining field.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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