Mr Laws arrived towards the end of 1903 and formed his principal camp between the present Naraguta Mine and Naraguta Extended, in fact where Naraguta village now stands. His expeditions practically discovered the configuration of the Plateau and located tin at Jos, in the neighbourhood of Bukuru and at N’Gell. At the close of 1905 Mr Laws took out plant and commenced systematic tin-winning at Naraguta. Having discovered ore, the next question to be decided was what should be done with the acquisition? Whilst the Niger Company had every wish and interest to see the tin fields, and the country generally, grow and flourish, it had no desire—so I gather—to add to its commercial responsibilities that of mining on a large scale. It preferred that should be done by people who could concentrate on that form of activity. There was, however, this difficulty, that scarcely any outside attention was given to the subject. No notice seemed to be taken of what was being done. The Company was, therefore, faced with the alternative of itself working the mineral deposits or abandoning them. The latter course would have been a criminal one—speaking in a figurative sense—against the shareholders, to whom the discoveries belonged, and steps were taken for Mr Laws to demonstrate what was in the ground; in other words, for the mining staff to indefinitely work the centres where tin had been found in payable conditions. Still, scant notice was taken by outside bodies, notwithstanding the results. In March, 1907, Lord Scarbrough, Chairman of the Niger Company, told the shareholders that during the previous 15 months 240 tons of tin oxide, of £30,000 value, had been obtained from the Naraguta property, and the following year a corresponding amount was won. It was effected without machinery, by the antiquated methods of ground sluicing and calabashing. Not until 1910 did the possibilities of the tin fields attract the consideration which has since given them so much prominence. At this point the wider question is left for future treatment, as I do not purpose now writing a full account of the short history of tin-mining in Northern Nigeria. The policy of the Niger Company appears to have been only to develop a mine until other people saw the thing “good enough” to take up. That is the rôle of its mining staff, which have headquarters at Jos, quite distinct and some little distance from the trading store. I believe that all the earlier properties have been disposed of, but the further potentialities of the country are still being tested in various directions.