stable metal prices have discouraged mine development since the end of the war. Sound national policy calls for the encouragement of research, exploration, and development of our mineral resources. We recommended an incentive to encourage prospecting, exploration, and the development of mines producing essential minerals.

Mineral discoveries and development of ore reserves add to our production resources and create new national wealth and taxable income. The search for new ore deposits by individuals and small corporations is being blocked by excessive taxes. The small miner needs venture capital to assist in the speculative endeavor of prospecting for and developing new mines.

A constructive tax policy is important to the further development of our mineral wealth. We urge prompt tax revision to create a favorable climate for venture capital in mining.

GOLD AND GOLD MINING

Restoration of gold to its historic function in the monetary system of our country is believed by us to be an essential move in relieving the chaotic currency conditions that seriously handicap all efforts toward economic recovery.

In order to establish the value of the present dollar in terms of gold, at which a gold standard could be restored with best hope of permanence, we advocate removal of the present restrictions that prevent our citizens from buying, holding or selling gold domestically or abroad. Pending restoration of a true gold standard, we urge that the United States Treasury continue its policy of buying all gold that is offered at $35 per ounce, and that the domestic producer be given the choice of accepting paper dollars for his gold at the stated rate or receiving his gold back in appropriate coins, such as pieces containing 1 ounce, authenticated as to gold content but without designation in dollars.

The price of such coins in the free market would afford a fair measure of the current value of the American dollar. In turn it would provide a similar measure of the value of all foreign currencies now expressed in dollars. By this empirical means, a realistic price of gold should be revealed within a reasonable time, whereupon Congress should take effective steps to restore a sound currency with unconditional convertibility of the dollar into gold at the indicated level. By such procedures, which we most earnestly recommend, the country could return to a gold base for its currency with the least disturbance and with confident expectation that it could be successfully maintained.

We again recommend the enactment of specific legislation to compensate lode and placer gold miners for the severe losses of capital caused by the arbitrary shut-down imposed during the war years. This is in no sense a request for a subsidy, but merely a just claim for restitution for the damage suffered through an act of doubtful legality and mistaken policy on the part of a Government agency.

Furthermore, to the extent that the mine owners are not compensated for their losses in war years through such legislation, they should be allowed the right to carry their losses forward in computing taxable income, without the virtual denial of these just benefits through technical intricacies of the Internal Revenue Act and regulations.

MONETARY POLICY

We continue to favor a currency with the traditional base of gold and silver, with anticipation of stabilization of the prices of these metals eventually at levels that reflect their true world values.

BUREAU OF MINES-GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

The United States Geological Survey and the Bureau of Mines perform technical services of vital importance and great value to the Nation and to the mining industry. They are now headed by exceptionally able engineers of highest integrity in whom we have great confidence.

Appropriations for personnel and for the performance of the duties of these agencies as prescribed by Congress are relatively small items in the total cost of the Federal Government, and should be made available in adequate amounts to continue all their essential activities.

The energetic safety program of the Bureau of Mines in research and education is accomplishing remarkable results in accident reduction. Given adequate personnel to learn more and teach more, the Bureau will go far in inculcating a real safety-consciousness throughout the industry.

A bill now on the Senate calendar which would charge the Bureau's coal mine inspectors with police powers would inevitably cripple the present constructive safety program through diversion of the industry's safety efforts to a forced conformity with orders of Federal inspectors. We oppose enactment of this bill which would make the Bureau an instrumentality for further Federal encroachment on the rights of the States.

MINERALS ADVISORY COUNCIL

We commend the action of the Secretary of the Interior in creating the National Minerals Advisory Council, and we heartily approve the program of this Council in connection with current mining problems. The personnel is made up of outstanding mining men and we urge full consideration of the policies which it recommends.

FINANCING OF PRIMARY MINING VENTURES

To avoid the present difficulties and delays in financing primary mining ventures, we recommend that the Securities and Exchange Commission laws be amended so that only the fraud sections of the present Federal laws, rules, and regulations be applicable in offering and selling primary mining securities to the public, and that the various State laws, rules, and regulations go no further than that in their requirements.

The Securities and Exchange Commission laws should also be amended to provide that whenever the Government is making an investigation of possible violation under the Securities Act or Securities Exchange Act, any person subpenaed to answer questions or to give testimony shall be entitled to be represented by counsel, and to make or receive a copy of his testimony given in any such proceedings.

We urge further simplicity in the filing requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that district offices of the Commission be given the authority to pass on complete registrations.

We also urge that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation Act be amended to permit long-term loans for the development of mining ventures, with provision for payment of principal and interest on a unit-of-production basis.

WATER POLLUTION

We reiterate our past position that water pollution is a local problem, the nature and extent of which varies in each locality, and we urge that Federal concern with this problem be limited to furnishing scientific aid, engineering studies, and loans in aid to State or local governments. We urge that the mining industry cooperate with other industries and municipalities in effecting local solution of pollution problems. We recommend for study the statutes recently enacted by the State of California which are aimed at placing the problem in the hands of local regulatory commissions.

LAND USE

We view with disapproval any legislation to compel restoration of the surface of lands mined by stripping or dredging which would hamper orderly extraction of metals or mineral products and place unwarranted economic burdens upon the mine operator.

VALLEY AUTHORITIES

Recently there has been renewed activity looking toward the enactment by Congress of legislation providing for valley authorities and clothing their administration with arbitrary powers over natural resources.

We believe the basic principles of such authorities are destructive of our American theory of constitutional government. We approve the recommendations of the Hoover Commission and its natural resources and public-works task forces that there should be no extension of the valley authority type of organization.

We seriously object to the activities of Federal employees and administrators in promoting the enactment of valley authority legislation and advocating theories so at variance with our American form of government.

FREE ENTERPRISE

The mining industry in the United States has been built by individual initiative under our free competitive-enterprise system.

We recognize our responsibility to defend this system against every attempt, from within or without, to substitute Government control of the lives and activities of our people.

We oppose those social, economic, and political ideologies which subordinate the individual to the will of the State.

We believe in equality of opportunity, and that ability and character coupled with hard work, thrift, and initiative should be rewarded. This is the essence of the American way of life.

PUBLIC LAND POLICY

The Federal holdings of public land are very large, particularly in the Western States, and are gradually increasing as forest and other reservations are consolidated by acquisition of private property. Public lands, reserved and unreserved, continue to be highly important potential sources of metals and minerals. Exploration for and development of mineral properties in these lands require a liberal, sympathetic, and constructive administration of the mining laws.

The American Mining Congress sees no reason to change the policy it has approved for many years with respect to the disposal of mineral-bearing lands in the United States. We oppose the suggestion emanating from high sources that discrimination should be made against the mineral locator as compared with other appropriators of the public lands. We oppose the suggestion that surface rights and mineral rights should be separated, and that the rights of the miner should be administered as against the surface claimant by Federal administrative agencies. We urge, on the other hand, more expedition in processing patent applications. A mineral patent once granted should convey as complete title to the land (subject only to extralateral rights of adjacent mineral claimants) as any other form of patent. Severance of surface and mineral titles is impracticable. We oppose and deprecate fraud at all times in mineral locations and any other form of public land appropriation. The proper forum for the determination of charges of fraud is a court, not an administrative department. We enumerate our answers to specific proposals that have been made and are now being urged throughout the country by representatives of the United States Bureau of Land Management:

(1) To abolish moratoria on assessment work.-We have advocated this for several years and reiterate our advocacy of such abolition.

(2) To increase the amount of required annual labor.-There may be merit in the argument that $100 will not produce the amount of mine development in 1949 that it would have produced in 1939, although the $100 requirement has never been more than a token evidence of a locator's good faith. We believe, however, consideration should be given to the fact that the Federal Government's take in taxes from everything the miner produces increases his burden and risk to an extent that may well offset the proposed increase in the annual labor requirement; and this requirement should not be increased.

(3) To require applications to be made for patent.--We oppose discriminatory pressure on the miner as compared with the other classes of land claimants in the matter of making final proof of right to patent. We submit that increases in applications for mineral patent will unquestionably take place with the abolition of moratoria on assessment work, if the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service will liberalize their requirements as to what constitutes a mineral discovery as a basis for valid location and patent, and will expedite processing of applications so that the present interminable delays in departmental proceedings may be cut down.

(4) The doubt as to mineral titles.-We do not concede that a serious doubt exists. It has been suggested that all claims be recorded in the district land office, as well as the county recorder's office. The objection is that, once recorded in the district land office, the block books will be perpetually clouded with locations which may have no legal validity. The present law in practically every State requires county courthouse recording, and all public land States should have such law. Paper conflicts with old abandoned claims there are harmless.

(5) To authorize geological and geophysical locations.-We recognize that there may be a legitimate argument for affording a prospector a prior right to make mineral locations in an area which he selects for geological and geophysical examinations, in a search for ore bodies hidden under lava caps, washes, and other overlying formations. Just what is required in the way of such a priority area is not yet clear. Developments of geophysical surveys in the next few years will better indicate how large an area is required. No immediate change in the law seems necessary for this purpose.

(6) To abolish the extralateral right and the distinction between lodes and placers. We oppose this proposal. It could only create confusion in titles. Possibly if geological and geophysical locations are authorized by law they should be limited to vertical boundary planes. Accurate ascertainment of an apex in such locations would obviously be difficult. As to other locations, existing extralateral conflicts have been so far adjudicated that they have practically disappeared from the court calendars. An attempted abolition of the extralateral right in general would only give rise to further litigation to determine which rights are vested and which are not. Abolition of present differences in the maximum legal areas of lode and placer claims would be ill-considered and objectionable.

(7) To sell outright small tracts.-We approve this in principle. The 5-acre limit proposed by the Bureau of Land Management is not unreasonable. In such cases public bidding should not be required and the right to purchase should be limited to adjacent owners.

(8) To avoid interference with other land uses.-The lode location perfected and patened vests a complete title in the owner to the surface as well as to the mineral in the land (subject only to extralateral rights of adjacent claims). We oppose the suggestion that this ownership be severed and that the Bureau of Land Management be given authority to award the surface or such portion thereof as it deems advisable to claimants for other land uses. The interference with the miner by persons seeking to cut timber which is necessary for fuel and for timbering of the miner's workings; the interference by persons desiring to cultivate areas which may be necessary at some future date for mine buildings, employees' lodging houses, dumps, mill sites, and other structures, the need for which may not be apparent at or before the date when patent is granted; the perpetual conflict with grazing claimants over injury to livestock and with farmers over stream pollution; interference with irrigation and surface use needs-all these certain conflicts indicate the desirability of maintaining the present complete surface title which goes with the mine patent.

(9) To abolish fraudulent and nuisance location.-We do not support fraudulent locations in any respect, but we do say that the forum in which the issue of fraudulent claims should be tried is not the Bureau of Land Management. It is in the courts constituted for that purpose. A mineral locator, charged with fraud, should have his day in court before a judge, not before an administrative bureau. The same comment is made with respect to what the Bureau terms "nuisanse locations"-that is, locations made solely for possessory rights along public highways or to block public access to national monuments, etc. Such claims can be invalidated at any time by proper judicial proceedings. The abolition of these nuisances does not require a change in the mining laws. It requires merely an enforcement in the courts of the existing public land laws by the officials charged with their enforcement.

(10) To protect the public interest.-We oppose the position of the Bureau of Land Management which favors bureaucratic separation of mineral rights from surface rights, bureaucratic administration of mineral extraction, bureaucratic determination of issues between the surface owner and the underlying mineral owner, and bureaucratic interference with the traditional miner's right which has been recognized by the laws of this country ever since 1866. If a mining claim in addition to mineral values has other available uses, the locator or patentee should be entitled to use his claim for all available purposes. The existence and discovery of the mineral should determine the character of the patent, but should not be a limitation of lawful surface uses either before or after patent. We oppose the transfer of the Bureau of Land Management to the Department of Agriculture as proposed by the Hoover Commission; this could lead only to further complications in the filing of mining claims and their adjudication, as well as to the creation of problems for the Bureau of Mines and Geological Survey which would remain in the Interior Department.

On the other hand, we favor the resources task force proposals that the Forest Service be transferred to the Interior Department, that a Forest and Range Service be created, absorbing the land administration functions of the Bureau of Land Management, and that the Geological Survey be given the function of determining the sufficiency of the mineral discovery where patent has been applied for. For mineral location, we again urge opening of unused military reservations, power site withdrawal areas, and other territory in Alaska and elsewhere now closed, except national parks and monuments and lands required for secret defense and active military training, testing and other operations. New withdrawals and reservations of public land should be held to a minimum essential to national defense unless authority for exploration for an development of minerals is continued in the withdrawal order.

Excessive royalties under government mineral leases of lands subject to leasing under existing laws are contrary to sound conservation principles, and are objectionable.

We continue to oppose any cession to the various States of the Federal public lands, reserved or unreserved, other than tidelands.

We are fully cognizant of the problem of clearing from the block books overlapping entries, locations used for other than bona fide mining operations, and other conflicting claims, but we insist that the courts have the power to adjudicate these cases, most of which are beyond effective administrative decision and should be resorted to alike by the Government and the locator claiming prior rights.

DEEP DISCOVERIES IN THE COEUR d'ALENE MINING DISTRICT OF IDAHO

(By Robert E. Sorenson, geologist, Hecla Mining Co., Wallace, Idaho 1) The measure of the real worth of a mining district is its ability to sustain a continued and expanding production of metal over a long period of time. In Idaho we had such a district, one of the outstanding mining districts of the world, known as the Coeur d'Alene. A few years ago it passed the billion-dollar mark in value of output of metal, thereby becoming one of the eight mining districts of the world which have produced more than a billion dollars worth of metal.

In 1879, gold was discovered on Prichard Creek in the Murray district, and active lode and placer mining began in 1883. Prospectors from the gold camp drifted into the adjoining mountains during the next two years and there discovered many of the lead-zinc-silver veins near Burke, Mullan and Kellogg.

In addition to the outcropping orebodies, many hidden orebodies were covered by locations of the period, and active development of many properties was begun. By 1903 the district was one of the outstanding lead-producing districts of the world, and since that time it has been a very important producer of lead, zinc and silver.

The principal rocks exposed in the area are argillite and quartzite with many intermediate types grading from slate to quartzite. All of the rocks are part of the belt series of Pre-Cambrian sediments which have a widespread exposure in western Montana, northern Idaho, eastern Washington and southern British Columbia.

The belt series, in the Coeur d'Alene district, consists of more than 20,000 feet of sediments of shallow-water origin subdivided, for means of identification and correlation, into the following formations, the oldest named first:

1. The Prichard formation consists of dark gray to black argilite and argillaceous quartzite. Its thickness is more than 12,000 feet.

2. The Burke formation is composed of 1,800 to 2,400 feet of gray to white quartzite and argillaceous quartzite.

3. The Revett formation varies in thickness between 2,100 and 3,400 feet, and consists of massive, thick-bedded, gray to white, quartzite with a minor development of argillaceous quartzite.

4. The St. Regis formation is composed of thin-bedded, purplish to purplishgray, argillite and quartzite. Thickness varies from 1,000 feet to 1,400 feet in

some areas.

5. The Wallace formation is 4,500 to 6,000 feet in thickness and consists of gray to white calcareous quartzite, and gray to black calcareous argillite.

1 Condensed from a paper read before the Idaho Mining Association, May 23, 1947.