Spokane Meeting, September, 1909.) THE following corrections to the paper of Mr. Langdon (Bulletin No. 34, October, 1909, pp. 919 to 940), received after the publication of the paper in the Bulletin, will be incorporated in the paper as finally published in the forthcoming Vol. XL. of the Transactions, but are here presented for the information of members:' Page. 921. Table I., furnace M2, item 11. For " 8801 " read "0.8801." 922. Table II., furnace C, item 2, under gas. For " 0.011 C " read " 0.011 0." Furnace G, item 13, under gas. For " 5.074 air " read " 3.074 air." Item 15, 114.269 " should be " 4.289." Furnace H, item 2, under iron. For " 0.04 " read ".0.01." 923. Table II., furnace J, item 1, under iron. For " 0.95 " read " 0.93." Furnace N2, item 6, under gas. For " 0.66 CO," read 0.066 C02." 924. Table III., furnace C, item 17. For " 379 " read " 397." 927. Table IV., furnace C, item 4. For " 0.0124 " read 0.0424." Furnace G, item 15.. For " 4,060 " read " 4,066." 928. Line 2. Items 19 and 20 of heat-supply, should be items 20 and 21. 930. Line 3. Expunge remainder of paragraph after the word " supplied," and substitute the following : "As compared with the fusion-zone, the loss by radiation n C was 25.5 per cent. of the total (2,278 units) supplied to that zone, while in D it was 22.5 per cent. of the total heat (1,824 units) supplied to that zone. Finally, as compared with the reduction-zone, C lost by radiation 36.8. per cent. of the 1,580 units supplied to that zone,
EVENTS during and since the war indicate that the nations of the world are trying to initiate an era of international co-operation. Definitions and objectives include social, economic, and human considerations no less than political considerations. The mineral resources of the world and the absolute and relative position of each nation enter into this situation. The possible use of armed might, the application of sanctions, the international flow of commerce, the ways in which this flow may encourage or hamper international well-being, and the influence of international and domestic well-being upon one another are all matters that must take mineral resources into account. If the United States is to act wisely and forthrightly in such matters we must be thoroughly informed as to our position with respect to mineral resources. What is the mineral position of the United States? A variety of widely conflicting opinions are held in authoritative and intelligent quarters: (1) For practical purposes our mineral resources are already exhausted.
WHEN Spain established colonies on the North American continent, some of her land grants, in what is now the United States, reserved to the Crown deposits of gold, silver, and mercury. Later mineral rights were reserved under some of the English Crown charters involving land in the eastern part of North America, with provisions for the payment of royalties thereon to the Crown. Reservation of mineral deposits to the United States Government was instituted by an ordinance of Congress on May 20, 1785, which applied to such deposits in the Northwest Territory, then north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River, and provided that there should be reserved "one third of all gold, silver, lead, and copper mines, to be sold or otherwise disposed of as Congress shall hereafter direct." Little was known then of the mineral resources of the country; the Great Lakes copper region had just come into the possession of the United States by treaty and much of the western mineral land still belonged to France and Spain. The policy of leasing mineral deposits was enacted by Congress under the act of March 3, 1807, which provided that "the President of the United States shall be, and is hereby, authorized to lease any lead mine which has been or may hereafter be discovered in the Indiana Territory, for a term not exceeding five years," and in the same year the Government reserved 345,600 acres of land in northern Illinois, valuable for lead. In 1816 Congress provided that in all cases where a tract of public land containing a lead mine or salt spring was applied for by settlers on the public domain, no permission to work the mine or spring would be granted without the approbation of the President of the United States. By the act of March 1, 1847 (9 Stat. 146), the control of mineral lands was transferred, with all records, from the War Department to the Treasury Department, and by the act of March 3, 1849 (9 Stat. 395), supervisory powers over lead and other mines of the United States were transferred to the Secretary of the Interior. Following the discovery of gold in California in 1848, President Polk advocated the leasing of mineral lands acquired from Mexico under the treaty of 1848. However, owing to the lack of communication and transportation facilities and the consequent difficulty of checking on production and operations, leasing was found impracticable. Mining was permitted to be carried on in each district under rules made by the miners themselves and patterned after the Mexican mining system. To meet the situation, Congress enacted mining laws in 1866, 1870, and 1872, which provided for possession by location and for private ownership, after discovery, by patent of essentially all mineral deposits belonging to the United States, except coal. Many other acts were passed by Congress applying to specific regions and states, reserving salt, lead, or other minerals, some of which provided for the leasing of such deposits. However, very few if any leases were issued thereunder. Not until 1901 (31 Stat. 745) were the mining laws extended to include salt, and in 1910 they were revised to specify salines and associated products. At the turn of the century, it became more and more evident that the mining laws developed for metallic minerals were not practical for the development and conservation of oil and gas, coal, potash, phosphate, or oil shale. Following withdrawals by the Secretary of the Interior as authorized by the act of June 25, 1910, the Department of the Interior recommended leasing legislation; however, it was not until February 25, 1920, that the Mineral Leasing Act was passed by Congress. This act authorized leasing all public lands potentially valuable for oil, gas, coal, phosphate, sodium, or oil shale. The Organic Act, creating the Geological Survey in 1879, imposed upon its director the duty of classifying the public lands.' The early years of the Survey were devoted largely to the accumulation of fundamental data and, with only minor exceptions, land classification was not seriously undertaken until 1906. Since that year, it has been actively pursued with respect particularly to leasable minerals and water power values. On March 3, 1873 (17 Stat. 607) Congress authorized the sale of coal lands of limited acreage to individuals at $10 to $20 an acre, depending on the distance from a railroad, and in 1907 a new scale of prices was adopted by the Secretary of the Interior, based, more logically, on the quality and thickness of the coal deposits, their depth below the earth's surface, and their accessibility. At that time it was much cheaper and easier to obtain incidental title to coal rights under the homestead laws at $1.25 an acre. On March 3, 1909, the first separation act (35 Stat. 844) became a law. It authorized patents, with a reservation of the coal and mining rights involved to the United States, to persons who in good faith had entered public lands under the non-mineral land laws prior to withdrawal, classification, claim, or report that such lands were valuable for coal. It solved the problem only partially, and the practice thereupon adopted by the department of making coal withdrawals "from all forms of entry" instead of "from coal entry" expedited the more complete solution effected by later acts. By the act of June 22, 1910 (36.Stat. 583) withdrawn and classified coal lands were declared subject to entry under the homestead, desert land, and Carey acts, provided a waiver of the coal rights accompanied the application, and by the act of April 30, 1912 (37 Stat. 105) the same privilege was extended to State selections and isolated tracts. The act of August 24, 1912 (37 Stat. 496) extended the separation policy to lands withdrawn for oil and gas in Utah, and finally the act of July 17, 1914 (38 Stat. 509) extended it to all nonmineral filings on public lands theretofore or thereafter
For the year ending February, 1920 PRESIDENT HORACE V. WINCHELL MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. PAST PRESIDENTS PHILIP N. MOORE ST. Louis,. Mo. SIDNEY J. JENNINGS NEW YORK, N. Y. FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT A. R. LEDOUX NEW YORK, N. Y. TREASURER GEORGE D. BARRON NEW YORK, N. Y. SECRETARY BRADLEY STOUGHTON NEW YORK, N. Y.
For the year ending February, 1918 PRESIDENT PHILIP N. MOORE ST. Louis, Mo. PAST PRESIDENTS WILLIAM L. SAUNDERS NEW YORK, N. Y. L. D. RICKETTS, NEW YORK, N. Y. FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT SIDNEY J. JENNINGS, NEW YORK, N. Y. TREASURER GEORGE C. STONE, NEW YORK, N. Y. SECRETARY EMERITUS ROSSITER W. RAYMOND,.. NEW YORK, N. Y. SECRETARY BRADLEY STOUGHTON NEW YORK, N. Y.