STATEMENT OF MR. ROGER MCCONNELL, CHIEF GEOLOGIST, BUNKER HILL & SULLIVAN MINING CO., KELLOGG, IDAHO

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, there's one point that hasn't been brought out, I don't believe, in the discussion so far, and that is that mining districts everywhere in the world are exceedingly uncommon. To my knowledge there are only eight mining districts in the entire world which have produced as much as $1,000,000,000; one of them being our own Coeur d'Alene mining district.

In view of the fact that they are so exceedingly rare I made a rough check on how many mining districts there are in the United States, in the western United States, and roughly I should say there are about 1,500 so-called mining districts. Now, mining districts in that sense, included in this figure, doesn't necessarily mean a comparatively large area like the Coeur d'Alene district, but it means all the subdivisions of the larger districts, much as a city is subdivided into additions and precincts, and so forth. Within the western United States where the public lands are there are roughly, I might state an assumption on the size of these mining districts, there would be roughly 55,000 square miles in the districts, and that is a rather generous assumption, because I used a rather large area per mining district; larger, I'm quite sure, than most mining districts are, and there were probably in the neighborhood of from 800,000 to a million square miles of public land in the United States.

Now, it seems to me that 55,000 square miles out of about a million, if all of it were taken up with patented claims, which certainly will not be the case, but if every bit of it were taken up with patented claims that would not constitute a very grave abuse of our public lands. That's in the neighborhood of 5 percent of the total land that might be available.

There seems to be several points of disturbance on the part of the various groups. One of them is to separate the surface from the subsurface. I think the mining industry's viewpoint has been adequately discussed on that for the time being, and I believe an enforcement of the laws in regard to moratoriums would clear up a great many of these points of abuse. There is one point which sounds to me like the technicalities could and should be worked out, and that is that there is really a need for an accurate location of mining claims. It is a terrific chore to find out where a man's ground is at the present time, and after all, that's a protection to the man who owns the ground as well as the rest of the people.

There are, however, a number of serious technical difficulties involved which probably we'll get around to tomorrow. There was one statement made which I would like to take exception to: Someone, I don't recall who it was, made the statement that even the major mining companies under the present mining laws were abusing their privileges in staking mining claims. I presume the gentleman was thinking they were staking too large an area, for one thing. Well, under the present circumstances, and I'm thinking primarily of our own problems in the Coeur d'Alene district, if one is not protected by a reasonably large-sized area, at least 160 acres and oftentimes considerably more, if one is not protected by an area of considerable

size he isn't justified in attempting the deep and exceeding costly exploration it takes to find mines now; so I'd like to leave just this thought with you, that it occurs to me that the mining industry, the amount of land that it is very likely to take up is quite small in relation to the total public land, and that these fringe abuses can and should be taken care of on an individual basis through the courts. Mr. GOLDY. Thank you, Mr. McConnell. I'd like now to call on Harry Marsh.

STATEMENT OF HARRY MARSH, SECRETARY OF THE IDAHO MINING ASSOCIATION

Mr. MARSH. Mr. Goldy, gentlemen of the Bureau, Congressman: The Idaho Mining Association wants to subscribe whole-heartedly to what our good Senator Callahan has said, also our good friend Compton White. In our younger days I had the good fortune to take our Congressman underground through the first mine he was ever in. The Congressman and I have been the closest of friends since that day.

Coming up I talked with Mr. R. A. Rutledge, an old-time forester, an old-time administrator. He started in in 1905 in Wallace as the first forestry officer in this region. He was the district forester, then he created the Missoula Forest, he was there for years. When they devised the Taylor Grazing Act they put him at the head of that as regional administrator. To us he is known as Uncle Dick. Dick said this the night before last; I asked him personally "What do you think of this, after your fifty-some years of experience?" He says, "You just go to that convention, tell those fellows if they'll just enforce the law they don't need any changes." Dick had many years of experience along the St. Joe River when they were constructing the Milwaukee Railroad; he won through every one of them, came out of there with a clean bill of health and is recognized today as one of the outstanding foresters if not the outstanding forester of the Nation.

I might say for the record my name is Harry W. Marsh; I'm a mining engineer, lived in the State of Idaho 62 years, son of a prospector who originally came to the Coeur d'Alenes in 1884, and I've been in the game since I was big enough to sit on a log.

I'd just like to call your attention to just a few statistics. In 1948 our State production, mineral production, was approximately 80 million dollars. Now, you don't need a slide rule or a pencil to know that better than 45 million of that went out to wages, probably another 25 million to supplies, maintenance, and so forth. In the Coeur d'Alenes we use from 37 to 42 million board feet a year. That leaves us about 10 million dollars to pay Federal tax, to pay our 3-percent mining-license tax for the privilege of doing business in our State, and our own ad valoem tax and other taxes, which actually leaves about 1 percent to do business with. In 1941 at Stillwell, Idaho, there was discovered a great tungsten mine. The War Production Board credits that tungsten discovery with shortening the war and at least saving 100,000 young men's lives. We have a tremendous cobalt deposit just being developed, they're building a city there this year, the Howe Sound Mining Co. spent over 312 million dollars on development; they hope to get into production next year sometime. Are you about to pull my coattail ?

Mr. GOLDY. No, go ahead; you're doing fine.

Mr. MARSH. I'd like to tell one little story, particularly for the Izaak Walton League member. The young fellow had a yen for a mermaid, got himself a ship, and went to the seven seas, posted lots of rewards for anyone that would bring in a mermaid. One day one of the captains brought in the mermaid, collected the fabulous reward. The next day the young fellow was back at the captain's door saying "Take this thing back; there's not enough woman to love, and there's too damn much fish to eat." That's what's going to happen to you and all others that monkey with these mining laws; we're not going to have any money to pay the licenses for the Izaak Walton League, and we're going to have too damn much fish to eat. I have a bunch of mimeographed copies of the minutes of the meeting that took place at Wallace. If any of you are interested I'd be happy to give them to you. Thank you.

Mr. GOLDY. Thank you very much, Harry. I'm sure that this discussion, those that were on the agenda this far have stimulated a lot of questions and comments from all of you. Before calling for the general discussion, however, I'd like to provide the opportunity now for other representatives of the mining industry who are here who are not specifically listed on the agenda. If any of them want to make any brief comments I'd like to give them the opportunity to do so now. Any representatives of the mining industry who would like to add their comments?

Mr. ROGER O. OSCARSON. I am secretary of the Northwest Mining Association, headquarters in Spokane. I received this morning a letter from Carl J. Trauerman, who is the secretary of the Mining Association of Montana. It's a comparatively short letter addressed to Mr. Goldy with reference to this, which I would like to read for the record:

DEAR MR. GOLDY: Many thanks for your wire of the 14th received late last night and the informative data received this morning. I heard about the forthcoming meeting at Spokane some time ago, but I did not know that Montana was to be included in the States to be represented. Therefore, I have made other commitments and am sorry that I cannot be present.

When Interior Secretary Krug, with the advice of the American Mining Congress, appointed the National Minerals Advisory Council late in 1947, the Mining Association of Montana was given to understand that the question of the revision of United States mining laws, if anv revisions were desired, was to be left to conferences between the National Minerals Advisory Council and the American Mining Congress with the Secretary of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management of the Department of the Interior. I think all the State mining associations have the same idea on this as the Mining Association of Montana.

Therefore, the Mining Association of Montana is 100 percent in favor of the recommendations made by the National Advisory Council through its land subcommittee and 100 percent in favor of the resolutions on public lands contained in the declaration of policy of the recent Spokane convention of the American Mining Congress, and we have nothing further to add at this time, so far as we know.

With the above thoughts in mind, I am of the opinion that the Mining Association of Montana does not need any representation at your meeting. However, I may be mistaken in this, and if the mining men, who are to speak at your meeting, believe that we do need representation, our association appoints Mr. Donald A. Callahan, vice president of the American Mining Congress, and Messrs. Rowland W. King and Roger Oscarson, officers of the Northwest Mining Asso