FIGURE 11.-Miner hand-tramming ore underground to shaft station. Also showing water-pump installation, small mine, north Idaho.

presented the problem for this reason; we're trying to hold a regionwide meeting; as I stated before, we not only have to have meetings which bring together a region-wide point of view where the situation is varied State by State, but we're also going to have to have meetings in different parts of the country where the situation is varied. In connection with this Oregon and California problem or the national forest problem, very similar, in the same area, would you suggest that by the filing of mining claims on these timbered properties which are one of the principal mainstays of the local government in that area, that a mining district ought to be formed?

Mr. STEPHENS. I don't know about the State of Oregon; I'll put that in the form of a question, Can it be done?

Mr. SEVER. I may say for the benefit of the gentleman, it cannot. They recognize an old mining district which existed before 1872, and their limitations on claims are recognized as they are in the act of 1872, but there's no mining-district law at the present time.

Mr. GOLDY. Mr. Stephens started to ask me did I know why the Oregon Legislature did or didn't do anything; I am sure I couldn't answer that.

Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I've heard about these Oregon and California lands in this discussion; it's all very hazy in my mind; it's a local situation peculiar to Oregon. What we would like to know as mining representatives here is, what amendment of the Federal mining laws could possibly remedy a situation where there is this peculiar difference between the Oregon and California lands and the public lands?

Mr. GOLDY. Let me say, Mr. Callahan, in order to clarify the point, there is already a special mining law for the Oregon and California lands which goes a long way toward solving the problem, and I might say I have also got a list here of some recent laws passed by the Congress applied to other national forests in the country in which some of the same things are done. The point is that the problems are not peculiar to these lands, the Oregon and California lands, and these other national forests; many of the problems with which the Congress has dealt exist elsewhere, and what happened was that the Bureau of Land Management working with the Minerals Advisory Council, and now we're working with you gentlemen out here, was attempting to devise some amendments to the general mining laws as they apply to the other public lands, based on the experiences we have had in some of these special sections. I might say the Oregon and California law separates the surface and the subsurface; you can't alienate the surface ownership on the Oregon and California lands. Congressman WHITE. Will the chairman yield for a question? Mr. GOLDY. You bet.

Congressman WHITE. Before that law was passed the Oregon and California lands were completely withdrawn from any mineral development?

Mr. GOLDY. That's correct: from 1937 to 1947 withdrawn by an interpretation of the Solicitor of the Interior Department, and the act of 1947 opened it to mineral development, but in recognition of the dedication of those lands for the purpose of managing the timber on a sustained-yield basis for providing a permanent support to the lumber industry and the communities in that area, a permanent water supply for those communities, the Congress provided in the law in which it

was opened that the surface and subsurface should be separated in administration, that copies of mining locations should be filed with the district land office, and that notices of assessment work should be filed with the district land office. That act provided authority so that the Secretary could regulate, as he has, that before timber is cut on those lands by mining claimants that a permit be obtained from the Bureau of Land Management, and when the permit is granted they can cut the trees suitable for mining-timber purposes, but are prevented from cutting the timber which couldn't be used for that purpose but which are valuable for regular lumber operation.

Mr. CALLAHAN. Do I understand then what the Bureau of Land Management would like is that the same rule be applied to all of the mineral rights of the United States?

Mr. GOLDY. Mr. Callahan, as you know, we have distributed, and if anyone doesn't have a copy I'd like to make sure he gets one-we have distributed this brochure, and one of the attachments to the brochure is a draft bill, a proposed bill drafted by the Bureau of Land Management for discussion purposes. Now, in order to stimulate discussion we went ahead and drafted a bill; that bill contains essentially the provisions I have just outlined which are also contained in the bill passed by Congress applying to the Oregon and California lands and also to certain national forests. I've misplaced the list at the moment but I think there are about eight or nine additional national forests this year to which Congress applied the same set of plans. What has been done is that as a specific area comes along and it's demonstrated or apparently a case is made for the recreational resources or the watershed resources or the timber resources, the Congress has been applying sort of a basic statute devised sometime ago, and is applying it to those areas. Here are some of the areas: Prescott National Forest; Mount Hood, Lassen; Harney; Santa Fe; Cocalina National Forest; those are some of them to which that type of law has already been applied.

Congressman WHITE. Was that in the Eightieth or the Eighty-first Congress?

Mr. GOLDY. Several of these Congressman, I think part of them, anyway, in this Congress, the present Congress.

Congressman WHITE. If that went through they did it when I wasn't there.

Mr. CALLAHAN. We have to have some comparison, so the Eightieth Congress, being the worst, the Eighty-first Congress must be the best. Mr. GOLDY. My attorney tells me there's only two such bills passed in the Eighty-first Congress.

Congressman WHITE. I think the group is familiar with the law passed during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt, nothing shall prohibit any person from going into the national forest to locate and acquire public lands for mineral purposes. I have photostats of the law.

Mr. GOLDY. That is correct; its also true in the Oregon and California lands, but these where they have been passed, including the Oregon and California Mineral Development Act, is an attempt to recognize the development of the minerals on the land but at the same time do it without destroying or disrupting or to the exclusion of the other resources and values on the land, and precisely what the Bureau of Land Management was trying to get the advice from you gentle

men on was how we could approach this problem of multiple use of land. As you pointed out, Mr. Callahan, its a fine-sounding phrase, but how can we convert that fine-sounding objective into a practical reality without creating the thing you fear, namely, a crimp in mining operations. We agree with you that mineral development is extremely important and must be accelerated. At the same time we feel the timber resources, the water resources, the grazing, the recreational and wildlife, are also of major importance and that they too should be given some consideration.

Congressman WHITE. I'd like to have it noted in the record at this point that I didn't become a member of the Mines and Mining Subcommittee until late in the year, so some of these laws may have slipped through prior to my becoming a member.

Mr. McCONNELL. In connection with all those proposed changes, and some of them may have some bearing, I think, however, that they should all be approached with extreme caution. Just a moment ago someone made the statement that some official in the Department of the Interior had declared that the O and C lands were not open to mineral entry, or words to that effect; at any rate, it took an act of Congress to take that one man's word off the books; it sounds like that, and another thing, I'd like to point out there has been considerable comment on how hopeless a mining venture, a mining claim, appears to be. In our own district, one of the greatest districts in the world, I have seen many prospects turned down. I have also seen one whole area which was regarded as quite hopeless until somebody took the bull by the horns and went in and discovered a first-class mine, which of course opened up the entire area for further prospecting, so I don't think that it is ever going to be within the bounds of human intelligence to foresee what lies beyond a few inches of solid rock, and nothing should be done that will tend to impede the courage or damn foolishness or whatever it takes to go against what at any particular time may be considered the best geological and mining advice obtainable.

Mr. GOLDY. May I just say by way of clarification, Mr. McConnell, about the word of one man closing up that area to mining development, for 10 years, that the land had been opened for development, and then Congress passed a law in 1937 dedicating the land for a certain purpose; the Secretary of the Interior's interpretation was that the dedication excluded mining claims. His word was not the final one. Anyone who disagreed with him could have taken it to the courts. There was pretty general agreement, and the Congress itself in effect verified that when they decided it took an act of Congress to open them up.

I agree with you, though, in principle that if we're going to have mineral development, the investors in mining properties cannot be at the mercy or whim of any one individual or his judgment, and I stand 100 percent with the mining industry on that score; in order to get investment they've got to have a pretty sound basis for making their investments, in order to raise the money to do it, and I'm all for you in getting to that condition. Let me say if this were not a complicated problem, which it is, I'm sure the solutions would have been found a long time ago, and I'm sure the best brains of the country working on this thing aren't going to be any too adequate to come up with effective solutions that will permit us to have both mineral