The vertical map of the underground workings shows part of the series of the exploration tunnels driven from the surface of the mining claims and the original incline shaft (winz) that followed the vein to the 1,900-foot level where there is an offset in the winz to the 3,100-foot level, indicating that the ore extracted and the water pumped from the deeper level was raised in different stages to the surface. For economical mine operation, it was found expedient to sink the costly Jewel shaft in solid rock away from the crushed material in which the upper levels of the Sunshine vein was found to be embedded.

The following statistical information as to ore production was kindly furnished by the management. (It may be noted that little in the way of ore was found above the 400-foot level.)

Memorandum.

SUNSHINE MINING CO., Kellogg, Idaho, July 10, 1946.

The first dividend was paid in 1927 and from 1927 through 1933 the production came largely from what we call the upper levels of the mine. The two 5-year periods from 1934 through 1938 and from 1939 through 1943 illustrate very clearly how the production and earnings expanded when the ore body began to improve in both size and grade starting with the 1,700 level. The heading "Principal levels" indicates the levels from which the major part of the production was derived during the periods stated.

Congressman WHITE. The United States don't want to bar themselves, do they? It's only the rights of some fellow that sets up a claim to an unpatented claim that interferes with the user of that land for access. Now then, what is the situation?

Mr. GOLDY. I think I can help clarify the point you're after. I would describe the rights of an unpatented mining claimant not as superior to those of a patented claim, but just more complicated. Congressman WHITE. One can bar the Government, and the other

can't.

Mr. GOLDY. Let me explain that; let's go back to Mr. Harmon's problem, the question of a national forest and the illustration he gave yesterday. The illustration he gave yesterday was of an area where there was a big block of timber, a national forest, and right at the entrance, you might say, to the area in which this timber is located was a strip of land in a canyon, required for road access, all on the national forest land, and a mining claimant went in and filed a mining claim. Now, it wasn't a problem of the Federal Government, the Forest Service, being barred from the timber, but the Forest Service sells its timber to a private contractor

Congressman WHITE. Better known as a permittee.

Mr. GOLDY. A permittee, licensee, contractor, right. Now, he wants to buy the timber; he got to get to the timber to get it out. He's got a road up to the mining claim, and a road behind the mining claim; the question is, How does he get across the area covered by the claim? The contractor or the permittee can't go in and condemn. What kind of land is it. It's land owned by the Federal Government, but in which an equitable right has been obtained by a mining claimant. Now, the question is, What provision of law is there under which the fellow who buys the national forest timber can get it out? What they've been doing is paying the mining claimant for letting them take it out. Now,

if it were a patented mining claim, this is the difference, then it would be simple; the laws of the State, whatever State this was in, would permit the contractor or the permittee of the Federal Government to go in and condemn a right-of-way across the land in order to get the timber, and once having condemned the right-of-way, the Federal Government could provide that the right-of-way be given to the Government. The problem is this peculiar situation in which the land is the Federal Government's, the person who wanted access is the permittee of the Federal Government, and somebody else has what we call an equitable interest in the land.

Congressman WHITE. Do you subscribe to that proposition?

Mr. NETZORG. Do you want a frank, honest answer, in other words? No.

Congressman WHITE. If the man that has the unpatented claim, when he patented his claim his rights became inferior to the right he had before he patented. That's the way of the proposition he just explained, that the Government can condemn and go across and get access to a patented claim, but it can't go across an unpatented claim, so therefore when a man patented his claim he made it inferior to the claim he had as an owner of an unpatented mining claim.

Mr. GOLDY. Mr. Callahan, do you have a comment there?

Mr. CALLAHAN. I simply was asking if there was any possible way under the laws of the State Washington-I understand the permittee can't condemn the right of the claimant, but is that generally true? Mr. GOLDY. Is your attorney here, Mr. Harmon?

Mr. HARMON. Mr. Chairman, a private individual, as I understand it, has no right of condemnation; the Federal Government and the States and the counties do under certain conditions. When it comes to a private operator building across an unpatented mining claim for which he is to secure the right-of-way himself, he must turn to the towns, the county, the State, or the Federal Government to secure a right-of-way. Now, if the township doesn't want that road on their system, or the county doesn't want it on their system, or the State doesn't want it on their system, then he has no recourse to them, because they won't go in and obligate the funds and everything to secure that right-of-way for him, so he's left dangling to make an independent deal with the claimant. Now, we have really no authority to go in there and condemn a right-of-way either, as far as I know.

Mr. GOLDY. No, I can understand your situation; the permittee would probably have to do it, but Mr. Callahan and my lawyer have both been suggesting in effect that under at least some State laws it might be possible for your contractor or permittee to condemn what they're calling the possessory right of the mining claimant. Just as in the case of a patented mining claim you condemn just the right-ofway, because it's private land; in the case of an unpatented claim you condemn such right as the claimant has in the land.

Congressman WHITE. You represent the Forest Service; can you cite to us any timber that's tied up, unavailable or unusuable, due to the fact that some mining claim is across the canyon and you can't get access to that timber?

Mr. HARMON. I think yesterday I agreed to submit some cases of that nature for the record.

Congressman WHITE. Do you know of one at the moment?

Mr. HARMON. I know of one case over on the Clearwater Forest where a series of mining claims, I'm not sure whether they were patented or unpatented, but they were owned by the lumber companies, and they wouldn't give to the operator the right to cross these mining claims, so that one purchaser had a monopoly on all the timber above those claims.

Congressman WHITE. Is it the very country that you're talking about where dredges are working, the patents to several claims have been denied by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management? Mr. HARMON. That's probably right.

Congressman WHITE. Don't you know of a lot of cases where there's gold under the ground that assays and is commercial and valuable, and the claim has been rejected?

Mr. HARMON. That's right; if our analysis shows the claim was not valid, we contest it.

Congressman WHITE. Even though the gold was there, and showed in commercial quantities? I'm talking about the dredge operating back of Pierce, Idaho.

Mr. HARMON. We don't contest claims of that description.

Congressman WHITE. Well, you have contested it, when the owner had about six claims lined up, and assayed, and showed commercial ore on them, and they were refused the right to patent.

Mr. HARMON. If it was denied then it was in accordance with the law, and they didn't have a showing of color.

Mr. WOLFE. Can we get back to the right-of-way point? On the Little North Fork of the Santiam River in Oregon there are a number of mining claims that have been there for years. We wanted a road through those mining claims for general forest administrative purposes and also for timber-sale purposes; however, we did not immediately want to log the timber back there. Anyway, the question was put up to our lawyers, and indicative of the complications involved, the Solicitor's office of the Department of Agriculture ruled the Government had the authority to build a road through those claims without the permission of the mining claimant if the road did not interfere with the mining operations. The lawyers of the Department of Justice ruled the Government did not have that right.

Congressman WHITE. This is on the Santiam River, you said? Mr. WOLFE. Yes.

Congressman WHITE. And you have timber in there today that you desire to move and utilize, and it's blocked by the holdings of mining claims?

Mr. WOLFE. As I said, Congressman, we're not ready to go in there to log that.

Congressman WHITE. Then you haven't got any instance of where you have any timber at the present moment?

Mr. WOLFE. I didn't say that; I said in this particular case. Congressman WHITE. Do you know of any other place where timber is tied up because they can't get access to it on account of mining claims?

Mr. WOLFE. As was brought up before, we're going to submit specific information on those cases.

Congressman WHITE. But of your own knowledge you don't know of any at all, do you?

Mr. WOLFE. Yes, I do.