has just spoken of, we would be glad to have a conference with him in regard to it.

Some members of our committee have thought it wise to introduce a resolution at this Congress asking that the Forest Service refrain from cutting any timber on mineral claims that have been located, whether they are patented or unpatented. We are in receipt of complaints that timber is being sold by forestry officers from claims that are being worked by bonafide locators, the miner thus being denied the right to use timber which properly belongs to him and which he should have to properly develop his claim. We would be pleased if the gentleman who has just spoken will meet with the committee tonight, and assist in preparing proper resolutions asking for temporary restraint of the alleged abuses until the complete investigation is made by the committee. The question of the wisdom of selling any timber from mineral lands, in or near forest reserves, is a serious one that should be carefully considered, and perhaps it might be wise if this Congress made some recommendation in regard to this important matter.

GEORGE J. BANCROFT, OF COLORADO: I would like to ask the gentleman from Idaho, so that the information may come before the Congress as a whole, whether or not the Forest Reserve officers have done any forestry in Idaho, in tree planting, or in cultivation of the forests, which warrants them in keeping this charge on mining timber?

MR. ROCKWELL: I will say to the gentleman, not as far as I know. That is, they have not done so in the Sawtooth Reserve, which is in the country where I am operating. They are extraordinarily officious, quite drastic, severe, and have put us to a lot of trouble in getting any timber at all. I will say, however, that after taking their own time in inspecting, scaling and stamping the timber you are finally able to get your logs cut. Every tree is stamped before it is allowed to be cut. То a very large extent, we have literally been robbed and are being robbed today, and they admit it. Think of paying a cent per lineal foot for mining timber, on the theory that while they charge a price of $1.50 to $2.50, board measure, per thousand to saw mills, the mines, theoretically, are supposed to require the best timber in the reserve, which is the reason they give for charging us an excessive figure. They select the timber themselves, and yet 25 per cent. of the total selected is a kind of timber that would make reasonable fence posts for a sheep pasture, but not a foot of it would be worth anything under any circumstances for mining use, except for wedges. Well, gentlemen, we do not like to pay a cent a foot for wedge lumber. (Applause.)

PRESIDENT RICHARDS: I had a telegram from Mr. Pinchot wanting to know if it would be possible for our committee and myself to meet him and the Service in Washington after this session. I told him I could not answer until I had seen Mr. Brownlee at Pittsburg, and possibly, at the convenience of Mr. Brownlee, we had better notify him by wire our conclusion in the matter.

Is there any further discussion on this question?

H. F. FULTON, OF OHIO: I have been up against these Forest Reserve propositions myself this season. I made a visit to Washington in May, and talked some with the Forest Reserve people, and I found this situation down there. I think they are feeling their way. As nearly as I could discover they seemed to have no specific law under which they act. They were simply making the most strenuous possible effort to husband every foot of timber that could be husbanded, regardless of the rights of others. I happened to get into the management of a proposition that had cut some timber a year ago this fall, to the extent of 50,000 or 60,000 feet, upon their own claims, claims upon which they had done work for the past six years, which to my mind gives them an ownership of those claims, every year's work being made a payment on that property when you want to get it patented. You are required to do so many years' work.

I find that the Forest Reserve officers were feeling around to find out just about how much the mining interests would stand. I believe that if a committee from this Congress will meet with the Forest Reserve in Washington and go over the entire ground and show them where they are mistaken in many of their decisions, that there will be no trouble in reaching an arrangement that will be satisfactory to all.

I took this matter up with an attorney, who at one time was connected with the Forest Reserve, and he assured me that many of the requirements they put upon the miners were not supported by law, and that the necessary thing to do was to get together with the Forest Reserve people and influence them, and bring them down off their perch. They were feeling a little bit cocky in regard to the Forest Reserve, and their rights, and as the gentleman from Idaho has said, there is so much red tape that you cannot accomplish much. I asked for a permit to cut a new road through some timber a few weeks ago. The permit was granted me and the statement was made that in three or four or six weeks perhaps some agent of the Forest Reserve would go with my men up there, and he would mark trees we might cut up. I expected to have all that done before we got the usual three feet of snow, but the red tape has made it necessary for me to put that matter off until next spring. My suggestions to this Congress would be in the line with what the president has said just now, that if he and this committee will meet the Forest Reserve officers in Washington and state their grievances, and you know the situation and you do not need to get very much information, state the grievances and come right down pat with those people and say that you want your rights and you will get them; and you won't get them until you do. (Applause.)

MR. J. W. KNIGHT, OF PROVO, UTAH: I wish to say just a word on the question of the Forest Reserve interfering somewhat with the mining industry of our different states.

I find in Utah where we are patenting a great many claims that these patents are unnecessarily delayed until the government sees fit to send us a man to go and inspect our ground to see if it is mineral ground.

Now, as a general rule, what does a forester know about mineral ground? Upon what theory can they ride over our ground and determine intelligently whether we should be permitted to go to patent or not? Why, we may have already spent over $500.00 worth of work on the claim and are all ready to go to patent with them. Besides, we are paying $5.00 an acre, the highest price asked by the government for this class of land, and yet we are delayed by the forester, but if we do not get the inspection done the year we undertake to patent, we are obliged to do the assessment work on the claims for another year, being thus put to a great deal of expense.

It is a great hindrance to the mining industry of the western country where the mountains are covered with timber, and it is necessary to see a forester in order to patent ground. I think that something should be done in this line as well as concerning the use of the timber.

Even to lay a pipe line from an air compressor to a tunnel some distance away, we have to be delayed until some one comes and makes an inspection which has caused delays that have been very expensive.

I think something should be done to avoid all this "red tape" about such small matters.

DOCTOR JOHN BROWN, OF NEW JERSEY: Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am not very familiar with the question of forest reserves in the western country and its relation to mining timber, but I know some things that I wish to call to the attention of this Congress and to the attention of the committee, that is to confer with the gentlemen of the western states about this matter and with the gentlemen of the Forestry Service. It was stated by one of the gentlemen preceding me (I do not remember just which state he came from, but he asked the question whether the government and the Forestry Service had done

anything towards reforesting in the western states on lands where they sold the mining timber) that timber is sold to them for mining purposes at prices perhaps ten times as high as it is for saw mill purposes. Now I wish to state, as far as my experience goes in forestry, that whether the timber and lumber are cut for saw mill purposes or for mining purposes, the reforesting will cost just as much, and that does not explain the difference in price between timber cut for mining purposes and that cut for saw mill purposes. I recognize that mining timber should be of the first-class, and strongest timber that could be possibly gotten, yet I think a difference in price of ten times over saw mill timber is absolutely excessive, and it will be a very good thing if this Congress and if this committee reaches a determination and a decision with the Forestry Service which will equalize this difference. (Applause.)

MR. STEELE: I come from the land of snow and Esquimaux (Alaska), and I am operating in the largest forest reserve under the American flag. We have a grievance up our way, though perhaps not as great as that of my friend from Idaho. I do not think our condition is quite as bad. For instance, we consider in our locality that to a certain extent we are public benefactors. We have been led to believe that the forest reserve people are there to assist and to promote in every way possible the mining industry. I wish to mention one matter which we are doing, and that is we maintain a salt water wharf. We charge no wharfage whatever to anyone, all of our neighbors use the wharf as freely as we do ourselves, except that they must remove their goods when they come in our way. Our forest reserve man comes to notify me each year, as we have to rebuild every year on account of conditions there, that we must make an estimate of the amount of growing timber that we want to cut before we are allowed to go in. If we do not make that eseimate our timber will cost us probably double what it would cost us if we got in our estimate beforehand. We also make an estimate of the amount of timber that we have to cut for road building. Fortunately, I let him go and make the estimate; I did not ask about it at all until we got it cut; if we had we would not have gotten the timber yet. Our mine timber costs us more of course than our wharfage timber. But we maintain that so long as we are public benefactors, maintaining a wharf at our own expense to assist not only ourselves but to help our neighbors, that we should be charged nothing whatever. We think that we should be allowed that timber free. We are doing a great deal more for the public good in that country than Uncle Sam is for the mining industry. We are paying money into Uncle Sam's treasury every day in the way of licenses and every other way that they can collect it, and I can say to you now that we are pretty sore on this deal. (Applause.) MR. JOHN R. WOOD, OF COLORADO: I thought as the gentleman from Alaska was speaking that if there are as many forestry agents around in Alaska as there are in some portions of Colarado that there would have been a process served upon him before his road was done. (Laughter.) Now, there is no one, I take it, more desirous of preserving the timber than the miner. He knows the need of good timber. And he knows the care that is required to preserve the timber, and we are all anxious for the proper conservation of the timber resources of our mining districts. But we also are well posted, as is shown here, as to the difficulties which are beginning to hamper us. We are being shackled on all sides and we are finding it almost impossible to get relief when we should have relief. We feel, as has been suggested by the gentleman, I believe, from Ohio, that while there is an honest desire at Washington to get at the justice of these things, it is impossible, as it seems to some of us, that justice can be done to us in the metalliferous region at least, except by withdrawing such regions from the forest reserves. (Ápplause.) It may be that before we get through with this session this matter will be brought to you in the form of a resolution, or some suggestion asking the committee to present this matter at Washington. We

wish you would talk it over among yourselves. We wish you would get it in your mind whether or no this would be the proper settlement of these difficulties, so that if the matter does come on in some such form we may take it up and put it through speedily. (Applause.)

MR. ROCKWELL: I wish to say to this Congress that we in Idaho have had a great deal of difficulty with the timber question. We have been arrested and hounded and chased. My distinguished friend from Boise, that great jurist, Judge Beatty, of the Federal bench, and also a friend of our president here, after his famous ruling in those timber cases in the Coeur d'Alene and in the central part of the state, said to me personally in response to a visit which I made to him, after the government agent had been in our country checking up our timber which we had cut on government land without permission before the reserves were established: "I rendered my decision on the basis that you were mining on government land for precious metals which the government desired to have mined, and for which it had granted you the patent. The government knows that you cannot mine precious metals without timbering your drifts and stopes. It is impossible to open a mine, ordinarily, withTimber grows on government lands almost exclusively, therefore I maintained in my decision that all timbers cut on government land for use underground in mining should belong by right and by law to the mine owner, and that Uncle Sam ought to cheerfully contribute the amount of timber required for the mining industry underground without charge."

out the aid of timber.

Of course that decision was reversed, and I presume that our president here will tell us just how. I am not a lawyer. The forest reserves were born after that and we are all now under its influence, and we are treated as though we were usurpers. They are as jealous of the reserves as a mother is of her babe.

They seem to consider that as mine owners we are large capitalists, who ought to contribute a large amount of money for its support; hence, in my opinion, this outrageous charge which one of Uncle Sam's learned servants agrees to be ours by inherent right. It appears to me that the hardships and enormous expense incident to preparation for deep mining are now so great as to tax capital to its uttermost, and should not also be yoked to this additional burden.

My desire in speaking on this question again is to call your special attention to the opinion of one of the greatest jurists on the Federal bench on the question of timber for use in mining.

PRESIDENT RICHARDS: Are there any further remarks? I want to call especial attention to the program for this evening. I have had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Douglas before, and I consider him one of the best informed men on any subject that he pretends to understand, that I have ever heard address this Congress. I know that you will miss a treat if you fail to hear him tonight in this hall.

MR. DANIELS: I believe the introduction of resolutions is in order. PRESIDENT RICHARDS: At any time.

MR. DANIELS: I would like to present the following for reference to a committee. It is somewhat in line with the recommendation made in the report of the Committee on Smelting:

Resolution No. 1.

(By W. P. Daniels, of Colorado.)

Whereas, The American Mining Congress has by amendments to its laws, provided for the establishment of branches of the Congress wherever fifty or more members desire the establishment of such a branch, looking to the ultimate establishment of state and local organizations to be governed by a national body consisting of representatives of such local and state organizations, and

Whereas, The present laws of the Congress did not originally contemplate a delegate or representative organization with subordinate

bodies, self-governing within the provisions of the laws of the Congress, and the amendments providing for the establishment of branches is not in harmony with the original plan or the present laws; therefore be it

Resolved, That a committee of three members of the Congress bo appointed by the president whose duty it shall be to prepare and report to the next annual session of the Congress, such amendments or such revision of the present laws as will provide for a representative national governing body with state and local bodies subordinate to and under the jurisdiction of the national body, and it is the sense of the members of this session of the Congress that all life members of the Congress who are or may become life members under its existing laws, should be made life members of the national Congress with all the rights and privileges of the representative or delegate members that may be provided for in such report.

PRESIDENT RICHARDS:

Committee on Resolutions.

The resolution will be referred to the

The secretary has some announcements to make.

The secretary announced the names of the members of the Committee on Resolutions; also calling attention to desirability of members registering, receiving their badges, etc.

MR. LANG, OF CANADA: While speaking this morning I omitted to state to this meeting that I had with me several reports by Arthur A. Cole, mining engineer, of the Northern Railway. In this report will be found details of what we have been doing at Cobalt. I should like to se these reports distributed as well as possible. I might say this, that anyone desiring a copy of this report may get the same by writing to Mr. Cole at Cobalt.

I wish to say, too, Mr. President, while speaking, that I have enjoyed immensely the discussions of this afternoon, particulariy in regard to timber. I can quite understand your troubles, and I am interested in the discussion. I have enjoyed it very much.

PRESIDENT RICHARDS: Any other matters before we adjourn? MR. KNIGHT: Just one more word relative to forestry-regarding water. If a man files on water for mining power purposes it is necessary to get a permit from the forester, and in the permit it is stated that the permit may be cancelled at any time. You can readily see how that places the operator. He goes to the expense of putting up a big power plant and at any time the Forestry Department has the right to cancel the permit. And yet we spend our money to develop the country and we are held back in this way. I desire to bring this before the committee along with the other complaints.

MR. BROWNLEE: Before we adjourn I would like to say that the Forest Service Committee will meet at eight o'clock to-night in Room 215 at the Hotel Henry. Anybody who wishes to communicate with them will find the full committee in session at that time and place.

COL. H. H. GREGG, OF MISSOURI: I would like to ask all gentlemen interested in zinc mining from Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and any other states to please remain here a little while after the adjournment of the session this afternoon that we may talk on some matters pertaining to that.

Thereupon an adjournment was taken until eight o'clock p. m.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1908.
Evening Session.

PRESIDENT RICHARDS: I take great pleasure in introducing to you Dr. James Douglas of New York City, who will speak to you on "The Mining Industry as Influenced by Transportation."

Dr. Douglas' address will be found on page 71, Part II., of this report.