pecting would cease and pay rolls would suffer accordingly. It is apparent that Idaho would suffer tremendously if this bill passes the Senate and becomes law. We understand that the companion bill, House bill No. 4590, recently passed the House and that both bills are now pending before the United States Senate Banking and Currency Committee.

It is imperative that these measures be defeated, as the entire West, and particularly Idaho, is vitally interested in keeping the mining industry operating. It would be disastrous to us should these measures become law. Who wants to trade a necessity for luxury items such as jewelry?

Your assistance in furthering this cause for Idaho and the entire West will be greatly appreciated.

Very truly yours

The Honorable CHARLES C. GOSSETT,

ADRIAN NELSON, Jr., Secretary.

FINNEY TRANSPORTATION LINE,

Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, February 9, 1946.

The United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: The retail jewelers are waging a campaign for passage of the Green bill (1508) which would permit the treasury to sell silver to jewelers and industrial users at 58 cents an ounce below the statutory money value.

The above bill would permit the small amount of silver now in the treasury to be drained out at a time when production is down and would offer no inducement to increase the production of silver to meet the demands which are coming from all over the world.

The price of silver should be increased and silver producers should be paid the full statutory money value to increase production. A few Senators like McCarran, Carville, Langer and their colleagues are fighting for the mining industry against an organization that doesn't care what happens to the mining industry just so long as its members can get cheap silver right now.

The silver price difference means a great deal to our State and to the promotion of our mining industry, and I would appreciate your doing all you can to see that this bill is defeated.

DEAR SIR: It has come to my attention both as a share-owner in certain silver mines, and as a resident interested in the development of north Idaho and eastern Washington, that the Green bill, Senate bill 1508, is now, or is about to be, voted on by the Senate, which bill apparently has for its purpose the fattening of the purses of certain large commercial jewelers to the great harm and detriment of the Northwest territory which you represent in the Senate.

From our standpoint in this area there is no reason why these commercial jewelers and industrial users of silver should obtain the metal at 0.58 an ounce less than its statutory money value, and I urge you both as a voter and a citizen of this territory interested in its development to vote against this bill, and use your good auspices for its defeat. Thank you.

Yours very truly,

STEPHEN B. CARKEEK,
Special Agent.

Senator C. C. GOSSETT :

LEWISTON, IDAHO, February 19, 1946.

Strongly urge any last-minute action required to defeat any bill which would reduce price of silver to jewelry manufacturers and other domestic uses below monetary value to Treasury. Such bill if passed would be murderous to mining industry. Regards.

TOм K. CUNNING,

Managing Secretary, Lewiston Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. CHARLES C. GOSSETT,
Senator from Idaho,

Washington, D. C.

WALLACE, IDAHO, February 9, 1946.

DEAR MR. GOSSETT: It is with deep interest that we ask you to oppose bill No. 1508, otherwise known as the Green bill. We, my wife and I, do not deny that a good silver standard is to our own interest, but, on the other hand, no one can deny that a tremendous part of the entire West (as well as other sections of our country) depends, directly or indirectly, upon the same for a balanced economy.

A favorable result from Senate action on this Green bill is far more important to our large mining population and those millions connected with such, than similar action aiding industrial users of silver. Our contention is that every locale has its own resources and ability to support its population. Sincere consideration should be given to aiding those areas relying so heavily upon silver developments. Monetary circulation in silver States has always been a healthy one, In most of these sections, there is no other means by which the workers, investors, businessmen, and general public could be compensated for the loss of earnings which would result from the passage of bill No. 1508. We urge you to help defeat it.

Sincerely,

WAYNE E. JOHNSON.

Senator HAYDEN. All right. If there is nothing further, the committee will recess until tomorrow morning at 10:30 o'clock.

(Thereupon, at 12:35 p. m., the committee recessed until 10:30 o'clock on April 11, 1946.)

TREASURY DEPARTMENT APPROPRIATION BILL, 1947

THURSDAY, APRIL 11, 1946

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS,

Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met at 10:30 a. m., pursuant to notice, Hon. Kenneth McKellar presiding.

Present: Senators McKellar, McCarren, Hayden, and Green.
Also present: Senator Johnson of Colorado.

Senator HAYDEN. Senator McKellar has been unavoidably de tained, and until he appears, I shall act as chairman.

The committee will be in order.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT

BUREAU OF THE MINT

Mr. Lyon, are you prepared to testify? If so, will you please give the reporter your name.

STATEMENT OF TOM LYON, REPRESENTING THE INTERNATIONAL SMELTING CO. OF SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

Mr. LYON. My name is Tom Lyon, Salt Lake City. I am connected with the International Smelting Co. of that city.

EVOLUTION OF MINING SINCE DISCOVERY OF SILVER-BEARING

OUTCROPS

I wish to point out the importance of the substantial silver price to both producers and consumers of lead, zinc, and copper. I think it might be well to give you a little story of the evolution of mining since the discovery of the silver-bearing outcrops that took place between 1870 and 1890 in most districts of the West.

The metals occur as sulfides in their primary state, but due to the stages of oxidation, the iron, the zinc, the sulfur and the copper were dissolved out, leaving lead and silver behind. You had a very highly concentrated ore, there.

The treatment of this oxidized lead ore was simple. They put it in a blast furnace, got out lead bullion and refined the silver out of it. After those outcrops were all mined and the ore became what we call the primary ore, in most cases in the lead and zinc producing districts we have five metals with which to deal-gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc. In some, one would predominate and in other cases, the others might predominate. Rather than just mining the ore out

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and dumping it in a blast furnace, it was necessary to grind it up to the fineness of flour where each one of these metals were floated out. The lead, zinc, and copper were floated out separately, in most cases. Each of those minerals separated in that manner contained a little of your precious metals.

TREATMENT OF MINERALS

The treatment of these minerals was all different. The lead had to go to a lead plant and the zinc had to go to an electrolytical refinery. Before this evolution took place, there were large bodies of this ore that contained zinc that was a detriment to smelting in a lead furnace and it had to be penalized. With the advent of flotation that was eliminated and the miner then received some pay for his zinc.

The advent, then, of the electrolytic zinc process that Anaconda spent millions on and finally perfected enabled the silver to be saved from the zinc in the refining of metallic zinc and the miner got a lot more for it.

AMOUNT AND VALUE OF LEAD INCLUDING SILVER,
CITY DISTRICT, UTAH

PRODUCED IN PARK

Since 1870, in the Park City district in Utah, this district produced, roughly, 2,250,000,000 pounds of lead. The value of the lead in the ore, as gross metal values, was 35 percent. The value of the silver in the ore was 48 percent. The total dividends paid in the whole district

Congressman WHITE. Do you mean ounces?
Mr. LYON. No; I mean percent.

TOTAL DIVIDENDS PAID IN PARK CITY DISTRICT

The total dividends paid in the district were 20 percent. It can easily be seen that the American public has had 2,225,000,000 pounds of lead from that district that they never would have had at reasonable metal prices if it had not been for the silver content of the ore.

MINING AND SIZE OF ORE BODIES

In the mining of this ore in this district, you do not mine-in the first place, ore is any rock that contains sufficient metal in it so that it may be mined at a profit. In the mining of an ore body, it is not all ore. It fades out; the values get less and less. Finally, when you reach a point where it is no longer profitable to mine, you must leave that low-grade material behind. After that is once left behind, it is lost to the American public forever, because it never will be of sufficient value, regardless of the price of metals, to pay for the reopening of these workings to get it.

In this same Park City district that I am talking about, up until and through 1941, it required 1 foot of development work for each 41⁄2 tons of ore that were extracted. That is a lot of work. The ore bodies are relatively small. They are not large ore bodies like are found in open-pit mines. They are bodies that produce from 25 to 50 tons per linear foot.

ORE RESERVE DEPLETED DURING WAR

The easy ore is all obtained, now. During the war, we shot our reserve because we could not possibly obtain men to keep the development work up. It is going to take from now on, perhaps 1 foot of work for every 3 tons of ore, and not 41⁄2 as it has in the past because, as I say, this easy ore is all gone. You have longer cross-cuts to make to explore new countries and you also have a water problem to face if you go down.

That is the history of the Park City district. It was discovered with just two outcrops in the whole district; one was the silver outcrop and the other contained some lead. Mining on those silver outcrops has not made available for the American public this large amount of base metals.

SITUATION ON SILVER OUTCROPS SINCE 1890

In connection with these silver outcrops, I want to say that there has been practically no prospecting to a great degree since 1890 when the price of silver slumped. At the present time in the smelting of the Utah copper concentrates in the Salt Lake Valley, it requires about one-half ton of silicious fluxing ore for each ton of concentrates. That is what they use to make slag with. It must have enough values in it to carry it through and pay somebody to mine it and the railroad to haul it there. Practically all of the higher-grade silver silicious ore has been exhausted. All the old dumps have been sorted over several times. The freight rate is very low on that material and the smelting rate is also very low. Nevertheless, it is just about dried up.

NEED FOR INCREASE IN PRICE OF SILVER

An increase in the price of silver is going to make available more of that ore, which the premium payments have nothing to do with because it contains practically no base metal. However, it is absolutely necessary to have in the treatment of the Utah copper concentrates unless you are going to have to increase the smelting cost which naturally increases the cost of the commodity to the consumer.

NEW BASE ORE DISTRICTS REQUIRED

In the digging out of these high-grade siliceous ores, it is not at all unlikely that base ores will be discovered. When I say "base ore,' I mean lead, zinc, or copper. The base ores were discovered in the mining of these silver outcrops. We must find new ones. We must find new districts. That costs a lot of money. If we could get enough for the silver so that we could mine the silver outcrops and kind of pay as we go, it is quite likely that we might develop a large quantity of base ores.

I have taken up the Park City district, and I have tables here that were worked up from the annual reports of the companies, from the Bureau of Mines' figures, and I would like to introduce these, as they are very interesting. I would like to introduce them in evidence. I do not know whether anyone has ever done it just this way before or not. However, they are as accurate as we could get them.

Senator HAYDEN. Without objection, the tables will be included in the record.

(The tables referred to are as follows:)