3i8 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



als which have been mined and reduced in 

 such a way that the yearly loss shall be as 

 small as possible. In short, we should keep the 

 capital as nearly unimpaired as practicable. 

 These two duties are plainly before this 

 generation. If they are disregarded our 

 descendants will charge us with wanton ex- 

 travagance. We shall be in the position 

 of a father who has wasted his patrimony 

 and left a diminished estate to his son. 



Following a brief discussion in re- 

 gard to points of procedure, during 

 which the suggestion was made that 

 Governor Burke, of South Dakota, be 

 made honorary secretary of the Con- 

 ference, Mr. John Hays Hammond, 

 the celebrated mining engineer, who 

 has the distinction of being the highest 

 salaried private individual in the 

 world, addressed the Conference on 

 the ore and mineral deposits of the 

 country. Mr. Hammond said: 



"What has been said of the danger of the 

 rapid depletion of the iron and coal de- 

 posits, is applicable, mutatis mutandis, to 

 the other mineral deposits of the country. 



"In common with every other national in- 

 dustry, that of mining is vitally concerned 

 in the conservation of our natural resources. 

 These discussions show conclusively the in- 

 terdependence of our national industries. 

 The exploitation of our mines depends, 

 chiefly, upon the costs of labor, power, and 

 supplies ; and these costs are determined by 

 the economies attending the development of 

 our other natural resources. Thus, the coht 

 of mining-labor is dependent upon the ex- 

 penses of living ; the cost of power, upon 

 the cost of fuel or the cost of power hydro- 

 electrically generated ; and lastly, the cost 

 of supplies depends upon the cost of their 

 productkin. Therefore, upon the economies 

 effected in the other national industries, de- 

 pends, reciprocally, the cost of our mineral 

 products. Now, obviously, the lower the 

 cost of mining, the greater the available ton- 

 nage of products that can be profitably 

 mined. Indeed, in many of our low grade 

 mines, so-called, the margin between profit 

 and loss is so small that any appreciable 

 increase in the cost of mining involves pe- 

 cuniary loss and, consequently, the cessa- 

 tion of operations. Furthermore — and this 

 is important — the mines of this character 

 are those from which the major part of our 

 production is derived. 



"It has, unfortunately, been the popular 

 custom to refer to large deposits of ore as 

 illimitable and inexhaustible. Such hyper- 

 bole characterizes the description of the fa- 

 mous gold deposits of the Transvaal. As a 

 matter of fact, we mining engineers know 

 that these exceptionally extensive deposits 

 will practically be exhausted within a cou- 



ple of decades — certainly within a genera- 

 tion. The ever-increasing rapidity of ex- 

 ploitation, consequent upon the exigencies 

 of modern engineering and economic prac- 

 tice, inevitably tends to an alarming diminu- 

 tion of the lives — if I may use that term — of 

 our mineral deposits. 71ie culmination of 

 our mining industry is to he reckoned in de- 

 cades, and its declension, (if not practically 

 its economic exhaustion) in generations, not 

 in centuries. While it is undoubtedly the 

 fact that a very considerable lowering of 

 the working cost, or a correspondingly 

 greatly enhanced value of the mineral pro- 

 ducts, would prolong the activity of the 

 mining industr}% yet the statement I have 

 made, predicated as it is upon the knozvn 

 mineral deposits, may be regarded as con- 

 servative. Explorations will undoubtedly 

 lead to the finding of new mining fields, but 

 the discovery of the more important de- 

 posits will, in all probability, occur in the 

 compa-^atively near future. 



"There is no way of revolutionizing our 

 mining methods to attain better results; but 

 they are susceptible, it is true, of greater 

 improvements, and especially so in the 

 metallurgical processes. But even therein 

 the irreducible minimum is not great, com- 

 pared with the advantage that would result 

 to the mining industry from the conserva- 

 tion of the natural resources of the coun- 

 try- 



"In striving, as we engineers are doing, to 



prevent, as it were, the leakage of water 

 through the bung-hole, we see a large vol- 

 ume flowing out through the broken staves 

 at the other end of the barrel. It is for 

 this reason that you may rely upon the 

 hearty co-operation of the miners of our 

 country in j^our efforts to conserve the Na- 

 tion's natural resources, and to perpetuate 

 our national supremacy." 



Answering calls from every part of 

 the floor, Honorable Elihu Root, Sec- 

 retary of State, extemporaneously ad- 

 dressed the Conference. Secretary 

 Root said in part : 



"Forty-four sovereign States are repre- 

 sented here, I see by the newspapers ; all 

 sovereigns here upon the invitation of the 

 Executive of the sovereign Nation, the 

 United States. No one can over-estimate 

 the importance of maintaining each and 

 every one of the sovereignties of the states 

 (applause), and no one can overestimate 

 the importance of maintaining the sov- 

 ereignty of the Nation. 



"The Nation cannot perform functions of 

 the state sovereignties. If it were to under- 

 take to perform those functions it would 

 break down. The machinery would not be 

 able to perform the duty. The pressure is 

 already very heavy upon the national ma- 

 chinery. 

 "I feel deeply impressed, however, with 



