KEMP, GEOLOGY AXD ECOyOMICS 383 



trating mills or the "tailings," so called, when provided with appreciable 

 percentages of metals, may well be stored where they can be utilized by 

 future generations, if processes improve so as to make them available. 

 That is to say, they should not be run into rivers or placed where they 

 will be dissipated. The same remark applies to slags from metallurgical 

 works. The moderns, for example, are now working over the lead- 

 bearing slags left by the ancients at the great lead mines of Laurium, 

 Greece. Even the slags of early smelters in the West and in Mexico may 

 again pass through the furnace. 



Another question relates to the discovery, location and ownership of 

 mining property. So far as the metals are involved, and with the metals 

 this address has been alone concerned, the valuable discoveries are so few 

 in comparison with the disappointing attempts to develop, that only by 

 encouragement and rather generous conditions will the prospector be 

 enabled to follow his arduous calling. He must be offered large prizes 

 proportionate to the many failures. He must be assured of possession 

 by a very circumspect and conscientious administration, if confidence in 

 the justice of the government is to be maintained. People in the parts 

 of the country where mining for the metals is not carried on hear only 

 of the great successes and little of the innumerable disappointments. Far 

 'the largest part of the population thus acquire very distorted views of the 

 real conditions of mining. The interference by the government, other 

 than in the ways which I have mentioned, and in maintaining reasonably 

 safe conditions for the workman, is a matter to be regarded with great 

 caution, lest irreparable injury be done to the large problem of maintain- 

 ing our future supplies with such new discoveries and developments as 

 may be feasible. The wisest course is to improve the method of estab- 

 lishing and recording titles to new discoveries, and then, except in the 

 matters already mentioned, to let the natural course of business assert 

 itself. The proper share of the state will be obtained through the normal 

 processes of taxation. 



The mines for the metals do not, however, present the most important 

 phase of this subject. Coal is a more serious problem, and one demand- 

 ing more extended treatment than would be justifiable in an address 

 primarily devoted to other themes. One may only express the hope that 

 where cases of dispute arise they may be determined in the courts, accord- 

 ing to the established rules of evidence. 



The resources in the metals which have been found in the United States 

 have proved so great as to make the industries based upon them a very 

 vital factor in our whole civilization. Great changes in the supply or the- 

 cost will inevitably react in the long run upon the opportunities for em- 



