THE WESTERN PHOSPHATE LANDS 



687 



eral Statutes at the time of loca- 

 tion. It further provides that where 

 locations were made under the lode act 

 such locations shall have no apex or 

 extralateral rights (the right to follow 

 the clip of the vein under the side lines). 

 Besides these provisions, which are 

 aimed to affect certain litigation now 

 in the Federal courts, and are of doubt- 

 ful constitutionality, it provides for the 

 location, hereafter, of the lands under 

 the placer laws. 



To understand the significance this 

 holds for the friends of conservation, it 

 is necessary to understand the differ- 

 ence between lodes and placers. This 

 is a distinction not widely known in the 

 East, and, hence, not given its clue im- 

 portance in the consideration of this 

 bill. Under the placer laws, locations 

 are made on valuable mineral deposits 

 not "in place"- -that is, alluvial. In 

 Florida, most of the phosphate deposits 

 are placers; i. e., they are a phosphate 

 gravel in river-beds and under more or 

 less overburden, but not enclosed in 

 bedrock. 



Under the lode law, locations are 

 made on valuable mineral deposits, lead, 

 copper, asphaltum, gilsonite, etc. -"in 

 rock in place"- that is, being in veins 

 having well defined walls and a well 

 defined outcrop. 



From the staking of phosphate de- 

 posits in this western field under these 

 different acts there has resulted much 

 confusion, and several such conflicts 

 are now in the 'Federal courts. The 

 lode locators outnumber the placer lo- 

 cators, but the latter are mainly pow- 

 erful corporations (one in particular, 

 the Mountain Copper Company of Lon- 

 don) being active on behalf of legis- 

 lation favorable to the placer claimants, 

 and if this legislation is passed its con- 

 stitutionality will no doubt be tested 

 in the courts. 



The question naturally arises. Where 

 does the theory of conservation come 

 in ? Under either the placer or the lode 

 act, if there is no limit to the number 

 of placer claims or the number of lode 

 claims one may acquire, the deposits 

 will be taken up in toto sooner or later, 

 and probably at no distant date. 



To consider the question better, let 

 us examine the placer law briefly. By 

 using seven names or powers-of- 

 attorney other than his own, a locator 

 can claim, under this act, 160 acres, 

 making but one discovery and placing 

 only four stakes in the ground. Upon 

 the expenditure of $500 in development 

 and the payment of $2.50 per acre to 

 the United States, he can patent his 

 claim of 160 acres. In other words, 

 the land costs him, under the placer act, 

 $900 for 160 acres, or $5.625 per acre. 

 Where the phosphate vein is nearly 

 vertical he can, under the ten-acre sub- 

 division regulation of the placer law, 

 stretch his claim out along the outcrop 

 of the vein, so as to embrace the equiv- 

 alent of nearly eight lodes, or perhaps 

 more, according to the contour of the 

 outcrop. Where the phosphate dips 

 between thirty degrees to forty de- 

 grees, he can widen his claim so as to 

 control the dip of the vein to all practi- 

 cable depths of mining. He has this 

 great choice, and his land costs him only 

 $5.625 per acre to patent less than 

 its grazing value. 



And now let us see what the lode lo- 

 cator must do. He is restricted to 1.500 

 feet along the outcrop of the vein and 

 300 feet on either side of it only 

 twenty acres in all to one location. He 

 must spend $500 in development and 

 then pay $5 per acre (twice what the 

 placer locator pays) to the Federal Gov- 

 ernment i. e., $600 for twenty acres, 

 or at the rate of $30 per acre. To be 

 sure, to offset this he gets the right to 

 follow the "dips, spurs, and angles" of 

 his vein ; but when the dip is very steep, 

 his surface rights extend only to his 

 side lines, and in such case he has 

 scarcely any advantage over the placer 

 locator, who can regulate the shape of 

 his claim at will. 



As stated above, there has been no 

 limit nor is there any suggested to the 

 number of claims a man may take un- 

 der either the placer or the lode laws, 

 and the western phosphate deposits can- 

 not be conserved to the American peo- 

 ple by allowing unrestricted action un- 

 der either law. But to place the pre- 

 emption of these deposits under the 



