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I feel that when you are discussing the undersea mineral deposits one 

 of the difficulties in talking about it is that almost nobody appreciates 

 how big the ocean is. When people say it is vast, that is an under- 

 description. It is a very modest statement of the situation. It is un- 

 believably big. 



You can mine the rest of your life on a square mile of territory and 

 the ocean covers literally millions of square miles. If there are any 

 manganese deposits they are so widely spread that it is kind of hard to 

 see how you get any advantage by having any particular area of it. 

 There is just too much of it. 



This situation already exists on the northeast coast of Australia. 

 On the Queensland coast and part of the coast of New South Wales, 

 there are very large beach sand deposits. Our company holds prob- 

 ably 10,000 square miles or some tremendous area of it, and so do a 

 lot of other people. Our property is not much better or worse than 

 anybody else's, including a few properties being mined. You can re- 

 cover titanium, zirconium, a bit of tin, and sometimes a bit of gold. 



What is wrong with it is that if you really set about mining this on 

 a heroic scale you would saturate the market in no time at all. The 

 market cannot absorb it. In order to get started you must make a huge 

 capital investment. I think the last operation invested 6 million 

 pounds, sterling pounds, which is quite a sum of money to get started. 

 The operation starts out marginal and probably you don't fall far 

 below it or rise much above it. 



The zirconium market gets flooded and you stockpile, and if enough 

 people went into it down there it wouldn't be a good business anymore. 



I think that same sort of thing would be true in undersea deposits. 

 The trouble with them is that there is too much of them. You have to 

 compete in the marketplace and you have high initial capital costs. 



The mining companies we deal with would be reluctant — that is 

 too nice a word. They wouldn't put up that sum of money for that 

 kind of risk. The Federal Government of this or any other country 

 would be ill-advised to put up their money to get started in a mining 

 venture which would compete with private industry. 



I think we don't really have that kind of a demand for manganese 

 at the moment. 



I think that concludes my principal statement. I will be happy to 

 answer any questions. 



Mr. Fascell. I want to thank you gentlemen. I must say, on the 

 basis of what jon gentlemen have said here this morning, that you 

 have certainly given me an entirely diflierent perspective of the whole 

 problem. I am delighted we have had the opportunity of having you 

 gentlemen here with us this morning. 



Mr. Gross. 



Mr. Gross. I am somewhat flabbergasted. What I don't know about 

 this subject would fill enough volumes to fill this room. I appreciate 

 what you gentlemen have said. 



Is the U.S. coastline still receding? 



Dr. James. It is a little hard to say. I think the coast line is moving 

 inland a little on us at the present time. It is not too easy to tell. 



Mr. Bascom. I think you are the right one to answer it. I have 

 written a book called "Waves and Beaches," in which I pointed out 

 that in England a royal commission was set up some years ago to 



