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investigate complaints that the coastline was receding. It made a 

 very careful study of the coastline of England and determined that 

 actually the coastline was growing but the people that were receiving 

 land didn't complain about it, it was only the people who lost land. 

 They were increasing their land. 



This really has much more to do with the present state of sea level 

 because of the ice cap structure and things like that. I think it is not 

 known whether it is advancing or receding, but it can't be much of 

 a difference anyway. 



Mr. Gross. Mr. Bascom, you are exploring now in close proximity 

 to the coastlines of the countries in w^hich you are operating, is that 

 it ? You are mining 



Mr. Bascom. That is our mining company. Our parent company, 

 Ocean Science & Engineering, does contract work for other people 

 who are investigating deep sea deposits. Because of the ground rules 

 of our contracts I may not tell you any details. 



We have in fact conducted a number of expeditions at sea to 

 dredge for manganese nodules, phosphates, and other kinds of miner- 

 als. I can't make a statement on behalf of someone else's company. 



Mr. Gross. You may be exploring in the deep sea but your mining 

 operations up to this point are dedicated mostly to rather close in- 

 shore operations, is that right ? 



Mr. Bascom. That is correct. 



Mr. Gross. Of course, when you get out to the deep sea you immedi- 

 ately become concerned about the ability to stake out, if I can put 

 it in these words, stake out a claim? This you have to do in order 

 to justify the expenditure of any money in the deep sea, is that not 

 correct? You have to have some kind of a hold on what you find 

 or the potential for development ? 



Mr. Bascom. That is correct. Except that would not be my primary 

 concern at the moment, anyway. I think it would be possible somehow 

 to obtain adequate rights to go ahead if you were anywhere near 

 striking distance of the economics of it. 



We have a very good property in tin. For example, a good property 

 would run a dollar a yard in tin, just for a rough number. You have to 

 handle 10,000 yards a day of it. This means you w^ould have to have 

 a very good property indeed to work with it where you have the 

 material you are trying to mine is a couple of miles deep below you. 

 It would have to be exceedingly valuable ore. 



In one exercise we did, we did a study for a bank of mining some 

 mann:anese deposits on the Blake Plateau, which is water only about 

 3,000 feet deep off the coast of the United States. For a rough ap- 

 proximation we determined that for a capital investment of about $50 

 million one could set up a system which would bring in essentially an 

 unlimited quantity of manganese deposits on which our total min- 

 ing recovery and ferrying the material ashore, for this the total costs 

 were about $5 a ton. Nearly $25 a ton would have gone into the process- 

 ing of it, and I couldn't see us being on the wi^ong side of the business. 



Mr. Gross. We have no manganese in this country, is that correct? 



Mr. Bascom. I am not the man to answer that question. 



Dr. James. We are short on manganese in this counti'y. 



Mr. Gross. Where have we been getting it from, Russia? 



Dr. James. Some of it. 



