669 
Men must be induced to risk life and treasure to find and win min- 
erals. The business of discovering and producing them is hazardous 
enough on land. Under sea, it is much more costly and risky, both 
financially and physically. Capital must be attracted to the deep sea 
mineral business in competition with other demands upon it, and in 
competition with safer mineral investments on shore and in shallower 
waters. 
Successful mineral laws offer three general types of inducement to 
attract capital and talent: 
(1) The mineral regime must offer encouragement to look for min- 
erals, that is, to undertake reconnaissance or prospecting in the hope of 
finding areas promising enough to justify later expenditures on concen- 
trated exploration. 
(2) Security of tenure is essential. The enterprise which drills wells 
or sinks shafts in search of minerals is gambling large sums, with the 
odds heavily against the finding of a mineral deposit of value justifying 
the amount of money invested. It requires the exclusive right to occupy a 
stated area for exploration and the exclusive right to produce minerals 
discovered in that area, and to do so for an assured period of time— 
both the area and the time being commensurate with the character of 
the risk taken and the amount hazarded. 
(3) The mineral venture must have a reasonable prospect that, in 
the event of success, the exactions of the granting authority, in royalties 
and taxation, will not be so oppressive as to stifle the undertaking or 
discourage its continuance. 
3. The application of the foregoing principles 
to undersea mineral development 
It does not appear to require argument that if the foregoing principles 
for the protection of the public interest and the recognition of the miner’s 
necessities are essential to a successful mineral regime on land, they 
must be essential elements of a successful regime undersea, where risks 
are immensely greater. At sea, the geology is hidden, no outcrops are 
visible; the expenses in all phases of exploration are much larger; if 
minerals are discovered, the costs of development, production, lifting, 
and transportation are enormously increased. The undersea mineral 
venture is even more capital-intensive than a comparable venture on 
land, and, if a mineral deposit is found, it must therefore have greater 
producibility or higher unit value than need be shown by the economi- 
cally producible onshore deposit. 
