HISTORY AND LEGAL BASIS. 45 



than coal, oil, gas, and phosphates." There were two serious faults 

 in this provision. For one thing, it did not permit the withdrawal 

 of lands valuable for other minerals than the four enumerated. 

 Thus, when interest in the potash situation became general and the 

 desirability of reserving potash lands from entry was perceived it 

 was not possible to make the desired withdrawals because of this 

 provision in the withdrawal act. Furthermore, advantage was taken 

 of this clause to locate valuable power sites as building-stone placers 

 and to include oil lands of great value in placer claims located on 

 comparatively worthless deposits of gypsum. These conditions led 

 the President to urge upon Congress the amendment of the section 

 by providing that withdrawn lands should be open to exploration 

 and purchase under the mining laws for metalliferous minerals only, 

 and on August 24, 1912, Congress so amended the original withdrawal 

 act (37 Stat., 497). Public-land withdrawals now segregate lands 

 from all forms of entry, location, or disposition except metalliferous 

 mineral claims, preexisting homestead and desert-land entries and 

 valid settlements, and oil placers on which work is being diligently 

 prosecuted at the date of withdrawal. 



SEPARATION ACTS. 



The carrying out of the withdrawal policy for protecting the min- 

 eral and water resources of the public domain is in many cases ren- 

 dered difficult and embarrassing by the agricultural value of the land 

 withdrawn. If valuable water-power or reservoir sites were inva- 

 riably valueless for farming, or if mineral and agricultural values 

 could not coexist, no hardship would be imposed by and no retarda- 

 tion of development would result from the making of withdrawals. 

 But some of the best farming lands in the West are underlain by 

 coal or phosphate, and some are so situated as to be of strategic 

 importance in power development. Any hindrance to bona fide home 

 building or other agricultural development of the public domain is 

 indeed unfortunate, but in order to protect the public's natural re- 

 sources withdrawals resulting in such hindrance have been neces- 

 sary. For certain lands the situation has been relieved by the passage 

 of acts separating the surface right from the right to the underlying 

 minerals. The first of these acts was that of March 3, 1909 (35 Stat., 

 644) , which provides that persons who have entered or selected under 

 the nonmineral laws lands subsequently classified, claimed, or re- 

 ported as being valuable for coal may elect to receive patent to their 

 lands by reserving to the United States the coal deposits and the right 

 to prospect for and mine them. The act contains a provision for the 

 indemnification of the surface owner for damages to his estate by 

 prospecting or mining and a further provision that the owner of the 



