46 CLASSIFICATION OF THE PUBLIC LANDS. 



surface patent shall have the right to mine coal for his own use prior 

 to the disposal of the coal deposits by the United States. This act 

 granted relief only for entries or selections antedating withdrawal. 

 The act of June 22, 1910 (36 Stat., 683), goes a step further with re- 

 gard to coal lands and provides that homestead entries, desert-land 

 entries, and Carey Act selections may be made on lands withdrawn 

 or classified as coal whenever it is stated in the application that the 

 entry is made to obtain title containing a reservation of the coal to 

 the United States. In this, as in the previous act, provision is made 

 for damages to the surface estate by prospecting or mining. The 

 act of April 30, 1912 (37 Stat., 105), extends the act of June 22, 1910, 

 to include State selections and isolated tracts. 



An act approved August 24, 1912 (37 Stat., 496), provides for the 

 entry or selection of withdrawn or classified oil and gas lands in the 

 State of Utah, with a reservation to the United States of the oil or 

 gas. The provisions of the act are similar to those of the coal act 

 of June 22, 1910, and the classes of entries and selections permitted 

 are the same as those in that act as amended by the act of April 30, 

 1912. 



DESIKABLE NEW LEGISLATION. 



In carrying out its function of classifying the public lands and in 

 making its fund of information available in the administration of 

 the existing land laws the Geological Survey has become acutely cog- 

 nizant of the need for certain new legislation. The laws desired are 

 primarily of two types and embody two fundamental necessities — 

 first, the extension of the principle of the separation of estates, and 

 second, the application of the leasing principle to the disposition of 

 natural resources. 



As has already been pointed out, the public lands can not be 

 divided into classes each of which is valuable for one purpose only. 

 Instead, the same tract of land may be valuable for two or more 

 resources. In one tract — for example,^ agricultural land that is un- 

 derlain by coal — both resources may be utilized at the same time 

 without interfering with each other. In another tract — for example, 

 agricultural land within a reservoir site — ^the land may be valuable 

 for one resource only until it is utilized for another. In the first 

 case the problem is so to frame the laws that no resource will be 

 forced to await the development of the other. In the second case the 

 problem is to permit the use of the land for one purpose pending its 

 use for another without losing public control of the development of 

 the second. In both cases the answer is found in a separation of 

 estates. The extension of this principle, now applied to coal, to 

 withdrawn and classified minerals and to the uses of water resources 

 would permit the retention of the mineral deposits and power and 



