14 
BULLETIN 102, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
to undue trouble and expense in meeting tbe legal requirements of his 
holdings. Moreover, the method of leasing under small-unit opera- 
tions leads to a wasteful competition between neighboring wells in 
their race to secure a maximum production within the period of the 
lease — haste, with waste, being an economic necessity in such in- 
stances. In regard to lands owned by the Government, the legal regu- 
lations are so ill-adapted to progress that E. H. Johnson and L. G. 
Huntley in their “ Principles of Oil and Gas Production,” 1 remark : 
“ Most of the public lands which seem promising for oil and gas have 
been withdrawn, 2 since there is universal agreement by both Govern- 
ment and producers that the present law, by which oil and gas lands 
are taken as placer claims, is utterly unadapted to the industry. 3 
The development of the lands which are not withdrawn would best 
be postponed until a new oil and gas prospecting permit and leasing 
law is passed, and the oil placer claim law revoked, except where 
work is already started.” 4 
TRANSPORTATION. 
One of the remarkable and impressive features of the petroleum in- 
dustry is the fact that the crude product is transported through a sys- 
tem of pipe-lines that connect the points of production with refineries, 
markets, and seaports. This method of handling is natural and inevi- 
table with a liquid product consumed in bulk, as evidenced by a some- 
what analogous method of transportation adopted for the municipal 
water suppty. While petroleum shares with coal the main responsi- 
bility for energizing the mechanical activities of the country, it is 
interesting to note that crude oil, unlike raw coal, imposes normally 
no appreciable burden upon the railroads. 
1 New York, 1916, pp. 112-113. 
2 That is, closed to private development pending a determination of policy. The Sec- 
retary of the Interior, in a letter to the chairman of the Committee on the Public Lands, 
House of Representatives, under date of Apr. 24, 1917, writes : “ Six million four hun- 
dred and ninety-one thousand one hundred and forty-five acres of public lands believed 
to contain oil are withdrawn from development. A part of this area is proven terri- 
tory, in direct touch with pipe lines and refineries, and the product could be made im- 
mediately available by the enactment of this measure. I therefore earnestly recommend 
that H. R. 3232 be enacted at the earliest practicable moment as a war measure.” 
(Committee Print of Departmental Reports on H. R. 3232 and S. 2812, Washington, 1918, 
p. 4.) The matter is still (July 1, 1918) under abeyance. 
3 See letter of the Secretary of the Interior to chairman of the Committee on Public 
Lands, under date of Jan. 3, 1916 (published in Committee Print of Departmental Re- 
ports on H. R. 3232 and S. 2812, Washington, 1918, p. 8), which states: “Oil and 
gas lands or deposits are now subject to location and entry under the placer mining 
laws. These laws have generally been unsatisfactory, both from the standpoint of the 
prospectors and operators and of the Government. There is nothing in the present law 
to protect the prospector during the preliminary period, when, through the expenditure 
of large capital, he is engaged in drilling, and the limitations as to acreage contained in 
the existing laws are also a temptation to evade, through the use of dummy locations.” 
4 It is unfortunately true that mining in the United States has been badly impeded by 
a set of laws handed down from the past and wholly unadapted to modern conditions 
of mining. Sporadic attempts, usually unsuccessful, have been made to improve certain 
details of these laws, but in general American mining law remains a discredit to the 
Nation. In the present war emergency the country is paying a heavy penalty for its 
neglect of this matter. 
