Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/326

320 ministration there were classified coal lands amounting to 5,476,000 acres, and there were withdrawn from entry for purposes of classification 17,867,000 acres. Since that time there have been withdrawn by my order from entry for classification 77,648,000 acres, making a total withdrawal of 95,515,000 acres. Meantime, of the acres thus withdrawn, 11,371,000 have been classified and found not to contain coal, and have been restored to agricultural entry and 4,356,000 acres have been classified as coal lands; while 79,788,000 acres remain withdrawn from entry and await classification. In addition 336,000 acres have been classified as coal lands without prior withdrawal, thus increasing the classified coal lands to 10,168,000 acres.

Under the laws providing for the disposition of coal lands, the minimum price at which lands are permitted to be sold is $10 an acre; but the secretary of the interior has the power to fix a maximum price and to sell at that price. By the first regulations governing appraisal, approved April 8, 1907, the minimum was $10, as provided by law, and the maximum was $100, and the highest price actually placed upon any land sold was $75. Under the new regulations, adopted April 10, 1909, the maximum price was increased to $300, except in regions where there are large mines, where no maximum limit is fixed, and the price is determined by the estimated tons of coal to the acre. The highest price fixed for any land under this regulation has been $608. The appraised value of the lands classified as coal lands and valued under the new and old regulations is shown to be as follows: 4,303,921 acres, valued under the old regulation at $77,644,329, an average of $18 an acre; and 5,864,702 acres classified and valued under the new regulation at $394,203,242, or a total of 10,168,623 acres, valued at $471,847,571.

For the year ending March 31, 1909, 227 coal entries were made, embracing an area of 35,331 acres, which sold for $663,020.40. For the year ending March 31, 1910, there were 176 entries, embracing an area of 23,413 acres, which sold for $608,813; and down to August, 1910, there were but 17 entries, with an area of 1,720 acres, which sold for $33,910.60, making a disposition of the coal lands in the last two years of about 60,000 acres for $1,305,000.

The present congress, as already said, has separated the surface of coal lands, either classified or withdrawn for classification, from the coal beneath, so as to permit at all times homestead entries upon the surface of lands useful for agriculture and to reserve the ownership in the coal to the government. The question which remains to be considered is whether the existing law for the sale of the coal in the ground should continue in force or be repealed, and a new method of disposition adopted. Under the present law the absolute title in the coal beneath the surface passes to the grantee of the government. The price fixed is upon an estimated amount of the tons of coal per acre beneath the