Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/329

Rh $10 to $2,000 an acre, and in the Rocky Mountains $10 to $500 an acre. The demand for coal on the Pacific coast is for about 4,500,000 tons a year. It would encounter the competition of cheap fuel oil, of which the., equivalent of 12,000,000 tons of coal a year is used there. It is estimated that the coal could be laid down at Seattle or San Francisco, a high-grade bituminous, at $4 a ton, and anthracite at $5 or $6 a ton. The price of coal on the Pacific slope varies greatly from time to time in the year and from year to year—from $4 to $12 a ton.

With a regular coal supply established, the expert of the geological survey, Mr. Brooks, who has made a report on the subject, does not think there would be an excessive profit in the Alaska coal mining because the price at which the coal could be sold would be considerably lowered by competition from these fields and by the presence of crude fuel oil. The history of the laws affecting the disposition of Alaska coal lands shows them to need amendment badly. Speaking of them, Mr. Brooks says:

"The first act, passed June 6, 1900, simply extended to Alaska the provisions of the coal-land laws in the United States. The law was ineffective, for it provided that only subdivided lands could be taken up, and there were then no land surveys in Alaska. The matter was rectified by the act of April 28, 1904, which permitted unsurveyed lands to be entered and the surveys to be made at the expense of the entrymen. Unfortunately, the law provided that only tracts of 160 acres could be taken up, and no recognition was given to the fact that it was impracticable to develop an isolated coal field requiring the expenditure of a large amount of money by such small units. Many claims were staked, however, and surveys were made for patents. It was recognized by everybody familiar with the conditions that after patent was obtained these claims would be combined in tracts large enough to assure successful mining operations. No one experienced in mining would, of course, consider it feasible to open a coal field on the basis of single 160-acre tracts. The claims for the most part were handled in groups, for which one agent represented the several different owners. Unfortunately, a strict interpretation of the statute raised the question whether even a tacit understanding between claim owners to combine after patents had been obtained was not illegal. Remedial legislation was sought and enacted in the statute of May 28, 1908. This law permitted the consolidation of claims staked previous to November 12, 1906, in tracts of 2,560 acres. One clause of this law invalidated the title if any individual or corporation at any time in the future owned any interest whatsoever, directly or indirectly, in more than one tract. The purpose of this clause was to prevent the monopolization of coal fields; its immediate effect was to discourage capital. It was felt by many that this clause might lead to forfeiture of title through the