Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/331

Rh for government coal lands in the United States, with provisions forbidding the transfer of the leases except with the consent of the government, thus preventing their acquisition by a combination or monopoly and upon limitations as to the area to be included in any one lease to one individual, and at a certain moderate rental, with royalties upon the coal mined proportioned to the market value of the coal either at Seattle or at San Francisco. Of course, such leases should contain conditions requiring the erection of proper plants, the proper development by modern mining methods of the properties leased, and the use of every known and practical means and device for saving the lives of the miners.

The government of the United States has much to answer for in not having given proper attention to the government of Alaska and the development of her resources for the benefit of all the people of the country. I would not force development at the expense of a present or future waste of resources; but the problem as to the disposition of the coal lands for present and future use can be wisely and safely settled in one session if congress gives it careful attention.

In the last administration there were withdrawn from agricultural entry 2,820,000 acres of supposed oil land in California; about a million and a half acres in Louisiana, of which only 6,500 acres were known to be vacant, unappropriated land; 75,000 acres in Oregon, and 174,000 acres in Wyoming, making a total of nearly four millions of acres. In September, 1909, I directed that all public oil lands, whether then withdrawn or not, should be withheld from disposition pending congressional action, for the reason that the existing placer mining law, although made applicable to deposits of this character, is not suitable to such lands, and for the further reason that it seemed desirable to reserve certain fuel-oil deposits for the use of the American navy. Accordingly the form of all existing withdrawals was changed, and new withdrawals aggregating 2,750,000 acres were made in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Field examinations during the year showed that of the original withdrawals, 2,170,000 acres were not valuable for oil, and they were restored for agricultural entry. Meantime, other withdrawals of public oil lands in these states were made, so that July 1, 1910, the outstanding withdrawals then amounted to 4,550,000 acres.

The needed oil and gas law is essentially a leasing law. In their natural occurrence, oil and gas can not be measured in terms of acres, like coal and it follows that exclusive title to these products can normally be secured only after they reach the surface. Oil should be disposed of as a commodity in terms of barrels of transportable produ