THE CONSERVATION OF MINERALS AND SUBTERRANEAN WATERS
George Frederick Kunz, Ph.D.
New York
The necessity for conserving the forests has been fully recognized, and it may be said that as to what is in the ground a clear and satisfactory distinction has been established between what must be conserved for the good of the people as a whole, and what can safely be left to the exclusive control, management, and ownership of individuals or corporations. In regard, however, to the material wealth that lies beneath the ground, whether diamonds, gold, silver, copper, oil, or clay, or, indeed, anything that has a material value and can be included as such in the domain of mining statistics, there has been and still is a considerable difference of opinion touching what should be done.
The existence of these materials beneath the ground is not usually evident, and the judgment of the best experts is frequently required to determine whether they exist in a given tract or not; on the other hand they may sometimes be casually found where their presence was not suspected. The Government of the United States still owns great tracts of land, and it is most important that the whole people of the United States should receive the full benefit of all the mineral wealth that is below the ground—the invisible wealth of the Nation, as it may be termed.
In order to avoid any collusion on the part of officials engaged by the Government to make investigations, or of those who, though no longer in the Government service, might learn the results of these investigations and might in some manner try to obtain control of these lands before the Government knew they had a distinct value, it would seem that a Conservation Act should be passed making it imperative that all minerals contained in any land beneath the surface should forever remain the property of the Government. With lands containing minerals, there should further be an assurance that the deposits will be effectively worked, thus preventing an entire mineral supply from being locked up for many years, so as to maintain an artificial value for the material. Again, little-understood minerals, or those that have been very little worked and yet may have a value in the future, such as bauxite, which is valuable in the manufacture of aluminum; monazite sand, which is used in the making of the Welsbach incandescent light; and carnotite, whose value as a radium ore has been discovered within the past ten years—should all be made to yield royalties to the Government.
It is very evident that many minerals not considered to have any commercial value today may prove to be of the greatest industrial value in the future. Furthermore, as we are likely to discover new elements, and new uses for old minerals, the Conservation Act might be made to provide for a payment of 20, 30, or even 60 percent of the total value of the mineral as taken from the ground in royalty to the Government of the United States, exactly as the South African Government exacts as a royalty 60 percent of the product of all the diamond mines within its territory. This would be a more generous treatment of private owners than was accorded them in some instances in the past. The French crown-deeds read in the Seventeenth Century that gold, silver, lapis-lazuli, etc, should belong exclusively to the crown. In reality, the Government should only sell to private owners what is in sight on the land and the right to what could be grown on it, not what is below the ground. The franchises of subways and tunnels and all mineral rights should be retained, as well as the right to condemn at a fair valuation any property needed for the development of a mine or a water-power.
The term "mineral" should apply to every substance found in the ground that is either a mineral or an associate of minerals, that is, rock, sand, clay, or even a swamp, that may have a value in the arts, sciences, agriculture, or any other monetary value. The word should be used in its broad sense and not in the more restricted scientific meaning of the word used by mineralogists, which is that a mineral must be a definite mineral compound.
The subterranean waters of the United States are a great and valuable asset of the Nation. Nearly all of our water companies sell water either for power or for consumption. As each owner of a piece of property ought to be entitled to an interest in the water under it, some provision in Conservation should be made for the actual ownership of the waters; not that they can be drained from under the property, for a series of springs could be threatened with ruin if this were done, just as were the famous springs in Saratoga. In other words Government lands should not be robbed of their subterranean waters to be in turn sold to those who have a joint right in them.