CHAPTER XVI
LAWS RELATING TO MINERAL RESOURCES
This heading is likely to suggest mining law and the vast literature devoted to it. Mining law has mainly to do with questions of the ownership and leasing of mineral deposits. In addition, there are laws relating to the extraction of mineral products, including those having to do with methods of mining and with safety and welfare measures. There are laws affecting the distribution of mineral products, such as those relating to tariffs, duties, international trade agreements, and many other matters. There are laws relating to underground water, to shore lines, and to various geologic engineering fields.
In the formulation of these laws, as well as in the litigation growing out of their infraction, basic geologic principles are involved; and thus it is that the geologist finds much practice in the application of his science to legal questions. It will be convenient to consider some of the laws relating to mineral resources under three headings: first, ownership and control; second, extraction; and third, distribution.
I
LAWS RELATING TO OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL OF MINERAL RESOURCES
Large use of mineral resources is of comparatively recent date. Some of the mineral industries are not more than a decade or two old and the greater number of them are scarcely a century old. In the United States the mineral industry dates mainly from the gold rush to California in 1849. The formulation of laws relating to the ownership of minerals has on the whole followed rather than preceded the development of the mineral industries; and hence mining laws relating to ownership are not of great age, although historical precedent may be traced far back.
On Alienated Lands
Where lands came into private ownership, or were "alienated" from the governments before the formulation of mining laws, varied procedures have been followed in different countries.
In England and the United States, under the old régime in Russia, and to a slight extent in other parts of the world, mineral titles remain with the owner of the land and the government does not exercise the right of eminent domain. But even in England, where private property rights have been held peculiarly sacred, the discovery of oil during the later years of the war led to an attempt to expropriate the oil rights for the government. Because of the objection of landowners this attempt has not reached the statute books, but the movement is today an extremely live political question in England. A somewhat similar question is involved also in the movement to nationalize the coal resources of England, now being so vigorously urged by the labor party. In the United States, no serious attempt has yet been made to take over mineral resources from private ownership.