The laws relating to the use of surface and underground waters touch the geologic conditions in many ways. The permanent lowering or raising of a water level through mining or damming may require a careful geological analysis of the underground conditions affecting the movements of ground-water. The use of streams for placer mining, as in California, has resulted in formulation of laws and in extensive litigation, again requiring analysis of geologic conditions.
In fact geologists, perhaps more than any other group, have come to realize how many and how varied are the ways in which people get into conflict in using the earth on which they live.
CHAPTER XVII
CONSERVATION OF MINERAL RESOURCES
THE PROBLEM
Conservation of mineral resources may be defined as an effort to strike a proper balance between the present and the future in the use of mineral raw materials.
Mineral resources have been used to some extent as far back as evidences of man go, but great drafts on our resources have come in comparatively recent years. The use of many minerals has started within only a few years, and for others the acceleration of production within the past two or three decades has been rapid (see pp. 63-64). In general, the use of mineral resources on a large scale may be said to have started within the lifetime of men still active in business. The wide use of power necessary to an industrial age, the development of metallurgy, the increasing size and complexity of demands for raw material, mean that the intensive development and use of our mineral resources is in its infancy, and is in many respects in an experimental stage.