Photo from U. S. Geological Survey The ridges are of white sandstone, containing the carnotite ores from which radium is extracted. The Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Lane, A SCENE IN A CHARACTERISTIC RADIUM-BEARING COUNTRY IN COLORADO has recommended that the President be empowered by Congress to withdraw from the public domain lands containing carnotite, pitchblende, or other minerals or ores from which radium may be derived. The law at present not permit the withdrawal of mineral lands except coal, oil, potash, and phosphate lands. does The country has been aroused too late to save the very richest of these points of vantage. Private power companies hold the most accessible of these sites under rights of which they can never be deprived. So much more compelling the reason why we should not vield what remain unwisely. The temptation to grant generously without condition that which may be put to so beneficent a use must be resisted if we are not to meet a spendthrift's fate. At the same time there must surely be a rational way by which capital may be brought into this public service. The present condition of stagnation does no one good. Within a generation I believe the people will be as alive to the value of public ownership of hydroelectric power plants as they are today to municipallyowned waterworks. The people not being prepared, however, to proceed to put these lands to their highest use, I am not in favor of keeping them from being utilized by private capital in the public interest. Because we do not know what is best to be done is not reason either for doing nothing or for getting rid of the trouble as soon as possible, on the old "land-island" policy. a How may the needed advantage be gained for the present and the needs of the future be cared for? This is the immediate problem. What may capital reasonably demand? A fair and attractive return upon its investment yearly and the full return of its capital. And what may the public served reasonably require? Good service and fair rates. Who The greater part of the world's supply of radium is obtained from radium-bearing ore mined in the United States. At present the ore is exported to Europe, where, in the laboratories of France, Austria, Germany, and England, the radium is extracted from it. There appears to be in the United States today less than two grams of radium-that is, less than one-fourteenth of an ounce. This is valued at $120,000 a gram. Thus while we are supplying the world with radium, we have practically none at home, as heretofore no steps have been taken to preserve for our own people this invaluable metal. shall make these rates? Within the State they must be subject to State regulation; between the States, Federal authority must control. WHAT WILL THE GOVERNMENT RECEIVE FOR ITS LANDS? What return shall the Federal government have for its lands? My answer would be, no return whatsoever, provided the plant reverted to the government without cost at the end of 50 or 60 years, or so much of the plant as was based on the land itself and the improvements directly attached thereto, such as reservoirs, dams, water rights, and rights of way. For the tangible property of the plant, such as the distributing system and machinery, the government might well agree to pay an appraised price, so as to insure its being maintained and extended during the later years of the life of the franchise. The right to buy the complete plant at an appraised figure at any time after 20 years would be a further protection and one not burdensome, while for better service it would seem advisable that all plants be permitted, in fact encouraged, to combine physically, just as our railroads are required to couple themselves. into through routes and thus make their This picture shows the 4-foot stratum of radium-bearing ore, carnotite and vanadium in the Cliff Mine, Paradox Valley, Colorado. Radium is found in ores carrying uranium and vanadium, which are used extensively in the arts, and the processes by which it is extracted are secret. A process has been invented by the chemists in our Bureau of Mines which promises, from the laboratory experiments thus far made, to be successful. Under the endowment of two Americans, a building is now being erected in Denver (which, with its equipment, will be opened for work in the coming month) in which an effort will be made to prove the commercial possibility of this American process. If successful, this process will be given to the world, and all of the radium secured over and above a small minimum will be the property of the United States, and will be put into the hands of the United States Hospital Service for public use. service continuous and interdependent; but they should not be allowed either to agree as to rates or to merge their capitalization or their identity. Such plan as is here suggested should be attractive to capital wherever there is bona fide need for such water-power development, for it is definite in its terms. and can be made a precise basis for capitalization. The term of the franchise would be long enough to permit of the amortization of the plant upon such a percentage as would lay no heavy burden. upon each year's earnings. Where a reservoir site is also used for the storage of irrigation waters, the right to which attaches to certain lands which should enjoy that use forever, it could be provided that at the end of the franchise. period the government would either turn over the plant to the water users or the State or otherwise provide for its operation. I have endeavored herein barely to outline such a constructive program as would meet any reasonable demand and with the least burden place our resources at the service of the people. It should not be impossible to hearten the hopes of those who live in Alaska or the many who would engage in her development were the doors of opportunity open to them. And if we can follow some such plan as has been suggested, by which, sensibly and conservatively, the resources WHAT THE DEPARTMENT OF THE The Department of the Interior A RADIOGRAPH OF A KEY This picture was made by placing a key on the outside of a light-proof plate-holder containing a photographic plate. A block of radium-bearing ore three-quarters of an inch thick was then placed on the key and the photograph resulted. within the purview of this department; that it is our part to measure the waters of a thousand streams, survey the lands of all the States, and look beneath the surface to see what they contain; that we have still in our care a great body of public land (some 300 million acres outside of Alaska), out of which each year approximately 60,000 farms are carved; that we have a bureau of education, which should be provided with the equipment by which it may adequately do a great work for the schools, the teachers, and the children of this country, or be abolished. CHINESE SALT WORKS Deposits of salt are very numerous in China and the production of commercial salt is a government monopoly. At the producing center the salt costs about three-cighths of a cent per pound, but when shipped by the government to the distributing centers it sells for eight and often ten times that amount. Hence the importance to China of the salt gabelle, as it is called. |