is something regardless of the price; we have got to have the material.

Senator SHAFROTH. When you go to making sales of this and on the question of how much they shall charge, can you have any fixed amount that you can specify, like, for instance, wheat at $2.20 a bushel; could you say that this sulphuric acid should sell for so much anywhere in the United States or at certain points in the United States; could you fix that for anv definite period of time?

Mr. WELLS. I think that would be necessary.

Senator SHAFROTH. You think it would?

Mr. WELLS. Yes; you might fix ore; you might have acid in the Chicago district worth so much and acid in the New York district worth so much.

Senator SHAFROTH. Then that maximum price would be the thing that would control the man in developing a new property as to whether he would go into development or not, would it not?

Mr. WELLS. The maximum price and the time over which he could get that price.

Senator SHAFROTH. And you think it would be necessary for the United States Government to fix a certain price that would justify a reasonable profit and establish that price for a maximum price for two years the same as the other?

Mr. WELLS. Yes. May I cite an example?

Senator SHAFROTH. Yes; we should like to hear you.

Mr. WELLS. We have the problem right now of getting out pyrites from coal. There are probably several hundred thousand tons of pyrite that can be obtained from coal, material that is now being left underground, so-called coal brasses. Now, there has been in Washington in the last month a man who is ready to go ahead to make an investment to put a plant up to take these uncleaned coal brasses from a number of mines, clean them from coal content, and put them in shape to sell to a manufacturer. He figures that he has to have, say, 28 or 29 cents per unit of sulphur in his pyrite, finished product, in order to make any money at all on the project. Now, he goes out to the acid manufacturers and asks them to give him a contract for these other pyrites at a certain figure, and they say, "We are not interested in that figure. We are getting brimstone; we do not know how long; we do not know just what the conditions are going to be, but we will not contract with you for a year or even six months for your coal pyrite at that figure you say you have to have." Therefore, the man is discouraged; he does not go ahead and put up that plant. The coal brasses are made underground, and these acid manufacturers still continue to use brimstone, and we want those coal pyrites to come to the surface. We want them to be used. It is necessary they should be used. It is a very serious think to keep eating into our uncertain deposits in the South.

Senator SHAFROTH. Then, suppose that the man can not get the price that the Government fixes as a maximum price, who loses there, the man who produces the sulphuric acid or the Government?

Mr. WELLS. I do not quite understand the question. Are you referring to the pyrite or to the sulphuric acid?

Senator SHAFROTH. We will take sulphuric acid. If you are going to fix a minimum price, I could see how that could be done very well,

although we would get inequalities on account of mines having thicker veins and mines being located a long distance from railroads, and things of that kind, but I can see very easily that that probably can be worked out, but the question of the maximum price is the question where I stumble. I can not see how you are going to do it and how you are going to enforce that maximum price unless the Government agrees to buy at that maximum price.

Mr. WELLS. I believe that is what will have to be done. If the time comes where we will have to have pyrites from Colorado, and it will cost 40 cents a unit, say, to get those pyrites from Colorado back here in the East, and the average price for pyrites for brimstone, say, in the East, is 35 cents a unit, but there is enough of that to go around, then some means will have to be taken to get those pyrites back. Applying that to the coal brasses, by getting pyrites and sulphuric acid here in the East on the 25-cent unit, but there is not enough to go around, they will not make a contract, however, because of unsettled conditions, and they do not know what is going to break; they will not make a contract that will enable this man to go in and get out his coal brasses; then the Government has got to do it.

Senator SHAFROTH. What do you think of this, the Government fixing a minimum price; that is, a price upon which guarantees shall be made to the various persons and leaving the question of what it should sell for to supply a demand, regulated by a tax on excess profits?

Mr. WELLS. Along with that you would have to carry, the power to allocate. The acid manufacturer would rather burn brimstone than pyrite, as a general rule; it is easier to burn, there is less expense in the operation. You may set the minimum price of 30 cents a unit on sulphur in pyrite, but as long as that acid manufacturer can draw on those brimstone deposits, say, at 22 cents per unit down there in Texas and Louisiana, why, he will not look at that pyrite; he will continue to draw on that brimstone.

Senator SHAFROTH. Because it is cheaper to him, I presume?
Mr. WELLS. Yes, sir.

Senator SHAFROTH. Is there any objection to drawing on the cheaper grade?

Mr. WELLS. Yes, sir: there is.

Senator SHAFROTH. What is that objection?

Mr. WELLS. Because that supply is not inexhaustible, and the length of life of those brimstone deposits is a very indefinite quantity. The hazards of mining-not the life hazards, but the hazards of length of life of those brimstone deposits down there--are great.

Senator SHAFROTH. Then there is involved in this question not only the question of price for any one thing that enters into it, but the element of trying to shift the demand on to something that is not now used?

Mr. WELLS. Yes, sir.

Senator SHAFROTH. And which is a little higher than the pure sulphur itself?

Mr. WELLS. Yes, sir; that is exactly it.

The CHAIRMAN. For the purpose of protecting those deposits of brimstone from becoming exhausted?

Mr. WELLS. Yes, sir.

Senator SHAFROTH. Are there not supposed to be great quantities of brimstone or sulphur in the United States?

Mr. WELLS. Those two deposits that are now working, and the one that is now being developed, are the only large deposits that we know of. There are some small deposits in western Texas, but the total amount you can expect from these other smaller deposits in the next two or three years would be negligible really in a big problem.

Senator SHAFROTH. How about in other countries?

Mr. WELLS. Japan has enormous deposits, and Japan has been supplying the Pacific coast until the last year or two.

Senator STERLING. Aside from your sulphur and brimstone deposits, are there not other sources of supply of sulphuric acid? Mr. WELLS. We have the smelter smoke.

Senator STERLING. That is in connection with copper mining, largely?

Mr. WELLS. Yes, largely. Of course the zinc smelters in the Mississippi Valley are already making, sulphuric acid at those plants, and we have just completed a survey of that district to determine where we can advantageously get more acid from the zinc plants, and the War Department is working on lines to get the plants in operation there now.

Senator STERLING. That is in connection with the zinc plants? Mr. WELLS. Yes, sir.

Senator STERLING. How about the copper mines?

Mr. WELLS. They are in the West, they are in Montana or Utah. We have urged every effort be made to utilize smelter smoke—those waste gases from copper smelters in the West-as far as possible. We have even gone to the point of urging them to put some of their explosives plants out in that district to utilize the acid that can be made right on the ground, because the problem of making acid out there there is no problem in making acid out there, but the problem is getting it back East where the demand is, and we have tried to bring the use of the acid right out there.

Senator STERLING. What do you say as to the quantity of sulphuric acid that can be produced in that way and the expense of producing it?

Mr. WELLS. At Anaconda, by the building of more roasters, you can not go to the smelter and put the plant right in connection with the smelting operations; you have got to build more roasters near the plant. You could make 3,000 tons a day, 2,500 tons of 60 brome and 78 per cent H,S sulphuric acid, or, if you made it by the contact system, expressed as 100 per cent acid, you would get somewhere around 1,800 tons a day.

Senator STERLING. So far as mere quantity, that would go a long way toward supplying the demand?

Mr. WELLS. That would go a long way. At Garfield, Utah, there is now under discussion a project of putting in a plant right on the plant at Garfield, and shipping the acids from there back in trainloads. We can do that at Garfield. We have ground area right adjacent to our roasting department sufficient to be able to make acid there. If they want to go beyond the quantities now under discussion, they would have to go out and build more roasters. But at

Garfield they could make 1,500 tons a day of acid. Those figures are approximate.

Senator STERLING. What steps have been taken toward utilizing those plants for the purpose of making sulphuric acid?

Mr. WELLS. There are two plants in operation; the Anaconda Co. is making 150 tons a day for their own purposes, and Garfield is doing the same, about 100 tons a day for their own purpose. And, as I say, we have had representatives of the Anaconda people here in Washington, representatives of the American Smelting & Refining Co. here in Washington, and meetings of the War Industries Board and the War Department to determine what could be done, and we have pointed out the advantage of putting picric acid or T. N. T. plants out there right on the ground, and we are now working on a proposition of making acid out there and bringing it back into Chicago in trainloads; but the number of tank cars involved for 3,000 tons per day production from Garfield, Utah, requires 250 tank cars to get it back into the Chicago district, and that means an investment, at the present time, of about $900,000 in tank cars alone. Senator STERLING. The matter of transportation, then, is a serious problem?

Mr. WELLS. That is a serious problem; yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wells, Mr. Day would like to ask you a question.

Mr. DAY. There is one question I have in mind which has practically been covered by the inquiries of Senator Sterling, yet I would like to ask it in a little different form. You are aware, of course, Mr. Wells, in the course of your experience and discussions of the enormous quantities of sulphur daily being wasted in the United States through the operation of coal mines and reduction of copper, lead, and zinc ores, sufficient, if utilized, to supply all the necessities of the United States, are there not?

Mr. WELLS. I would not say that; no, sir.

Mr. DAY. Would you not say it is only a matter of cost?

Mr. WELLS. And the amount of acid that could be made at copper. lead, and zinc mines.

Mr. DAY. And coal mines also?

Mr. WELLS. As to coal mining, you refer to the coal brasses?
Mr. DAY. Yes.

Mr.. WELLS. Estimates have been made as to the amount of pvrites that might be obtained from coal, and my impression is we could not look for a production of more than one-half million tons of coal pyrites under the most favorable conditions as to price and pressure put to bear on getting those out. I do not know any figure that has been accurately obtained as to the amount of pyrite that could be obtained from coal brasses at a 25, 30, or 35 cent price, but I would say, without making it a definite statement, that probably between 400,000 to 500,000 tons is the very maximum vou could figure from coal pyrites. Now the zine smelters, with the exception of one or two down in Oklahoma, I think we have exhausted the economic possibility of getting acid from zinc ores. We are taking steps in Wisconsin to do that, the Illinois field is covered, the Kansas plants are losing down, and the Oklahoma plants, of those one or two do offer some advantages, but the amount of acid we could make would be very small.

Mr. DAY. There are two very large plants in Pennsylvania?
Mr. WELLS. They are not making acid.

Mr. DAY. And as to the copper and lead smelters, we are wasting large quantities?

Mr. WELLS. Yes. Now at lead smelters the conditions are not favorable toward making acid. We would have to change the methods of operation quite considerably to make acid. It can be done, but it means an added cost to the regular operation, and unless some pressure is brought to bear it will never be done. At the copper plants there are these possibilities.

Senator SHAFROTH. Could you make a tabulation on each one of these items that is contained in this bill as to what in your judgment should be the price at which we should guarantee in the purchase of those materials?

Mr. WELLS. Of all the materials in that bill?

Senator SHAFROTH. Yes.

Mr. WELLS. No; I could nct, because I have not studied all the materials that are listed in that bill.

Senator SHAFROTH. I suppose that some of the Bureau of Mines officials could figure this out as to one item and some one else as to another, dependent upon what he has made a specialty of?

Mr. WELLS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I might state, Senator, in that connection, that Dr. Manning later on will go into that question fully.

Senator SHAFROTH. Very well, then.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wells, Mr. MacBeth would like to ask you a question.

Mr. MACBETH. What concerns are the greatest users of sulphuric acid?

Mr. WELLS. At the present time the explosives people use the greatest quantity.

Mr. MACBETH. I should like to have you designate the concerns specifically.

Mr. WELLS. The Du Ponts, Hercules, Atlas, Butterworth-Judson Smelter Process Co.

Mr. MACBETH. These concerns are immensely wealthly concerns, are they not, with tremendous amounts of capital invested?

Mr. WELLS. I guess some of them are.

Mr. MACBETH. Would you consider, Mr. Wells, any governmental agency acting possibly under one man, without a great amount of business experience and without any practical mining knowledge could handle the sulphuric-acid situation as well as these enormous and wealthy concerns could handle the situation through their ability to employ the best talent in the United States?

Mr. WELLS. If they directed their energies toward that.

Mr. MACBETH. The point is, Mr. Wells, why do they not? Why do they wait for the Government to take over this question for them? They handle other matters, every other chemical they desire in connection with their business, and why not the sulphuric-acid situation? Why do they come before the Government of the United States and say, "Here, we want you to obtain the sulphuric acid for us"? Why throw up their hands when they meet this condition, when they meet every other situation? If you can enlighten us, Mr. Wells, I should