Mr. FURNESS. I would say in part, yes; but broadly, no.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Mr. Furness, the Guffey-Vinson coal bill organization is proposing to ask for approximately $1,000,000 for their organization which is to be devoted almost entirely to coal economics, and I think that a very careful study will have to be made to prevent an overlapping of functions.

That is all.

Thank you.

FUNCTIONS OF THE MINING DIVISION

Next is Mr. C. F. Jackson, Chief of the Mining Division.

What are the functions, Mr. Jackson, of the Mining Division of the Bureau of Mines? What is its importance to the national welfare?

Mr. JACKSON. Broadly, its services are designed to improve methods and practices in mining and promote conservation of our mineral resources. This is particularly important in view of the rapid depletion during the present century of our larger known deposits of high-grade ores, and the resulting danger of serious competition from foreign producers possessed of larger reserves of ores of higher grade, and who pay much lower wages. Improved technology in mining and milling is, therefore, essential to maintenance of the competitive position of our domestic producers.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. You have heard me read the duties of the Bureau of Mines, and the organic act creating the Bureau of Mines. Do not substantially three-fourths of the functions there mentioned come under the jurisdiction of the Mining Division?

Mr. JACKSON. I would not say so.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. I will read them, specifically:

To conduct inquiries and scientific technologie investigations concerning miŋing, and the preparation, treatment, and utilization of mineral substances with a view to improving health conditions, and increasing safety, efficiency, economi se development, and conserving resources through the prevention of waste in the mining, quarrying, metallurgical, and other mineral industries; to inquire into the economic conditions affecting these industries; to investigate explosives ar -1 peat

Are all of those under the Mining Division?

Mr. JACKSON. Only partially. As to the beneficiation of ores, that is principally under the Metallurgical Division.

Mr SCRUGHAM. How about explosives and peat, and their investigation? Is that under the Mining Division?

Mr. JACKSON. No, sir. There is an Explosives Division in the technologie branch.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. It goes on [reading}:

And on behalf of the Government to investigate the mineral feels and t.* finished rateral pro lets bel ngang to, or for the use of, the Urst d States, wors a view to their most ethejent min †g. preparation, treatment, and use; ar 1 1. disseminate information, e-necruit g this wihjeets in such manner as will bu carry out the purposes of the provisions of this chapter.

Is that done in your division?

Mr. JACKSON. As to fuels; no, sir; there are two men in the Mining Division working on coal. The bulk of the coal work is done by the Coal Division, which comes primarily under Dr. Fieldner.

ASSISTANCE RENDERED SMALL MINE OPERATORS BY MINING DIVISION

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Mr. Jackson, what does the Mining Division do to assist the great number of prospectors, particularly the small operators n mining?

Mr. JACKSON. For some years I have felt that we should stress assistance, technical assistance, to the small operators and prospectors who were obviously financially unable to employ competent technical help. The work that the Mining Division did and is still doing to some extent in the investigation of mining and milling practices at he larger mines forms the groundwork for assistance to the smaller operator.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Will you give approximately how many men you have employed on such work?

Mr. JACKSON. For small operators?

Mr. SCRUGHAM. I mean for work corresponding to the work done by the county agents under the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. JACKSON. We have eight men, two of whom are devoting their ime exclusively to district work, to assistance to the small operator, and the others give but part of their time.

The work that is designed to be particularly of assistance to the small operator is of three different types. First we issue publications, prepared by the staff of the Mining Division, on subjects of special value to these small operators, such as Open Schedules for Gold and Silver Ores at Custom Smelters, Costs of Trucking and Packing Ore, Design of Small Wooden Headframes, Small-Scale Placer Mining Methods, Sampling and Estimation of Ore Deposits, and Prospecting or Lode Gold and Locating Claims on the Public Domain.

Those are subjects suggested to us by the types of inquiries that we have been getting from the small operators, and we try to meet nquiries along particular lines by going into the field and making special studies to answer those inquiries.

Then, in the second place, we make studies of the different mining listricts and issue publications describing the various mineral showngs and existing development work thereon, and the methods of nining and milling employed, and giving freight, trucking and smelter charges on typical ores and concentrates from each district. These publications, giving authentic information, serve to bring the possiilities of the districts to the attention of investors and may thus be of benefit to small operators in need of financial help.

Third, during visits to the various districts, engineers of the Bureau who are experienced operators themselves and acquainted with the atest improvements in practices and methods, give, when so requested, technical advice to operators who obviously are financially inable to employ expert mining and ore-dressing technologists.

VALUE OF MINING DIVISION IN INVESTIGATING STRATEGIC WAR

MINERALS

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Could the Mining Division in any way contribute toward the national defense through an investigation of the strategic war-mineral situation as related to mining, and what would be the cost, if that is not provided for in the Budget?

Mr. JACKSON. Of course, the study of mineral deposits is the function of the United States Geological Survey and we believe that the Survey is acquainted with most of the known possible sources of these minerals in the United States.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. That is, the location of the mineral deposits and the character of those deposits?

Mr. JACKSON. And something of their potentialities, in certain instances, are quite well known to the staff of the Geological Survey. Now, the Mining Division might well study these deposits in considerably more detail, those that seem to justify further study, and make detailed plans for their development and extraction in readiness for a possible emergency. This should be supplemented by parallel investigations by the Metallurgical Division of methods of beneficistion of the ores and extraction of the metals. Thus, in the event of an emergency, complete plans for operation and schedules of equipment and personnel required would be immediately available.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Is anything of that kind included in your budget for the coming year?

Mr. JACKSON. No, sir.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. None whatever?

Mr. JACKSON No, sir.

OBJECT OF EXPERIMENTAL TUNNEL

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Now, I think in item 12 of the justification you have an experimental tunnel, at a cost of $10,000. What is the purpose of this tunnel?

Mr. JACKSON. In the first place ----

Mr. O'NEAL. It is an increase of $10,000.

Mr. JACKSON. It is an increase of $10,000, last year there was $9,500 expended in preparation for this work.

Mr. O'NEAL. And that would mean that you would want $19,500 for the coming year?

Mr. JACKSON. Yes, sir.

The object is to provide a field laboratory where research can be done on fundamental mining problems, where actual mining conditions can be duplicated, but interfering variables controlled, and which cannot be done in a small-scale laboratory nor in an operating mine. Among the things that we desire to study are rock-drilling tests, tests of drill rods and detachable bits of different types and steel compositions, determination of best types of bits for different kinds of ground, pulling long rounds in small headings, and the like.

Another investigation urgently needed covers methods of preventing or controlling the production of dust in drilling, blasting, shoveling, chute drawing, and ore-dumping operations as a protection to the health of mine workers.

In that study we work in close cooperation with the Health and Safety Branch, which has already done considerable investigation along these lines, but in view of the present situation, wherein a number of our States have passed compensation laws, making silicosis a compensable disease, we must know more about this problem. If we are going to prevent the disease, we must prevent the dust If we are going to prevent the dust, we must know what causes it, and how to eliminate it.

STUDY OF PREVENTION OF SILICOSIS

Mr. SCRUGHAM. What additional studies, in your opinion, should be made under the authority of the Bureau of Mines for the prevention of silicosis?

Mr. JACKSON. We could study the method of prevention and control of dust as it occurs in mines.

Mining is a highly specialized industry, and, after all, the actual prevention of silicosis has got to be done by the men operating the mines.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. That is what I am trying to develop.

Mr. JACKSON. The advice of the medical profession is all right. They are trying to find out what causes silicosis, but, after all, we have got to eliminate the dust. We know that we have to do that; bit I may say that in mines the problem is one that must be solved by the mine operators, and we are trying to assist them by investigating the fundamentals of the problem.

COOPERATION OF MINING INTERESTS WITH THE DEPARTMENT

Mr. RICH. May I ask a question right there?

Do you have cooperation by the large mining interests in trying to reduce this?

Mr. JACKSON. I am getting a little bit out of my field here, for the reason that the mining industry comes to our Health and Safety Branch for advice and for studies in their mines. Mr. Harrington, the head of the Health and Safety Branch, tells me, he cannot meet e demands for service along these lines, and he is very anxious to ave a laboratory on a mine scale, such as the experimental tunnel, where studies of a fundamental nature can be made.

Mr. RICH. Do you have the cooperation of the mining interests of this country?

Mr. JACKSON. Oh, absolutely.

Mr. RICH. If you gave them the information necessary to reduce. this hazard, would you have the cooperation of the mining interests? Mr. JACKSON. One hundred percent. It is a matter of dollars and ents with them now.

Mr. RICH. Are they trying to reduce it?

Mr. JACKSON. Most of the larger companies are very active along those lines at the present time, and the subject is one on whichMr. RICH. If the largest companies cold get the assistance from the Government to do that work, and to save them that expense, they would be after it?

Mr. JACKSON. No; because they have to apply the methods that we would work out.

Mr. RICH. Do the smaller companies cooperate with you?

Mr. JACKSON. The smaller companies, on the whole, are not interested to the same extent that the larger companies are.

Mr. RICH. Why?

Mr. JACKSON. Well, probably because they have not the realizat of the magnitude of the problem and what it may mean to them. ind as I go about the larger mines of the country that they are all ensely interested in this subject and are doing everything that they can to minimize the dust hazard, but there is no agreement among

the operators as to what the best methods are, because there is very little known about the fundamentals of the subject. If we are going to give the assistance demanded of us, we must make these fundamental studies.

Mr. RICH. There is a great deal of thought in the minds of many of our people to the effect that the bigger a corporation, the more they are interested in exploiting people. Do you find that to be true?

Mr. JACKSON. I do not find it so, Mr. Rich. When I compare conditions now with what they were when I worked in the mines in Butte, Mont., and Arizona, in 1906, 1907, and 1908, along in there, I would say that the working man's interests are a good deal better taken care of now than they were then. There has been a vast improvement along that line.

Mr. RICH. As a rule, the corporations are more vitally interested in the welfare of the employees today than they have ever been. Mr. JACKSON. Decidedly so.

GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Mr. Jackson, this committee has been interested in previous years in the study of geophysical prospecting. It is generally believed that in the future more new ore will be found in this country and in Alaska in and adjacent to known mineralized areas than in new districts. Such ore will probably be found in the form of extensions to deposits and areas already worked and in blind lodes which do not apex at or near the surface. For this reason 3 years ago this committee made a very considerable increase in the appropriation for geophysical prospecting. Does that come under your Division?

Mr. JACKSON. At that time I was not here, Governor.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Will you make any comment on this type of prospecting that you care to make for the benefit of the record?

Mr. JACKSON. Geophysics as applied to ore-finding is a comparatively new science and a vast amount of research remains to be done before it can be employed with confidence, except for certain deposits to which geophysical methods respond most readily. In this application, however, it has already become a useful "tool" for geologists who understand its limitations as well as its possibilities in providing additional information to that supplied by conventional geological observations.

Further development of this science in its adaptation to ore-finding can best be accomplished in close cooperation with and under the control of expert geologists. It is believed that a geophysical group should therefore comprise not only able physicists, but also geologists possessed of wide experience and technical knowledge. That is my opinion.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. In other words, the geophysical prospecting should be an adjunct to the scientific department rather than the scientific agency being an adjunct to geophysical prospecting?

Mr. JACKSON. My opinion is that geophysics is a tool for the geologists.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. And not geology a tool for the geophysicist? Mr. JACKSON. In my opinion, it furnishes additional criteria, additional indications for the geologist to follow.

Mr. SCRUGHAM. Thank you very much.