The San Francisco call., 1896-11-16

! The resources are great in all of them.
There is an enormous amount of gold at
the bottom of many of our rivers. / un-
dertake to say there are tons Of it at the
mouth of the Sacramento. Why cannot
the Government. through a competent
Secretary of Mining, dre6ge this and
other rivers? The gold could be retained
by system of sluices and the soil could
be used to fill in the tule lands.
Hugh Mcdonnell. formerly of the Iron
Mountain, owner of a gold mine at Te-
hachapi-To my mind we need a Secretary
of Mining as much as Secretary OF Agri-
culture, if not more. Look at the vast
amount of capital that is invested in min
ing. There should be a man in the
Cabinet to represent the industry. There
ought to have been one there years ago.
There would be better laws for the ven
tilation of coal mines and for the safety of
men in all kinds of mining Mining
ought Immediately to be recognized as one
of the great industries. If the Govern
ment would do this il would do only what
was right and would tend to advance and
dignity an industry that, unlike all others,
has been obliged to make it's wey unaided.
j. Doollttle, one of the owners of the
Gould and Doolittle mine-There should
be a Secretary or Mines, unquestionably.
The product of mining is greater than that
of any other industry. 1t is more in the
moneyed results, and more men are en-
ployed. Agriculture is not to be compared
with it. Were it not for mining not fac
tory could run. In fact there would be no
factories, for there would be nothing to
build them with. Those people who are
pre- JUDGED against mining ought to think
of these things. They look upon mining
as kind of gamble, and their knowledge
of it is confined to what they hear of some
stock deal. But that is no more mining
than gamble in wheat on the board of
trade is agriculture. Mining is tre-
mendous industry. 1t has so many rami-
fications, too, In the variety of its prod
ucts that you can hardly cast your eye
in any direction that you DO not
see them. In more than half the
States the principal industry is mining.
People don't realize what it is. Thev
think of gold, silver, copper, lead and
iron, and there it practically ends with
them. With these minerals alone
there are thousand reasons why
there should be Secretary of Mining.
| w hSh3 AOnSNCA, ~ 10 1ClACuO OcIcQ buaI
our quarries properly come under the
head of mining, that petroleum does,
that we could have no paints and no drugs
if 1t were not for mining, can scarcely
see how it is possible We have existed SO
long as great Nation and taken no cog
nizance of an industry fraught with such
mighty Importance. Then there is
aluminium. Over large part of many of
our States the soil for thickness of two
or three feet is permeated with aluminium.
Mining of secondary inaportancel It
amazes me that people who can sac and
think have not begun to realize few
things about it. Take it in petroleum, to
which 1 have alluded. The Standard Oil
Company, which mines for oil only, is the
greatest and richest company in the
world. Think of the uses of iron alone.
Reflect that without mining we could not
have the electric light. In fact if you
will follow it down, with the various met
ais and their ramifcations. think you
will find we will not have anything at all
without mining. We should have Sec-
retary of Mining. and President Mckinley
should appoint him.
e. S. Arnold, manager of the Abe Lin
coin mine, Cripple Creek-It would un-
doubtedly be OF great value to the industry