| Show editorial comment the april issue of the mining review will contain an illustrated article by will C higgins descriptive of the mine and mill of the golconda gold ledge mining company on kramer hill near golconda nevada for some time past the dense column of smoke from the murray has been no longer noticeable the appearance of the stack is such as to lead many to believe that the plant had been shut down however the plant is still running at full capacity but has installed a process which controls the smoke we are not informed officially just what the process is but indications are that the sprague process has been adopted senator myers has introduced a bill at washington to provide for the opening up of ilie atie phosphate lands bands of the west by a leasing system acres being named as the limit of any one lease the annual rental to be 1 an acre and not less than two per cent of the gross value of the output at the point of production this rental of 1 is to be deducted from that years royalty and is introduced to insure reason able operation of the property leased the daily press states that senator sutherland has introduced an amendment to the iniquitous walsh radium bill providing that the president may prohibit the exportation por tation of radium and radium ore whenever he shall find the supply becoming inadequate we understand that this bin bill would not necessitate the government going into the radium business if so it is the best of the large gist of bills which have been presented as a result of the recent unwarranted agitation the circuit court of appeals for the third district has reversed the decision of the lower courts in the case of joseph A vincent against the tonopah mining company the lower court decided that the defendants were infringing the brown patents by concentrating after grinding in cyanide solution the upper court decided that the cyaniding cyan iding which followed the concentration was the real cyaniding cyan iding and the essential and that the patent which claims a process of cyaniding cyan iding followed by concentration was not infringed director holmes of the united states bureau of mines giving the 1913 output of radium bearing ores in a report for the fiscal year ending in the middle of 1913 lays emphasis on reported radium factories under construction abroad as indicating increased exports of radium ores from this country but totally ignores the two plants which have made such a success in this country that america is now far in the lead in the radium industry information concerning which was certainly open to him this report bears all the ear marks of a deliberate attempt to magnify the the et e facts of european enterprise and decry our own in inan an effort to further the interests of his own bureau his report certainly gives the people a wrong impression of the radium situation and the results of this deliberate campaign are manifest in the misleading articles now appearing so 0 often ofte in some of our leading magazines either report the true situation or give up the sensationalism propagated through the government publicity bureaus A correspondent of the engineering and mining journal calls attention to the recent syndicated article by secretary lane using his title as secretary of the interior which was published in the magazine sections of the sunday newspapers in which the secretary made the statement when we reflect that the production of every additional half gram of radium means the saving of a human life a day from the ravages of cancer no question can remain of our obligation to conserve and make available for use all the radium resources of the country this statement is characterized as wildly extravagant with no evidence to support it and in fact the first company trying to make radium in this country was put out of business by the postoffice post office authorities because it claimed curative properties for radium the opinion is also expressed that should the officer of a private company make the same sort of statements today his company would probably be denied the use of the malls mails we think this correspondent has such a good conception of the situation that his state ments should be given further publicity it is this kind of outrageous misinformation and exaggeration under the semblance of off official leial information that we object to strenuous uly honesty conservatism not net conservation or conversation get but little prominence while any statement in made ade by government officials gets the widest pub 1 lacity by the nature of the work done on i the radium quest question on secretary lane and ui di rector holmes take place in the hall of fame alongside secretary of labor wilson is his pronunciamiento anent the calumet hecla and the copper country strike |
