Show A NEW DEPARTURE FOR THE SURVEY in our issue of november 15 we published an editorial on a certain new departure made by the united states geological su survey arvey in its professional paper no 80 on the frisco district in this state and cerritti alsed the publishing of certain statements in regard to some ot of the companies 0 operating in that section bearing on that editorial are the following communications the editor my atte attention antion having been called to your editorial of november 15 headed A new departure for the survey I 1 find that your criticism is essentially well founded particularly with reference to the first paragraph quoted although it is perhaps more moie evident to me than it would be to the average reader that what mr butler had in mind were types of deposits as represented by these mines rather than the mines themselves and that he would probably have avoided mention of mine names in this connection had be realized how his statements could be interpreted it is not now any more than in the past the policy of the survey to report on single mines except in so far as it is necessary to record the geologic facts from wh which ell general scientific conclusions are drawn the geological survey reports of the type represented by professional paper no SO 80 are concerned primarily with districts not with mines and geologists are specialty specially cautioned neither to express opinions on the value of individual mines nor to criticize the financial or technical operations of par 1 nicular companies it is the duty of the j geologist in charge of work in mining re jj gions to see that manuscripts submitted for publication do not contain objectionable references 1 to private property this duty as aa you will readily see is a delicate one and requires constant vigilance nice discrimination and sound judgment As regards professional paper no or I 1 frankly admit that the report apparently was not scrutinized with the usual care in this respect owing probably to the fact facto that it went to press about the time when some important changes were being mado mad 3 in the survey organization the paragraphs paragraph to which you call attention appeared their present form not because the survey has changed its policy but because they chanced to escape detection if there is any change of policy it will be in the direction of greater vigilance to prevent the publication of statements such as those to which you have quite properly objected GEO OTIS SMITH director united states geological survey washington D C dec 1 1913 telegram request that you postpone ref reference arence to my letter of november 29 until further explanation reaches you butlers statement taken mainly from companas comp anys own published reports GEO OTIS SMITH director washington dec 4 1913 the explanation mentioned in the above telegram will be found in the following letter under date of december 8 the editor since my letter to you of november an 29 relating to the editorial in the salt lake mining alining review of november 15 concerning 0 professional paper no 80 mr butler the author of that report has returned to the office and given his reasons for the publication li of the paragraphs in question which are as follows A professional paper should contain all the information regarding the district that is of interest or value to the users of the report and is not of a confidential nature the records of individual companies that appear in their own official reports or have been elsewhere published certainly can not be considered as confidential that similar information concerning individual properties has been published in other reports of the geological survey can be seen by reference to the few specific instances which follow professional paper no 77 page professional paper no 43 page 40 professional paper no 66 page 20 professional paper no 78 page mineral resources of the U S 1911 part 1 page the author of professional paper no I 1 1 80 believes that the published record of the cactus mine under its various company t names taken together with the statement I 1 of the condition of the mine as given by the general manager in his report of august 19 1912 and quoted in part on page fully justifies the conclusion expressed on page of his report and that readers are entitled totham to that conclusion in the case of tile the 0 K mine the company has issued no report on the present condition of ore reserves but the fact that the mine has long been closed and the plant largely dismantled certainly indicates that the best of the ore aas as been extracted this together with tho known record of the company it is believed ipuy fully justifies the statement made on page pa 62 in the case of the horn silver mine athe he record published on page taken rom the companas comp anys reports except as indicated abed and showing a dividend record of certainly is good evidence that the exploitation of the deposit has been attended with commercial success and warrants the statement concerning it made on page the sections under discussion in the editorial are generalizations referring to certain types of ore deposits and the references to the records of individual pro properties per are made only in support of the generalizations and not as a matter of praise or dispraise the author believes that there is far less danger of doing injustice in such definite statements which are open to refutation should interested parties abeliene them to be erroneous than in statements so generalized that it is difficult or impossible to meet them it may be mentioned that the report as soon as issued was sent to all mining companies known to the author to be operating in the district and though several months have elapsed there has been no protest from the operators concerning the material presented in the report in conclusion mr butler considers that in professional paper no 80 there has been no departure from the previous custom of the geological survey in presenting the records of individual operating companies so far as this can be done without violation of confidence and in drawing conclusions from them there can scarcely be objection on the part of mining companies to the use of data taken f from rom their own reports or elsewhere open to general inspection 0 while my letter of november 29 expresses the general policy of the survey with respect to reports on mining regions I 1 feel that mr butler by making evident that the data used by him were in no sense confidential and might have been similarly used by anyone has cleared himself of the charge that his report marks a serious departure from previous custom GEO OTIS SMITH director U S geological survey washington dec 8 1913 the first letter requires little comment it expresses we believe the opinion of in most ost people as to the editorial in question tile the opinion of people to whom mr butler has not had an opportunity of presenting his reasons and to how many of the readers of the report can tile the explanation be made we are glad to note that the survey does not intend to make a new departure along the lines mentioned but we must insist that the report in question as far as any evidence to the contrary has been presented does mark a new departure taking up the points made in defense of the report in the second letter we agree that a professional paper should contain all the information concerning the district that is io of interest or of value to the users of the report and is not of a confidential nature and that the records of individual companies as published in company reports and elsewhere are properly included we ourselves have found them of much value as bringing together in one publication facts as to the history of companies we were investigating vesti gating no one can justly object to the publication of any data not confidential nor have we so objected although the second letter makes its defense along that line concerning the references given by mr smith we have looked them up and read them carefully and in each case the reference is to past operations of the company and the very parts that we criticized in our former editorial are in no wise w ise duplicated in fact the pages referred to are absolutely free from prediction as to what these companies may be expected to do in the future which our readers will see by referring to the editorial in question is what we criticized in professional paper 80 perhaps the conclusions as to the cactus are justified we do not attempt to say but we do most emphatically say that a geological report is no place for conclusions as to the financial future of individual companies if the conclusion is based on no more substantial grounds than those cited for the 0 K namely that the mine was shut down and the plant dismantled therefore it was certainly indicated that the best of the ore had been extracted the conclusion is not justified the reason given for the 0 K is an example of exceedingly faulty reasoning to an unsound conclusion from a truthful truth fuli any mining man can conceive of several reasons for the dismantling of a plant besides the exhaustion of the best ore the country is dotted with dismantled plants on properties which have not even been developed and to make the statement quoted in regard to the 0 K only marks the more prominently the unfitness of men of the survey than whom there are few better in their own field of geology to enter the field of the mining engineer and predict or conclude on questions which should be settled primarily by an engineer the statement that there is far less danger of doing injustice in such definite statements which are open to refutation etc is debatable many men read the report many men fail to see the refutation and tile the original statement stands to the detriment of the property for instance suppose the owners of the properties mentioned in the report had refuted the state ments made is it likely that the refutation would have had the same circulation as the original statement in avoiding this it is not necessary to make t the he statements so generalized that it is difficult or impossible to meet them the fact that none of the companies mentioned have objected does not minimize the undesirability of making those statements we said in the first editorial that we cared not for the present whether the conclusions were correct or not but we did criticize the making of any conclusions correct or not as to future possibilities of particular mines in using confidential non data mr air butler has not inaugurated a new departure but in making the statements which we criticized he most certainly has he has failed to meet these criticisms and has devoted his defense to matters which we in no DO wise criticized we should be pleased to have the opinion of our readers on the desirability of survey geologists expressing in their reports opinions as to the financial future of the properties they examine note letter referred to as of date of november 29 is same as we quoted under date of december 1 |