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Show BIG WASTE SHPN IN fJEMSOUilCES Director Holmes of Bureau of Mines Estimates It $1,000,000 a Day. A uationa.l loss of not less than SI. 000,-000 000,-000 a day is a reasonable estimate of the present waste, in a large measure unnecessary, unnec-essary, of the mineral resources of the United States, according to the annual report re-port issued by the United States bureau of mines. The bureau's work looking to the prevention of waste of natural gas by a.n expenditure of less than $15,000 during the past eighteen months has brought about a saving of natural sas worth not less than $15,000,000, a sum many times greater than the total cost of all the work done by the bureau during the past four years of its existence. Chemists and enpineers of the bureau have demonstrated that a process they have devised for the extraction of radium from its ores can be successfully used on a larg-e scale and will prove more efficient effi-cient than that used by foreign producers; of radium, and that the cost of radium to the user will be reduced to one-third of the present price. The process Is to be palente6" and dedicated to the public. Director John A. Holmes of the bureau of mines declares In his annual report that: At the present increasing rate at which we are using and wasting it, our one supply of a number of these resources will be either exhausted or largely depleted while the nation is yet in its youth. Of the several lines of mineral Industry In-dustry in which this waste calls for investigation, only two of the most especial urgency and importance are included in the urgent needs of the bureau of mines, namely, the waste and losses in coal mining and in petroleum operations. But the enactment enact-ment of pending legislation in congress con-gress providing for the establishment, mainly in metal mining states, of a number of mining experiment stations will render possible similar researches looking to the lessening or preventing of waste. A careful preliminary inquiry shows that in mining 600,000,000 tons of coal yearly, 300,000,000 tons are wasted or left underground in unminable condition. OF this waste 200,000,000 tons is believed to be preventable. A preliminary inquiry to the coking of coal In beehive ovens has shown that the total value of the byproducts by-products annually lost in this country through the use of such ovens amounts to S75,000,OO0. The annua waste of metals in bra?s furnace practice amounts to more than $4,500,000. In conducting its campaign for greater safety and efficiency in the mining Industries In-dustries there has been adopted the following fol-lowing general plan of co-operation between be-tween the government and other large agencies: (1) That the national government govern-ment conduct the necessary general inquiries in-quiries and investigations and disseminate in such a manner as may prove most effective ef-fective the information obtained and the conclusions - reached ; (2) that each state enact needed legislation and make ample provisions for the proper inspection of mining operations within its borders; (Z) that the mine owners introduce Improvements Improve-ments with a view to increasing safety ; and reducing waste of resources as rapidly j as the practicability of such Improvements is demonstrated; and (4) that the miners and mine managers co-operate both In i making and in enforcing safety rules and regulations as rapidly as these are shown to be practicable. The states, the miners and mine owners and other agencies, such as the mining and engineering societies, are now showing a willingness to co-operate with the national government in this work. |