MEMORIAL TO JOHN WESLEY POWELL.

The International Geological Congress in 1904 considered the advisability of the construction of a suitable memorial of life service to Maj. John W. Powell, late Director of the United States Geological Survey, to be erected on the brink of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and appointed a committee for the purpose of promoting the project. Thereafter, the matter was brought to the attention of Congress by those interested, and in the sundry civil act approved March 4, 1909 (35 Stat., 992), Congress, among other things, provided:

Memorial to John Wesley Powell: For the purpose of procuring and erecting on the brink of the Grand Canyon, in the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve in Arizona, a memorial to the late John Wesley Powell, with a suitable pedestal, if necessary, in recognition of his distinguished public services as a soldier, explorer, and administrator of Government scientific work, five thousand dollars: Provided, That the design for said memorial and the site for the same shall be approved hy the Secretary of the Interior.

On March 4, 1909, the then Secretary of the Interior designated Dr. W. H. Holmes, Chief of the Bureau of Ethnology, Dr. C. D. Walcott, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and Col. H. C. Rizer, chief clerk of the United States Geological Survey, as members of an advisory committee to assist him in determining the character of the memorial and the selection of the best site. Finding it difficult to reach any definite conclusion regarding the character of the memorial which would be appropriate and satisfactory without having a somewhat intimate acquaintance with the available sites for selection, the chairman of the committee, Dr. Holmes, visited the Grand Canyon in May, 1909, with a view to making the necessary observations. As a result of such visit the committee submitted a preliminary report recommending the selection of Maricopa or "Sentinel Point," on the rim of the canyon, from which the view of the Granite Gorge is awe-inspiring, as being the most suitable site, which was approved by the department, and the committee was authorized to look further into the matter of design and erection of the memorial.

On October 19, 1910, the committee submitted a further report, stating, among other things, that—

In its report to you of June 24, 1909, the committee presented a number of suggestions that had been made touching the character of the proposed monument. After very full consideration the committee has concluded that the most feasible plan to follow is that embraced in the last-named suggestion there submitted, viz., a monumental seat or chair from which the canyon and the river could be viewed.

A model of this plan is presented herewith.

It is proposed to insert in the back of the chair a bronze medallion portrait of Maj. Powell with appropriate inscription. Owing to the limitations marked by the appro

priation the committee finds that the only suitable material that can be adopted in construction is concrete.

It is therefore recommended that the committee be authorized to at once proceed to negotiate with responsible parties for effecting the above-indicated design. It is further recommended that the Director of the Reclamation Service be authorized to detail some competent person with experience to superintend the construction of the proposed design, the necessary expenses thus incurred to be paid from the sum of $5,000 heretofore appropriated for the erection of this monument.

This report was approved by the department October 20, 1910, and subsequently the committee submitted a tentative design for the memorial prepared by Mr. J. R. Marshall, of Washington, D. C., which was referred to the Fine Arts Commission for consideration. After certain modifications had been made by Mr. Marshall, the plans were approved by the commission on May 8 and by the department on May 11, 1914. The supervision of its construction was assigned to Mr. Walter Ward, engineer of the Reclamation Service, who on consideration of the plans expressed the opinion that it would be impracticable to construct the memorial thereunder within the appropriation, and suggested that they be modified by reduction in size of the memorial, etc. The department thereupon requested Mr. Mark Daniels, general superintendent and landscape engineer of national parks, to revise the plans, and suggested, among other things, that they provide for the erection of an altar on the foundations in lieu of the Roman chair previously decided upon, one side of the altar to contain an embedded bronze tablet.

These revised plans were approved by the Secretary on July 20, 1915. The tablet in which is embedded a medallion portrait of Maj. Powell in bas-relief (the work of Miss Lelia Usher, of New York), was cast by The Gorham Co., also of that city.

The work of construction was then commenced under supervision of Mr. Ward and the memorial was fully completed on October 26. 1915, at a cost within the amount of the appropriation.

Great credit is due to Mr. Stephen T. Mather, the Assistant to the Secretary, who personally looked after this matter, for the expeditious manner in which the work was prosecuted to completion and for the securing of the cooperation of the railroads and others during the period of construction.

MARITIME CANAL CO. OF NICARAGUA.

Section 6 of the act of Congress approved February 20, 1889, entitled "An act to incorporate the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua" (25 Stat., 675), provides:

Said company shall make a report on the first Monday of December in each year to the Secretary of the Interior, which shall be duly verified on oath by the president and secretary thereof, giving such detailed statement of its

affairs and of its assets and liabilities as may be required by the Secretary of the Interior, and any willfully false statements so made shall be deemed perjury and punishable as such. And it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Interior to require such annual statement and to prescribe the form thereof and the particulars to be given thereby.

The report of this corporation when received will be duly transmitted to Congress. In view of the fact, however, that the Maritime Canal Co. of Nicaragua has no relations whatever with this department and the Secretary has no duty to perform thereto except as specified in the above-mentioned law, the act should be so amended as to require the corporation to submit directly to Congress such form of report as it may prescribe.

APPENDIX A.

DEVELOPMENT OF OUR MINERAL RESOURCES.

METALS.

PRECIOUS METALS.

GOLD.

The production of gold in the United States in 1880 was $36,000,000, while in 1914 the total domestic yield was $94,500,000. The world's output of gold is approximately $460,000,000, of which the United States produces 20 per cent, and is exceeded by South Africa only, with an output of $212,000,000. Europe, outside of Russia, is absolutely dependent upon the rest of the world for its gold supply. The balance of trade in 1914 in gold, largely in the form of refined domestic bullion and United States coin, amounted to $165,300,000. In 1914, 20 States reported an output of gold, the largest producers being California, Colorado, Alaska, Nevada, and South Dakota. The most productive areas are the deep mines of the Mother lode and Grass Valley districts and the Yuba and Butte dredging fields of California, the Cripple Creek district in Colorado, the Treadwell and placer mines of Alaska, the Black Hills district in South Dakota, and the Goldfield-Tonopah district of Nevada.

In the metallurgy of gold the chlorination process has been almost entirely superseded by the cyanide process. In the latter part of the year the supply of potassium cyanide ran short owing to the interruption of imports from Europe, but the shortage was apparently met by the substitution of sodium cyanide. The ore treatment plants of Colorado, New Mexico, and South Dakota used approximately 840,000 pounds of sodium cyanide and 775,000 pounds of potassium cyanide in 1913, and 1,600,000 pounds of sodium cyanide and only 125,000 pounds of potassium cyanide in 1914.

The average gold recovery from 11,000,000 tons of siliceous ores in 1914 was $5.53 per ton. The average gold per ton from the Alaskan deep mines was $2.78; from California, $5.46, and from South Dakota $3.63. Even with these low recoveries of gold per ton of ore, the dividend yield has been large.

Dredges for mining gold placers are largely an American innovation and have been developed by years of experience. They were

introduced about 1896, and since then have recovered about $100,000,000 in gold by reworking gravels, or working gravels that were too low in gold to be profitably mined by any other method. The production by gold dredges in 1904 was $2,600,000, but in 1914 had risen to more than $12,500,000. The gold-dredging industry is being rapidly extended to the immense areas of low-grade sands and gravels in Alaska. The largest productive gold-dredging companies are in California, Alaska, Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, and Nevada.

It is not possible to give an accurate estimate of the total reserves of gold ore in the United States, but it is safe to assume that they are sufficient for a long period of years. For example, at one of the large mines in southern Alaska there has just been completed a mill having a daily capacity of 6,000 tons of ore, and it is estimated that the ore reserves are between 75,000,000 and 100,000,000 tons.

Improved processes for the extraction of gold make possible the working of great low-grade deposits and thus enlarge the visible supply of ore. Any invention that tends to lessen the cost of production will increase the amount of ore from which gold may be extracted. Equal advances are being made in the mining and treatment of lowgrade placer gravels by the introduction of larger and more efficient dredges that recover practically all of the gold in the gravel.

In treating gold ores by amalgamation followed by cyandiation about 90 per cent of the gold content is recovered. At some of the latest improved plants the loss does not exceed 5 per cent. The bulk of the domestic gold output is from siliceous ores (known as gold quartz) and from placers, over 91 per cent of the total production being from these two sources. The total amount of gold derived from the copper, lead, and zinc mines of the United States is therefore relatively small, notwithstanding their recent enormous development and tonnage. While this latter source of gold is not large, yet it is constant and can be depended upon, and it is barely possible that with more efficient metallurgical methods the amount of gold recovered as a byproduct from such ores may be slightly increased.

As in years past, the supply of gold will continue to come from California, Alaska, Colorado, South Dakota, Nevada, and Montana. Many of the low-grade siliceous ores that are being profitably worked contain less than $3 per ton, and many more containing even less gold will constitute our main source of supply. The Alaska placers are an important source of gold for the United States, and the Government railroad from the coast to the interior should so cheapen costs that many placers from which the cream of the gold has been taken can be reworked and many placers that could not be profitably worked before will now contribute to the output.