Word: colorados
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Some 800,000 acres of shale oil land in western Colorado, owned by all the U. S. people and said by the U. S. Geological Survey to contain 40 billion barrels of petroleum (value: $1 per barrel, minimum), loomed more and more clearly in the public prints last week as an interesting national possession, also as the focus of an alleged national scandal. Ralph S. Kelley, the Interior Department's field chief at Denver, last fortnight resigned his post, loudly protesting that Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur was not taking proper care of all the people's great...
...Kelley's charges, as revealed by his World articles, was that the Department of the Interior, under heavy political pressure, had backed down on its interpretation of the mining laws so far as to validate worthless land claims of oil companies in Colorado. Under the old law a locator could secure full title to a 160-acre tract from the U. S. by paying $2.50 per acre, spending $100 per year on "development," proving substantially that he had discovered oil (or mineral) on his land. In 1920 Congress passed an act which substituted leasing for sale of public oil land...
...Work's Decree. In the Colorado shale fields, traces of oil appear on the surface of the ground. Were these enough, without drilling, to fulfill the law's "discovery" requirement? In 1924 the Interior Department ruled that surface traces were not sufficient, that their connection with underground oil supplies was not proved. Potent oil companies?Pure Oil, Union of California, Prairie, Continental, Midwest?massed their legal forces against this decision. Three years later with the aid of Colorado's Senators they induced Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work, a Coloradoan, to reverse the Department's position. By Dr. Work...
Worthless? Because no cheap method has yet been devised for extracting oil from the tough dark shale of Colorado, geologists estimate the production cost of such oil at $3 per barrel, as compared with current petroleum prices of $1 per barrel. Oil companies with foresight, however, have bought up Colorado shale land from original prospectors on the theory that eventually a cheap extraction process will be found. Denver records show the following holdings: Standard Oil of New Jersey, 20,000 acres; Union of California, 18,000; Continental, 10,000; Texas, 10,000; Prairie, 7,000; Deep Rock, 4,000; Pure...
Other radium deposits exist in Czechoslovakia, Belgian Congo, Portugal, Australia, Colorado, Utah. The deposits in Czechoslovakia are almost depleted. Since the discovery of the rich Belgian Congo deposits in 1922, the U. S. production has almost ceased. Up to 1929, because of the great labor and expense involved, only 300 grams of radium had been produced, an insufficient supply for medical men and watchmakers...