The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. We will put that into the

record.

(The information referred to follows:)

Freight. Dry tons

7.873

Add 12 % Moisture.1.974.............

8.947

Wet tons @ $ 12.70 $113.63

Trucking Silverton Transfer

83.820

Wet tons @ 1.339

$112.23

1,347.76

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Mr. Griffith.

STATEMENT OF LOWELL GRIFFITH, LEAD-ZINC OPERATOR, GILPIN COUNTY, COLO.

Mr. GRIFFITH. I am Lowell Griffith, one of the last lead-zinc operators in Gilpin County. Our operations ceased production in 1947, late 1947. There are now no lead-zinc operators able to operate in this district. There are simply two DMA operations in the whole district, one being uranium and the other being on lead and zinc.

We are so far from market that it takes too much for substance to get to the market. So we are done. I might add that in 1940 we had about 54 operations, 555 to 600 miners working. In 1952 we are down to 2 operators and less than 20 men employed.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

The next witness is Mr. Wilfley.

He is not here? When he comes back in, if we are not finished by then, we will listen to him.

The next is Mr. Deerksen.

Will you give your name and address to the reporter, please? STATEMENT OF JOHN DEERKSEN, PRESIDENT, FRONT RANGE MINES, INC., CRIPPLE CREEK MINING DISTRICT, COLORADO

Mr. DEERKSEN. My name is John Deerksen. I have mined in this State for nearly 30 years. I am president of Front Range Mines, a Colorado corporation, and we are employing between 20 and 30 men, which makes us a typical small mining operation. At the present time we are operating in the Cripple Creek mining district, where we still work on $35 gold. In Clear Creek County, where we operated four mining properties, the ore being low grade and too costly to ship direct to the smelter, we were forced to acquire a 200-ton mill to not only concentrate our own ores but those of our small neighbors as well.

I do not believe, Mr. Chairman, that you are too much interested in the details about this particular operation, but it might interest you to know what the losses suffered by this little company over the past 6 years have been.

In 1947-I won't mention dollars and cents, just thousands$66,000; in 1948, $63,000; in 1949, $47,000; in 1950, $38,000. Now comes 1951. In 1951, $29,000. Why? We were getting happy; we were cutting our costs and we thought that we were on the way to make some money. So what happens in 1952?

The increase in costs for machinery and equipment, labor, materials, and supplies, the decrease in cost for price of lead forced us to close the mill in early 1952. Although the mill was closed, maintenance costs for 1952 still amounted to $8,000, and for a total loss of $252,814.42.

I might say here that the closing of our mill also forced the closing of our four small custom shippers. But that is not all of the story. Our purchase contract on these mines expires next month. We still owe a balance of some $60,000, which we are unable to pay. The owners, after all this development work has been done on their properties