slabs, and iron in pigs.[1] Beyond that line the further treatment of the metals is viewed as manufacturing. In making their returns for income tax purposes the mining companies were allowed deductions for depletion. For present purposes that allowance is not in order, inasmuch as depletion is computed in my calculations in a different way. Considering the understatements on these accounts, I do not think that the rough estimate of $850,000,000 for the net earnings of the mining and metallurgical industry of the United States in 1916 is too high. On the contrary it is probably too low. This year, like those which have followed, up to the present time, was one of abnormal conditions. To get anything like normality we must revert to the period before the war.
The years 1911-1913 may be regarded as reflecting earning capacity under normal pre-war conditions. In 1914, following the outbreak of the war, many branches of the mining industry experienced a great shock and there had to be an arbitrary and drastic curtailment of production. In 1915, the mines began to be reworked actively and in the latter part of that year and during the whole of 1916 they realized great profits. The average of the reported dividends in 1911-1913 was about $66,000,000, indicating total dividends of about $330,000,000 and the latter sum may be regarded reasonably as the average annual
- ↑ This is the professional, engineering view. The U. S. Geological Survey conforms to it in its statistical work. The statistics of the Bureau of the Census have been compiled upon a different and more academic basis, which prevents them from being combined with other statistical reports. This comment and criticism is much broader in its scope than the mining statistics alone. On this account the census figures fall far short of the usefulness they might have. Indeed, I may say that the census industrial statistics ought to be used only with a great deal of caution.
