Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Claude C. Wood Company

DUNIWAY,

Circuit Judge.

I dissent.

1. The depletion allowance is applicable under section 611 of the Internal Revenue Code only if the aggregates and cobbles here involved are “natural deposits.” I think that the processes that occurred during the operation of the gold dredge, which consisted essentially of picking up mixed gold, sand, gravel and cobbles from the place where nature had put them, sorting them into three components, to wit, (1) free gold, (2) sand, and (3) gravel and cobbles, keeping *213out the gold, and depositing the sand in one layer and the gravel and cobbles in another on top of…