Woodville Lime Products Co. v. United States

During what geologists call the Silurian Period of the Paleozoic Era, a substantial portion of the north-central United States was covered by an inland sea. On the bottom of that sea lived minute organisms which extracted carbonate materials from the waters and secreted them in their own hard parts. The remains of these organisms — shells and skeletons — formed vast deposits of stone.

Some 350 million years later men began to quarry this stone for the production of lime, fluxing stone, refractory materials, fillers and agricultural and other materials. In 1951 Congress added numerous minerals…