extensive coking coal reserves in Australia. The remainder of our mining ventures are now wholly owned. 1969 was the best year in the history of the company, a year of considerable accomplishment and fundamental change. It witnessed the sale in mid-year of the company's heavy construction business to Fluor. This was the business on which the company was founded 70 years ago, and had been the major source of livelihood through the first half century of its existence. Even in the last 10 years heavy construction provided for more than half of the company's reported gross revenues and an even higher proportion if we had included our share of the revenues from construction joint ventures. With the sale of our construction business we transferred to Fluor approximately 40% of our salaried personnel and 75% of our total employees. Although profits from construction in the last 3 1/2 years had been at the highest rate in the company's history, they still accounted for generally less than 10% of the total and investment in construction assets represented less than 10% of our total assets. Construction is a management-intensive business and absorbed an undue proportion of top executive time. It is a high risk business that from time to time rises up to smite you with large unanticipated losses, an undesirable characteristic for a company carrying substantial debt and with better uses for the money in expanding its other activities. Our earnings for 1969 were at record levels for the 5th successive year. All of our operations were profitable and earnings gains in land, coal, copper, and iron ore offset the drop in profits on uranium resulting from the scheduled decline in prices under our sales contract with the Atomic Energy Commission. -4-