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28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
The Lehigh Valley conipany has acquired the coal
mines of Coxe Brothers, and as the same company
has bought the Delaware. Susquehanna & Schuyl­
kill, the Markle firm can no longer force it to
deliver cars when wanted, and it is presumed that
it would be willing to sell for a fair price. The
elimination of the independent producers was in­
dicated four or five years ago when J. P. Morgan
& Co. bought the Pennsylvania Coal Co. and sold
it to the Erie Railroad. The price paid for that
coal property proved that the independent coal
companies were still making—or had been making
up to date—liberal profits.
* * *
IN AN INTERESTING ARTICLE descriptive of the
Iselin coal plant m Indiana county, Pa., by Mr.
J. L. Dixon, mining engineer of the Ingersoll-
Rand Co.. and appearing on other pages of this
issue, a notable feature is the statement that the
system of firing in the boiler house provides for
practical elimination of smoke from the stacks.
It is a bit singular that a system providing this
should lie installed in a comparatively isolated
spot, where smoke is not objected to and coal that
is far from smokeless is used. The stoker sys­
tem employed provides nearly perfect combustion.
There are other features of the plant described
tnat are of exceptional interest.
Because of untimely warbling of the song,
"Everybody Works but Father," one Pittsburgh
father has disappeared and another has nearly
killed his son and his son-in-law. Too much of
this Wagnerian music is bound to produce disaster.
Some one should get Lew Dockstader to
dig up "Old King Coal." The effect would not be
so strenuous.
—o—
These price understandings, gentlemen's agreements,
or whatever you may call them, do very
well when there's a market. Other times they
are just smokers with an occasional individual
side-step to long-distance booth or telegraph desk.
—o—
Black Diamond, Chicago, says: "Evidently
there is nothing so mean about the coal men that
it does not find its way into the columns of the
daily press. Now they are being associated with
the beef trust in the public press."
— o —
In the retail markets in Philadelphia, a ton of
coal is 2.240 pounds; in New York, 2,000 pounds;
and some suburbs only 1,900 pounds.
— o —
Mr. Operator for a time will likewise be paid
for taking up the bottom bone.
UMPIRE NEILL RENDERS DECISIONS IN TWO
IMPORTANT ANTHRACITE LABOR QUES­
TIONS, ONE FAVORING MINERS.
Umpire C. P. Neill recently at Hazleton rendered
decisions in two of the most important
grievances brought before tne board of conciliation.
The first decision relates to contract miners
at the Plymouth colliery of the Delaware & Hudson
Coal Co. This grievance relates entirely to
the lifting of bottom bone. Before and after the
award of the anthracite coal strike commission
and until September, 1904, the miners were paid
50 cents per yard for lifting bottom bone, regardless
of thickness. In September, 1904, however,
the company notified the miners that it would not
pay for lifting bottom bone unless it exceeded eight
inches in thickness. The miners at once claimed
they had suffered a reduction, and the umpire
decides that under the agreement of a fixed rate
for lifting bottom bone, "whether thick or thin,"
the men are entitled to the given rate, no matter
how thick bone becomes. The final decision of
the umpire is that whenever a miner cannot avoid
taking up the bottom bone along with the coal he
is entitled to an allowance of 55 cents a yard,
unless the miner without orders lifts bottom bone,
when it could have been left down, when he shall
have no claim on the company.
The second grievance is that of the contract
miners at the Ontario colliery of the Scranton
Coal Co., relative to yardage. The miners contend
that up to 1902 they were paid $2 per yard
for taking down rock to make height for car and
after the award of the commission the rate was
increased to $2.20 per yard, which continued until
August, 1904, when the price was cut in some
places to $1.50, some to $4.75 and others to $1.93
per yard. The umpire refuses to sustain the
grievance, contending that the case at issue is one
to which the award of the commission is not
applicable.
E. D. Fulton and W. W. Parish, of Uniontown,
Pa., sold three-fourths of their holdings in the
Geneva Coal & Coke Co., located at New Geneva,
Pa., in the Klondike region, to M. D. McKeefrey
of Leetonia, Pa., who is associated with the Atlas
Coke Co., and Wilson A. Shaw, president of the
Bank of Pittsburgh. The price paid for the holdings
was $465,000.