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CONSTRUCTION and DEVELOPMENT. K
The Ohio & Marshall Railroad Co. was organized
at Wheeling, W. Va.. on June 2, with a capital
of $230,000. Directors were chosen as follows:
Thomas M. Benner and Joseph W. Barnes, of Pittsburgh;
George L. Hibbs and I. W. Seanion, of
Uniontown, Pa. This company, in conjunction
with two others incorporated in Pennsylvania, expects
to construct a railroad from the Connellsville
coke field to the Ohio river at this point. The
heaviest stockholder is J. V. Thompson, the Uniontown
coal operator.
A tract containing vast deposits of coal, near
Chattanooga, Tenn., has been purchased by ex-
President Ingalls, of the Big Four railroad, and
W. A. Eudaley, of Cincinnati. Seven thousand five
hundred acres are included in the tract, which cost
$300,000. Several big veins have been opened and
as soon as electric power to be developed by water
is assured, about ten openings will be made and
from $500,000 to $750,000 will be spent for mining
machinery and equipment.
The Reading company's new coal storage plant
at Abrams, Pa., which will accommodate a half
million tons of anthracite, is near completion. It
is doubtful whether the plant will be put into immediate
use as there is a comparatively small
amount of domestic sizes of anthracite available
for storage at present, and there appears to be a
disposition to utilize the storage capacity at Port
Richmond, Staten Island, and other points first.
Engineers employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad
Co. are making preliminary surveys which
will form the basis for the consideration of plans
looking to the construction of an independent
freight line from the coal and iron districts of
Pittsburgh to New York, by way of Atglen and
the Trenton cut-off. The project involves the
construction of a road 443 miles in length, which,
if built, will be double tracked.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 17
MINERS' LAMPS CRITICISED
BY A GERMAN ENGINEER.
Paul Best, a mining engineer employed by the
German government to investigate American mining
systems, finds much to praise and a certain
amount to criticise unfavorably in what he has
seen during his inspections of a number of hard
and soft coal mines. Mr. Best resides in Essen,
Germany. He has already inspected the anthracite
mines of Pennsylvania and a few of the larger
bituminous operations about Pittsburgh. He will
visit on his trip the mines in the coking fields and
then make an inspection of the silver and golu
mines of the west. From the gold fields he will
go to Alaska, returning by way of British Colum­
bia.
Speaking of the differences in mining methods
Mr. Best asserted that operators here are behind
the mining companies of Europe in their methods
of lighting the mines. In Germany, he states, the
government requires the use of safety lamps in all
coal mines, whether they have been declared gaseous
or not. The operating companies there also
furnish the miners with light and the government
regulation requires that it be of the best. He
said:
"I find that in American mines the miner furnishes
his own lamps with the exception of mines
in wliich safety lamps are used and the miner, of
course, buys the cheapest lamp and the cheapest
oil that will enable him to see sufficiently well to
mine the coal. The smoke from these oil lamps
poisons the air in which the miner works, and at
best they do not give him sufficient light to see the
dangers that surround him as the process of mining
continues. I find that your statistics show
that nearly 45 per cent, of all the mining accidents
are traceable to falls of roof or coal, and these
could be in a measure avoided if the mines were
sufficiently lighted."
Watching Coal Shearing Machines.
W. R. Holloway. United States consul general
at Halifax, N. S., reports that representatives of
The West Virginia Coal Co. has began the erec­ several coal mining concerns on the mainland of
tion of 90 new coke ovens at its plant at Bretz. Nova Scotia have been watching with keen in­
on the Morgantown & Kingwood railroad, and will terest the experiments with shearing machines,
shortly begin the erection of 100 additional ovens which have heen conducted in several collieries
at its plant at Richard, on the Morgantown rail­ of the Dominion Coal Co. at Sydney for the last
road.
month, and the success of the new method will
probably mean that the machines will be intro­
The Pittsburgh-Buffalo Co. has broken ground duced into a number of the collieries within a
for its No. 2 Hazel mine, near Canonsburg, Pa. short time. Besides creating a world's record for
Three new coal washeries are being installed
shearing a dozen rooms, the machine cut out a
solid block, containing eight tons of coal, from the
face of the seam in Dominion No. 1 mine. This
at coke plants in the Lower Connellsville region is said to be the largest lilock ever taken from a
in the hope of improving their output.
mine in Nova Scotia.