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PRESENTED BY<br />
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Copyrighted, 1911, by T ¥-¥ II s M A Y,: * K<br />
l in COAL TKAMC Co. i fi 1 ¥L* I .is A COPT<br />
foal Tr^ e B ulle<br />
<strong>•</strong> \J^"^ SEMI-MONTHLY "^J<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH [UNE 1. 1911. No. 1.<br />
NORTON Mi<br />
GRINDING WHEELS<br />
ALUNDUM-CRYSTOLON<br />
EXCLUSIVE AGENTS<br />
LARGE STOCK ALWAYS ON HAND<br />
f <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
S 7 TR W E A E T T" SOMERS, FITLER & TODD CO. P,T -^<br />
327 WATER f AKII IT |-» C riTI tT Q O T A H H /"* f\ PITTSBURGH.'<br />
SI<br />
MACHINERY AND SUPPLIES<br />
PEALE. PEACOCK & KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
((<br />
VICTOR"<br />
BITUMINOUS COAL<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL AND COKE<br />
NO 1 BROADWAY NEW YORK<br />
NORTH AMERICAN BUILDING, - - - - PHILADELPHIA
\I>K BULLETIN<br />
3 WATT<br />
m<br />
^r+\ MINE<br />
*®m CARS<br />
Yqu\">oon f<strong>org</strong>et what you paid for your cars when they give good service.<br />
"But when they cause trouhle you can not f<strong>org</strong>et what they are costing you.<br />
;*/.. Cheap cars are poor economy because you are not done<br />
'."<strong>•</strong>'"<strong>•</strong> paying for them as long as you own them.<br />
<strong>•</strong>THE WATT MINING CAR WHEEL COMPANY.<br />
Barnesville, Ohio.<br />
*J<br />
DQUBLEDAY-HILL ELECTRIC CO.<br />
V -. 919 Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh. Pa.<br />
ELECTRICAL SUPPLIES AND MACHINERY<br />
FOR MINES<br />
Highest Cirade Lamps Made For The Price.<br />
Trolley Material We Manufacture High<br />
I'arac" Rubber Wire & Cables *<strong>•</strong>*<strong>•</strong> ^<br />
! W W . P. Wire and Cable. 1 Grade Armature and<br />
"OK" Tap* I Field Coils, Commuta-<br />
IVerless Incandescent Lamps *m tors, Trolley Wheels<br />
Adama Electric Rock DrilU . .<br />
, , .. , . . Also Repair Promptly<br />
Insulating Materials W^miJU<br />
| Triumph Dynamos and Motors | C ^ All Kinds Electrical Ap-<br />
1 "-« <strong>•</strong> ' <strong>•</strong>'<strong>•</strong>' paratus<br />
\ r<br />
I.OWKST PRICES QUALITY CONSIDERED.
GOALJRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, JUNE 1, 1911 No. 1<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:<br />
POBL1SHED SBMI-MONTHLT.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STBAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matteri<br />
relating to coal or coal production are Invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PAKE BUILDING, PITTSBUBQH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
FORECASTS FOR BETTER THINGS and the establish<br />
ing of an equilibrium in the coke branch seem<br />
to be the only bright spots in the coal trade at<br />
the present time. Mining does not show an ap<br />
preciable increase, neither does it seem to be<br />
falling off to a great extent; in this respect main<br />
taining a position of marking time. What with<br />
large mining capacity, slow absorption of pro<br />
duct and embargoes of more or less length, con<br />
ditions are not all the trade would desire, but<br />
expressions of an upward turn are heard on<br />
every hand, with some well informed source.-;<br />
contending that this turn for the better is due<br />
at once. But it is questionable if the upturn<br />
will be sudden and swift or slow and measured.<br />
But it is certain this recovery must come soon<br />
if the larger interests are to be in a position to<br />
fill demands that are sure to be made on them<br />
later in the. year.<br />
Especially is this true of the lake trade, which<br />
up to this time has been anything but lively.<br />
Embargoes, lack of bottoms and other things have<br />
tended to keep the trade back and now come<br />
whispers that the stocks of coal on hand at upper<br />
lake docks are not as large as the owners would<br />
like to see them and because of this and the<br />
fact that ore must begin to arrive shortly in large<br />
quantities to keep pace with furnace demands<br />
the forecasts for better conditions are made.<br />
Embargoes that have been placed on lower lake<br />
docks largely are at points where the larger pro<br />
ducers do not have their own loading facilities<br />
and in consequence it seems to be the producer<br />
who least can stand the embargo that it hits the<br />
hardest. Some dissatisfaction is expressed over<br />
the 30 cent rate to Michigan ports, but nothing<br />
serious is in view. Already reports are at hand<br />
of boats getting in readiness to go into "ordi<br />
nary," but these are mostly the boats belonging<br />
to others than the leading interests. It is ex<br />
pected that, from now on. there will be more<br />
activity in shipping product.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district it is putting it rather<br />
strongly to say that production is on a more<br />
generous scale than 40 per cent, of mining ca<br />
pacity. The mines of the companies with specific<br />
contracts to fill each month may be exceeding<br />
this mark, but others are falling below it, with<br />
an average at about that figure. This district<br />
has felt embargoes as heavily if not more heavily<br />
than any other shipping lakeward. The result<br />
is manifest in the less than half time average.<br />
Some coal is going forward on the basis of hope,<br />
with strong incentive to dispose of it at a re<br />
duction rather than to allow mines to remain<br />
idle. But with all the drawbacks, prices are<br />
held at $1.25 to $1.35 for run-of-mlne coal; $1.35<br />
to $1.45 for three-quarter inch coal; $1.45 to $1.55<br />
for inch and one-quarter coal and 85 to 90 cents<br />
for slack.<br />
305782<br />
Coke producers seem to have reached a nicely<br />
balanced equilibrium in the way of supply and<br />
demand. Ovens in blast have suffered heavy<br />
curtailment, until, for the last week in which<br />
figures aie available, the tonnage produced was<br />
less than the demand by a couple of thousand<br />
tons, and in consequence, just that much stock<br />
coke was taken away from yards and plants. It<br />
is said further curtailment of production is not<br />
contemplated, but that increases will mark the
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
passing weeks. The ruling of the Interstate<br />
Commerce Commission that coke is coke and<br />
that one freight rate is to apply was received<br />
with interest. Manufacturers, with supply and<br />
demand swinging the balance up and down, are<br />
having little if any difficulty in maintaining<br />
prices at $1.75 to $1.85 for furnace coke and $2.00<br />
to $2.25 lor foundry coke.<br />
The principal feature of the anthracite trade<br />
is the increase of 10 cents per ton effective this<br />
date. This is the second of the monthly spring<br />
increases and brings the price almost up to the<br />
mean average of the year. The warm weather<br />
really has hurt this branch of the trade more<br />
than any other in that domestic consumption now<br />
passed. If. as Chief of the Department of Mines<br />
James E. Roderick says, it will increase the cost<br />
of mining, and if, as the miners of the Pittsburgh<br />
district say, it gives no more protection to the<br />
men, then it were well for the governor to write<br />
the word "vetoed" after it. However, it is pos<br />
sible the chief executive will give it careful study<br />
before deciding either way. It is the first com<br />
prehensive change in the bituminous laws en<br />
acted b.v the legislature for many years. The<br />
lpgislature passed several other bills relative to<br />
the mines, but none so important as the code.<br />
<strong>•</strong> * <strong>•</strong><br />
PITTSBURGH COAL PRODUCERS GAVE IIIE INTERSTATE<br />
COMMERCE COMMISSION something to think about<br />
during tlie hearings on tlie lake freight rates,<br />
when they testified that coal was produced in the<br />
district and sold at an actual loss. This fact<br />
was clearly brought out by the testimony of at<br />
least one witness, and shows the world at large<br />
what the coal men of the district have known for<br />
a long time. Another bit of testimony that was<br />
interesting, to say the least, was that of Mr. San-<br />
ford, who said that fear of retaliation on the<br />
part of railroads was felt by the producers at one<br />
time if they would make any move to secure bet<br />
ter rates on shipments from this district. When<br />
the commission gets to the bottom of all the testi<br />
mony it is not unlikely they will find much more<br />
that will startle them as well as put the Pitts<br />
burgh operators in a much better position in the<br />
way of establishing their claims for a reduction.<br />
* * #<br />
SETTLEMENT OF THE STRIKE ON THE TUSCARAWAS<br />
FIELD now is in sight after a long battle, and the<br />
agreement reached, even if it were to run for a<br />
long term of years, would fail to give to the<br />
miners an adequate return for the money they<br />
have lost while the strike was in progress. It is<br />
is very near the minimum, and will not figure just another instance of where the strike, called<br />
largely in the trade for some months to come. into use to enforce a demand that the employers<br />
Steam sizes of anthracite are the most active<br />
felt was unjustified, has failed to adjust matters<br />
permanently, and where, even with an increase,<br />
of all the different grades, but even they are not<br />
it has left the strikers worse off than they were<br />
doing surprising things.<br />
in the first place. With almost half a million<br />
* # *<br />
spent in strike benefits by the miners' <strong>org</strong>aniza<br />
GOVERNOR JOHN K. TE.NEI: NOW HAS A NEW BITU tion, and an idleness of the men for eleven months<br />
MINOUS CODE IN HIS HANDS, the Pennsylvania legislature<br />
having enacted the Pitchford bill almost<br />
at the last moment. This measure, after being<br />
defeated in the House, was reconsidered and<br />
with the consequent loss of wages, it easily can<br />
be seen that it has been one of the labor disputes<br />
that has cost both employer and employe a huge<br />
sum.<br />
Coke is coke, says the Interstate Commerce Com<br />
mission, and proceeds to suspend some freight<br />
rates. Wise old Interstate Commerce Commission!<br />
"What so rare as a day in June," said the<br />
poet, and the coal man answers: "A cold wave<br />
from Medicine Hat in January."<br />
* * *<br />
"Tom" Lewis is back in the mines. Just another<br />
instance of a big man who is ready to<br />
make good anywhere.<br />
* * *<br />
The mine code is in the Governor's hands. Let<br />
us hope he digs out tic true "inwardness" of the<br />
pesky tiling.<br />
* * *<br />
That Tuscarawas strike is settled at last. It<br />
sure was long drawn out and costly.<br />
* * *<br />
Cheer up, cherries will soon lie ripe; likewise<br />
last half contracts.<br />
* * *<br />
The courts hand a bump to the "ex's." It was<br />
due.
NEW MINING CODE FINALLY PASSED<br />
BY PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE.<br />
After having been defeated in the House of<br />
Representatives', the new mining code before the<br />
Pennsylvania legislature finally was passed by<br />
both Senate and House after the latter reconsidered<br />
its vote killing the measure.<br />
The bill as passed differed somewhat from the<br />
code as presented by Chief of the Department of<br />
Mines James E. Roderick, operators and miners<br />
having secured the adoption of some amendments.<br />
Miners of the Pittsburgh district were opiiosed<br />
to the code and Representative Keener of Washington<br />
county led the fight against the measure.<br />
Other representatives charged him with being tbe<br />
stumbling block in the way of the very amendments<br />
he desired. The measure is now in Governor<br />
John K. Tener's hands.<br />
Among other legislation enacted that is of interest<br />
to the coal trade was a bill providing that<br />
in the future all buildings inside the anthracite<br />
mines shall be of incombustible material; another<br />
the stationary engineers' eight-hour day<br />
which prohibits coal mining companies from making<br />
an engineer engaged in hoisting and lowering<br />
men into the mines, work more than eight<br />
hours out of every 24; the resolution of Senator<br />
Walter McNichols, of Scranton. creating a mine<br />
cave commission that is to study surface disturbances<br />
in the anthracite region where in recent<br />
years surface has sunk as the result of the robbing<br />
of pillars in the underground workings.<br />
This commission is to make its recommendations<br />
to the session of 1913; the Jones bill making the<br />
counties of Susquehanna, Wayne and Sullivan, a<br />
separate mine inspection district. The counties<br />
named were formerly a part of the Lackawanna<br />
district; a state investigation of the mine fire<br />
that has been raging at Carbondale, Lackawanna<br />
county, for eight years, together with an appropriation<br />
of $100,000 as the state's share of confining<br />
or extinguishing the fire.<br />
The Catlin bill, authorizing and empowering<br />
cities and boroughs in their corporate capacity<br />
to enact ordinances prescribing such reasonable<br />
regulation for the mining of coal beneath the<br />
cities and boroughs as may tend to prevent tbe<br />
settling or caving in of the surface.<br />
The bill that bituminous miners be required to<br />
have a certificate, similar to the anthracite certicate,<br />
which was introduced by Representative<br />
Feeney, was recommitted to the Senate Mines<br />
and Mining Committee on May 23, and died there<br />
by the adjournment of the legislature May 25.<br />
The Director of Schools, Cleveland. Ohio, will<br />
open bids on June 12 for 8.500 tons of semi-bituminous<br />
lump, 3,000 tons of bituminous lump, 1.500<br />
tons of nut and 14,000 tons of slack.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
SENATOR WATSON INTRODUCES<br />
AMENDMENT FOR FREE COAL.<br />
Senator C. W. Watson, of West Virginia, has<br />
introduced in the Senate an amendment to the<br />
Canadian Reciprocity bill the effect of which<br />
will be to place Canadian soft coal on the free<br />
list whenever the President shall have sufficient<br />
evidence that the Canadian duty against American<br />
coal is removed. The amendment will not in<br />
any way affect the duties agreed upon by Canada<br />
and the United States and embodied in the reciprocity<br />
pact, but will simply place coal on the<br />
free list at such a time as Canada does likewise.<br />
The amendment affects bituminous coal round<br />
or run-of-mine of certain sizes. Statistics show<br />
thai American coal is imported into Canada largely<br />
in excess of Canadian coal imported into this<br />
country, the proportion being about 17 to 3.<br />
EXPLANATIONS TO THE NATIONAL<br />
CAR DEMURRAGE RULES.<br />
The American Railway Association has adopted<br />
a set of explanations to the "National Demurrage<br />
Rules," that being the designation used for the<br />
uniform demurrage code which was adopted by<br />
the National Association of Railway Commissioners<br />
and afterwards on December 18. 1909, recommended<br />
by the Interstate Commerce Commission<br />
for use throughout the country.<br />
The Interstate Commerce Commission, recognizing<br />
the great benefits to be derived from uniformity<br />
in explanations to car service rules, is<br />
desirous of lending its influence to the movement.<br />
The commission therefore tentatively indorses the<br />
explanations adopted by the American Railway<br />
Association and recommends that they be made<br />
effective wherever the National Car Demurrage<br />
Rules have been adopted. This action is, of<br />
course, subject to the right and duty of the commission<br />
to inquire into the legality or reasonableness<br />
of any explanation or explanations which<br />
may be made the subject of complaint.<br />
The explanation to Demurrage Rules are as follows:<br />
RULE 1—OAKS SUBJECT TO RULES.<br />
Cars loaded with company material for use of<br />
and consigned to the railroad in whose possession<br />
the cars are held are not subject to demurrage.<br />
Empty cars placed for loading with company<br />
material are subject to demurrage, unless the<br />
loading is done by the railroad company for which<br />
the material is intended and on its track.<br />
(a) Empty cars placed for loading live stock<br />
by shippers are not exempt and should be reported.<br />
(b) Live poultry is not considered as live<br />
stock, and cars so loaded are subject to demurrage.
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
(c) Empty private cars stored on tracks<br />
switched by carriers, taken for loading without<br />
order or requisition from shipper, and without<br />
formal assignment by carrier's agent, shall be<br />
recorded as placed for loading when actual loading<br />
is begun.<br />
Note.—Private cars belonging to an industry<br />
which does its own switching, placed upon an<br />
interchange track for forwarding and refused by<br />
the carrier's inspector shall be released from<br />
demurrage if withdrawn by the industry from the<br />
interchange track within 24 hours after rejection.<br />
Private cars are not in railroad service—<br />
la) When loaded and unloaded on the tracks<br />
of the owner and not moved over the tracks of a<br />
carrier.<br />
(b) When placed by the carrier for loading<br />
on the tracks of the owner and refused b.v the inspector.<br />
RULE 2—FREE TIME ALLOWED.<br />
(a) When the same car is both unloaded and<br />
reloaded, each transaction will be treated as independent<br />
of the other.<br />
(b) 1. Applies to cars held on carrier line<br />
for disposition. A change of consignee after arrival<br />
of car at destination is not a reconsignment<br />
under these rules, unless a switching movement<br />
covered by a tariff is involved. It also includes<br />
cars held in transit for reconsignment. See also<br />
rule 3 (bi.<br />
It also applies to cars held on the carrier line<br />
within a switching district consigned to a point<br />
on a switching line within such district which<br />
cannot be received on account of disability of the<br />
consignee. The carrier line must in all cases<br />
give notice in writing to the consignee of all cars<br />
so held. Time will be computed in accordance<br />
with rule 3 (b).<br />
RITLE 3 COMPUTING TIME.<br />
Note.—The exemption of holidays does not include<br />
half holidays.<br />
(b) When orders for cars held for disposition<br />
or reconsignment are mailed, such orders will re<br />
lease cars at 7 a. m. of the date orders are received<br />
at the station where the freight is held.<br />
provided the orders are mailed prior to the date<br />
received, but orders mailed and received on the<br />
same date release cars the following 7 a. m.<br />
RULE 4—NOTIFICATION.<br />
When cars are tor delivery to public team (racks,<br />
and placement is delayed For more I ban 24 hours<br />
after notice ol' arrival is given, a notice of placement<br />
must also be given to the consignee, and the<br />
free time for unloading computed according to the<br />
notice of placement.<br />
RULE 7—DEMURRAGE CHARGE.<br />
Charges accruing under these rules must be col<br />
lected in the same manner and with the same<br />
regularity and promptness as other transporta<br />
tion charges.<br />
RULE 8—CLAIMS.<br />
The exemption on account of high water or<br />
snowdrifts applies only when the point at which<br />
car is placed for loading or unloading is inaccessible<br />
to the general public by reason of these<br />
conditions.<br />
PITTSBURGH COMPANY TO OPEN<br />
MINES IN NORTHWESTERN CANADA.<br />
Newspaper dispatches from Edmonton, Al<br />
berta. Can., say that the Great Northwestern Coal<br />
Co. of Pittsburgh, plans to spend millions in Alberta<br />
during the next year or two and has al<br />
ready purchased three large properties in the<br />
vicinity of that city and has opened headquarters<br />
for its operations. One of these mines will be<br />
near St. Albert, another 30 miles up the river<br />
from Edmonton, and the third 100 miles north of<br />
Edmonton.<br />
Each mine will employ 500 men and each is<br />
expected to produce 6,000 or more tons of coal<br />
daily. The majority of these miners will come<br />
from Pittsburgh, from which city the necessary<br />
machinery will be shipped. Offices will also be<br />
opened at Calgary and Lethbridge. O. A. Kraft<br />
will be superintendent of mines in the northern<br />
portion of the province, while another superin<br />
tendent will be appointed for those mines in the<br />
southern portion of the province, which the company<br />
proposes to operate before the end of the<br />
present year.<br />
Small colonies for the miners will be estab<br />
lished by the company in the vicinity of each mine<br />
and representatives of the company, including<br />
H. S. Dormis, promise that conditions will be<br />
such as to attract the miners, for the terms under<br />
which they worl; will be very different to<br />
those prevailing in the other Alberta mines.<br />
Actual construction will start within a week<br />
or two for the company is determined to secure a<br />
strong control of coal output of Alberta, where<br />
the largest coal fields of the Dominion exist.<br />
The Lathrop Coal Co., recently <strong>org</strong>anized by<br />
Mr. W. A. Lathrop, of Philadelphia, and associates,<br />
will shortly commence the development of an 800-<br />
acre tract of coal land at Panther, W. Va. Operations<br />
will be carried on in the No. 2 gas seam<br />
and it is planned to have the product on the mar<br />
ket by next September. William Leckie, of<br />
Welch, general manager of the new concern, will<br />
supervise the development work and the output<br />
will be handled by the West Virginia Pocahontas<br />
Coal Sales Co., of Bluefield.
I THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 2ft<br />
PLAN ANNOUNCED FOR REORGANIZATION<br />
OF PENNSYLVANIA COAL AND COKE<br />
COMPANY.<br />
Following a petition by the Scranton Trust Co.,<br />
to the courts of Lackawanna county, Pa., for the<br />
appointment of a master to sell property of the<br />
Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Co. to satisfy a mortgage<br />
and to raise money for the payment of accrued<br />
interest on bonds, announcement was made<br />
in New York May 23 of a plan for the re<strong>org</strong>anization<br />
of the company. The Scranton Trust Co. is<br />
trustee of the mortgage given by the coal company<br />
to secure a big bond issue. Thomas H. Watkins<br />
is receiver for the coal and coke company.<br />
The re<strong>org</strong>anization plan has been made by a<br />
committee composed of Alexander .1. Hemphill,<br />
of New York, chairman. Clarence D. Simpson, William<br />
A. Lathrop, Stacey C. Richmond and John<br />
Carstensen, and it includes that action taken by<br />
the Scranton Trust Co. in petitioning for a master,<br />
as well as proceedings for the foreclosure of<br />
the consolidated mortgage and the sale of other<br />
properties sold b.v the receiver not subject to the<br />
mortgage. The plan in brief is:<br />
"Bondholders who deposited their securities<br />
with the Guaranty Trust Co. of New York under<br />
the deposit agreement of August 17, 190S. have<br />
been notified that dissent to the plan must be<br />
made before June 10, when the plan will become<br />
effective, unless one-third of the certificates of<br />
deposit dissent.<br />
"The committee has entered into an agreement<br />
with the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation<br />
that, when the properties are acquired by the<br />
committee at foreclosure, all the coal lands and<br />
mines of the Pennsylvania company, with cars,<br />
equipment, tracks, surface lands owned in fee,<br />
buildings, etc., shall be sold and transferred to<br />
the Clearfield company, subject to the lien of<br />
underlying mortgages aggregating $6,823,000 and<br />
car purchase indebtedness amounting to $122,841.<br />
The committee is to receive in payment $2,500,009<br />
face value of the bonds of the Clearfield company,<br />
less an amount equal to the indebtedness of the<br />
receiver to the New York Central & Hudson River<br />
railroad, estimated at $660,137. These bonds are<br />
to be a part of a total of $5,000,000 4'j per cent.<br />
mortgage bonds, maturing January 1, 1932.<br />
"The Clearfield company is lo lease to the new<br />
company to be <strong>org</strong>anized 47,ooo acres of coal<br />
lands owned in fee al a rental of 10 cents a ton<br />
of coal, and 12,000 acres of leasehold coal lands<br />
at a rental of 2 cents a ton on coal mined in excess<br />
of 1,500.000 tons annually, in addition to the<br />
assumption by the new company of rentals, royalties',<br />
and other payments. The new company is<br />
to have a capital stock of $7,500,000."<br />
COURT REFUSES TO SUSTAIN<br />
DEMURRER ENTERED BY FEEHAN.<br />
Robert Gibbons, president of the United Mine<br />
Workers of the Pittsburgh district, won an important<br />
point in his equity suit against Francis<br />
Feehan on May 27. Judge L. L. Davis, in common<br />
pleas court No. 4. overruled the demurrer<br />
filed by the former president of the union. The<br />
case will now be tried on its merits.<br />
Gibbons and the other officers of District No. 5<br />
now feel confident of victory in tlie pending litigation.<br />
They feel confident that, the court will<br />
sustain the allegations on which they base their<br />
suit, in the same manner in which il refused to<br />
entertain ibe demurrer of the defendants.<br />
President Gibbons, together with Abe Kephart,<br />
Thomas Sheehan, Otto Slater, James Sabin, James<br />
Brown, Fred Sample and William P. Friday<br />
brought the suit as a result of alleged irregularities<br />
on the part of the defendants following a<br />
spirited (lection.<br />
When the new officers went into power Feehan<br />
refused to turn ovei to them the books of the<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization, and during the convention and election<br />
Feehan counted the votes of District No. 3,<br />
the Irwin field, for himself, and then claimed<br />
himself elected. The Irwin never was part of<br />
the Pittsburgh district.<br />
On February 2S the miners, outraged by the<br />
alleged irregularities, called a regular convention.<br />
Feehan and his satellites were not present. He<br />
was expelled from his own local, and the convention<br />
expelled him from the <strong>org</strong>anization for a<br />
period of five years for refusing to answer certain<br />
charges against him. Feehan then refused<br />
to recognize President Gibbons.<br />
SIX DAYS WORK FOR EMPLOYES<br />
OF H. C. FRICK COKE COMPANY.<br />
In line with the recent order issued by the<br />
United States Steel Corporation, that no man<br />
shall work more than six days per week, the H.<br />
C. Frick Coke Co. has issued a similar order to<br />
the superintendent at each plant, to take effect<br />
immediately.<br />
The order does nol affect monthly men. applying<br />
only to day men who heretofore have been employed<br />
seven days during the week, including firemen,<br />
pumpers, compressor, fan and dynamo men<br />
and others performing work requiring constant attention.<br />
It will affect, on an average, probably seven<br />
men at each plant, which means that, at the 70<br />
planls of the Frick Co. in the neighborhood of<br />
500 men will come under the rule requiring just
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
that many more men to perform their duties on<br />
the seventh day.<br />
Some of these men have been working seven<br />
days a week for years, not because they were compelled<br />
to in all cases; but as a matter of choice,<br />
and these men are not pleased with the change.<br />
The order, however, will be strictly enforced, as it<br />
is conceded that better results will be obtained<br />
by giving all employes one day's rest in seven.<br />
GEORGIA'S COAL DEPOSITS<br />
COVER SMALL TERRITORY.<br />
According to S. W. McCallie. state geologist, the<br />
coal deposits of Ge<strong>org</strong>ia are confined to Lookout,<br />
Sand and Pigeon mountains, which are located<br />
in the extreme northwestern part of the state in<br />
Walker, Chattooga and Dade counties. The<br />
deposits of Walker county occur in Pigeon mountain<br />
and along the eastern side of Lookout mountain.<br />
The most valuable coal seams of this<br />
county are those in the vicinity of the Durham<br />
mines, located on what is known as Round mountain,<br />
a small elevation near the central axis of<br />
Lookout mountain.<br />
The deposits of Chattooga county are limited to<br />
a small area in its extreme northwestern corner<br />
along the Ge<strong>org</strong>ia-Alabama line. The exposures<br />
of coal here, as in Walker county, are near or on<br />
the eastern brow of Lookout mountain at an elevation<br />
from 500 to 600 feet above the valley.<br />
This county, so far, has produced no coal, but.<br />
nevertheless, there are a number of places where<br />
promising exposures' occur.<br />
The coal area of Dade county exceeds that of<br />
any other county in the state. The deposits are<br />
confined to the western side of Lookout, and the<br />
northern portion of Sand mountain. The main<br />
coal mines of this county are on Sand mountain,<br />
in the vicinity of Cole City. In addition to these<br />
workings, there has also been a limited amount of<br />
coal mined near Rising Fawn, in the southwestern<br />
part of the county, only a short distance from<br />
the Ge<strong>org</strong>ia-Alabama line. The total coal area<br />
of Ge<strong>org</strong>ia is approximately 170 square miles.<br />
The coal deposits of Ge<strong>org</strong>ia occur in both the<br />
lower and upper coal measures. The lower coal<br />
measures consist of what is known as the Lookout<br />
sandstone, which is made up of sandstone,<br />
conglomerate, shales and coal. The formation<br />
varies in thickness in northwest Ge<strong>org</strong>ia from 300<br />
to 400 feet. The upper beds of the Lookout formation<br />
are made up chiefly of sandstone, with<br />
thin beds of argillaceous shale, and from two to<br />
five coal seams. The lower portion of the lowei<br />
coal measure consists of red and gray shales, with<br />
a few thin beds of sandstone and limestone. Associated<br />
with the shales are a few thin beds of<br />
number as the Bangor limestone, the lower member,<br />
is approached. At some points along the<br />
western slope of Lookout mountain the sandy<br />
shales above referred to contain numerous fossils,<br />
the most abundant being bryozoa and fragments<br />
of crinoid stems.<br />
The upper coal measures include a silicious<br />
series of rocks known as the Walden sandstone.<br />
It forms the upper member of the sandstone and<br />
conglomerates of Lookout, Sand and Pigeon mountains.<br />
The formation, which is made up of<br />
sandstone, conglomerates and shale, with from<br />
two to seven seams of coal, attains its greatest<br />
thickness at Round mountain in the vicinity of<br />
the Durham coal mines. Its approximate thickness<br />
at this point has been placed by Hayes at<br />
930 feet.<br />
Prior to 1891 all of the coal mined in Ge<strong>org</strong>ia<br />
was obtained from Dade county, in the vicinity<br />
of Cole City. The first mines operated in this<br />
district were opened by Gordon & Russell more<br />
than half a century ago, and the coal was hauled<br />
by wagon to Shellmound, a distance of about 6<br />
miles. Active mining operations might be said<br />
to have begun at Round mountain, in 1891, a few<br />
months previous to the completion of the Chickamauga<br />
and Durham railroad to that point. The<br />
first shipments were made in 1892, since which<br />
date the mines have been in continuous operation.<br />
At the present time the mines in the vicinity of<br />
Round mountain are producing daily about 700<br />
tons, which is used.chiefly for steam and coking<br />
purposes.<br />
The coal production of Ge<strong>org</strong>ia for 1909 was<br />
211.196 short tons, valued at $298,792. which was<br />
a decided decrease in output as compared with<br />
1907 and 1908. This fall off in production is reported<br />
to be due largely to the withdrawal of the<br />
convicts from the mines and the inability of the<br />
companies to obtain free labor. The decrease in<br />
tonnage for 1909 was partially offset by a larger<br />
relative return to the operators as shown by the<br />
average price per ton.<br />
Recently the Coal Team Owners' Association of<br />
Chicago signed up a new contract with the Coal<br />
Teamsters' Union. The teamsters agreed to work<br />
for the remainder of this year at the old scale<br />
of wages, with the understanding that at the end<br />
of the year they were to enter upon a three-year<br />
contract, which allows them 25 cents a day increase<br />
over what they are now getting. This<br />
arrangement seems satisfactory to all concerned.<br />
The Davis Coal Co.. just <strong>org</strong>anized by Harry<br />
Davis, John H. Cooney. Attorney Dan L. Parsons,<br />
the Kimball estate. Ira Bloom, and others, of<br />
Johnstown. Pa., will develop 250 acres of coal<br />
limestone. These calcareous beds increase in_, >u,near Conemaugh, Pa.
CHIEF OF DEPARTMENT OF MINES JOHN<br />
LAING, OF W. VA., PROMULGATES NEW<br />
RULE RELATIVE TO SHOOTING IN MINES.<br />
Chief of the Department of Mines of West Virginia<br />
has promulgated a rule that in all dry and<br />
dusty mines expert shot firers must be employed<br />
and has instructed his inspectors to enforce the<br />
new rule.<br />
The new rule was announced following the explosion<br />
at Elk Garden April 24, when 23 men<br />
lost their lives. In discussing the explosion and<br />
his ruling, Mr. Laing said:<br />
This mine is owned by the Davis Coal & Coke<br />
Co. and is operated in the Lower Kittanning<br />
seam. It is located on the Western Maryland<br />
railroad. The coal is about 4'2 feet high; the<br />
seam is very irregular and is full of rolls, clay<br />
veins, etc.<br />
The mine is very dry and dusty and explosive<br />
gas was known to be liberated in some sections.<br />
This was local, however, and at no time was the<br />
mine known to liberate gas in dangerous quantities.<br />
Immediately after the explosion a rescue party<br />
was <strong>org</strong>anized by Superintendent Robert Grant<br />
and work was at once begun to repair the mine<br />
and reach the entombed men. Five miners—<br />
whose names I do not now remember—escaped<br />
from the mine after the explosion. These men<br />
were working in a section near the crop and<br />
almost one mile distant from where the explosion<br />
occurred, and by reason of the mine's being very<br />
wet between where they were working and where<br />
the explosion occurred, it had the effect of stopping<br />
the explosion before it reached them, and<br />
they were enabled to reach the surface in safety.<br />
The fan being a force fan, was not damaged,<br />
and the rescue work proceeded without hindrance.<br />
It was some time before the rescue party could<br />
enter the mine, as it was not deemed advisable to<br />
reverse the air current for fear that some of the<br />
men might be on the airway.<br />
Deputy Mine Inspector Plaster reached the<br />
mine on Monday night and assisted with the rescue<br />
work. Inspectors Connor and Martin reached<br />
the mine on Tuesday morning and also assisted<br />
in recovering the bodies. On the morning of<br />
the 27th, sixteen mine experts accompanied me<br />
and made a detailed examination of the mine for<br />
the purpose of investigating and determining, if<br />
possible, the origin and cause of the explosion.<br />
On arriving at the working face of what is<br />
known as the "dean air course," we discovered<br />
a shot had been fired in the left side of the said<br />
air course, and that a hole had been drilled directly<br />
in the solid. This air course had just<br />
struck what is known as a "fault" or clay vein,<br />
and the intention in drilling the hole was to<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
make a mining in the rock so that the top slate<br />
could be blasted down afterwards.<br />
Where the hole was drilled, there was a streak<br />
of coal about two inches thick, and thcy had<br />
bored the hole in this coal and when the shot<br />
went off it blew this coal straight back in the<br />
airway, which was heavily charged with fine coal<br />
dust, as shots had been fired a few minutes previous<br />
to this one in this entry, causing this dust<br />
to be already in suspension.<br />
As evidence that this shot had just been fired<br />
and was the cause of the explosion, one of the<br />
men who worked in this entry was found lying<br />
with his hands still gripped to a battery, which<br />
was used to explode the shots and the wires<br />
from the battery were traced directly to where<br />
the shot had been fired. This man was quite<br />
badly burned and showed signs that he had been<br />
killed almost instantly when the shot went off.<br />
The force of the explosion was easily traced from<br />
this point through the entire mine, as all the<br />
brattices, mine cars, etc., were thrown towards<br />
the outside from this point and in no other pari<br />
of the mine was there any signs of flame or of<br />
an explosion having occurred.<br />
After a thorough examination of the mine b.v<br />
these experts, it was very easily determined that<br />
had the mine been damp the disaster would nol<br />
have been as widespread as it was. aud there<br />
is no doubt in the minds of any of the gentlemen<br />
who investigated the explosion that dust was<br />
the main factor in the explosion. While the<br />
mine was known to liberate a small amount of<br />
gas, it was quite evident that gas was not the<br />
cause of the explosion as the men had been at<br />
work with naked lights at the face of their working<br />
places.<br />
The rules' of the mine were that no black<br />
powder should be used in the mine, and that a<br />
permissible explosive known as "Monobelle" was<br />
the only explosive permitted by the district mine<br />
inspector and the company, and while it would<br />
be unfair, perhaps, to say that black powder was<br />
used in the shot that caused the explosion, we<br />
have every reason to believe that il had been,<br />
as we found black powder in the mine, which<br />
was proof to us that the miners were using it<br />
even against the advice of the district mine inspector<br />
and the rules of the company. My own<br />
convictions are, that if the hole referred to had<br />
been properly charged and a permissible explosive<br />
used exclusively, the accident would not<br />
have happened. Because of the violation of<br />
instructions, this man took his own life and the<br />
lives of 22 others.<br />
The only possible way that the department can<br />
avoid accidents of this kind is to prohibit absolutely<br />
any shooting of any kind or character in<br />
mines that are dry and dusty during the day or
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
while men are at work, and require that expert<br />
shot firers be employed for the purpose oi doing<br />
all the blasting after all men have left the mine.<br />
A ruling of this kind will for a short time<br />
work more or less hardship on the miners, and<br />
perhaps curtail the output of the mine, but it is<br />
the only way that i see to prevent a repetition<br />
of the accident, and I have issued a circular letter<br />
to each of the inspectors of the different dis<br />
tricts to put such ruling into torce at once, as<br />
we cannot permit dangers of this kind lo exist<br />
where every man's life is depending on the most<br />
reckless miner.<br />
We expect to meet with some complaints against<br />
and opposition to this order, but we propose to<br />
execute it regardless of how it may be approved<br />
of by either miners or operators.'<br />
FRANK FEEHAN IS SAID TO HAVE PUT<br />
BLACK LIST INTO USE AGAINST E. S.<br />
McCULLOUGH.<br />
In concluding a signed article on "The Black<br />
list," contributed to the May 15 issue of the In<br />
dustrial Index, of Columbus, 0., ex-President<br />
Thomas L. Lewis, of the United Mine Workers<br />
of America, says:<br />
"With all the denunciation of the 'Blacklist' by<br />
<strong>org</strong>anized labor, and with all the protests against<br />
such a system of punishment, it is being revived<br />
in the Pittsburgh district of Pennsylvania by<br />
Frank Feehan, an individual who claims to be a<br />
union man.<br />
"Recently E. S. McCullough, former interna<br />
tional vice president of the United Mine Workei s<br />
of America, decided to locate in Western Penn-<br />
vania and he secured employment at a mine near<br />
Monongahela City and then rented a house in<br />
which to live. When he went to the mine to<br />
start to work, he was told that he could not start.<br />
McCullough asked for the reason and was told<br />
that Frank Feehan bad given orders to the com<br />
pany that if E. S. McCullough was permitted to<br />
start to work in that mine, the men would be<br />
ordered on strike. The miners in that mine<br />
would not strike against McCullough and the company<br />
was threatened with an order to call out<br />
the men at their other mines. Under the cir<br />
cumstances McCullough was not permitted to start<br />
to work. He secured employment at another<br />
mine with the same result.<br />
"What do the mine workers of the country and<br />
especially the United Mine Workers of America,<br />
think of the sincerity or honesty of Frank Fee-<br />
han's unionism? What do the mine workers of<br />
the country and <strong>org</strong>anized labor think of Frank<br />
Feehan's action in coercing a coal company to<br />
use the "Blacklist" against E. S. McCullough<br />
under a threat of calling a strike and closing the<br />
mine?<br />
"Is there any wonder that the mine workers of<br />
Western Pennsylvania are disgusted with Frank<br />
Feehan and his methods? Is there any wonder<br />
that the <strong>org</strong>anized mine workers of the Pitts<br />
burgh district are convinced that Frank Feehan<br />
cannot longer serve the interests of the mine<br />
workers?<br />
"To those who know Frank Feehan and his<br />
methods, his conduct is no surprise. Will the<br />
mine workers of the country stand for such labor<br />
union crushing tactics to be used to drive a union<br />
miner out of Western Pennsylvania? What is<br />
to become of the United Mine Workers of America<br />
under the control of such individuals as Frank<br />
Feehan? There is a storm gathering and when<br />
the miners of the country know the facts in re<br />
gard to a certain coterie of individuals who are<br />
regarded as officers of the <strong>org</strong>anization, there will<br />
be a lightning change in the policies, laws and<br />
methods of conducting the business of the <strong>org</strong>ani<br />
zation."<br />
APRIL LAKE LEVELS.<br />
The United States lake survey reports the<br />
stages of the great lakes for the month of April,<br />
1911, as follows:<br />
Feet above tide-<br />
Lakes, water. New York.<br />
Superior 600.61<br />
Michigan-Huron 579.44<br />
Erie 571.45<br />
Ontario 245.44<br />
Lake Superior is O.os foot lower than last<br />
month, l.ol feet lower than a year ago, 1.33 feet<br />
below the average stage of April of the last 10<br />
years, 1.64 feet below the high stage of April,<br />
1905. and 0.17 foot below the low stage of April,<br />
1880. It will probably rise 0.3 foot during May.<br />
Lakes Michigan-Huron are 0.14 foot higher than<br />
last month, 0.80 foot lower than a year ago, 1.11<br />
feet below the average stage of April of the last<br />
10 years, 3.79 feet below the high stage of April,<br />
1886, and 0.22 feet above the low stage of April.<br />
1896. They will probably rise 0.3 foot during<br />
May.<br />
Lake Erie is 0.4S foot higher than last month,<br />
0.63 foot lower than a year ago, 0.86 foot below<br />
the average stage of April of the last 10 years,<br />
2.34 feet below the high stage of April, 1884, and<br />
0.19 foot above the low stage of April, 1895. It<br />
will probably rise 0.3 foot during May.<br />
Lake Ontario is 0.48 foot higher than last<br />
month, 0.53 foot lower than a year ago, 0.94 foot<br />
lower than the average stage of April of the last<br />
10 years, 2.99 feet below the high stage of April.<br />
1886, and 0.57 foot above the low stage of April,<br />
1895. It will probably rise 0.3 foot during May.
Fires in mines are a far greater menace to life<br />
and property than is generally appreciated. Two<br />
of the most serious disasters in coal mines within<br />
the last two years—one at Cherry, 111., and the<br />
other at Pancoast mine, near Scranton, Pa., originated<br />
from trivial causes. Two of the most destructive<br />
disasters in metal mines in the last<br />
year—Tonopah, Nev., and Copper Hill, Tenn., resulted<br />
from similar causes. At Deadwood, S. D.,<br />
$1,000,000 has been spent in fighting a metal mine<br />
fire.<br />
Moreover, there are fires raging in coal and<br />
metal mines in various parts of the country,<br />
which, having gotten beyond control, have burned<br />
for many years, devouring hundreds of thousands<br />
of tons of coal and miles of mine galleries. Of<br />
these fires, one near Carbondale, Pa., has burned<br />
out such a vast area of anthracite coal in the<br />
past 10 years as to result in subsidence of the<br />
surface and destruction of surface property. Near<br />
Summit Hill, Pa., a fire is estimated to have destroyed<br />
$26,000,000 worth of coal after burning<br />
51 years'. Near Jobs, Ohio, a tract of coal valued<br />
at several million dollars has been burning<br />
since 1884.<br />
In some of the deeper metal mines at Butte,<br />
Mont., fires have been burning in the old mine<br />
timbers since 1889. In the Comstock vein in<br />
Nervada, thousands of feet of tunnels which had<br />
been opened and timbered at great expense are<br />
being burned out. causing falling of the roof<br />
and dislocation of the metal-bearing vein, thus<br />
rendering future recovery of the ore difficult if<br />
not impossible.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
MINE FIRES : ' :<br />
By Herbert M. Wilson. Chief Engineer U. S. Bureau of Mines.<br />
On the afternoon of November 13, 1909, the<br />
Cherry mine near Chicago, 111., was fired with<br />
the result that 262 lives were lost and the property<br />
seriously damaged, in addition to the damage<br />
assessed upon the owners for the benefit of<br />
the families of those who perished. The evidence<br />
indicates that the fire was caused by a<br />
pit car loaded with several bales of hay intended<br />
for the mule stable in the third vein. It is believed<br />
that this car was placed under or in contact<br />
with a blazing torch or open miner's lamp<br />
placed to give light to the cagers. Possibly, the<br />
oil, which was kerosene, dropped from the torch<br />
to the hay. However, the hay was fired and<br />
there being an air current having a velocity of<br />
700 feet per minute, the overhead timbers, manway<br />
and air shaft were quickly fired. This<br />
effectually shut off ingress and egress to the<br />
mine and imprisoned within it 484 men who<br />
*A lecture delivered by Herbert M. Wilson. Chief Engineer<br />
of the Bureau of Mines, before the National Fire Protection<br />
Association, at its Annual Meeting, in New York. May 25.<br />
were at work in the mine at the time. The cost<br />
of this fire was about $1,000,000, of which $50,000<br />
a day was spent in direct fire fighting for many<br />
days.<br />
An April 7, 1911, a fire was started in the Pancoast<br />
mine near Scranton, Pa., which resulted in<br />
the loss of 74 lives, leaving 45 widows and 137<br />
dependent orphans; as well as causing the destruction<br />
of much valuable property. This fire<br />
is known to have started in an underground room.<br />
presumably from some oil-soaked waste which<br />
fired some boxes and other inflammable material<br />
carelessly left near.<br />
The fire was not thought serious until it had<br />
been burning two hours. This delay was, in<br />
large measure, responsible for the great loss of<br />
life. A fire started February 22. 1911, in the<br />
1166-foot level of Belmont mine at Tonopah, Nev.,<br />
which resulted in the loss of 17 lives and partial<br />
destruction of the property.<br />
The London mine of the Tennessee Copper Co.<br />
was fired on November 29. 1909, by sparks from<br />
a shifting engine lighting the top house. Embers<br />
fell down the shaft and the smoke and flames<br />
imprisoned 54 men who were later rescued.<br />
Much damage resulted to the property.<br />
It is evident from the above that most mine fires<br />
have their origin in trivial causes, which, were<br />
proper means at hand and proper fire rules in<br />
force, might be quickly extinguished.<br />
The nature of the combustible material found<br />
in metal mines offers varying but usually good<br />
opportunities for the spreading of a fire. While<br />
the progress of a fire might, at first, be slow, in<br />
some cases it may spread quickly and involve a<br />
large area and result in tremendous damage if not<br />
promptly extinguished.<br />
A careful study of the origin, history and methods<br />
of combating nearly all of the mine fires<br />
which have occurred since the creation of the<br />
mine accidents division of the Geological Survey<br />
in 1907. and its present successor, the Bureau of<br />
Mines, has been made b.v the mining engineers<br />
of the latter <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
It is believed from this study that the introduction<br />
of comparatively inexpensive fire-fighting<br />
appliances, the adoption of proper regulations,<br />
and the institution of a reasonable system of<br />
fire drills may minimize fires and confine others<br />
to a brief period of time with little damage to<br />
life and property.<br />
Among the most fruitful causes of mine fires<br />
studied in the above period are, in approximate<br />
order of importance, the ignition of timbers,<br />
wooden stoppings, and brattice cloths; hay or
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
oil-soaked materials by open torches; the igni<br />
tion of coal by blown-out shots or explosions of<br />
fire damp or coal dust, or the improper use of<br />
explosives. Surface fires communicated to the<br />
mine through the shaft or tunnel; underground<br />
furnaces and boiler plants; ignition by friction<br />
on oily, wooden rollers or rope haulage-ways, fires<br />
occasioned by spontaneous combustion of coal,<br />
timber or greasy waste.<br />
The engineers of the Bureau of Mines have<br />
adopted as the most effective means of exploring<br />
and in the earlier stage ol combatting mine fires,<br />
the use of the oxygen helmet. This is an ap<br />
paratus which entirely protects the head, and<br />
through which air is furnished artificially—thus<br />
enabling the wearer to explore the vicinity of a<br />
tiie under conditions of smoke and gas which<br />
would render his approach otherwise impossible.<br />
By the use of such apparatus a number of fires<br />
have, within the last few years been promptly<br />
extinguished which would doubtless otherwise<br />
have spread and perhaps extended beyond control.<br />
The Bureau of Mines encourages the treatment of<br />
wood and brattice cloths and other inflammable<br />
materials with fire-proofing substances. Chem<br />
istry, through the quick analysis of gases sampled<br />
at frequent intervals in the neighborhood of the<br />
fire has proven a most useful adjunct in fighting<br />
fires. B.v this means it is found possible to<br />
stop off the fire and by pumping in carbonic acid<br />
or smothering it with water, to determine by the<br />
progress of the analysis, the condition of com<br />
bustion; thus ascertaining with assurance the<br />
time when the fire may have been extinguished<br />
or may call for further combatting.<br />
To a body of men familiar with the subject as<br />
you are it seems unnecessary to call attention to<br />
the necessity of providing at each mine ample<br />
storage supplies of water under proper head and<br />
properly conveyed in protected pipes to possible<br />
danger points. To the desirability of employing<br />
larger amounts of non-inflammable material in<br />
place of wooden mine timbering or wooden doors;<br />
the proper regulation of the disposal of waste;<br />
cleanliness, whereby grease or oil-soaked material<br />
shall not be permitted; proper inspection of steain<br />
pipes and boiler plants to insure their insulation;<br />
fire-proof man-ways and air shafts: proper<br />
fire protection and the use of non-inflammable ma<br />
terial so far as iiossible in all top works and<br />
other surface structures within 50 to 100 feet<br />
of the main opening.<br />
Aside from these well known measures there<br />
are others which the engineers of tlie Bureau of<br />
Mines would suggest, such as careful examination<br />
of the working face after filing each shol ; keep<br />
ing barrels of water or boxes ol' sand convenient<br />
to points at which explosives are being used;<br />
keeping open lights away from the working face<br />
for some time after firing the shot; disconnection<br />
of electric wires before shot firing; proper atten<br />
tion to all electric wires and their insulation at<br />
danger points; examination of the manner of<br />
liberation of explosive gases; use of safety lamps<br />
or lanterns instead of open lamps in the neigh<br />
borhood of all inflammable materials when en<br />
gaged on repairing wooden stoppings or examing<br />
for air leakage, etc. A proper system of<br />
fire alarm signals should be installed in every<br />
mine and should be tested at suitable intervals<br />
and underground employes should be familiar<br />
with the signals through frequent drills. Tbe<br />
water supply for mines is usually such as to render<br />
desirable the use of nozzles of as small<br />
diameter as one-half to three-quarters of an inch.<br />
As high pressure as is reasonably attainable, say<br />
not under 50 pounds per square inch should be<br />
furnished, for the reason that the trajectory of<br />
the jet of water must be very low, since the hose<br />
must be used in tunnels often under 5 feet and<br />
rarely over 6 or 7 feet in height. In consequence,<br />
the nozzle can be elevated only at a very low<br />
angle and the jet can be thrown a comparatively<br />
short distance. By test under 20 pounds pressure<br />
only 23 feet; under 30 pounds pressure, 30<br />
feet; 40 pounds, 34 feet.<br />
From the foregoing it is evident that the ques<br />
tion of mine fires, their causes, possible means of<br />
prevention, and combatting is one well within<br />
the province of the Bureau of Mines and one<br />
which demands the serious attention of all persons<br />
concerned in the operation of mining property<br />
or in the protection or insurance of property<br />
against fire.<br />
LORAIN COAL AND DOCK COMPANY<br />
BUYS BELMONT COAL MINING COMPANY.<br />
The Lorain Coal & Dock Co.. of Columbus, O.,<br />
has purchased the three operating mines and<br />
6,800 acres of coal of the Belmont Coal Mining<br />
Co.. of Pittsburgh. The price paid is reported<br />
to be $1,200,000.<br />
The properties are in the heart of the No. 8<br />
vein coal field of Ohio, with the mines located<br />
at Glencoe and Neff, on the Baltimore & Ohio<br />
and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railroads in Belmont<br />
county. Each mine is thoroughly modern,<br />
operated with electrical equipment and haulage<br />
and the three have a total daily capacity of 2,500<br />
tons of coal, much of which is shipped to the<br />
lakes.<br />
The Belmont Coal Mining Co. has been under<br />
ihe direction of Thomas K. Maher. vice president<br />
and. general manager, of Pittsburgh. Mr. Maher<br />
is president of the Eastern Ohio Coal Operators'<br />
Association.
INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION GIVES<br />
FURTHER HEARING ON LAKE COAL RATE<br />
COMPLAINT.<br />
The hearing on the complaint of the Pittsburgh<br />
coal operators was resumed before the Interstate<br />
Commerce Commission at Washington, D. C, May<br />
21. Included in the coal men present were Alexander<br />
Dempster, J. H. Sanfoid. W. R. Woodford,<br />
John G. Patterson, James Geegan, Cyrus C. Woods,<br />
Charles Johnson, of Pittsburgh; Isaac W. Semans,<br />
W. A. Stone, T. Plackey and E. H. Reppert, of<br />
Uniontown.<br />
Witnesses testified that the rate for hauling coal<br />
isalmost 6 mills per ton per mile from the Pittsburgh<br />
district, and 2.3 mills per ton per mile from<br />
the West Virginia fields to the lakes, notwithstanding<br />
the longer haul from the latter fields.<br />
Attorney Wade Ellis developed from witnesses<br />
that the railroads carry more ore from Ashtabula<br />
Harbor to Pittsburgh than they carry coal<br />
from Pittsburgh to Ashtabula Harbor, thus getting<br />
revenue on both hauls, while in the case or<br />
West Virginia coal, there was only a haul of<br />
coal to the lakes with no back haul of ore or anything<br />
else.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e M. Glazier, auditor for the Lake Shore<br />
& Michigan Southern; H. Brownley, general coal<br />
and ore agent for the New York Central lines<br />
west, and F. P. Davis, secretary of the Ohio Coal<br />
Traffic Association, testified as to tonnage of coal<br />
to the lakes, rates per mile, etc.<br />
John G Patterson, of the Youghiogheny & Ohio<br />
Coal Co., the principal witness of the third day's<br />
hearing, declared that at two of the mines of<br />
his company during the past year, they mined<br />
coal at a cost of $1.10 per ton. and sold it at<br />
$1.06 per ton. Mr. Patterson agreed to exhibit<br />
the books of his company to bear out this statement<br />
if the carriers would also show their books<br />
on the subject of the transportation of lake coal.<br />
Mr. Patterson when called to the stand stated<br />
that the complaint filed represented the views of<br />
the Pittsburgh operators generally. He said that<br />
with the present rates from Pittsburgh to Ashta<br />
bula, the West Virginia operators would drive the<br />
Pittsburgh operators out of that particular lake<br />
trade.<br />
"I hate to admit it," said Mr. Patterson, "but<br />
last year at two of our mines it cost us $1.10 to<br />
mine coal which we sold at $1.06 per ton."<br />
Mr. Butterfield. for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie<br />
railroad, in cross-examining Mr. Patterson, drew<br />
attention to the fact that as the result of the informal<br />
complaints of the Pittsburgh operators in<br />
the early part of 1909 the differential on West<br />
Virginia coal was increased 9 V. cents in addition<br />
to the 24 cents then and now existing; that this<br />
increase was enjoined by the courts, and ultimately<br />
suspended by the Interstate Commerce<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
Commission and is now under consideration. Mr.<br />
Butterfield then drew attention to a statement in<br />
the letter which Mr. Patterson had read, sent by<br />
the Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association to the<br />
railroads, that the carriers were not fighting this<br />
injunction as vigorously as they might; in other<br />
words, were not acting in good faith, and thai.<br />
therefore, the operators would appeal to the Interstate<br />
Commerce Commission. This indicated,<br />
Mr. Butterfield said, that the Pittsburgh operators<br />
themselves were satisfied with the adjustment of<br />
9% cents per ton additional on West Virginia<br />
coal, and it was no fault of the carriers that the<br />
adjustment had not been made effective because<br />
it had been enjoined by a court and subsequently<br />
suspended by the Interstate Commerce Commission.<br />
"So far as the Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association<br />
is concerned," said Mr. Butterfield to Mr.<br />
Patterson. "I would be willing for the commission<br />
to allow that increase of 9'_. cents a ton as<br />
a test to see if that was a sufficient spread of the<br />
differential?"<br />
"I do not believe it would be." replied Mr. Patterson.<br />
"As an association you have not brought pro<br />
ceedings to bring about the lowering of the rate?"<br />
"Not as a body, but this complaint represents<br />
the views of every operator in the district."<br />
Mr. Patterson said that the going into effect<br />
of the 9V. cents additional per ton on West Virginia<br />
coal would be "an imposition on the consumer,"<br />
but might possibly help the Pittsburgh<br />
operators a little, but not appreciably.<br />
Mr. Patterson declared that the proposition to<br />
make the increase of 9% cents on West Virginia<br />
coal did not come from the Pittsburgh operators,<br />
but that it satisfied some who agreed to make a<br />
trial of this additional widening of the differential.<br />
Mr. J. H. Sanford, vice president and general<br />
manager of the Carnegie Coal Co., and president<br />
of the J. H. Sanford Co.. said that the companies<br />
he represented operated in the Panhandle district<br />
of the Pittsburgh field. He said that the complaint<br />
filed by Mr. Boileau represented his views.<br />
He protested against the 88-cent rate. He had<br />
talked with a majority of the operators and they<br />
also agreed with the complaint, but were reluctant<br />
to make formal protest, fearing to arouse Ihe displeasure<br />
of the railroads. In some instances, he<br />
said, the railroads were good customers and in<br />
others the operators thought the railroads would<br />
retaliate. They could retaliate by shutting off<br />
a railroad order, and if an operator who complained<br />
wanted to open up a new mine the railroad<br />
could make it difficult for the operator to<br />
obtain a new siding. Mr. Sanford stated, however,<br />
the operators did not fear retaliation, as in
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
times gone by. "There was a time." he said,<br />
"when the railroads were vindictive to anyone<br />
who demanded his rights."<br />
Mr. Sanford. in answer to a question by Mr.<br />
Ellis, declared that W. A. Terry, assistant freight<br />
traffic manager of the New York Central lines<br />
west, told him that his road would reduce their<br />
rate, but if it did the West Virginia roads might<br />
come down 40 cents a ton.<br />
"Is he the gentleman who stated on tbe stand<br />
at the beginning of this hearing that he had made<br />
no such statement?"<br />
"Yes," replied Mr. Sanford, "he is.<br />
Among other things, Mr. Sanford said the cost<br />
of production in West Virginia was lower than in<br />
the Pittsourgh district largely necause non-union<br />
labor was employed, stating that the West Vir<br />
ginia operators could produce coal 35 cents a tor,<br />
less than the Pittsburgh operators.<br />
Frank B. Davis of Columbus, secretary of the<br />
Ohio Coal Traffic Association, an agent of the<br />
Ohio railroads, produced figures showing that the<br />
tonnage of lake coal from the Pittsburgh district<br />
to Ashtabula Harbor over the Pennsylvania lines<br />
in 1910 was 2.593,214 tons, and over the Pittsburgh<br />
& Lake Erie. 2,221.312 tons, on which 88<br />
cents a ton was charged.<br />
The hearing was adjourned May 26 to be resumed<br />
June 21, at Washington.<br />
CHANGES IN CONSOLIDATION<br />
COAL COMPANY OFFICIALS.<br />
Mr. Harry H. Watson has been promoted to the<br />
position of manager of the West Virginia divi<br />
sion of the Consolidation Coal Co., and Mr. A. B.<br />
Fleming, Jr.. has been advanced to the position<br />
of assistant to Mr. Watson. Both gentlemen<br />
were superintendents of districts in the West<br />
Virginia division and are practical mining men.<br />
Following the promotions above, other changes<br />
announced are: Mr. J. J. Brennen, inspector, is<br />
transferred to mine No. 38, as superintendent, vice<br />
Mr. C. E. Gaskell. Mr. Gaskell is transferred<br />
to mines 50 and 62, as superintendent, vice Mr.<br />
A. D. M<strong>org</strong>an. Mr. M<strong>org</strong>an is transferred to No.<br />
21 as superintendent, vice Mr. K. D. Bailey. Mr.<br />
Bailey is transferred to No. 67 and 84, vice Mr.<br />
A. Brooks Fleming, Jr., named as assistant man<br />
ager of the West Virginia division.<br />
Mr. Homer Ice, assistant superintendent at Nos.<br />
32, 40 and 49, has been made superintendent of 49.<br />
vice Mr. H. H. Watson, made manager of the<br />
division. Mr. .Tosiah Keeley. pay clerk at No. 21,<br />
made superintendent of No. 32. Mr. L. E. Dorsey<br />
of No. 35 made superintendent of that mine,<br />
vice Mr. J. R. Elfess. Mr. C. H. Higgenbottom,<br />
foreman No. 66, made superintendent of same<br />
mine.<br />
MICHIGAN-OHIO-INDIANA COAL ASSOCIA<br />
TION WILL HAVE GOOD PROGRAM AT<br />
MEETING.<br />
Secretary H. D. Mannington, of the Michigan-<br />
Ohio-Indiana Coal Association has issued the fol<br />
lowing tentative program for the annual meeting<br />
at Detroit, Mich.. June 20, 21 and 22:<br />
Tuesday, June 20.—No association meeting will<br />
be held this lay. which will be devoted to the<br />
reception and registration of members and visit<br />
ing coal men, the renewal of old and new ac<br />
quaintances, visiting and sight-seeing.<br />
Members and their friends are requested to<br />
register with the secretary immediately upon arrival<br />
when they will be provided with badges<br />
entitling them to the entertainment provided.<br />
The complete program, so far as the formal<br />
part of it is concerned, is not yet ready for an<br />
nouncement, but so far as the announcements can<br />
be made it is as follows:<br />
Wednesday, June 21. 9 a. m.—Association meet<br />
ing; address of welcome b.v Mayor Johnson; response<br />
by Robert Lake, president of the associa<br />
tion; President's annual address; report of board<br />
of directors; report of the secretary and the treasurer.<br />
This session will continue until such hour as<br />
adjournment is desired.<br />
At 7 p. m. the visiting coal men will leave the<br />
wharf on special boat provided for moonlight<br />
ride to St. Clair Flats returning about midnight.<br />
On this occasion the association members will be<br />
the guests of the people of Detroit under the<br />
auspices of the local committee of arrangements,<br />
and will be regaled with music and refreshments<br />
en route.<br />
Thursday, June 22. 9 a. m.—Association meet<br />
ing. This session will conclude not later than<br />
1 p. m. when adjournment for the day will be<br />
taken. One hour for luncheon and one-half hour<br />
to assemble at the wharf for a boat trip to the<br />
Solvay Collieries plant, hoat leaving al 2.30 sharp.<br />
On this occasion association members' will be<br />
guests of the Solvay Collieries during a 15-mile<br />
ride down the Detroit river to the plan 1 ,. This<br />
will be a delightful trip during which visitors<br />
will be entertained with music and luncheon and<br />
an opportunity afforded to visit the great Solvay<br />
plant and its product-recovery ovens. The trip<br />
will consume about four hours.<br />
At 10 o'clock on Wednesday. June 21, the visiting<br />
ladies of the association will be given an<br />
automobile ride, which vill consume about two<br />
and one-half hours, during which visits will be<br />
made to Belle Isle. Grosse Point and the manufacturing<br />
and residential districts of Detroit.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
SOME SPECIAL USES OF CONCRETE IN MINING"'<br />
By Ge<strong>org</strong>e S. Rice.<br />
Mining Engineer in Charge of Mine Investigations. U. S Bureau of Mines. Pittsburgh. Pa.<br />
Concrete is not unknown to miners; apart from<br />
its uses in foundations for machinery, it has been<br />
employed for many years to plaster mine stoppings<br />
and dams built of brick or stone, to render<br />
them comparatively water or gas tight.<br />
within the last few years, contemporaneously with<br />
the advance of the science of reinforcing concrete,<br />
the general use of concrete in mining<br />
operations has been enormously extended. Today,<br />
practically all foundations for mine buildings<br />
and machinery are built of concrete, and<br />
many buildings, coal bins, lofty chimneys, and<br />
even a large anthracite breaker have been built<br />
of reinforced concrete. In many of the large<br />
new mining plants, concrete has entered extensively<br />
into construction underground, replacing<br />
wood, iron, brick and stone. Its use for various<br />
purposes in and about the mines is rapidly extending,<br />
as its merits are better understood. The<br />
possibilities of underground application appear to<br />
widen iconstantly, suggesting more than mere<br />
economies and even affecting fundamentals of<br />
mining.<br />
In the short compass of this paper, the present<br />
numerous applications and future probabilities<br />
of mine uses can only be enumerated and briefly<br />
touched upon in a suggestive way.<br />
In Europe, mining operations' have been regarded<br />
as of more or less permanent character,<br />
particularly in coal mining, owing to the great<br />
number of seams in the coal measures. Hence<br />
for many years shafts have been sunk using brick<br />
or stone for lining, such stafts being circular or<br />
elliptical in cross-section. Where it has been<br />
necessary to employ iron or steel casings to pass<br />
through water-bearing strata, permanent inner<br />
linings of stone or brick have been used. In<br />
some recent shafts concrete has been substituted.<br />
In this country until the past few years, it<br />
has been without exception the practice to employ<br />
wood linings, the<br />
SHAFTS BEING RECTANGULAR<br />
in cross-section. Water-bearing silt or quicksand<br />
locations were generally avoided, and where<br />
water was encountered in shaft sinking, no attempt<br />
was made to keep it out as in the European<br />
shafts.<br />
In some instances where the surface quicksand<br />
proved shallow, concrete dams were constructed<br />
inside of timber lining or coffer dams.<br />
Generally these inner linings or dams were cir-<br />
*Address delivered by permission of the Director U. S.<br />
Bureau of Mines, before the National Association of Cement<br />
Users.<br />
cular or elliptical in section and massive so that<br />
reinforcement was incidental.<br />
Example of a Reinforced Concrete Lining.—In<br />
sinking the air shaft of a mine in Illinois, in<br />
1906, the writer used a reinforced concrete lining<br />
of rectangular section through the surface silt<br />
of sufficient strength to resist the water pressure,<br />
so as to keep the air-shaft dry. This is an important<br />
matter if the shaft is to be used for<br />
"intaking" air, since in a wet shaft, masses of<br />
ice accumulate in cold weather, thus restricting<br />
the ventilating current or stopping it with serious<br />
results. The inner lining was put in after<br />
the shaft had been forced through the soft silt,<br />
and the outer wood curbing rested on this rock.<br />
The latter was a fissured limestone so the shaft<br />
was sunk about 8 feet further into the shales<br />
below—here a good foundation was prepared for<br />
the concrete lining.<br />
As the water rained down the shaft in streams,<br />
while putting in the massive concrete foundation,<br />
the sinking pump was temporarily checked in<br />
laying the successive courses, and the water allowed<br />
to rise above the level of the course to be<br />
laid, so that the concreting materials could be<br />
placed behind the form in water without currents.<br />
The concrete was then carefully rammed against<br />
the shale and rock to make tight joints.<br />
When this foundation had been brought up to<br />
the level of the wood curbing, preparations were<br />
made for building up the thinner reinforced concrete<br />
walls, which were but 15 inches thick at<br />
the bottom, and 9 inches thick at the top, 40<br />
feet above. Diagonal wood<br />
STRIPS WERE NAILED<br />
on the inner face of the wood curbing and to<br />
these a tight lining of tongued and grooved floor<br />
ing was nailed. This deflected the water streams<br />
to the bottom of the lining and short pipes were<br />
placed through the concrete forms at a number<br />
of points around the shaft so as to discharge<br />
the water from behind the wood lining into the<br />
open shaft. By this method, the reinforced walls<br />
were erected with freedom from running water.<br />
The reinforcement consisted of deformed bars<br />
placed horizontally and vertically near the inner<br />
face (i. e.. toward the center of shaft). The<br />
vertical bars (V- inch square) served only to<br />
bond the courses—the horizontal bars ( 7/ s inch<br />
square) were spaced close together at the bottom,<br />
and further apart at the top. according to<br />
calculated water and earth pressure, assuming<br />
no help from the outer wood curbing. The horizontal<br />
reinforcement bars were bent around at
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
the corners of the shaft, whicli were beveled. The<br />
shaft had two compartments about 9x10 feet and<br />
9x5 feet in the clear, with a 6-inch concrete partition<br />
between.<br />
When the concrete had sufficiently hardened,<br />
the drainage pipes were plugged, and the walls<br />
then served their object as a dam. There was<br />
a slight seepage at several points but this gradually<br />
stopped.<br />
Where the glacial drift or water-bearing silt<br />
is very dee]), special methods of shaft sinking<br />
have to be employed. The freezing system and<br />
the drop shaft system have been highly developed<br />
in Germanv and France, and to a point<br />
where both are very successful. Reinforced concrete<br />
is adaptable for linings in connection with<br />
either system, but it has not as yet been employed<br />
to any considerable extent.<br />
In this country, little has been done with either<br />
of these systems, chiefly because there has been<br />
no general need as shaft sinking conditions are<br />
ordinarily easy. More recently there has been<br />
occasion for penetration of water-bearing silts<br />
in the Lake Superior iron mines, and one reinforced<br />
concrete<br />
CASING HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY SUNK.<br />
The plan of the casing was similar to the ordinary<br />
drop shaft casing of brick so extensively<br />
employed in England, namely, to build on top<br />
of a steel shoe which drops as the excavation proceeds.<br />
Skin resistance to descent of the "drop<br />
shaft" is the chief obstacle usually encountered<br />
so far as the casing is concerned, and this has<br />
to be overcome by weighting.<br />
The concrete bridge pier caissons sunk in western<br />
river silts, and the caissons used in the<br />
vicinity of New York for shafts preliminary to<br />
tunneling, are of the same nature as drop shaft<br />
casings, except their vasSly greater size and<br />
weight, relative to depth, makes the problem of<br />
sinking them simpler. The small caissons sunk<br />
for foundations of high buildings are more akin<br />
to mine shaft sinking, except the depth is usually<br />
less, so air pressure can be used to hold<br />
back the water.<br />
Drop shaft casings can be sunk by dredging with<br />
clam shell or orange peel buckets under water<br />
when the material is silty or sandy. If complicated<br />
by glacial boulders bedded in hard clay<br />
or natural cemented material, it is necessary,<br />
when the work is too deep for air pressure, to<br />
pump out the water and excavate by hand with<br />
the assistance of explosives.<br />
The method of using reinforced concrete casings<br />
seems applicable to many situations where it is<br />
necessarv to sink through bad ground, modifications<br />
being made to suit the condition of the<br />
sand or glacial drift that may be encountered.<br />
A most interesting method used in connection<br />
with shaft sinking or tunneling through waterbearing<br />
ground has been developed in the Pasde-Calais<br />
coal district of France, which is termed<br />
"cementation." The coal measures of the district<br />
are overlain with bedded<br />
MARLS AXD CHALKS,<br />
more or less fissured, and the fissures in some<br />
places' are so filled with water that ordinary<br />
methods of shaft sinking would fail. Heretofore,<br />
the freezing system has been successfully<br />
used, but the new cementation method, the writer<br />
was informed by French officials who had used<br />
both methods, could be employed at less cost.<br />
In one instance, the cost of cementation through<br />
343 feet of water-bearing ground was $13,200.<br />
Interesting particulars of this work are given in<br />
a paper published in Bulletin de la Societe de<br />
[.'Industrie Minerale, Vol. IX, 1908, by J. Lombois.<br />
principal engineer of Mines de Bethune.<br />
Briefly, the process used by this company is to<br />
drill a set of holes in the water-bearing ground,<br />
six in number, arranged in a circle, surrounding<br />
the site of the proposed shaft, and then to pump<br />
a cement grouting through the holes until the<br />
fissures and interstices are filled. Shaft sinking<br />
is then proceeded with as it would be through<br />
ordinary rock strata. The system seems appli<br />
cable to many situations where water is encountered<br />
in either shaft sinking or tunnel driving<br />
in broken rock.<br />
In Europe it has long been the custom in collieries<br />
to secure the "landings" or "bottoms" adjacent<br />
to shafts with masonry side walls and<br />
arched roofs, both for fire protection and for permanence.<br />
Such arched passages or tunnels contain<br />
from two to four tracks, and where doubledecked<br />
cages are employed, are sometimes arranged<br />
with corresponding upper and lower stages<br />
requiring considerable height of tunnel.<br />
In this country, until recently, with rare exceptions,<br />
the shaft bottoms have been lined with<br />
timber only. Such mine timbers, if of white<br />
oak. last from 5 to 8 years, depending on whether<br />
the natural conditions foster dry rot, and if of<br />
black oak or white pine, shorter periods. As the<br />
cost of replacing such timbers is greater than<br />
their first cost, when a<br />
MINE LASTS OVER 20 YEARS<br />
it is manifest that wood timbering is in the long<br />
run more expensive, and there is always the great<br />
danger of its taking fire.<br />
Where the bottom is to be arched, brick is an<br />
excellent material to use, and the substitution of<br />
concrete is wholly a question of relative cost.<br />
There are, however, many situations where there<br />
is a strong cap-rock over the coal that is difficult<br />
and expensive to brush in making room for the<br />
arching; moreover, such cap-rock may have considerable<br />
strength as a roof if protected from
weathering. Under these conditions, the practice<br />
has arisen in recent years to use large (15<br />
to 18 inches) I-beams for collars which cross<br />
the passage, and the ends resting on side walls,<br />
and to lag with wood over the beams. Such a<br />
construction makes a good appearance and should<br />
be fairly durable, but it is open to some objections.<br />
The wood lagging will rot and be difficult to replace<br />
without disturbing the roof and, in case<br />
of an explosion, the beams offering considerable<br />
surface, may be b.own down or, if struck by<br />
flying timber, be broken. This has happened in<br />
several recent mine explosions. Moreover, the<br />
side walls not being held apart, are likely to be<br />
blown into the tunnel by the exploding gases<br />
getting behind the walls or by the suction that<br />
follows the cooling of the gases. Further, in<br />
case of an extensive mine fire which may be sustained<br />
thiough the "bottom" by the burning of<br />
cars of coal, the I-beams would be seriously<br />
affected unless protected by fire-proofing.<br />
There appears to be an excellent field for the<br />
application of reinforced concrete under the conditions<br />
cited; namely, where a flat roof and<br />
smooth sides are desired of durable and fire-proof<br />
construction. Investigations will have to be<br />
made to determine what should be the strength<br />
of the flat concrete arch acting as a beam, under<br />
different conditions of natural roof, and in the<br />
development of methods of erection under horizontal<br />
roof stratum. Such testing and experimenting<br />
might be an excellent field of investigation<br />
by the newly created United States Bureau of<br />
Mines at their experimental mine near Bruceton,<br />
Pa., and elsewhere.<br />
The roof stratum over most coal seams is shale,<br />
which when hard, is called slate by the miners.<br />
Shale generally weathers badly and in a majority<br />
of coal mines, the<br />
ENTRIES MUST 1!E TIMBERED<br />
more or less continuously. If the shale were<br />
protected from the weathering action caused by<br />
the ventilating currents, it would require little<br />
support.<br />
This principle has been recognized by the Bethune<br />
company which operated collieries in the<br />
Pas-de-Calais district of France, so that in developing<br />
a new mine a few years ago, they decided<br />
to line all the passageways with reinforced<br />
concrete. At the time of the visit of the writer<br />
in September, 1908, about two miles of such lining<br />
had been constructed, and while of light construction,<br />
it had yielded slightly at only one<br />
point.<br />
The side walls and arch are uniform in thickness<br />
except for irregularities of excavation. The<br />
minimum thickness is 6 inches (15 cm.). Two<br />
cross-sections of passage are employed, the main<br />
galleries 9.5 feet wide in the clear, and 8.5 feet<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
in height (290x260 cm.). The secondary passageways<br />
are 7.25 feet wide in the clear and 7.25<br />
feet high (220x220 cm.).<br />
The reinforcement consists of arched rods 0.4<br />
inch (1 cm.) square, placed 32 inches (80 cm.)<br />
apart. Longitudinal reinforcement is furnished<br />
by round rods 0.2 inch (0.5 cm.) diameter, placed<br />
9 inches (12 cm.) apart. The arched reinforcement<br />
is placed 3 inches (75 mm.) from the form.<br />
The forms are ingeniously constructed so as to<br />
be readily transported and set up quickly. The<br />
same gang of men is steadily employed on the<br />
work and become very proficient.<br />
The concrete material is a mixture of boiler<br />
ashes and burned shale with cement, prepared<br />
with a little excess water and mixed in the mine<br />
by hand, or latterly by a mechanical mixer. While<br />
the time of setting of the concrete is variable it<br />
usually does not exceed 15 days.<br />
When the rock passed through is faulty it is<br />
sometimes advisable to inject a cement grouting<br />
to fill the voids behind the lining. This can be<br />
cheaply and expeditiously done b.v using compressed<br />
air operating on a cylinder filled with<br />
grout.<br />
The average cost for the small passage is about<br />
$6.00 per linear yard. The<br />
SERIAL PASSAGEWAY<br />
is narrower than could be used in American collieries,<br />
which employ large cars. For American<br />
practice a minimum size of 7% to 8 feet would<br />
be necessary for single track roads; in addition<br />
to which refuge holes would be required by various<br />
state laws respectively at 40 to 100 feet intervals.<br />
For the mines of this country, it is<br />
probable that in using wider sections and requisite<br />
refuge holes, with the higher labor cost prevailing,<br />
the cost of such concrete lining would<br />
approach $8.00 or $10.00 per linear yard of<br />
entry. While at first sight this cost seems prohibitive,<br />
and is so for temporary entries, undoubtedly<br />
it would be an economy for such passageways<br />
as may be in use over 9 or 10 years, and<br />
which due to natural conditions would require<br />
the expense of retimbering every 4 or 5 years,<br />
in addition to the cost of the loading out of large<br />
falls from time to time.<br />
In the case of the Bethune company, their management<br />
informed the writer that the "cost of<br />
maintenance" of the mine in which the lining<br />
was applied was only one-fifth of the average<br />
cost of maintenance of the other mines of the<br />
company operating with the same concession (government<br />
lease). "Cost of maintenance" in this<br />
case means the replacement of timbering and<br />
handling rock from falls along the main roads.<br />
Other advantages of such lined passageways<br />
are manifest to a mining man. There is no<br />
blockage of traffic by falls; watering the roads
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
can be done freely and little is required to keep<br />
the passage free from dry coal dust, that great<br />
menace to miners and the cause of propagation<br />
of so many great explosions. Moreover, with<br />
refuge holes, there is less danger of employes'<br />
being injured by passing trips of cars. In timbered<br />
entries, if cars jump the track, they are<br />
liable to knock out the timbers and bring down<br />
the -roof on either the trip rider or a man standing<br />
at one side. Good lighting tends to reduce<br />
haulageway accidents and a concrete lined passage<br />
is easily lighted since the surface is smooth<br />
and light-colored—and if desired it can be cheaply<br />
whitewashed.<br />
The apparatus for applying cement mortar by<br />
means of compressed air, commonly known as the<br />
"Cement Gun," offers great possibilities for the<br />
lining of passageways, etc., with concrete. By<br />
protecting from weathering the<br />
ROOF AMI WALLS<br />
of a passageway with a thin coating of cement.<br />
it is possible that the heavy expense of timbering<br />
in many cases may be avoided. The machine<br />
also offers possibilities of use in the fireproofing<br />
of timbering board stoppings and in the erection<br />
of firewalls in places difficult of access, since the<br />
material can be pumped for a considerable distance.<br />
Concrete has already been adopted by many<br />
mine operators in the building of overcasts (air<br />
current crossings). These have usually been of<br />
massive construction. If reinforcement were<br />
employed, the cost of overcasts, also of stoppings<br />
and dams, might be considerably reduced. Some<br />
operators use small coal for stoppings in place<br />
of crushed stone. If the coal is of a tough<br />
nature and properly screened, in massive stoppings<br />
this is economical, but often too much coal<br />
dust is used so that an excess of cement is required<br />
and the concrete is very weak. Such<br />
concrete is not suited for stoppings or water<br />
dams where there is likely to be much pressure<br />
thrown upon them. It is also not suitable for<br />
fire stoppings for obvious reasons.<br />
There is undoubtedly a large field for the development<br />
of a system of concrete props, molded<br />
and hardened on the outside of the mine. Props<br />
are a large item of expense in most collieries.<br />
In the average colliery in this country, one room<br />
prop is required for every 8 to 12 tons of coal<br />
produced, say 1 to 10. Timber props cost from<br />
10 to 20 cents each, so the cost per ton of coal<br />
produced is from 1 to 2 cents. The cost will<br />
undoubtedly rise rapidly in the future as the<br />
timber reserves of the country become exhausted.<br />
In this country, timber props are rarely recovered,<br />
as they are abroad where the longwall<br />
method of mining is general. In the room and<br />
pillar system which is the one usually employed<br />
in this country, the props often stand so long<br />
as to dry rot and not make it worth while to try<br />
to withdraw them in pulling pillars. In collieries<br />
in which the conditions are such that the<br />
props' could be withdrawn by "prop-drawers," such<br />
as are used extensively in England, the use of<br />
concrete props might be a great economy, besides<br />
conserving timber resources.<br />
There appears to be an even better opportunity<br />
for the development of a system of outside constructed<br />
reinforced timbers for passageways than<br />
there is for room props', since timber sets are<br />
intended for permanent use and<br />
GREATER STRENGTH<br />
is required. In collieries, each timber set consists<br />
of a collar and two posts or legs. The<br />
collar is preferably square in cross-section; the<br />
legs may be either round or square. It would<br />
be necessary to have legs of different lengths, but<br />
this entails no particular difficulty; small differences<br />
are easily taken care of by picking the<br />
footing deeper, or wedging over tbe top of the<br />
collar. That there is a field for the use of concrete<br />
timbers is shown by the increasing use of<br />
I-beams for collars, and for legs. Concrete timbers<br />
for equal strength would be more durable<br />
and should be cheaper.<br />
The opportunity for use of concrete posts and<br />
timber sets in certain kinds of metalliferous mining<br />
appears to be as great as in collieries. Often<br />
great strength is needed, and in some parts of<br />
the country as in the southwest mining districts,<br />
big timbers are difficult to obtain and very expensive.<br />
Crushed rock for the concrete is nearly<br />
always at hand in metal mining operations, and<br />
Portland cement can now be obtained at moderate<br />
price in any part of the United States. Reinforcing<br />
material is often found in the scrap<br />
iron pile. In some cases, the large concrete timbers<br />
could be built in place, but in many instances,<br />
owing to the condition of the roof, it would be<br />
necessary to have the full strength of a concrete<br />
timber at the time of erection; hence the necessity<br />
of having concrete timbers constructed and<br />
seasoned in advance of setting in place.<br />
Among other mine supplies subject to rapid<br />
deterioration there is the considerable item of<br />
track ties. Frequently there are miles of tracks<br />
in a mine, especially in a large colliery, for which<br />
an immense number of ties are required, running<br />
into the tens of thousands in a single mine.<br />
Ties have a shorter life than props or timbers.<br />
inasmuch as they are subject to both wear and<br />
rot. In most mines the floor of the roadway<br />
is generally damp, and in the case of bituminous<br />
mines it is purposely wetted in order to lay the<br />
dust. This damp condition favors the rotting<br />
of ties. Ties as a rule are made of oak. preferably<br />
white oak, and are either split or hewn like
ailway ties. They have to be renewed at intervals<br />
of 2 to 4 years. Here then is an opportunity<br />
for Ihe concrete tie if it can be adapted<br />
to the conditions in the<br />
MAIN OR PERMANENT ROADS.<br />
Possibly if made light and durable enough, they<br />
could be used for temporary room ties and be<br />
taken up and relaid like the rails in another<br />
part of the mine when the room was finished.<br />
In the development and testing of concrete<br />
props, ties, timbers, as well as the concrete linings<br />
previously mentioned, there would appear<br />
to be need of work on the part of the United<br />
States Bureau of Mines to undertake tests under<br />
practical conditions for the benefit of the mining<br />
industry.<br />
The use of concrete for outside mine buildings<br />
has been merely mentioned in this paper, as such<br />
work is either identical or very similar lo what<br />
concrete builders are thoroughly familiar with.<br />
But it is not intended to give the impression<br />
that the amount of this work is small or that it<br />
is unimportant. Every year there are heavy<br />
money losses from fires in tenant houses and mine<br />
structures, which, in the case of shaft houses,<br />
have sometimes caused the loss or temporary loss<br />
of the mine, involving indirect losses of thousands<br />
of dollars.<br />
The aggregate of new construction for mining<br />
plants' annually reaches large sums. In the case<br />
of large modern collieries, a single plant may<br />
involve, exclusive of machinery, for outside buildings<br />
and miners' houses from $10(1.000 to $200,000.<br />
Generally the construction of the mining plant is<br />
under the direction of a mining man and the<br />
buildings are treated as incidental to the installment<br />
of machinery and mine development.<br />
which is usually pushed with the utmost vigor.<br />
Under such circumstances, the construction of<br />
the general buildings is not given the thought<br />
and attention that they warrant, and buildings<br />
are often makeshifts. If concrete builders would<br />
give the subject the same study that they give<br />
to bridges and buildings for manufacturing, and<br />
be prepared to take up Ibe construction of mine<br />
buildings of various kinds with promptness.<br />
there appears to be a large field of usefulness,<br />
productive of improved construction and adequate<br />
fire protection.<br />
The American office of H. Koppers. Joliet, 111.,<br />
announces that a contract has been closed with<br />
the Coal Products Manufacturing Co.. of Chicago.<br />
for the erection of 35 Koppers improved combination<br />
coke and gas ovens, on which active<br />
construction work will commence in the near<br />
future. These ovens are a new design and have<br />
a number of improved features.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
* RETAIL TRADE NOTES *<br />
At the recent meeting of the Kentucky-Tennessee<br />
Retail Coal Merchants' Association, held ai Chattanooga,<br />
Tenn., it was decided lo enlarge tlle scope<br />
of the <strong>org</strong>anization and take in the states of<br />
North Carolina, South Carolina and Ge<strong>org</strong>ia. The<br />
name also was changed to tbe Southern Retail<br />
Coal Dealers' Association. The membership is<br />
159, which will be considerably enlarged by the<br />
increased territory. The officers elected were:<br />
President, W. C. T. Berlin, Memphis, Tenn.; vicepresident.<br />
J. W. Ramsey, Macon. Ga.; secretary.<br />
C. F. Roth. Knoxville, Tenn.; treasurer, J. Fritz<br />
Fox, Knoxville, Tenn.<br />
The Vare measure, known as the Philadelphia<br />
coal weighing bill, has been passed b.v the Pennsylvania<br />
legislature. The bill authorizes the<br />
designation of weighing scales and for inspection<br />
of coal delivered to purchasers who receive the<br />
same from cart or wagon. The measure had the<br />
indorsement of the Philadelphia Coal Exchange<br />
and is intended to establish a system of weighing<br />
tbat will protect the public against unscrupulous<br />
dealers who sell short weight.<br />
The coal teamsters of Boston have agreed<br />
to waive all the demands recently submitted to<br />
the dealers excepting the one asking for an increase<br />
of a dollar a week in wages. They announce<br />
that they will hold out for this concession.<br />
T. J. Gadbois of Clinton. Okla., has been named<br />
as field secretary for Oklahoma of the Interstate<br />
Retail Coal Dealers' Association.<br />
APRIL ORE SHIPMENTS.<br />
Ore shipments during April were 331,645 tons,<br />
as against 1,520,3115 tons shipped during April.<br />
19ln, a decrease of 1.188,66(1 tons. It will be<br />
recalled that the season of 1910 opened with a<br />
rush to the great regret of vessel owners who were<br />
forced to retire a fair portion of their vessels<br />
within two months thereafter. Shipments by<br />
ports were:<br />
April, 1910. April, 1911.<br />
Escanaba 223,025 93,532<br />
Marquette 135,559 14.838<br />
Ashland 218,703 41,337<br />
Superior 355,307 76,739<br />
Duluth 309,427 51,042<br />
Two Harbors 278,284 54,157<br />
1,520,305 331,645<br />
1911 decrease 1.1SS.660
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Six hundred miners who refused to deposit<br />
(heir state certificates with the company official<br />
were refused admission to the mines of the Con<br />
solidated Indiana Coal Co. at Hymera, Ind., May<br />
25. The law which was passed by the Indiana<br />
legislature recently provides a penalty for the<br />
operation of a mine by other than licensed miners<br />
and the members of the operators determined to<br />
ask the miners to deposit their certificates with<br />
the mine officials in order to protect them. The<br />
miners objected to this method and at the Hymera<br />
mines refused to deposit the certificates. The<br />
coinpany then refused to permit them to enter<br />
the mines. The question will be taken up between<br />
the executive board of the United Mine<br />
Workers and the Operators' Association, and may<br />
lead to complications affecting all the miners in<br />
the state. The contracts between the miners and<br />
the operators provide penalties for the closing of<br />
a mine because of trouble between the operators<br />
and the miners, and these clauses are involved<br />
in the trouble at Hymera.<br />
Acting on the reports of committees' appointed<br />
by President W. D. Van Horn and after debating<br />
for three hours, the 104 delegates to the special<br />
convention of District No. 11, United Mine Work<br />
ers of America (the bituminous district of Indiana),<br />
decided by almost unanimous vote that the<br />
two acts passed at the last convention be repealed.<br />
This action means that the offices of district<br />
board member-at-large, to which office Henry<br />
Pigg of Jasonville was recently elected, will be<br />
abolished and the creation of a general strike<br />
fund to be taken from one-half of one per cent.<br />
of the gross earnings of each miner will be annulled.<br />
The convention, in the same spirit of<br />
economy which called it into existence, was opposed<br />
to remaining in session two days and adjourned<br />
after endorsing Ge<strong>org</strong>e Hargrove, former<br />
president and many years with the national <strong>org</strong>anization,<br />
for state mine inspector.<br />
The successful candidates for fire boss' and<br />
mine foreman's certificates in the examination<br />
held at Greensburg, Pa., were: Fire boss—Edward<br />
Hall. Clark Riddle, Michael Stepannick, Greensburg;<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e R. Ralston, New Berry; James Mc<br />
Cartney, New Alexandria; Alex J. McKay. Crab<br />
tree; John R. Fritz. Blairsville; J. W. Campbell,<br />
Mount Pleasant; Patrick Britt, Baggaley; John<br />
Kreitzer, Robert Hall, Forbes Road; Robert H.<br />
Patton, M. A. Sessi, Latrobe; H. G. Luzier, Coral.<br />
Mine foreman—First grade, Lehman C. Hanger,<br />
Greensburg; John M. O'Connell, Hostetter; A.<br />
McClane, Irwin; James H. McCutcheon and James<br />
Grace, Hannastown. Second grade, W. W. Flem<br />
ing and Thomas Coates, Greensburg.<br />
A meeting of the Anthracite Conciliation Board<br />
was held in New York recently with Charles P.<br />
Neill, the umpire. The case before the board is<br />
that of employes' of the Glendower colliery of the<br />
Reading Co., in Schuylkill county. The men<br />
demand a change in explosives on the ground that<br />
their use has resulted in blowing the coal in such<br />
a manner as to make it impossible for the men<br />
to mine as much, and consequently earn as much,<br />
as before its introduction. The contention of the<br />
company is that the averment of the employes is<br />
no so. and that it alone has the right to dictate<br />
the kind of powder. The Conciliation Board could<br />
not agree and it went to Mr. Neill.<br />
The expected strike of miners employed in the<br />
W. S. Little mines, of Pike county, and the Wa<br />
bash Coal Co.'s mines, in Vigo county, Ind., was<br />
called May 23. 1.247 men are idle. Argument<br />
over places in a mine operated by the Little company<br />
brought about a fight between a miner and<br />
a mine boss several months ago. The miner was<br />
discharged, and his union demanded that he be<br />
reinstated. The company refused and the strike<br />
resulted.<br />
The long fight between the officials of the West<br />
ern Federation of Miners and the American Federation<br />
of Labor has been settled finally through<br />
the issuance of a charter to the Western Federa<br />
tion by President Gompers. President Moyer,<br />
of the miners, had notified the American Federa<br />
tion that members of the Western Federation<br />
overwhelmingly indorsed the affiliation of the<br />
two <strong>org</strong>anizations.<br />
Benjamin McEnany, president of District No.<br />
1, United Mine Workers of America, Wilkes-Barre,<br />
Pa., will step down and out as the price of peace<br />
in the dissension which has been rending the<br />
ranks' of the <strong>org</strong>anization in that section. Presi<br />
dent McEnany announced that he will throw his<br />
support to John T. Dempsey. secretary-treasurer<br />
of the district, at the June elections.<br />
Mine Inspectors L. R. Holliday and R. Y. Muir<br />
of the Ninth and Eighth West Virginia districts<br />
announce that examinations for those aspiring<br />
to the position of mine foreman and fire boss and<br />
assistant mine foreman, will be held at Glen<br />
Jean. W. Va., opera house on June 7-8, 1911. beginning<br />
promptly at 9 o'clock a. m.<br />
A meeting of the South Wales Coal Conciliation<br />
Board was held at Cardiff, Wales, recently to consider<br />
the masters' application for a reduction of<br />
1% per cent, on wages. Eventually, the proposed<br />
reduction was agreed to. This brings wages down<br />
to 50 per cent, above the 1S79 standard.<br />
D. H. Sullivan, of Coshocton, 0.. president of<br />
the United Mine Workers of America of District
No. 6, has been appointed a member of the Ohio<br />
State Board of Arbitration, vice Joseph Bishop,<br />
leim expired. While nothing official has been<br />
announced it is reported Sullivan will resign the<br />
presidency of the Mine Workers.<br />
Vice President John Moore, of the Ohio Mine<br />
Workers, will succeed to the presidency on the<br />
resignation of President D. H. Sullivan, who has<br />
been appointed on the arbitration board by Governor<br />
Judson Harmon.<br />
IHE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. Hartlein. formerly secretary-treasurer Ohio Valley Coal Co., Cleveland, O.; capital, $60,of<br />
one of the anthracite districts of the United 000; incorporators. H. L. Hoplinges, Ralph Blue,<br />
Mine Workers (No. 9, Shamokin. Pa.) has been Frank E. McKee. C. C. Perkins and A. J. Pearson,<br />
appointed a national <strong>org</strong>anizer for tbe <strong>org</strong>aniza<br />
all of Cleveland.<br />
tion.<br />
Consolidated Coal & Timber Co., Philadelphia,<br />
Pa.; capital, $1,000,000; incorporators, A. J. Norton.<br />
C. A. Harris and S. C. Chamberlain, all of<br />
New York.<br />
A Are of supposed incendiary origin totally destroyed<br />
the office of the Meadowlands Coal Co. at<br />
Avella, Pa. The records and books were not<br />
recoverable by the time the fire was discovered.<br />
The loss is computed at about $2,Ooo.<br />
The tipple of the Charleroi Coal Works, Charleroi,<br />
Pa., was partially destroyed by fire May 20,<br />
involving a loss of $30,000.<br />
A party of Johnstown, Pa., men have purchased<br />
250 acres of coal near Conemaugh, Pa., for $50,-<br />
000, the land being known as the Rosenbaum.<br />
Leedy, Crest and Vrckroy tracts.<br />
NEW ENTERPRISES<br />
The Standard Kanawha Coal Mining Co., Quick,<br />
W. Va.; capital, $200,00(1; incorporators, Maurice<br />
T. Miller. Carl Lorenz, Ronald P. Gleason and<br />
Notice was received at the headquarters of the Arthur A. Weinschenk of Scranton, Pa.; Dr. John<br />
United Mine Workers in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., that J. Kelly, of Archbald, Pa.; William J. Evans, of<br />
the men of the anthracite coal field will not re Oliphant. Pa.; William Templeton, of Plymouth,<br />
ceive a bonus this month on their wages under Pa., and T. A. Leyshon, of Quick, W. Va.<br />
the operation of the sliding scale because the<br />
Lathrop Coal Co., Welch, W. Va.; capita], $150,selling<br />
price at tidewater is at the minimum<br />
000; incorporators, William Leckie, Welch;<br />
figure, $4.50 a ton.<br />
Thompson S. Crockett. William R. Graham of<br />
Bluefield, and G. A. Huges of Welch.<br />
Dixie Coal Co., Philadelphia, Pa.; capital, $100,-<br />
000; incorporators, Frank E. Mohr, of Columbus,<br />
O.; Franklin G. Hoge, of Mortonville, Ky., and<br />
T. F. Callard, of Hopkinsville, Ky.<br />
The Chicago Breaker of the Order Ko-Koal has<br />
issued an invitation to members of the <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
to go to the annual powwow at Minneapolis,<br />
Minn., July 10-12, on the "Chicago Breaker Special<br />
Train de Luxe," leaving Chicago at 10.15 p. m.,<br />
July 9, and arriving at Minneapolis 11 a. m.,<br />
July 10.<br />
Secretary J. W. Paul of the Mine Inspectors'<br />
Institute of the United States is sending to the<br />
members and others interested a neatly bound<br />
volume containing the minutes of the proceedings<br />
of the Chicago meeting, held in June, 1910.<br />
It is complete in every way.<br />
STATEMENT OF BITUMINOUS COAL MINED IN OHIO AND SHIPPED OVER RAILROADS<br />
SPECIFIED, DURING MARCH AND THREE MONTHS, 1910-1911.<br />
RAILROADS<br />
Hocking Valley<br />
Toledo and Ohio Central<br />
Baltimore and Ohio<br />
"Wheeling and Lake Erie<br />
Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling<br />
Zanesville and Western<br />
Toledo Division Pennsylvania Company <strong>•</strong><br />
Lake Erie. Alliance and "Wheeling<br />
Marietta. Columbus and Cleveland Railway <strong>•</strong><br />
Wabash Pittsburg Terminal Railway . . . <strong>•</strong><br />
Kanawha & Michigan Ry<br />
Total<br />
Net tons<br />
441.018<br />
210.388<br />
238,387<br />
352.772<br />
309.995<br />
134.873<br />
237.211<br />
119 378<br />
IS 391<br />
3.328<br />
2.062.741<br />
MARCH—<br />
218,206<br />
133.263<br />
139.251<br />
250.494<br />
161,384<br />
82 112<br />
178.462<br />
103,852<br />
4.250<br />
5.691<br />
4.041<br />
THREE MONTHS—<br />
Net tons<br />
1.212.432<br />
486.478<br />
611,825<br />
940.146<br />
797.538<br />
385,120<br />
672.888<br />
323.338<br />
41,216<br />
12.167<br />
5,483.148<br />
737.516<br />
338.930<br />
444.841<br />
711.343<br />
498.740<br />
280.442<br />
522.545<br />
324.166<br />
9.151<br />
18.782<br />
_14.107<br />
3.900.763
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
"TOM" LEWIS MAKES GOOD HIS PROMISE<br />
TO GO BACK TO WORK IN THE MINES.<br />
Just a little sore and stiff from the unusual<br />
exertion "Tom" L. Lewis, former president of<br />
the United Mine Workers of America, rested on<br />
the evening of May 18, after his first day in the<br />
mines since he was elevated to head of the big<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization. When Lewis was defeated for reelection<br />
as head of the miners' <strong>org</strong>anizations at<br />
Columbus', he declared he would once more go<br />
back to his place in the mines, there to do his<br />
mite in keeping the <strong>org</strong>anization intact and to<br />
earn his livelihood b.v the sweat of his brow. On<br />
the morning of May 18. he made good his statement<br />
that he would go back to the mines and<br />
began his labors as a mine worker in the Wheeling<br />
Creek mine of the Lorain Coal & Dock Co.<br />
Strong pressure was brought to bear to have<br />
the former head of the miners' <strong>org</strong>anization accept<br />
one of many lucrative positions entailing at<br />
least "clean" work, but he refused all these overtures,<br />
and dressed in the oldest suit of clothes<br />
he owned and carrying tbe picks and shovels<br />
presented to him at the Columbus convention, he<br />
entered the mine at 7 o'clock that morning.<br />
He went to work beside "Syl" Price, his "buddy"<br />
of years ago, before Lewis was elevated to the<br />
highest position of honor in the gift of the miners'.<br />
At noon Lewis said there were a few kinks<br />
in his back, but as he sat down on a pile of slack<br />
and ate his lunch from a tin bucket, he was<br />
optimistic and declared that the soreness would<br />
soon work itself out of his muscles.<br />
BY-PRODUCT COKE OVENS IN THE<br />
UNITED STATES FOR THE YEAR 1909.<br />
The production of by-product coke in the<br />
United States for the year 1909 was 6.254,644 net<br />
tons. This is an increase of 2,053,418 tons compared<br />
with 1908, for which year output was given<br />
as 4,201,226 net tons by the U. S. Geological Survey.<br />
This represents a gain of nearly 50 per<br />
cent. The total coke production of the country.<br />
by-product and bee-hive ovens, was 39.315,065 net<br />
tons, for the year 1909, as given by the same<br />
authority.<br />
The following list of by-product coking plants<br />
is believed to embrace practically all of the United-Otto,<br />
Semet-Solvay and other makes of ovens<br />
that have been installed to date in the United<br />
States and Canada: No. of<br />
United-Otto Plants. Ovens.<br />
Lackawanna Steel Co.. Buffalo. N. Y *564<br />
Camden Coke Co., Camden, N. J 50<br />
Carnegie Steel Co., South Sharon 212<br />
Cambria Steel Co., Johnstown 312<br />
Maryland Steel Co., Sparrows Point, Md 200<br />
Hamilton Otto Coke Co., Hamilton. Ohio.... 50<br />
Citizens Gas Co., Indianapolis, Ind 50<br />
Michigan Alkali Co., Wyandotte. Mich 30<br />
Zenith Furnace Co., Duluth, Minn 50<br />
Otto-Hoffman Plants:<br />
Dominion Iron & Steel Co., Sydney. N. S 500<br />
New England Gas & Coke Co.. Everett, Mass. 400<br />
Camden CoKe Co., Camden, N. J 100<br />
United Coke & Gas Co., Glassport. Pa 120<br />
Cambria Steel Co., Johnstown, Pa 60<br />
Lackawanna Iron & Steel Co., Johnstown, Pa. 232<br />
Hamilton Otto Coke Co., Hamilton, Ohio 50<br />
Semet-Solvay Plants:<br />
Solvay Process Co.. Syracuse. N. Y 40<br />
Empire Coke Co.. Geneva. N. Y 46<br />
Dunbar Furnace Co., Dunbar, Pa 110<br />
Suburban Gas & Electric Co.. Chester. Pa... 40<br />
F. H. Buhl Coke Works, Sharon, Pa 25<br />
Pennsylvania Steel Co., Lebanon. Pa 90<br />
Pennsylvania Steel Co., Steelton. Pa 120<br />
National Tube Co., Benwood. W. Va 120<br />
Tennessee C. I. & R. R. Co., Ensley. Ala. ... 240<br />
Central Iron & Coal Co., Tuscaloosa, Ala.... 40<br />
By-Products Coke Corp., South Chicago, 111. 200<br />
Milwaukee Coke & Gas Co., Milwaukee. Wis. 160<br />
Solvay Process Co.. Delray, Mich 132<br />
People's Heat & Light Co., Halifax, N. S... 10<br />
Rothberg Plants:<br />
Lackawanna Steel Co., Buffalo, N. Y 2S2<br />
Lackawanna Iron & Steel Co.. Lebanon, Pa. 5<br />
Retort Coke Oven Co.. Cleveland. Ohio 105<br />
Didier Plants:<br />
Lehigh Coke Co., South Bethlehem, Pa x300<br />
Koppers Plants:<br />
Illinois Steel Co.. Gary, Ind 560<br />
Illinois Steel Co.. Joliet. Ill 280<br />
Von Bauer Plants:<br />
Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Co.. Sydney Mines,<br />
N. S 30<br />
Bernard Plant:<br />
Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Co., Sydney Mines,<br />
N. S 120<br />
Total 6,035<br />
xUnder construction.<br />
*Contracted for; 188 completed.<br />
The regular quarterly meeting of the St. Louis<br />
breaker of the Order of Ko-Koals was held May<br />
16. The executive committee in charge was<br />
composed of E. C. Searles, Frank Ellis, J. G. Skidmore,<br />
J. D. Barth, F. F. Tirre. A. H. Beddo and<br />
E. J. Wallace.<br />
The Jeffrey Manufacturing Co., of Columbus,<br />
O., has received the contract for constructing a<br />
reinforced tipple and power house for the Pocahontas<br />
Consolidated Coal Co.. at Switchback, W.<br />
Va.. at a cost of $100,000.
Mr. Peter Diehn, structural engineer at Potts<br />
ville for the Reading Coal & Iron Co.. has tend<br />
ered his resignation to take effect this date, and<br />
will leave soon for Europe, where he will become<br />
contracting engineer for the American Steel Ex<br />
port Co. He will be stationed in Brussels, Bel<br />
gium. Mr. Diehn is an expert designer of breaker<br />
buildings and their machinery.<br />
Mr. J. E. Challenger, recently appointed secre<br />
tary of the Association of Bituminous Coal Opera<br />
tors' in Central Pennsylvania, has been seriously<br />
ill for several weeks with an attack of Brights<br />
disease and the outlook is not favorable for his<br />
early recovery.<br />
Mr. Sumner S. Smith, of Oakland. Cai., who<br />
has been appointed mine inspector in Alaska by<br />
President Taft, is a graduate of the Lniversity<br />
of California. He is 31 years old and is well<br />
known in California and Utah.<br />
Mr. A. G. Hahn. mine foreman for the H. C.<br />
Frick Coke Co. for a number of years, has been<br />
appointed superintendent of the mines of the<br />
Crystal Block Coal & Coke Co.. at Rawl. W. Va.<br />
COAL MINING IN MONTANA IN 1909-1910.*<br />
The total production of coal in Montana in<br />
1909 was 2,553,940 short tons, having a spot value<br />
of $5,029,225. In this production the state sur<br />
passed all previous records. The average price<br />
per ton was $1.97 in 1909, against $1.96 in 1908.<br />
The increase in production was general through<br />
out the state, but the most important factor was<br />
the effect of developments in the Bull Moun<br />
tain field, near Billings, in Yellowstone county.<br />
Prior to 1909 no commercial production had been<br />
reported from that county. The development of<br />
the Bull Mountain field began in 1908, following<br />
the advent of the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget<br />
Sound railroad, and in 1909 the field produced<br />
nearly 200,000 tons. The older coal-producing<br />
districts show large increases in production for<br />
1909. Carbon county in which the Red Lodge<br />
field is worked, increased its output 121,552 short<br />
tons. The Cottonwood Belt district, in Cascade<br />
county, gained 143,412 tons, but did not produce<br />
the amount mined in either 1906 or 1907. Fergus<br />
county where the Judith Basin field is worked,<br />
showed the largest percentage of gain of the<br />
older counties, having increased its production<br />
from 90,318 short tons in 1908 to 221.663 tons in<br />
1909—a gain of 131,345 tons, or nearly 150 per<br />
<strong>•</strong>Abstract trom Report of William Walsh. State Mine Inspector<br />
inthe Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Agriculture.<br />
Labor and Industry.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
cent. Park county increased its production more<br />
than 30 per cent.—from 106,942 tons to 139,464<br />
tons.<br />
In 1909 there were SI mining machines used in<br />
the coal mines of Montana, and the machine-<br />
mined product amounted to 740,686 short tons,<br />
or 29 per cent, of the total output. These were<br />
increases, as compared with 1908, of 23 in num<br />
ber of machines and of 27,469 short tons in the<br />
quantity of coal undercut with them. In 1907,<br />
984,368 tons, or 50 per cent, of the total, were<br />
machine mined. Of the 81 machines in use in<br />
1909. 71 were pick machine, eight were of the<br />
chain-breast type, one was a "continuous cutter,"<br />
or shortwall machine, and one was a pick shear<br />
ing machine. Two of the machines were used<br />
in development work and did not add materially<br />
to the machine-mined tonnage.<br />
The figures of output for 1910 exceeded those<br />
of th° record year 1909 as is indicated in the<br />
subjoined table showing the coal production b.v<br />
counties, in short tons:<br />
Counties. 1909. 1910.<br />
Carbon 1.098,496 1.197,43o<br />
Cascade 996.571 929.595<br />
Chouteau 22,816 22,986<br />
Custer 7,355 3.350<br />
Fergus 245,229 303.649<br />
Gallatin 7.441 29,862<br />
Park 117,483 101.269<br />
Rosebud 551<br />
Valley 1.743 4.018<br />
Yellowstone 43.994 378,087<br />
Total 2.541.679 2.970,246<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN is favored with a<br />
copy of "The Natural History of Coal" compiled<br />
by Mr. E. A. Newell Arber, demonstrator in pal<br />
eobotany. Trinity college, Cambridge, published<br />
by the Cambridge University Press of England.<br />
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, are the Ameri<br />
can agents. In less than 15(1 pages the author<br />
gives a very concise treatise on the subject, describing<br />
the physical and chemical properties of<br />
coal, the origin and mode of accumulation of the<br />
mother substance and the principal theories re<br />
lating to its conversion into coal. The style,<br />
naturally technical, is not lacking in coherence,<br />
the data being well classified and arranged in<br />
logical sequence. The work can be recommended<br />
as of interest to the layman who is desirous of<br />
acquiring broader knowledge of the origin and<br />
formation of coal deposits, as well as to the<br />
more advanced student of geology.<br />
A special meeting of the stockholders of the<br />
Pittsburgh Westmoreland Coal Co. has been called<br />
for the purpose of acting on a proposition to in<br />
crease the indebtedness of the company.
42 THE C( )AL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
PRODUCTION OF COAL AND<br />
LIGNITE IN TEXAS IN 1910.<br />
Statistics of the production of coal and lignite<br />
in Texas lor the year 1910 have been collected<br />
by the Bureau of Economic Geology and Tech<br />
nology, of tne University of Texas. While the<br />
final figures may be somewhat different from<br />
these, yet it is not thought that they will materially<br />
alter those now given.<br />
The production of coal was 1,128,947 short tons,<br />
valued at $2,S29,3S9, or an average value, at the<br />
mines', of $2.51 per ton, an increase of 14 cents<br />
a ton over the average value in 1909. In 1908<br />
these figures were 1,047,407 tons, valued at $2,-<br />
580,991. and in 1909 1,144.108 tons, valued at<br />
$2,714,630. During the last lo years the total<br />
production of coal has been 8.844,207 short tons,<br />
valued at $19,576,335.<br />
The coal-producing counties are: Erath, Jack,<br />
Maverick, Palo Pinto, Parker, Webb, Wise and<br />
Young.<br />
The Rio Grande coal field, comprising the counties<br />
of Maverick and Webb, produced, in 1910.<br />
215,328 tons, valued at $503.S67. or $2.34 a ton.<br />
The North Central coal field, comprising the<br />
counties of Erath, Jack, Palo Pinto, Parker, Wise<br />
and Young, produced 913.619 tons, valued at $2,-<br />
325.522, or $2.55 a ton.<br />
In 1910 the iiroduction of lignite was 979,232<br />
short tons, valued at $941,70(1. or an average<br />
value per ton, at the mines, of 96 cenls. The<br />
average value per ton increased over that for<br />
1909 13.2 cents.<br />
The production of lignite in 1910 was by far<br />
the largest in the history of the industry, exceed<br />
ing that for 1908, wdiich has been the banner year,<br />
by 131.262 tons in weight and $103,210 in value.<br />
In 1908 the production of lignite was 847,970<br />
Ions, valued at $S38.490. In 1909 it was 715.151<br />
tons, valued at $502,421.<br />
The lignite producing counties are: Bastrop.<br />
Fayette, Hopkins, Houston, Leon, Medina. Milam.<br />
Rains. Robertson. Van Zanrlt and Wood.<br />
The total production of lignite (luring the last<br />
10 years has been 5,311.902 tons, valued at $4,-<br />
718,841.<br />
The total iiroduction of coal and lignite during<br />
the last 10 years has been 14,156.109 tons, valued<br />
at $24,295,176.<br />
The use of lignite in gas-producers, with subsequent<br />
employment of the gas in gas engines,<br />
continues. Satisfactory progress in this direction<br />
has been made at several large establish<br />
ments. It is likely that the use of a tar-less<br />
gas-producer, such as has been in successful<br />
operation on Colorado lignite, would be advan<br />
tageous in Texas. It is also suggested that an<br />
effort be made to save the ammoniacal liquor<br />
from the gas-producers and use it in the manu<br />
facture of ammonia compounds, such as anhy<br />
drous ammonia, sulphate of ammonia, etc.<br />
The briquetting of lignite does not seem to<br />
appeal to the trade, and there is no plant in<br />
operation in the state.<br />
ORE ON DOCK MAY lst.<br />
Statistics gathered by the Marine Review from<br />
the various dock managers at Lake Erie ports<br />
show that the amount of ore on Lake Erie docks<br />
May 1 of the present year was 7,654,620 tons as<br />
against 5.444,080 tons in 1910, an increase of<br />
"2,210,540 tons. These figures include April re<br />
ceipts at Lake Erie ports.<br />
The total rail shipments from Lake Erie ports<br />
to furnaces during the winter season (Dec. 1 to<br />
May 2), aggregated 1,772,261 tons, viz:<br />
On dock Lake Erie ports. Dec. 1, 1910.. 9,426,881<br />
On dock May 1, 1911 7,654,620<br />
By rail to furnaces, winter of 1910-11.. 1,772,261<br />
Adding these winter shipments to 30.060,096<br />
tons, the amount shipped to furnaces dining the<br />
navigation season of 1910, gives 31,832.357 tons<br />
as the entire consumption of ore from Lake Erie<br />
ports during the year ended May 1, 1911. as<br />
against 33,599,013 tons for the year ended May 1,<br />
1910; as against 20,524,523 tons for the year<br />
ended May 1. 1909; as against 31.692,446 tons for<br />
the year ended May 1, 190S; as against 3o.099.769<br />
tons for the year ended May 1, 1907; as against<br />
28.984,358 tons for the year ended May 1, 1906;<br />
20,057,070 tons for the year ended May 1, 1905;<br />
IS,739,995 tons for the year ended May 1. 1904;<br />
21,905,251 tons for the year ended May 1, 1903;<br />
17,216,065 tons for the year ended May 1, 1902;<br />
14,4 65.260 tons for the year ended May 1, 1901;<br />
15,882,S81 tons for the year ended May 1. 1900;<br />
12,122,982 tons for the year ended May 1. 1899,<br />
and 10.209,488 tons for the year ended May 1,<br />
1S98.<br />
The following table gives the amount of ore<br />
on dock at the close of navigation last year and<br />
the opening this year:<br />
Ports. May 1, 1911. Dec. 1, 1910.<br />
Toledo 3S3.761 433.215<br />
Sandusky 11.45S 17.728<br />
Huron 273,042 375.118<br />
Lorain 1.151,184 259,448<br />
Cleveland 1,502,858 1,638,795<br />
Fairport 633,485 S39.970<br />
Ashtabula 2,277,931 3,287.816<br />
Conneaut 419,421 1,329,997<br />
Erie 653.778 792,011<br />
Buffalo 347,702 452,783<br />
7,654,620 9,426.881
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 4:;<br />
MINE FOREMAN'S POSITION NOT A HAPPY ONE"<br />
As to the duties of a mine foreman there is<br />
an equal amount of misapprehension and a growing<br />
tendency, on the part of the misinformed, to<br />
think that he and the fire-boss occupy the same<br />
position to the miner as a child's nurse does to a<br />
toddling baby; that is. he must first point out<br />
the danger, and then keep in constant attendance<br />
upon the workers to see that they are safe.<br />
Some interpret the sole function of the mine<br />
foreman to be to look after the safety of the miners.<br />
While this is an important duty, and one<br />
that has increased in importance of late years<br />
with the increase in unskilled labor in the mines,<br />
it must not be f<strong>org</strong>otten that mining is a business,<br />
and the foreman is the "Johnny on the spot"<br />
upon whose shoulders usually rest, to a great<br />
degree, the success or failure of the mine as a<br />
business enterprise.<br />
A mine that is producing no coal is perfectly<br />
safe to the miners who are at home; but it furnishes<br />
neither bread for the miner's family nor<br />
dividends for the owners. There are undoubtedly<br />
cases where the matter of output is allowed to<br />
be pre-eminent to the exclusion of safety measures,<br />
and where the foreman and his assistants, in<br />
order to hold their positions, give undue attention<br />
to this portion of the work. The point I<br />
want to make, however, is that the foreman has<br />
other duties than that of simply looking after the<br />
safety of the men, and he cannot be expected to<br />
devote all of his time to this duty.<br />
If a mine is kept in safe condition and the men<br />
are properly warned of dangers, they, and they<br />
alone, are to blame for personal injury or death<br />
due to recklessness.<br />
The foreman must not only be the caretaker of<br />
the men, but must look after the interest of the<br />
company as well. His position is in many cases<br />
an unenviable one, and too often he is ground<br />
between the lower millstone, the men, and tlie<br />
upper millstone, the mine owners.<br />
It is not too much to say that tbe conditions<br />
under which the miner pursues his arduous toil<br />
have been almost completely revolutionized in recent<br />
years relative to mine laws and improved<br />
equipment of collieries, which have, no doubt,<br />
revolutionized mining and naturally improved the<br />
miner's lot in trying to minimize the risk incidental<br />
to his calling; and yet, despite all that<br />
human foresight and ingenuity can do to prevent<br />
accidents, accidents involving peril to life and<br />
limb are of daily occurrence.<br />
There is a disposition on the part of the coal<br />
<strong>•</strong>Paper read before the Mining Institute Meeting, at Vivian.<br />
West Virginia. January. 1911.<br />
By Edward Nicholson. Inspector Eleventh District of W. Va.<br />
digger to think that when he has complied wilh<br />
the letter of the rules he has done all that is<br />
necessary. This is not sufficient. The rules,<br />
however stringent, cannot cover every case of roof<br />
timbering. It is necessary that the men make<br />
doubly sure that adequate safeguards are provided.<br />
If they all did this there would be fewer accidents;<br />
for with the best methods in the world, and the<br />
exercise of the utmost care, falls of roof will<br />
continue to happen. The future safety of mining<br />
must largely depend upon the miners themselves.<br />
While laws and carefully devised rules<br />
may do a great deal towards the preservation of<br />
life and limb, they are only aids to, and not substitutes<br />
for, safe working.<br />
Mine managers seem oblivious to the well<br />
known fact that men are unable to accomplish good<br />
work in bad air. Mines generally contain explosive<br />
gases; therefore death from gas explosions<br />
and mine fires arouse public opinion to such<br />
an extent as to demand legislation on mine ventilation.<br />
At some coal mines, under certain conditions,<br />
the management has to furnish a bountiful<br />
supply of air; otherwise the mine could not be<br />
worked. I would like to here say that the mines<br />
in this field are gaseous, and in using black powder,<br />
which we all know will ignite the gases in<br />
some cases where men happen to be in a tight<br />
place, or allow the canvas to get back, which<br />
sometimes happens, a fire is liable to occur in<br />
such a place after the shot-firer has visited the<br />
place after quitting time. There could be a small<br />
jet of gas burning behind a shot of coal that the<br />
shot firer did not see, so I would advise having<br />
some chemical mine fire engine; for it is almost<br />
impossible to have a water pipe system in all parts<br />
of a large mine.<br />
The renewing of pipe lines would be very costly,<br />
while the first cost of a chemical engine would<br />
be the only cost, and they are so constructed on<br />
mine car trucks that they can be taken to any<br />
part of a mine in a few minutes, which might be<br />
the saving of both life and limb and property.<br />
The chemical engine of to-day is so constructed<br />
that any ordinary workman can be instructed to<br />
operate it in a few minutes.<br />
Iu respiration, healthy working men inhale 32<br />
cubic inches per breath, or 20 cubic feet per hour.<br />
As pure air does not contain more than .04 per<br />
cent, of carbon dioxide, and inhaled air contains<br />
4.38 per cent., it will require 100 cubic feet of<br />
pure air to dilute one cubic foot of bad air per<br />
hour per man. In some mines the miners are<br />
given as little air as possible, with the result that
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
little worK is accomplished, and, worse, the min<br />
er's constitution is ruined. Men can work in<br />
atmosphere containing 4 per cent, of carbon dioxide,<br />
and frequently it is necessary to even sur<br />
pass that. However, ii cannot be continued in<br />
definitely.<br />
In mining, two parties are concerned in an un<br />
derstanding where a contract is implicated, if nol<br />
signed, sealed, acknowledged and recorded. By<br />
this contract both the miner and the oiierator are<br />
to refrain from doing or leaving undone those acts<br />
which would work injury to the other. Under<br />
this contract, there is both a moral and a legal<br />
obligation to furnish miners good, pure air. irre<br />
spective of statutory law. How many mine foremen<br />
can hold their heads up with pride and say<br />
that they can show that 75 to SO per cent, of the<br />
total quantity of air is reaching the face workings?<br />
How many mine foremen must hang their<br />
heads with shame, and say that only 45 to 50<br />
per cent, reaches the face of the working places?<br />
It may not seem to be of any value to save this.<br />
as it is only air; but we must not lose sight of<br />
the fact that any air that is set in motion b.v<br />
mechanical energy is at considerable expense to<br />
the company, and if this air be allowed to escape<br />
and get away, through bad doors and bad stoppings,<br />
it is robbing the men of part of the air<br />
they should be getting to support life. It is also<br />
a financial loss to the company. I should advise<br />
that at the mine that does not show 75 to SO per<br />
cent, of the total air at the working faces the superintendent<br />
and the foreman get their heads to<br />
gether and see if they cannot devise ways and<br />
means whereby not less than this amount can be<br />
obtained. As much of the mine as possible should<br />
be used as the intake, and as much as possible<br />
on return, only confining the air at the working<br />
face; have as few stoppings as possible. By<br />
having plenty of room for air in the air ways<br />
you take off the pressure on what stoppings you<br />
do have, consequently your loss would not be so<br />
great. For the same reason, you would force<br />
more water through a small pipe with a high pressure<br />
than you could with a low pressure. The<br />
same reasoning holds good in regard lo air and<br />
stoppings. The smaller your air ways the higher<br />
the pressure- the larger your air ways the lower<br />
your pressure, and a smaller amount leaks through<br />
your stoppings.<br />
A mine foreman must understand the princi<br />
ples of ventilation; the properties of mine gases;<br />
the effect of atmospheric changes in pressure:<br />
the construction and use of safety lamps; the<br />
principles of timbering, pumping, drainage, air<br />
compression, electricity and mine machinery, in<br />
cluding coal cutting, hoisting and haulage. Under<br />
these heads are many questions a mine foreman<br />
should be able to answer promptly, without re<br />
ferring to text-books. A practical man should<br />
be able to learn himself how to use text-books.<br />
Again, a mine foreman should be rated accord<br />
ing to his fitness to handle men. A fire boss<br />
sliould be subjected to a sight test, to ascertain<br />
correctly the percentage of gas indicated by its<br />
height, or the action of the flame; but mine rules<br />
are lightly regarded by workmen and bosses alike,<br />
and are enforced only when places can be quickly<br />
filled by other employes.<br />
The scarcity of miners is one of the drawbacks<br />
in this field. With enforcement of mine regula<br />
tion without an enforced penalty for violation of<br />
mine rules, they soon come to be lightly regarded.<br />
There is a good deal of talk relative to insurance<br />
of miners in regard to accidents. I do not see<br />
why operators should be liable for recklessness<br />
and carelessness on the part of some miners;<br />
besides, the operator has no right to be held<br />
responsible for any carelessness of the mine foreman.<br />
The foreman is in part an employe of the<br />
state, and is examined by the state, and then certified<br />
by the state, to be a capable and practical<br />
man. whom the operator hires upon these recom<br />
mendations. Then why should the operator<br />
suffer? The only way that I can see is for the<br />
government to collect a royalty from all the<br />
mines—that is, the land owner—and then the<br />
government pay to an accident fund; that is,<br />
when it is proved to be an accident; but when<br />
due to carelessness on part of the foreman or<br />
miners themselves, it ought to be a state case,<br />
and not the operator's case, as it is at the pres<br />
ent time. In case the operator interferes with<br />
the foreman in regard to his duties, the operator<br />
should then become liable.<br />
I have noticed since I have been in this state<br />
that West Virginia is very short of labor, and<br />
that our requirements must be furnished from<br />
abroad. 1 would urge upon all the operators of<br />
this state to perfect some plan for the importation<br />
of mine labor to supply pressing needs. After<br />
this is done the real work will begin, and success<br />
will depend upon the skill and patience of the<br />
mine foreman, under whose direction these men<br />
should be placed.<br />
This state must become a training school for<br />
unskilled labor, and we must assume a moral<br />
responsibility for their protection. I find by the<br />
reports that we are short 15,000 miners, so something<br />
should be done to supply these men, and<br />
it is up to the operators to get together and get<br />
these men into the state, which would not only be<br />
helping themselves, but would help their mine<br />
foremen in the performance of the duties which<br />
are expected of him in making the mine a paying<br />
proposition.<br />
There is one thing more I would like to men-
tion—the number of mules' that are killed and<br />
injured in this field.<br />
Let the mine foreman do his utmost, and it<br />
seems that he cannot make any headway in regard<br />
to stopping these accidents. I think that<br />
it is high time that we do away with mules, and<br />
concentrate the work in such a shape that the<br />
mines can use gathering motors. The gathering<br />
motor is successfully used in a good many mines;<br />
why not here? There is no question that there<br />
are several motors that are constructed in such<br />
shape that they are giving very little trouble in<br />
regard to repairs, and it would cheapen coal considerably.<br />
While West Virginia, in my mind, is ahead of<br />
all the states in mining methods, and has a larger<br />
per cent, of modern mines than any other state<br />
in the Union, we, as mine foremen, ought to try<br />
and keep ahead by showing our operators the<br />
benefit of using up-to-date methods and up-to-date<br />
machinery in all of our mines.<br />
f IN THE WAY OF CONDIMENT ;f<br />
"Nope," said Farmer Corntossel; "there's no use<br />
o'tryin' to coax me to run for the legislature."<br />
"But you are so prosperous now that you can<br />
afford the time."<br />
"That's jest it. The farm is payin' so well<br />
that I kin afford a few things. I want to be<br />
able to build a new barn and buy an automobile<br />
without people Iiintin' at graft."—Washington Star.<br />
Pat—"An' phwat the devil is a chafin-dish?"<br />
Mike—"Whist! Ut's a fryin'-pan that's got<br />
into society."<br />
The stranger—Are you quite sure that was a<br />
marriage license you gave me last month?<br />
The official—Of course! What's the matter?<br />
The stranger—Well, I've led a dog's life ever<br />
since.<br />
A mouse can make dress goods and laces go<br />
tip higher and quicker than the tariff any old<br />
time.<br />
Smile and the world smiles with you.<br />
Knock and you go alone.<br />
For the cheerful grin will let you in<br />
Where the kicker is never known.<br />
At a recent stockholders' meeting of the Jeffrey<br />
Manufacturing Co.. of Columbus. Ohio, the<br />
former directors were re-elected, as follows: J.<br />
A. Jeffrey, R. H. Jeffrey, J. W. Jeffrey, R. Grosvenor<br />
Hutchins, Frederick Shedd and C. W. Miller.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS<br />
111<br />
a<br />
The Pocahontas Coal Operators' Association met<br />
at the Hotel Matz, Bluefield, W. Va., recently. A<br />
number of subjects were discussed, among them au<br />
effort to arrive at agreement on a basic price for<br />
coal, this object being one of great disturbance to<br />
members of the association and to the western<br />
trade. There was a large attendance and an<br />
earnest endeavor is to be made lo establish prices<br />
on a sound basis, equitable alike to producers and<br />
consumers'.<br />
Practically all the big contracts at Buffalo from<br />
the railroads for soft coal have now been awarded.<br />
The Lackawanna has placed its order for 500,000<br />
tons of mine-run with the Rochester & Pittsburgh<br />
Coal & Iron Co., the Shawmut Coal & Coke<br />
Co. and the Buffalo & Susquehanna Coal Co. The<br />
Standard Oil Co. has contracted with the Rochester<br />
& Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Co. for 40.Ooo<br />
tons of slack coal.<br />
The Pocahontas Consolidated Collieries Co. has<br />
closed a contract with the New River Power Co.<br />
for electric power to operate its mines in southern<br />
West Virginia. The New River Power Co. will<br />
commence work on a 60,000 horsepower plant in<br />
the course of the next month or two and it is<br />
expected to have it completed and ready for operation<br />
in about a year's time.<br />
The Corporation Commission of Oklahoma has<br />
drawn up a tentative schedule of coal and coke<br />
freight rates on the mileage basis, and will probably<br />
issue an order directing the railroads to<br />
adopt the new tariff on coal shipments within the<br />
state. A former order of the commission relative<br />
to coal freight rates was set aside by the<br />
courts.<br />
The Board of Commission of Public Buildings<br />
and Grounds at Harrisburg, Pa., will receive bids<br />
for fuel supplies for the capitol buildings until<br />
June 6. Blanks and full information may be<br />
had on request by addressing Samuel B. Rambo.<br />
or N. E. Hause, secretary, Harrisburg.<br />
The large new power plant of the Rochester &<br />
Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Co. at Lucerne. Pa., was<br />
put into service recently. The new plant will<br />
furnish power for all the operations of the company<br />
in the Indiana, Pa., field, it is reported.<br />
The Bureau of Mines rescue station officials at<br />
Birmingham. Ala., have offered to teach the city<br />
firemen how to enter smoke-filled rooms and by<br />
use of the smoke-proof helmets make better progress<br />
in fire fighting.
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT IN COAL MINES.<br />
The telephone is of use in a coal mine not only<br />
as a means of protection for the workers but as<br />
an invaluable aid to the business activities carried<br />
on underground. A large number of installations<br />
of telephone equipment have been made<br />
in mines during the past year. The disasters of<br />
a couple of years ago called attention to the need<br />
of this means of safeguarding the lives of the<br />
miners.<br />
The Scientific American a short time ago made<br />
the statement that in the past 20 years the coal<br />
mines of this country have made 11,000 widows<br />
and 30,000 orphans and have exacted a toll of<br />
30,000 lives. In five years more than a regiment<br />
has been killed outright in the Pennsylvania<br />
coal mines alone. There is food for thought<br />
in these figures. Losses such as these amount<br />
to a national disaster, and as such the government<br />
has recently taken upon itself the work of<br />
pushing the campaign for more effective protection<br />
in mines. The new Bureau of Mines is engaged<br />
in a work of education. Experiments are<br />
being carried on and instruction is given widely<br />
by means of extension work and mine rescue cars.<br />
In this service as well as in any discussion of<br />
the subject of accidents in mines the telephone<br />
has played a prominent part. It is universally<br />
recognized that this means of instantaneous verbal<br />
communication from the remotest shafts to the<br />
outside air is essential. When an accident occurs<br />
and the entombed workers are able to tell<br />
the rescuers' where they are, the chances of fatalities<br />
are greatly reduced.<br />
Many mines have taken advantage of the special<br />
mine telephone equipment developed to meet the<br />
demand that followed legislation in Illinois and<br />
elsewhere. One of these installations is in the<br />
shafts of the Springfield Coal Co., Springfield.<br />
111. This mine has a daily capacity of 2.000 tons.<br />
Three hundred men are employed in the shaft,<br />
which runs to a depth of 220 feet. A system<br />
of eight telephones' of the Western Electric Co.'s<br />
No. 1336 ironclad type is used. One instrument<br />
is installed in the engineering room and is<br />
used to assist in the operation of the cage used<br />
in the mine. Another has been placed at the<br />
bottom of the main shaft. In the different runs<br />
of the mines, about 1,000 feet apart, the other<br />
six telephones have been placed.<br />
The chief use of this system is in the operation<br />
of cars and the direction of men in the mine.<br />
The superintendent is at all times in touch with<br />
all parts of the mine. He is able to call any<br />
of his foremen for a consultation and to give<br />
verbal orders direct and without confusion to any<br />
remote point. The runs in the mine can communicate<br />
with each other and take up any ques<br />
tions which may arise and which without the use<br />
of the telephone would mean a trip from one<br />
end of the mine to the other. Rapid communication<br />
between distant points in a mine and between<br />
the bottom of a shaft and the surface is a<br />
thing that has not always been possible. It<br />
used to be the rule for a man to run, stumble,<br />
jump and blunder through darkened corridors to<br />
deliver an urgent message. In the Springfield<br />
mine a short trip to the nearest telephone accomplishes<br />
this task in a prompt businesslike fashion,<br />
whether it be an order to start a car or an emergency<br />
warning.<br />
It is well known that the ordinary telephone<br />
sets are not satisfactory for use in mines. The<br />
instruments used by the Springfield Coal Co. have<br />
been developed especially to withstand the rigorous<br />
conditions of underground use, and are<br />
proof against fire, moisture and rust. The iron<br />
case is curved at the top to protect it again<br />
water or any other foreign matter which might<br />
fall upon it. The apparatus inside is doubly<br />
protected by two iron doors. When the inner<br />
door is closed only the transmitter mouthpiece,<br />
the receiver and the handle of the magneto generator<br />
are exposed. When the outer door is<br />
closed even these parts are protected. In using<br />
the set it is necessary to open only the outer<br />
door. Turning the generator crank rings the<br />
bell at the other stations in the mine, and the<br />
removal of the receiver from the switch-hook<br />
automatically closes the talking circuit.<br />
TUSCARAWAS STRIKE FINALLY SETTLED.<br />
An agreement has been reached that will end<br />
the strike of 2,500 miners in the Tuscarawas-<br />
Sherrodsville field, that has lasted within a few<br />
weeks of a year, by a joint conference of miners<br />
and operators' in session at Canton, O., May 26.<br />
The miners received an average advance of 1<br />
cent a ton, while the operators sought to reduce<br />
the price 6Vis cents a ton. The price for machine<br />
mining has been the chief subject under<br />
discussion. The agreement provides this scale:<br />
Chain machine mining, cutting wide, 18.25 cents<br />
a ton; loading, 56 cents a ton: cutting narrow,<br />
22.50 cents; loading. 66 cents. Punching machine<br />
mining, cutting wide, 25% cents a ton; loading,<br />
54 cents; cutting narrow, 29% cents; loading, 64<br />
cents.<br />
The joint committee formulating the new scale<br />
was composed of E. E. Fox of Massillon, William<br />
Haskins of Coshocton, and Richard Jones of Massillon.<br />
for the operators, and Charles Wenger of<br />
New Philadelphia, James Carlisle of New Philadelphia,<br />
and Charles Raymond of Midvale, for the<br />
miners.
FUEL AGENTS HOLD<br />
CONVENTION AT CHATTANOOGA.<br />
The third annual convention of the International<br />
Railway Fuel Association was held at Chattanooga,<br />
Tenn., during the fortnight and elected<br />
the following officers for the ensuing year: President,<br />
T. Duff Smith, fuel agent Grand Trunk Pacific<br />
railway. Winnipeg, Can.; first vice president,<br />
D. Meadows, master mechanic Michigan Central<br />
railroad, St. Thomas. Ont.; second vice president,<br />
J. H. Hibben, fuel agent M., K. & T. Ry., Parsons,<br />
Kan.; secretary-treasurer, D. B. Sebastian, fuel<br />
agent Rock Island lines, Chicago. Executive<br />
committee, W. C. Hayes, superintendent locomotive<br />
operation, Erie railroad. New York; Robert<br />
Collett. road foreman of engines, Frisco lines;<br />
J. McManamy, road foreman of engines, Pere<br />
Marquette railroad, Grand Rapids, Mich.: R.<br />
Emerson, engineer track economies. A., T. & S. F.<br />
Ry.. Topeka, Kan.<br />
The convention adopted resolutions, and sent<br />
messages to Vice President James S. Sherman of<br />
the United States and to Champ Clark, speaker<br />
of the House of Representatives, urging the passage<br />
of the Foss bill (H. B. 5139) now before<br />
Congress and providing for arbitration in labor<br />
disputes.<br />
The papers presented and discussed at the convention<br />
were all of direct interest to the coal<br />
trade and the operators in attendance were well<br />
repaid. The discussion was mainly along new<br />
and advanced lines and may be said to represent<br />
that which is the most modern, most vital and<br />
most momentous in the great coal industry.<br />
A NEW VENTILATING DEVICE.<br />
The necessity for pure air is being more fully<br />
and more widely recognized every day.<br />
There is, therefore, no need<br />
for the manufacturers of ventilating<br />
devices to "create a<br />
demand"—it already exists—<br />
and their problem is simply<br />
to convince their clientele<br />
that they are prepared to<br />
meet this demand in a manner<br />
calculated to give best<br />
results with minimum expense.<br />
The new and unique ventil-<br />
(" \~\7Z0dPffift ating outfit illustrated in Fig.<br />
<strong>•</strong><strong>•</strong> - yi 1 is designed for placing simply<br />
and inexpensively into<br />
topsashes of windows, transoms<br />
or ends of skylights.<br />
Outfit includes' 12!o-inch motor<br />
driven "Ventura" fan.<br />
FIG. 1. cast-iron housing, cut worm<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
geared reversing mechanism, rod, bearing and<br />
handle, and is furnished complete as illustrated<br />
Fig. 1, ready lor connection to plug or ordinary<br />
lamp socket.<br />
Fig. 2 illustrates<br />
outfit adjusted for<br />
supplying fresh outdoor<br />
air.<br />
The ingenious reversing<br />
mechanism<br />
makes it possible to<br />
discharge the air<br />
straight ahead, upward<br />
toward the ceiling,<br />
downward toward<br />
the floor, or at<br />
any intermediate location.<br />
Pure, in- , .,<br />
vigorating air introduced<br />
under slight pressure, can be supplied without<br />
direct draft or directly onto occupants at will.<br />
A simple turn of the hand wheel ( Fig. 1 ) reverses<br />
the outfit so that it exhausts from the room<br />
thus providing for absolute ventilation by complete<br />
air change.<br />
Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate<br />
the simplicity<br />
of installation. To<br />
conserve the lighting<br />
effect, and add to the<br />
appearance, the filler<br />
which accommodates<br />
the ventilating set<br />
can be glazed as<br />
shown in Fig. 3.<br />
The electrical connection<br />
can be made<br />
from nearby plug or<br />
ordinary lamp<br />
socket.<br />
Any carpenter or millwright can install the outfit<br />
at small cost.<br />
This device, known as the "Ventura" Electric<br />
Ventilating Set, is being marketed by the American<br />
Blower Co., Detroit. Mich., from whom further<br />
information can be obtained.<br />
The stockholders of the Orient Coke Co. have<br />
elected the following directors: Julian Kennedy,<br />
Pittsburgh; Robert Bentley, T. F. Woodman and<br />
David Daytfs, Youngstown, 0.; Reid Kennedy,<br />
Homestead; Joseph W. Kennedy. Pittsburgh, and<br />
0. W. Kennedy. Uniontown. At a later meeting<br />
of the board, the following officers were re-elected:<br />
Julian Kennedy, president: Robert Bentley, vice<br />
president; Reid Kennedy, secretary and treasurer;<br />
R. M. Fry. assistant secretary and treasurer,<br />
and O. W. Kennedy, general superintendent.
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
OPENING OF THE ARCHITECTURE<br />
AND BUILDING SHOW.<br />
The Architecture and Building Show, which<br />
opened in New York, May 19, and continued to<br />
and including May 27, had the distinction of being<br />
the first to be held in the New Grand Central<br />
Palace.<br />
Among the exhibits that are of especial interest<br />
is the combined one of Henry R. Worthington,<br />
the Blake & Knowles Steam Pump Works,<br />
the Laidlaw-Dunn-Gordon Co., and the Deane<br />
Steam Pump Co. Occupying the center of the<br />
space is one of the few operating exhibits to be<br />
seen at the show. It is a type A open pattern<br />
liquid weigher, a recent product of Henry R.<br />
Worthington, particularly developed for accurately<br />
measuring and recording by either weight<br />
or volume, the flow of hot water, chemicals, oils<br />
and other liquids that cannot be satisfactorily<br />
measured by meters. Briefly and simply described<br />
it consists of two tanks placed side by side<br />
and supported on knife edges so that they may<br />
be readily tilted a limited extent. When empty<br />
the tanks' stand level but after a certain quantity<br />
of water is admitted alternately to each tank it<br />
becomes top heavy and tips over allowing the<br />
water to escape through a bent pipe establishing<br />
a siphoning action that continues after the tank<br />
settles back to its normal or horizontal position<br />
until the tank is completely drained. Meantime<br />
the other tank is filling, for the instant that one<br />
tank tips the flow of water into it is automatically<br />
switched to the other tank. With this continued<br />
alternate filling and emptying of the tanks<br />
and always involving the same definite quantities<br />
of the liquid it but remains to count the movements<br />
of the tanks which is done by an automatic<br />
counter, made to read directly in either pounds<br />
or gallons.<br />
In this exhibit, to use the same water over<br />
repeatedly and at the same time demonstrate the<br />
working of another Worthington product, the<br />
water from the receiving tank into which the<br />
weigher discharges is returned by a small motordriven<br />
centrifugal pump to an elevated reservoir<br />
from which the water flows' into the weigher. Tn<br />
this instance the reservoir is a Blake & Knowles<br />
open feed water heater for steam boilers, and<br />
while it is not used as in practice, there being<br />
no steam available to pass through it to heat<br />
the water, it does show the automatic valve control<br />
of the feed water flow.<br />
A striking thing about the little centrifugal<br />
pump, which is only 12 inches in diameter, but<br />
has a capacity of 30 gallons a minute is that it<br />
is so quiet and smooth running that it takes pretty<br />
close inspection to discover that it is really in<br />
operation. Tn fact, when it is running a dime<br />
may be stood on any level part of the pump with<br />
out falling, showing the complete absence of vibration.<br />
Examples of the different types of Worthington<br />
meters are also exhibited and a motordriven<br />
Knowles triplex power pump.<br />
CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANY<br />
MAKES GOOD REPORT FOR THE YEAR.<br />
The Consolidation Coal Co. reports to the New<br />
York Stock Exchange for the 12 months ended<br />
March 31, 1911, as follows:<br />
Gross earnings from operation of mines. $12,033,278<br />
Operating expenses 9,012.033<br />
Depreciation on mining plant 238,974<br />
Depreciation on miscellaneous equipment 61,898<br />
Net earnings from operation $2,720,371<br />
Interest and dividends on securities owned 321,051<br />
Total income $3,041,423<br />
Charges to income 1,664,858<br />
Net income for the year $1,376,565<br />
Cash dividends declared for the year... 1,155,044<br />
Surplus $221,520<br />
RECENT COAL TRADE PATENTS.<br />
The following recently granted patents of interest<br />
to the coal trade, are reported expressly for<br />
THE COAL TKAHE BULLETIN, b.v J. M. Nesbit, patent<br />
attorney. Park building, Pittsburgh. Pa., from<br />
whom printed copies may be obtained for 15 cents<br />
each:<br />
Coke ovens, Gustav Schwab, Chicago, ill.; 989,-<br />
302.<br />
Fire damp indicator. F. H. Schroder, and Heinrich<br />
Becker, Recklinghausen. Germany; 989,929.<br />
Coal mining drill, R. C. Britton. Buxton, la.;<br />
990,205.<br />
Portable railway track, O. W. Meissner, Westmount.<br />
Quebec, Can., assignor to Gravity Coal<br />
Bin Co., Chicago. 111.; 990,282.<br />
Cutter head for mining machines, J. C. Hirst.<br />
Reynoldsville, Pa.; 990.554.<br />
Apparatus for igniting miners' safety lamps.<br />
E A. Hail wood, Morley, Eng.; 990,859.<br />
Hydraulic coal breaker, William Pill, Cowanporth,<br />
Eng.; 991.017.<br />
Coke discharging apparatus for vertical retorts',<br />
Samuel Glover and John West. Southport, Eng.;<br />
991,499.<br />
Coal mining machine, Elmer Hough, Wellsburg.<br />
W. Va.; 991,508.<br />
Coking oven (2), L. L. Summers. Chicago, 111.,<br />
assignor to Continuous Process Coke Co., same<br />
place; 992,078 and 992,079.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
VENTILATION OF MINERS SAFETY LAMPS ¥<br />
By Mr. E. A. Hailwood, Manager of Messrs Achroyd & Best. Ltd., Morley. England.<br />
Of all miners' safety lamps the one having the<br />
greatest ventilation area is, of course, the Davy<br />
lamp. For modern pit requirements it has become<br />
necessary, for various reasons, to more<br />
effectually protect the flame from possible communication<br />
with gas mixtures in the atmosphere<br />
of the pit, and also to construct the lamp in such<br />
a manner as to give more light, and also to provide<br />
means for quickly re-lighting the lamp in<br />
the event of the light becoming extinguished in<br />
the mine, and to automatically lock the lamp in<br />
such a way that it can only be opened by machines<br />
kept on the surface.<br />
It was early demonstrated, beyond a shadow of<br />
doubt, that in gaseous mixtures traveling at comparatively<br />
low velocities, the Davy lamp is totally<br />
unsafe. The addition of a glass cylinder underneath<br />
the gauze and surrounding the flame increased<br />
the safety considerably, but not sufficiently;<br />
the steel bonnet or shield was then provided,<br />
this added an enormous factor of safety<br />
to the lamp. In course of time the number of<br />
gauzes was increased from one to two. Each of<br />
these additions has affected the ventilating problem.<br />
The course of ventilation generally adopted<br />
was to provide a middle ring towards the foot ot<br />
the steel bonnet and about the upper part of the<br />
glass and provide same with aii inlet openings.<br />
the air passing through such openings and forward<br />
through the lower portion of the gauzes,<br />
down the inside of the glass gradually approaching<br />
the burner, the consumed gases passing up<br />
the center of the lamp and through the upper<br />
portion of the gauze and thence through openings<br />
in the top portion of the steel bonnet or shield.<br />
By varying the comparative dimensions of the<br />
intake and outlet openings it is possible to maintain<br />
a very steady clear light in the lamp wdien<br />
burning oil in such a manner as to suit pits where<br />
the velocities are high or where they are comparatively<br />
low. In the former class of pits it<br />
is sometimes advisable to shield the outlet openings<br />
with a downwardly<br />
PROJECTING FLANGE RING,<br />
and to place a deflector ring near the intake, the<br />
deflector being very useful in splitting up the<br />
intake from the outlet.<br />
To produce a more complete combustion of the<br />
fuel, an inner glass provided with a chimney<br />
has been tried, the incoming air passing down between<br />
the walls of the two glasses—getting warmed<br />
up in the process—and thence through a perforated<br />
gallery on which the inner glass is supported,<br />
and forward to the flame, the products of<br />
<strong>•</strong>Paper read before the Mine Inspectors Institute of America,<br />
Chicago, June, 1910.<br />
combustion passing through the chimney and<br />
upper portion of the gauze. These, whilst giving<br />
a good light, proved too complicated and expensive<br />
for ordinary use in the mines.<br />
The ordinarily bonneted single glass lamp burning<br />
oil, whilst satisfactory in many respects, was<br />
deficient in that when the light was lost in the<br />
mine a miner who was anxious to get ahead with<br />
his work and earn a good week's money was<br />
tempted to tamper with his lamp and carry concealed<br />
matches with him for the purpose of relighting<br />
the lamp and thus save the loss of time<br />
and money entailed by having to send his lamp<br />
to the surface or to the relighting cabin sometimes<br />
constructed on the intake, airway. These<br />
cabins were necessarily some distance from the<br />
coal face, and as the latter was constantly getting<br />
farther away and the management was often slowin<br />
constructing fresh relighting cabins the distance<br />
from the face of the cabins was generally<br />
deemed unsatisfactory by reason of the lamps<br />
very often getting smoked up whilst hanging on<br />
the nails waiting to be exchanged for extinguished<br />
lamps, and in any case a lot of oil would<br />
be burned to no useful purpose. The carrying<br />
of the lamps to and fro to the relighting station<br />
or to the spare lamp station often entailed hardship<br />
on the lads by reason of the dangers on the<br />
engine planes or roadways which they frequently<br />
had to pass along. During this journey the<br />
lamps were often damaged by violent contact with<br />
the trucks, etc.<br />
The underground relighting cabins were often<br />
dark places and the man who examined, unlocked,<br />
relighted and refastened the lamp, often a cripple<br />
or an old man quite unacquainted with the essentials<br />
of safety lamps; it was therefore an easy<br />
matter for him to omit some portion of the lamp<br />
or assemble the parts together with dirt lodging<br />
in crevices and leaving<br />
GAPS ix THE LAMP PARTS.<br />
Where the lead lock was employed it was usual<br />
to keep on hand in the cabin a box of spare rivets,<br />
and the lads or men who visited the cabin have<br />
been known to help themselves to such rivets and<br />
to afterwards open the lamps in the mine and<br />
insert one of the rivets, marking it with wedge<br />
in such a manner that on cursory examination it<br />
would appear to be sealed, or as is frequently the<br />
case there would be no examination on the surface<br />
when the lamps came in after the shift, so<br />
that the opening and relocking of the lamp went<br />
undetected until possibly a disaster happened and<br />
the lamp was found unlocked.<br />
Owing to the incessant demand for a different
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
system of relighting safety lamps there sprung into<br />
existence two systems; one being that employed in<br />
the Wolff, Seipell and similar lamps, and the other<br />
system being that in which electricity is employed<br />
for relighting the wick of the lamp.<br />
In the former system rolls of linen, paper or<br />
the like, are provided at regular distances apart<br />
with spots of fulminating material, which on<br />
being scratched or struck with a striker would<br />
ignite and relight the wick. Judging by the fact<br />
that the bulk of this type of lamp on the market<br />
are arranged to consume naphtha, gasoline, or<br />
other very high volatile fuel is deemed by the<br />
makers to be the only kind which will satisfactorily<br />
relight with the fulminating caps. Attempts<br />
to relight oil prove that it is a most difficult thing<br />
to do with friction relighters.<br />
Now in the application of this relighting device<br />
and the naphtha fuel to safety lamps, it has<br />
become necessary to alter the system of ventilation<br />
of the lamp and to add an air intake at the<br />
bottom of the glass because when the lamp is<br />
extinguished it continues, for some time, giving<br />
off a great quantity of inflammable gas from the<br />
naphtha, and the interior of the<br />
GLASS AND GAUZE<br />
speedily becomes charged with a rich supply of<br />
such gas, in fact so much so that frequently the<br />
match or cap on being struck will not light, rick<br />
gas choking the flame. This even takes place<br />
when the lamp is provided with the lower air<br />
intake, but b.v violently swinging tbe lamp to<br />
and fro incidentally running the risk of smashing<br />
it, the naphtha gas is diluted with a supply<br />
of fresh air from the mine air and the relighting<br />
process carried out.<br />
The placing of an air intake underneath the<br />
glass has introduced a most serious possible<br />
source of creating an explosion in a mine. It<br />
can be shown that when gas mixture, moving at<br />
even a very low velocity, enters the lamp, the<br />
flame will leave the wick and continue to burn<br />
on the inside of the bottom air intake ring, and<br />
as this flame is just at the foot of the glass, the<br />
latter will quickly crack, especially if a cold<br />
blast of air strikes it whilst in the heated condition<br />
or a drop of water falls on it.<br />
It will be clear that if a lamp be hung up in<br />
a working place in a mine and gas enter and burn<br />
just above the naphtha vessel for any length of<br />
time, that the box of matches in the lamp will<br />
get on fire and ihe naphtha vapor be released to<br />
such an extent that the entire lamp will be aflame.<br />
In course of time the gauze web which protects<br />
the bottom air inlet becomes foul with coal dust,<br />
etc., or the wires eat away under moist atmosphere<br />
in the mine, or the rivets or other fastenings<br />
used for securing the web may drop out and<br />
an open flame passage formed; or if solder be<br />
utilized for securing the gauze same may melt<br />
when the aforesaid gas flame plays ou same, all of<br />
whicli defects' are very likely to be overlooked in<br />
the usual hurry and bustle in the lamphouse—<br />
and just wdien the lamp is required to withstand<br />
a strain the defects may allow the flame to pass<br />
and cause an explosion. This oversight is not so<br />
likely to happen with the large gauzes in the<br />
upper part of the lamp as they are much more<br />
tangible articles to handle, whilst on the other<br />
hand the liottom air intake ring is an awkward<br />
article and therefore does not receive proper attention.<br />
The accumulation of coal dust on this latter<br />
ring may very conceivably be a means of conveying<br />
flame from the inside of the lamp through<br />
the bottom gauze to the gas outside the lamp.<br />
With the object, no doubt, of reducing the<br />
chance of excuse for the lamp man not attending<br />
to the cleaning of the bottom gauze ring, the practice<br />
has arisen of constructing this ring in such<br />
a manner that it may be slipped into position and<br />
it is not provided with screw threads for fear the<br />
lamp man would neglect to<br />
UNSCKEW AMI EXAMINE<br />
the ring, but even in this form it is a cumbersome<br />
article and has introduced more dangers;<br />
for instance, the accumulation of a little coal<br />
dust, dirt or a piece of the match ribbon unobservably<br />
left lying on the top of the naphtha vessel<br />
or between the air ring and the jointing<br />
washer (which I understand you term "gasket"),<br />
or between the latter and the glass or expansion<br />
ring fitted in some lamps, or if the gasket got<br />
kinked or the expansion ring damaged by a fall<br />
to the cement floor, or the naphtha filling plug<br />
in the naphtha vessel is not screwed home, any<br />
one of these things may cause the part immediately<br />
above it to cant over and leave the clear<br />
flame path from the outside of the lamp to the<br />
flame. These are defects not generally known<br />
and not readily discovered in the ordinary working<br />
of a lamp cabin as they are in somewhat in<br />
accessible positions and not very visible to the<br />
eye. and although in some cases it may be possible<br />
to test if the washer is in position immediately<br />
underneath the glass, it is impossible by<br />
a blowing test to demonstrate that the other parts<br />
in connection with the bottom air intake are in<br />
safe order as the light would, under such test,<br />
invariably become extinguished. To overcome<br />
this, attempts have been made to rest the air<br />
inlet ring on the bush by means of outstanding<br />
pegs, the theory being that if the washer between<br />
the air inlet ring and the vessel is missing the<br />
glass will be demonstratedly slack. This is unsatisfactory<br />
because in course of time the washers<br />
become squeezed flat and the lamp man may use<br />
two on the upper side of the bottom ring or, as
often happens, a variation in the length of the<br />
glass makes it impossible to have the glass tight<br />
or slack altogether irrespective of whether or not<br />
the washer is in position between the naphtha<br />
vessel and the bottom air intake, and if the<br />
washer is absent it is possible to get a cleai<br />
explosion from the flame to the surrounding gas<br />
mixture; then again the glasses are often irregular<br />
and no doubt as the colliery buyers get more<br />
accustomed to lamps they will<br />
CUT PRICES OF GLASSES<br />
more and more until some makers will take less<br />
care in the selection of glasses and you will have<br />
some of the irregular glasses, such as are sometimes<br />
shipped into Great Britain and purchased<br />
by colliery buyers in their efforts to show a saving<br />
on purchases, and if you get here some of<br />
the glasses such as the writer has seen, you will<br />
be running great risks of an explosion in your<br />
mines, because with the type of lamp mentioned<br />
above, (having bottom air inlet) it is impossible<br />
to ensure that a joint is made between the glass<br />
and the gaskets, as sufficient pressure cannot be<br />
brought to bear on the glass to sink same into the<br />
gaskets, as the screwing up is generally done<br />
whilst the magnet holds back the lock and there<br />
is, therefore, little or no leverage possible. To<br />
my mind there is far more danger from a slack<br />
joint at this part of the lamp than there is from<br />
the expansion and subsequent cracking of the<br />
glass, because if soft asbestos gaskets be employed—even<br />
after the glass has been bedded into<br />
same—there is sufficient elasticity left to allow<br />
the small expansion which afterwards may take<br />
place, seeing that the bulk of the expansion may<br />
be expected to take place in the lamphouse between<br />
the igniting of the lamp and the handing<br />
of same to the collier.<br />
To employ a spring ring above the glass to depress<br />
same on to the gaskets is unsatisfactory because<br />
the spring loses its elasticity in course of<br />
time, particularly when the lamp is hot and the<br />
spring under compression, and in any case when<br />
gas enters the lamp and burns in the gauze the<br />
heat therefrom may draw the temper of the spring<br />
and cause the glass to shift just at a critical<br />
moment in the mine.<br />
With the ventilation arranged in the manner<br />
described hereinbefore it is possible for an explosion<br />
to pass through a defective gauze and which<br />
might not so occur in a lamp having an upper<br />
air feed only, because in the latter the incoming<br />
gas would choke down the flame, and the products<br />
of combustion first liberated may form a flameproof<br />
barrier around the defect in the gauze; this<br />
can be proved by passing a lamp (having a hole<br />
the diameter of a penholder driven through the<br />
top of the gauze) into a body of gas when it will<br />
be observed that more often than not the light<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
will be extinguished and this without the flame<br />
ot the lamp having<br />
IGNITED TIIE SURROUNDING GAS,<br />
wdiereas with a lamp having a bottom air feed<br />
and through draft it would be more likely that<br />
the flame-proof barrier of the products of combustion<br />
would clear away more rapidly and the<br />
flame therefore be more free to make contact<br />
with the outside gas; this, of course, would happen<br />
more frequently in a moving body of gas mixture.<br />
ln addition to the dangers introduced in the<br />
lamp by the introduction of the bottom air feed,<br />
there is in a lamp provided with a self-contained<br />
friction cap igniter always present the danger<br />
of the mine being blown up by the careless use<br />
of such igniter in a damaged lamp in the midst<br />
of gas by either a careless person or a man who<br />
is in a great hurry to get on with his piecework.<br />
If the lamp is not damaged by a fall it may<br />
have had the glass cracked by allowing the lamp<br />
to tilt to one side. The writer has observed in<br />
this country, men working alongside the coal<br />
punchers with lamps the glasses of which were<br />
badly flame marked, showing that the lamp had<br />
been tilted to one side. The party in question<br />
was a foreigner and probably knew no better and<br />
most likely would have known no better than to<br />
have relit his lamp immediately it was extinguished<br />
and that possibly without moving away<br />
from the "face." The mine was one in which<br />
a large quantity of gas was given off in the working<br />
places.<br />
It is conceivable for a lamp to burn in a body<br />
of gas, the glass of the lamp being broken and no<br />
flame to pass, yet when such lamp is suddenly<br />
ignited in such gas mixture for the flame to pass<br />
out and ignite the gas mixture, the flame not passing<br />
out whilst the lamp is burning regularly because<br />
of the consumption by the flame of the<br />
incoming gas, but when the light is extinguished<br />
and the lamp allowed to fill (as it will<br />
in a few moments) with naphtha vapour and possibly<br />
already have a fair quantity of fine coal<br />
dust in suspension, you have here a good combination<br />
for an explosion because the sudden ignition<br />
by the match of the comparative large body<br />
of gas mixture filling the lamp is like putting<br />
tne spark to a cannon or shot,<br />
THE SUDDEN IGNITION<br />
developing an explosion which is helped into a<br />
sort of a cannon effect by the smooth glass and<br />
the full force of the large ignited mass searching<br />
for and certainly finding any gaps left by missing<br />
or defective fittings. I have proved this by getting<br />
explosions out of lamps in this manner when<br />
I have failed b.v other means.<br />
The writer is, therefore, honestly of opinion that<br />
the introduction of lamps containing such devices
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
( as before described) into the gassy mines of<br />
the United States is a retrograde step as the<br />
whole mine is at the mercy of a thoughtless person,<br />
and he believes he has shown that a careful<br />
miner may unwittingly bring about a disaster;<br />
furthermore the miner often places implicit confidence<br />
in the management and when provided<br />
with a safety lamp thinks because it is called<br />
a safety lamp that he is free to go into dangers<br />
he otherwise would not go into and, as stated<br />
above, if the lamp is in any way defective he is<br />
innocently courting disaster.<br />
Now with the system of electrical relighting of<br />
miners' oil lamps there has been no change made<br />
in the ventilation of the lamp, the intake air<br />
passing through a brass ring at the foot of the<br />
steel bonnet and above the glass, and as there<br />
is no air intake underneath the glass there is<br />
no likelihood of gas flame burning at the foot of<br />
the glass and cracking same, in velocities ordinarily<br />
met with in mines. The flame cannot pass<br />
out between the threads of the vessel and the lamp<br />
body ring—or wdiat is sometimes termed the bush—<br />
neither can it pass through the many threads of<br />
the glass holding ring, there is therefore only the<br />
gasket and any imperfections in the glass to keep<br />
under observation, so far as the lower part of the<br />
lamp is concerned any imperfections in these two<br />
articles are instantly discovered by blowing<br />
around the foot of the glass; if the glass or<br />
gasket is out of order the wind would pass<br />
through and flicker the light thus warning<br />
the tester of the imperfections. With this system<br />
it is also possible to employ high flash point<br />
oil. You have a very good<br />
OIL IX THIS COUNTRY<br />
called 300 fire test Mineral Oil, having a flash<br />
point of 265 degrees to 270 degrees F. and which<br />
gives a very clear, steady, white light, free from<br />
smell and cheaper by several cents than naphtha,<br />
and also no doubt the cost of transit is also<br />
cheaper. Owing to its high flash point it will<br />
last longer than naphtha, of wdiich a great deal<br />
is lost by evaporation in tbe handling of same.<br />
With this oil there is not the risk of blowing up<br />
or burning down the lamp house and possibly pit<br />
head gear, which risk is always present where the<br />
highly volatile naphtha or gasoline is used.<br />
An oil lamp is also preferable to a naphtha lamp<br />
by reason of the flames being limited to about one<br />
inch in height in the oil lamp; if the flame is<br />
higher it will smoke and extinguish, therefore a<br />
miner will, after one or two days' experience,<br />
take care that his light is kept at reasonable<br />
height, whereas, with naphtha he is often free to<br />
use a very large flame without smoke, and consequently<br />
may get his lamp very hot and also injure<br />
the gauze.<br />
With the oil mentioned above it is possible and<br />
usual for miners to go right through the shift<br />
without smoking the gauze to the slightest extent.<br />
in conjunction with this oil lamp the writer<br />
has introduced a system of electrical relighting<br />
in the mine. The machine being provided with<br />
a lamp chamber so constructed that only after<br />
the lamp has been placed within such chamber<br />
and only by the rotation and closing of a cylindrical<br />
door to the lamp chamber does the electric<br />
current automatically pass up an insulated spindle<br />
arranged in the lamp and relight the wick by<br />
sparks in the vicinity of the wick tube, the opening<br />
of the lamp door automatically switching off<br />
the current and automatically passing a guard<br />
plate in front of the hidden switch, which is absolutely<br />
inaccessible when the lamp chamber is open.<br />
So far as the miner is concerned the whole operation<br />
is a very simple matter as he merely places<br />
his lamp in the chamber and closes the door, and<br />
in about three seconds opens same again and abstracts<br />
his relighted lamp and goes about his work.<br />
The machine is preferably worked by accumulators<br />
or storage batteries placed in a chamber<br />
provided with a separate door and key, the chamber<br />
having vents to ventilate<br />
ANY SMALL ACID GAS<br />
which may be given off by the storage battery,<br />
which can only amount to a few thimbles-full.<br />
The transformer, which is commonly called an<br />
induction coil, is placed in a solid cast chamber<br />
having a door 12 inches in diameter (about) and<br />
a flange two-inch face provided with threads over<br />
the whole face which engage in similar threads<br />
in the transformer chamber, so that when the<br />
door is screwed home it makes a mechanical tight<br />
joint. The accumulator, switch and transformer<br />
chambers are secured by locks, the keys of which<br />
are in the keeping of the lamp man or some<br />
other official appointed for the purpose. The<br />
machine is constructed throughout of steel or<br />
iron and is of a most substantial form. All the<br />
joints are revolving or screw threaded and are not<br />
dependent on rubber or hemp for making the<br />
joint, and therefore cannot get out of order;<br />
they are also of such a great breadth or length<br />
that in each case they are flame-proof and flame<br />
passing over would be chilled before it reached<br />
the outside. So that with this apparatus, even<br />
supposing a defective lamp was placed in the<br />
lamp chamber and the chamber closed and the<br />
current switched through it, the consequent explosion<br />
would be confined to the inside of the<br />
lamp chamber, the expanded gases escaping around<br />
the crevices of the door, the length of which<br />
path is eight inches which effectually takes the<br />
life out of the flame. The explosion would most<br />
certainly extinguish the light in the lamp so that
when the chamber is opened the lamp would not<br />
be alight.<br />
It will be clear that the management can definitely<br />
fix the position this machine would occupy<br />
in the mine, and would no doubt select the intake<br />
airway where it is a moral certainty an explosive<br />
mixture of gas would not be found within three<br />
feet of the ground, and would place it near to the<br />
workings so as to be quite accessible to either one<br />
or more districts according as the mine is laid<br />
out. The machine weighs about 500 pounds and<br />
is therefore too heavy for one man to tamper<br />
with, whereas two men acting under the management<br />
instructions can move the machine forward<br />
as the coal face advances.<br />
It has been found from actual experience that<br />
it is not desirable to furnish miners with too easy<br />
facilities for relighting their lamps in their workill<br />
use their lamps knowing that if the light goes<br />
illuse their lamps knowing that if the light goes<br />
out they can easily regain same, whereas with<br />
the electrical system mentioned above the miner<br />
is put to some little inconvenience in sending or<br />
taking his lamp to be relit, and although the time<br />
taken is so short as to have no real effect on his<br />
day's output it is found in practice that it is<br />
sufficient to make him take great<br />
CARE OF HIS LAMP<br />
and see that his light is not lost, and in exercising<br />
this care he also takes care that the framework<br />
of the lamp is not damaged. The discipline<br />
of the mine is thus improved and the risk<br />
for damaged lamps considerably reduced.<br />
With this class of lamp it is also possible to<br />
employ the extra powerful automatic lock introduced<br />
by the writer; the lock being absolutely unpickable<br />
and the spring stronger than that of any<br />
known type of magnetic lock, and yet owing to<br />
the form of construction it is one of the easiest<br />
locks for the lamproom oiierator to manipulate.<br />
It is quite impossible to jerk down the lock or<br />
affect it with a hand magnet. The upper part<br />
of the lock engages in teeth cut into the glass<br />
holding ring, and at the most the lock has only<br />
a possible movement of about three-fourths of an<br />
inch and this does not affect the tightness of the<br />
glass in any respect as is the case with the naphtha<br />
lamp which usually has from one and onehalf<br />
to two inches play between the lock notches,<br />
and if, as often happens, the lock will not (in<br />
the latest type of lamp) quite reach a certain<br />
notch, the lamp is handed out by the lampman<br />
and the miner may be ignorant of this position<br />
of affairs and continue into the mine, the traveling<br />
jolting the lamp and causing the naphtha vessel<br />
to slack back to the nearest notch and the<br />
glass and bottom air inlet left correspondingly<br />
slack.<br />
Lamps having air intakes communicating with<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 53<br />
the air immediately underneath the glass are not<br />
so useful gas detectors for pit use, as it is necessary<br />
to have a layer of gas extending right down<br />
to the lower air intake in order to actually find<br />
same. If a layer of three or four inches, or<br />
probably six inches, is present, the bottom air<br />
feed may be in a body of comparatively clear air<br />
and will feed the flame with same, or even if<br />
any gas is drawn down through the upper gauze<br />
it is sure to be diluted by the fresh air coming<br />
in through the bottom air feed, and so the percentage<br />
reading will be misleading. When traveling<br />
a mine in this country recently the writer<br />
carried an oil lamp drawing its air from the middle<br />
of the lamp, whilst the pit boss carried a<br />
naphtha lamp, and when testing for gas by the<br />
elongation of the flame the<br />
OIL LAMP WAS QUICKEST<br />
and surest, on some occasions the oil lamp showing<br />
elongation when the spirit lamp gave no<br />
visible signs of gas. In another mine the pit<br />
boss expressed doubt as to whether any gas was<br />
present. To prove it the writer drew down his<br />
flame and tested for the blue cap and found onefourth<br />
to three-eighths inch cap.<br />
If a lamp be wanted to find a very thin layer of<br />
gas near the roof it is necessary to construct the<br />
lamp in such a form that the intake is from the<br />
upper part of same. This principle is embodied<br />
in a lamp recently modeled by the writer; the<br />
air inlet holes- being situated in the flat crown,<br />
the gas or air passing through such openings and<br />
into a space or chamber situated immediately below<br />
the crown, thence downward between the<br />
walls of the outer shield and the walls of an<br />
inner chamber which surrounds the gauze, the<br />
incoming air being deflected through the lower<br />
portion of the gauze on to the flame, the consumed<br />
gases passing up the center of the lamp<br />
and through the upper part of the gauze and<br />
through horizontal tubes to the outside of the<br />
lamp. This lamp is also furnished with the ordinary<br />
air intake about the middle thereof so as<br />
to furnish sufficient air to enable it to be used<br />
in the ordinary manner. This middle intake<br />
may be fitted with a shut off plate operated by<br />
hand or by a spring arrangement. Other types<br />
of lamps in which the air is drawn from a point<br />
very near the crown are the Hepplewhite-Grey<br />
lamp and the Ashworth lamp. In the former<br />
the air passes down hollow pillars to a chamber<br />
just below the burner and thus casts the air or<br />
gas mixture close to the flame. The pillars are<br />
fitted with sliding sleeves to enable air intakes<br />
at the foot of the pillars to be opened after the<br />
test is completed and a supply of fresh air quickly<br />
allowed access to the flame and th.e light restored.<br />
The glass of this lamp is of the conical<br />
type and is very narrow
54 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
TOWARDS THE UPPER .NECK.<br />
A very small gauze is placed on the lamp. The<br />
Ashworth lamp is provided with a broad, flat<br />
tube which places the upper portion of the bonnet<br />
into communication with a chamber at the<br />
foot of the glass, something after the manner<br />
of the Hepplewhite-Grey lamp. This also usually<br />
has a conical glass and small gauze.<br />
In the hands of men who take an interest in<br />
their work these two lamps are very useful, but<br />
owing to the care usually necessary by reason of<br />
the restricted outlet and the conical glass, which<br />
some allege quickly gets sooted up, the lamps do<br />
not appear to have come into the general use<br />
one might have expected.<br />
During the short time the writer has been in<br />
this country he has made inquiries from all available<br />
sources and finds that in the mines there<br />
are employed a great number of foreigners, many<br />
of whom can scarcely speak the English language,<br />
and very many of whom have never been<br />
in a mine prior to reaching this country within<br />
perhaps a few months or few years ago. These<br />
men are quite ignorant of the principles of mining<br />
and mining appliances, and to the writer it appears<br />
that the question as to the type of safety<br />
lamps to place in such unskilled hands is a serious<br />
question which this country will have to settle<br />
in the immediate future, and if it should be<br />
that the wrong type is being adopted, the sooner<br />
this is rectified the better, because if a large<br />
body of mine owners find themselves with a stock<br />
of what can be shown to be risky lamps, they<br />
will, if they are like many other commercial<br />
communities, do a lot of arguing and take a lot<br />
of pushing and absorb a lot of time in the process<br />
before any great change will be made. The<br />
writer understands that for some considerable<br />
time inspectors have been advocating the use of<br />
safety lamps in coal mines and that years have<br />
gone by and many lives been lost in the interval<br />
before any move took place to install safety lamps,<br />
so that it is quite feasible to suppose the same<br />
process would have to be gone through in the<br />
future if a change of type of lamps be called for.<br />
In many of tbe coal fields in Europe it may be<br />
safely said that the mining community have been<br />
bred and born to their work and in many cases<br />
the men are not so "independent" as the men<br />
who reach this side of the water, and therefore<br />
it is possible to maintain good discipline and to<br />
place in the hands of the men lamps of a type<br />
which it might be risky to issue to the miners<br />
of this country. It is well to take care that<br />
the framework of the safety lamps adopted is<br />
very rigid and strong, and for this reason it is<br />
questionable whether thin stamped metal is satisfactory<br />
as whilst it has a great tensile strength<br />
it easily dents and therefore easily leaves gaps<br />
which to unskilled lampmen appear of little importance<br />
and yet may have completely destroyed<br />
the safety of the lamp.<br />
Bids for furnishing 40,000 tons of coal for<br />
government use will be opened in the office of the<br />
U. S. Engineer at St. Louis on June 8.<br />
MOVEMENT OF COAL AND COKE OVER VARIOUS RAILROADS, RIVERS, AND CANALS<br />
FOR THREE MONTHS AND MARCH, 1910 AND 1911.<br />
RAILROADS.<br />
Baltimore and Ohio*<br />
Buffalo. Rochester and Pittsburgh ....<br />
Buffalo and Susquehanna<br />
Chesapeake and Ohiot<br />
Huntingdon and Broadtop Mountain*<br />
New York Central and Hudson River <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Norfolk and Western*<br />
Pennsylvania (east of Pittsburg and Erie)*<br />
Pittsburg and Lake Erie ...<br />
Pittsburg, Shawmut and Northern ....<br />
Southern Railway!<br />
Virginian Railway RIVERS AND CANALS.<br />
Barren River. Lock No. 1<br />
Black Warrior River, Lock No 12<br />
Canal and Ealls at Louisville <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal<br />
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal <strong>•</strong> -<br />
Davis Island Dam<br />
Green River, Lock No. 1 . . <strong>•</strong><br />
Great Kanawha River<br />
Kentucky River. Lock No. 1<br />
Monongahela River<br />
MONTH OF MARCH —<br />
1910<br />
Tons<br />
3,246.778<br />
761.478<br />
147.685<br />
1.270,425<br />
143,565<br />
918.376<br />
1.718.841<br />
6.219.964<br />
1.612,925<br />
167.779<br />
353.231<br />
106.373<br />
360<br />
1<br />
149.491<br />
2.293<br />
245.150<br />
3.176<br />
129.680<br />
11.800<br />
1.082.251<br />
1911<br />
Tons.<br />
2.609,658<br />
668,936<br />
194.768<br />
1.056,695<br />
113.375<br />
711,662<br />
1.475,012<br />
5.674,834<br />
1,197.752<br />
103.707<br />
305.684<br />
191.774<br />
421<br />
76<br />
169.156<br />
3.195<br />
271,210<br />
3.116<br />
168.740<br />
9.800<br />
1.010.191<br />
THREE MONTHS—<br />
1910<br />
Tons.<br />
8,823.813<br />
2.118.719<br />
408.562<br />
2.566.689<br />
363.293<br />
2,549.713<br />
4.853.329<br />
18.075.759<br />
4.506.062<br />
332.936<br />
719.656<br />
293.177<br />
725<br />
106<br />
404.540<br />
15,799<br />
835.180<br />
7,906<br />
322.280<br />
21.400<br />
2,779.929<br />
* Includes coal received from connecting lines. t February figures.<br />
1911<br />
Tons<br />
7.682.214<br />
1,973.717<br />
526.484<br />
2.575,733<br />
304,983<br />
2,114.664<br />
4.583.033<br />
15.890.836<br />
3.309.006<br />
356.963<br />
664.601<br />
572.425<br />
684<br />
211<br />
642.028<br />
22.344<br />
1.293.540<br />
8,246<br />
408.780<br />
28,500<br />
2,988,513
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK fl KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H. W. HENRY, V. Pres. 6k Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
56 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
COKE MANUFACTURED IN ALABAMA,<br />
COLORADO AND UTAH IN 1910.<br />
In 1910 West Virginia produced 3,803,881 short<br />
tons of coke, as against Alabama's 3,249,027 short<br />
tons. Yet Alabama received $1,810,588 more for<br />
her coke than West Virginia did for hers. This<br />
was not because the West Virginia coke was in<br />
ferior, but because Alabama enjoys the advantage<br />
of having, in the iron-making district of Birming<br />
ham, a home market for the state's coke output.<br />
West Virginia, on the contrary, probably ships 98<br />
per cent, of her coke out of the state to furnish<br />
fuel to distant iron works.<br />
The most significant feature of the coke-making<br />
industry in Alabama, as in most of the cokeproducing<br />
states' in 1910. was the advance in<br />
values. The quantity of coke produced in 1910<br />
was not materially larger than in 1909. the increase<br />
being only 163,203 short tons, or 5.3 per<br />
cent., but with the improved demand prices advanced<br />
from an average of $2.61 a ton in 1909<br />
to $2.82 in 1910, and the total value increased<br />
from $8,068,267 to $9,165,821, a gain of $1,097,554,<br />
or 13.6 per cent. In quantity the production of<br />
coke in Alabama in 1910 was the largest ever attained;<br />
the value of the 1910 product, however,<br />
was about $50,000 less than that of 1907.<br />
The following table shows the growth of the<br />
coke-making industry in Alabama:<br />
Short Tons. Short Tons.<br />
1880 60,781 1907 3.021,794<br />
1890 1,072,942 1908 2.362,666<br />
1900 2,110,837 1909 3,085,824<br />
1905 2,576,986 1910 3.249,027<br />
1906 3,034,501<br />
The figures on the coke industry for 1910 are<br />
now being compiled by E. W. Parker, of the United<br />
States Geological Survey, and will be published<br />
in an advance chapter of "Mineral Resources"<br />
for 1910 some time in June.<br />
Of the total quantity of coke made in 1910 in<br />
Alabama, 557,148 short tons were produced in byproduct<br />
retort ovens, of which there are 280 in<br />
the state, at two establishments. The quantity<br />
of coal used in the retort ovens was 769,212 short<br />
tons, and the yield of coke of this kind was therefore<br />
72.4 per cent. During 1910 construction was<br />
begun on a bank of 60 Koppers by-product recovery<br />
ovens at Woodward by the Woodward Iron Co.<br />
There were 43 coke-making establishments in<br />
Alabama in 1910, the, same number as in 1909,<br />
but the total number of ovens increased from 10,-<br />
061 in 1909 to 10,132 in 1910, exclusive of the 60<br />
Kopper ovens under construction at the close of<br />
1910. Of these, 9,614 ovens were in operation in<br />
1910, with an average production of 338 short<br />
tons each. In 1909 the average production per<br />
oven was 330 tons.<br />
The production of coke in Utah and Colorado<br />
in 1910 amounted to 1,346,211 short tons, valued<br />
at $4,273,579, against 1,251,805 short tons, valued<br />
at $4,135,931, in 1909—an increase of 94,406 short<br />
tons, or 7.5 per cent., in quantity, and $137,648,<br />
or 3.3 per cent., in value. The smaller increase<br />
in value was due to the decline in the average<br />
price per ton, from $3.30 in 1909 to $3.17 in 1910,<br />
but this decline does not appear to be assignable<br />
to any particular cause, unless it be to the larger<br />
proportion of slack coal used in the ovens in 1910.<br />
In that year nearly 50 per cent, of the coal used<br />
for coke-making was slack, whereas in 1909 the<br />
quantity of slack coal made into coke represented<br />
only 35 per cent, of the total.<br />
All the ovens in use in Colorado and Utah are<br />
of the beehive type. They are distributed among<br />
18 establishments, 16 in Colorado and 2 in Utah.<br />
There were 235 ovens abandoned in 1910, reducing<br />
the total number from 4,700 to 4,465. Six<br />
of the 18 establishments (5 in Colorado and 1 in<br />
Utah) were idle throughout 1910. The six idle<br />
establishments represented a total of 666 ovens.<br />
J. H. Opperman, of Cambridge. O., and J. C.<br />
Orr, of Byesville, O., have been appointed receivers<br />
of The Cambridge Valley Coal Co.<br />
P~ ~~~~~~~~~-~-~———^<br />
HOW TO KEEP IN<br />
| TOUCH WITH<br />
j AFFAIRS. |<br />
3 Mines of information on every subject are at r<br />
i your disposal—Just say the word and we'll I<br />
) drive an entry for you S<br />
USE OUR I<br />
PRESS CLIPPINGS.<br />
5 Ours is the only Clipping Bureau in tha greatest f<br />
f Industrial Center of the World. 5<br />
\ We have two branches— ?<br />
\ A LOCAL SERVICE—AND—A GENERAL SERVICE.<br />
) Both are splendid aids to busy men, r<br />
i Ask us for definite information c<br />
3 and rates. (<br />
j The Central Press Bureau, [<br />
006 & 008 WAB«6H BUILDING. \<br />
: T.ltphon. 2164 Court. PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
\
COKE IN TENNESSEE AND<br />
NEW MEXICO IN 1910.<br />
Coal is mined in 17 counties in Tennessee and<br />
coke is made in eight of them. Nearly all the<br />
Tennessee coal possess coking qualities, according<br />
to E. W. Parker, the coal statistician of the<br />
United States Geological Survey. In his report<br />
on coke for 1910, Mr. Parker states that the production<br />
of coke in Tennessee for the year was<br />
322,756 short tons, valued at $959,104, as against<br />
261,808 tons, valued at $667,723, in 1909, an increase<br />
of 23 per cent, in quantity and 43 per<br />
cent, in value. The following table shows the<br />
growth of the coke industry in Tennessee:<br />
Short Tons. Value.<br />
1880 13(1,609 $316.6(17<br />
1890 348.72S 684,116<br />
1900 475.432 1.269,555<br />
1906 483,428 1,350,856<br />
1907 467,499 1,592,225<br />
1908 214,528 561,789<br />
1909 261,808 667.723<br />
1910 322,756 959,104<br />
YOU CAN'T "!, we<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
C A N get you a large<br />
clean core of all strata un<br />
der your land to be ex<br />
amined in broad daylight.<br />
. No Guess Work. .<br />
\ The J. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING, OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING<br />
New Mexico has developed notably as a coke<br />
producer in the last five years. From a iiroduction<br />
of less than 90.000 tons in 1905 the output<br />
has increased to over 40(1.000 tons in 1910,<br />
and as shown in the following table:<br />
Short Tons.<br />
1905 89,638<br />
1906 147,747<br />
1907 265,125<br />
1908 274,565<br />
1909 373.967<br />
19KI 401,646<br />
Tlie value for the 1910 product was $1.3(16.136.<br />
All of the coke made in New Mexico is from the<br />
coal mined in the Raton field, in Colfax county.<br />
A lot of 5.(100 tons of Connellsville coke has<br />
been sold for the British Columbia smelters, where<br />
there is a strike. The coke is being shipped and<br />
will make two cargoes. It goes to Ashtabula, to<br />
lie shipped to Ft. William wilh a lake rate of<br />
50 cents, being there transferred to the Canadian<br />
Pacific.<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
FOB THI<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
PUBLISHERS OF<br />
The Coal Dealers' Blue Book<br />
Contains a Complete List for the United States and<br />
Canada of all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron<br />
Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coal and<br />
Coke in oar Room load lots, with capital and pay ratines.<br />
550 Monon Building, 440 Dearborn St..<br />
CHICAGO.<br />
1438 SO. PENN SQUARE.C<br />
PHILADELPHIA. (<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
„ FAMOUS<br />
'ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
C O ^ A V<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres ot virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909-10.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post offlr. addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
P. G S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind,<br />
For Sale<br />
A well improved coal farm of 205 acres in a<br />
new coal belt, between two railroads, commanding<br />
the only natural inlet to over 500 acres solid coal<br />
laud. Write Mr. Milton Taggart,<br />
Cadiz. Ohio.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey<br />
wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full particulars,<br />
analysis of coal, name, location and outfit<br />
of mine, etc.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, 1% tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 6-1<br />
For Sale or Lease.*<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VENEER & LUMBER Co.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madison ville, Ky.<br />
A jury in the United States Circuit Court at<br />
Philadelphia May 25 returned a verdict of $62,-<br />
65S.4I1 against the Pennsylvania railroad in a<br />
suit of seven coal companies of Western Pennsylvania<br />
to recover damages for alleged illegal freight<br />
discrimination against them. Originally 11 companies<br />
were plaintiffs and the total claim was<br />
more than $1,000,000. The Carbon Coal & Coke<br />
Co. is given $58,953 and the remainder of the damages<br />
is divided among John Langdon. Huntingdon<br />
Coal Co., the Mount Equity Coal & Coke Co.. E. E.<br />
Eichelberger & Co., M. H. C. D. Read and W. H.<br />
Sweet.
Cm TRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, JUNE 15, 1911 Nc<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN;<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
busy just that much more of the time.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TEADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STBAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
In contrast to the deep sea shipments increase<br />
is the story of lake shipments, which are not what<br />
the trade would have. The fact that many of the<br />
ore boats are idle, which necessarily means that<br />
coal is not going forward, is being commented on<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matters<br />
generally and from at least one port—Buffalo—<br />
relating to coal or coal production are invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
the complaint is long and loud. As both anthra<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
cite and bituminous coal are shipped Irom that<br />
926-930 PAEK BUILDING, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post OtBce at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.)<br />
port it can be taken fairly to represent the lake<br />
situation as a whole, even if the tonnage foi' May<br />
at one other Lake Erie port has taken somewhat<br />
of a jump. As we have pointed out in previous<br />
THE LOW WATER MARK PROBABLY HAS BEEN<br />
REACHED by the coal trade if conditions reported<br />
throughout the country are considered. From<br />
everywhere come reports 1 issues this present slackness in the lake shipments<br />
must be followed by a heavy rush later in<br />
the season if head of lake locks are to have their<br />
of lessened demand and<br />
full supply when navigation has closed.<br />
fewer sales. Hope of a speedy change is ex Coastwise shipments of bituminous are showing<br />
pressed by all, but indications for a decided change more life than is the case on the lakes and Xew<br />
on the upgrade are not so plentiful as the trade England seems to be the best field lor absorption<br />
at large would desire. From all branches of the of product at this time, but at that the flow of<br />
trade the lessened demand is noted and a particu trade is sluggish compared with what it should be.<br />
larly keen wail is heard from the anthracite fields<br />
now that tne close of the first half of the year is<br />
approaching.<br />
Perhaps these conditions are but the darkest<br />
hour preceding the dawn of better things, and are<br />
to be followed by a rush to secure fuel supplies<br />
later that will tax capacities in every way. Stories<br />
of furnaces going out of blast are plentiful, but<br />
on the other hand there are as many resumptions<br />
reported, so the iron situation does not seem to<br />
have altered the situation very materially, although<br />
it has had its effect.<br />
One encouraging phase of the situation is the district as a time that will mail; the change up<br />
export business, which seems to he having a<br />
hearty, healthy, and it is to be hoped, a perma-<br />
ment growth. Daily reports of cargoes for South<br />
American. European and other foreign ports are<br />
noticeable in the press, and if the markets thus<br />
being secured can be held it will mean the absorp<br />
tion of a considerable tonnage that will keep mines<br />
In the Pittsburgh district the conditions that pre-<br />
vail throughout the country are reflected in every<br />
way and mines are not working more than 60 per<br />
cent, of capacity, some doing even less than that<br />
amount. This district more than any other pro<br />
ducing field feels' the effects of lake dullness and<br />
the news from all over the district has Ml tie that<br />
makes the coal man happy. Sales forces are put<br />
ting forth every effort to land business, but tin<br />
returns are not record-breaking in any way. The<br />
beginning of the second half of the year is being<br />
looked forward to by producers throughout the<br />
ward, although some of the trade puts the turn as<br />
late as the beginning of August. Despite all the<br />
drawbacks, the producing companies are keeping<br />
their salesmen close to the line in the matter of<br />
prices and the card rates are the ones prevailing,<br />
and are: Run-of-mine coal, $1.25 to $1.35; three-
20 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
quarter inch coal. $1.35 to $1.45; inch and one-<br />
quarter coal, $1.4." to $1.55; slack, 85 to 95 cents.<br />
In the latter class of coal some soft spots are<br />
noticeable, due to accumulated surplusages, but<br />
they are not general.<br />
The coke trade shows a still further curtailment<br />
of production for the last week for whicli figures<br />
are available. The loss in active ovens was greater<br />
in proportion than the loss in tonnage as the latter<br />
was less than fifteen hundred tons, but it created<br />
a new low weekly record for the year. The bright<br />
spot in the trade is that the ovens in blast ran<br />
more steadily and the demand absorbed all the<br />
coke manufactured, as well as some of the stock<br />
in yards. The furnace ovens ran on better time<br />
than the merchant ones and the tonnage of the<br />
former was, therefore, proportionately better than<br />
the latter. While a few sales of spot coke have<br />
been reported at a reduced figure they cannot be<br />
taken to represent the market, and manufacturers<br />
are holding their product firm at $1.75 to $1.85<br />
for furnace coke and $2.00 to $2.25 for foundry<br />
coke.<br />
May production figures of anthracite show an<br />
other monthly record broken, but the present<br />
month fails to come up to the same standard,<br />
according to reports from the centers of this<br />
branch of the industry. In fact the operators<br />
have been quoted as saying that there is no de<br />
mand for anthracite coal. This seems to be<br />
somewhat of an exaggeration if taken literally,<br />
but taken in the sense of active demand it may<br />
be the true facts. The report from Buffalo, the<br />
principal lake shipping port for anthracite shows<br />
that to a degree the demand is poor. There is no<br />
change in prices at this time, the next advance<br />
not being due for another fortnight.<br />
Altogether il is just as well the vacation season<br />
is on. as it enables the coal man to go away and,<br />
foi- a time, f<strong>org</strong>el the trials and tribulations of<br />
business.<br />
PENNSYLVANIA HAS A NEW BITUMINOUS .MIXING<br />
CODE. Governoi .lohn K. Tener has affixed his sig<br />
nature to the bill passed bj the recent session of<br />
the legislature and it is now a law that is to be<br />
come effective in all that portion of the state<br />
where bituminous coal is mined. Operators and<br />
miners alike are not entirely satisfied with the<br />
new law, but now will be compelled to make the<br />
most of it. The law as enacted is much changed<br />
from the original bill, and embodies some of the<br />
amendments suggested to the committee on mines<br />
and mining when hearings were given the opera<br />
tors and miners. <strong>•</strong> Miners are reported to be in<br />
clined to believe the new law does not give them<br />
the same protection the old one did, and operators<br />
have been quoted as saying the measure works<br />
additional hardships on them. The substance<br />
of the original bill appeared in THE COAL TRADE<br />
BULLETIN after its introduction and the amend<br />
ments proposed were summarized in the issue of<br />
April 15. As clianges were made even after that<br />
date the new code will have to be studied in its<br />
final form to acquire a knowledge of its provisions.<br />
<strong>•</strong>Just how far it will affect production and cost of<br />
production will be known only after it has been in<br />
force a sufficiently long time to permit of compila<br />
tion of figures.<br />
* <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
FlGl RES SHOWING THE COKE PRODUCTION FOR 1910<br />
are given elsewhere in this issue. They show a<br />
new record for this class of fuel and also a new<br />
record in the way of total valuation of the product.<br />
When more detailed data is available the trade<br />
can better arrive at some definite conclusion as to<br />
the causes that brought about the results for the<br />
year.<br />
Pennsylvania's new bituminous code is now<br />
coming in for its praises or its cussings, and it<br />
looks as if the latter will predominate.<br />
* * *<br />
Striking almost two years for a 10 per cent.<br />
reduction in wages looks awfully much like a<br />
boomerang.<br />
* * *<br />
It's the doldrums for the coal trade just now.<br />
bul the trade winds are due to blow shortly, so<br />
cheer up.<br />
Alabama also has a new mining code. And<br />
there's plenty of kicking about it, too.<br />
* * *<br />
Pittsburgh Coal got a nice little nest egg from<br />
the Steel Corporation, just the same.<br />
* * *<br />
The Federal probers hit the coal trade at last<br />
but it looks like a blown-out shot.<br />
* * *<br />
Even the mine mule is getting a rest.
PENNSYLVANIA'S NEW BITUMINOUS<br />
MINING CODE IS NOW A LAW.<br />
Governor .John K. Tener, of Pennsylvania, has<br />
attached his signature to the new bituminous<br />
mining code, originally prepared by Chief of the<br />
Department of Mines J. E. Roderick and intro<br />
duced into the recent biennial session of the legis<br />
lature by Representative Timothy Pitchford. of<br />
Cambria county, an official of the United Mine<br />
Workers of America, from the No. 2 or Central<br />
Pennsylvania district.<br />
The bill was amended in many ways and some<br />
of the provisions of the original text were emascu<br />
lated altogether and new ones substituted after the<br />
committee on mines and mining of the state legislature<br />
had given the operators and the miners an<br />
opportunity to be heard on the bill.<br />
The bill, on final passage, was defeated, but the<br />
vote was reconsidered, and it was placed on the<br />
calendar once more, with the result that in the<br />
closing days of the session it was put through.<br />
The new code is not what either miners or operators<br />
would have, the former claiming it will not<br />
give them the protection they now have, while the<br />
latter say it will increase the cost of production,<br />
and in this are upheld by the sponsor of the orig<br />
inal bill, Chief of the Department of Mines James<br />
E. Roderick.<br />
The new code is a voluminous one, and it will<br />
lake some time to make all its provision clear.<br />
BERWIND-WHITE COAL MINING<br />
COMPANY WINS SUIT AT SOMERSET.<br />
The $1,000,000 suit brought by Mrs. Annie C.<br />
Ott, wife of Daniel Ott. of Windber. Pa., against<br />
the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. for the alleged<br />
wrongful removal of a seam of coal underlying a<br />
tract of 224 acres, came to a sudden end at Somerset,<br />
Pa., June 3, when the plaintiff agreed to ac<br />
cept a verdict for the defendant company, which<br />
was formally rendered in open court June 5. In<br />
sisting on a verdict, the Berwind-White Co. agreed<br />
to pay all witness fees on both sides, in exchange<br />
for which the company secures the withdrawal of<br />
three similar damage suits and takes title to the<br />
Ott. tract, which the plaintiff refused to convey<br />
pending disposition of her suit.<br />
The case is regarded by mining operators as one<br />
of the most important ever passed on in Pennsyl<br />
vania since it firmly establishes the coal measures<br />
in the first bituminous district and will go a great<br />
way towards preventing future litigation regarding<br />
the identity of the several seams.<br />
The New Pittsburgh Coal Co.. of Columbus, O.,<br />
has reduced its capital stock from $2,500,000 to<br />
$1,500,000. The amendment for this was filed at<br />
the secretary of state's office in Columbus recently.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 21<br />
PITTSBURGH COAL COMPANY SELLS 16,000<br />
ACRES OF COKING COAL TO H. C. FRICK<br />
COMPANY FOR $17,800,000.<br />
The transfer of coal lands and properties valued<br />
at about $17,800,000, owned by Ihe Pittsburgh Coal<br />
Co., was unanimously approved at a special meet<br />
ing of the board of directors of the company held<br />
June 8 in the company's offices in the Henry W.<br />
Oliver building. The buyer is the H. C. Frick<br />
Coke Co. Payment is to be made in bonds se<br />
emed by mortgage upon the property and guaranteed<br />
as to principal and interest by the United<br />
States Steel Corporation. The properties included<br />
in the sale consist of the coking coal lands and<br />
coke ovens of ihe Pittsburgh Coal Co. in the Connellsville<br />
region, and about 9,000 acres of unde<br />
veloped coal lands now owned by the Monongahela<br />
River Consolidated Coal & Coke Co., controlled by<br />
the Pittsburgh Coal Co. Negotiations for the sale<br />
of these lands have been under way for the past<br />
two years.<br />
The Pittsburgh Coal Co.. it is said, will apply its<br />
portion of the consideration to its bonded indebt<br />
edness and reduce it to about $9,000,000. This<br />
will mean a reduction of $500,000 annually in interest<br />
payments and, it is said, will place the com<br />
pany upon a satisfactory basis.<br />
At the conclusion of the meeting June 8 the following<br />
official statement was made by the Pitts<br />
burgh oal Co.:<br />
The directors of the Pittsburgh Coal Co.. at a<br />
meeting held this afternoon at whicli there was a<br />
full attendance, unanimously approved of the sale<br />
to the H. C. Frick Coke Co. of about 7.000 acres<br />
of its prouperty known as the Colonial Coking<br />
tract, at a price of $1,450 per acre, including im<br />
provements; and also consented, so far as its stockownership<br />
in the Monongahela River Consolidate,!<br />
Coal & Coke Co. is concerned, to the sale by that<br />
company of about 9,000 acres of virgni or un<br />
broken tracts of coal rights at a price of $850 per<br />
acre. Payment is to he made in bonds secured<br />
by mortgage upon the property and guaranteed as<br />
to principal and interest by the United States Steel<br />
Corporation.<br />
RULES FOR FIRST-AID<br />
CONTESTS ARE ANNOUNCED.<br />
The following tentative rules governing the first<br />
annual first-aid meet, to be held September 9 at<br />
Arsenal Park. Pittsburgh, under the auspices of<br />
the Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association, and in<br />
conjunction with the United States Bureau of<br />
Mines, have been issued:<br />
"(1) The Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Associa<br />
tion announces its first annual competition of<br />
first aid to the injured, to be held Saturday. Sep<br />
tember 9, 1911, 1.30 to 5.30 p. m„ in Arsenal Park,
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth street and Butler<br />
street and Penn avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa.<br />
"I2| Every mine operator or company in the<br />
bituminous coal field of Western Pennsylvania<br />
may enter one team for every 10 mines or frac<br />
tional part of ill mines, said team to consist of<br />
five (5) mine workers in the actual employ of the<br />
company, as shown by record to he submitted in<br />
writing by the superintendent.<br />
"(3) Entries to be submitted to the secretary<br />
of tlie Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association, 803<br />
Lewis block, Pittsburgh, Pa., prior to August 15.<br />
"I 4 I There will be not less than five 15) first-<br />
aid events, program for which will be prepared on<br />
the day of the meet by the judges, and will con<br />
sist of the more common injuries received in<br />
mines, and will not be announced until the hour of<br />
holding the meet.<br />
"15) The judges will consist of one American<br />
Red Cross or army surgeon, and a surgeon not<br />
connected with any of the mines entering first-aid<br />
teams in contest, and also of some independent<br />
mine operator having no representation among the<br />
contesting teams.<br />
"(6) Medals of the American Red Cross will<br />
be presented to the individual winners of the<br />
events, and first-aid boxes to the winning teams.<br />
and a banner to the team making the highest percentage<br />
in the contest.<br />
"i 7) All competitors will be divided into two<br />
groups of equal numbers, these groups to compete<br />
alternately in each event, thus giving opportunity<br />
for observation and instruction by the half<br />
of those present who are not participating.<br />
"(8) The Bureau of Mines will have exhibition<br />
of dust and gas explosions, care and use of helmets<br />
and safety lamps at It) a. m., at the lower<br />
end of Arsenal Grounds, Fortieth and Butler<br />
streets.<br />
COKE PRODUCED IN 1910 BREAKS<br />
ALL PREVIOUS RECORDS.<br />
More coke was produced in the United States in<br />
191
FEDERAL GRAND JURY AT PITTSBURGH<br />
HEARS FACTS ABOUT SALE OF COAL<br />
LANDS.<br />
During the past 10 days a specially summoned<br />
Federal grand jury was in session in Pittsburgh<br />
making inquiry into the sale of coal and coal lands<br />
by the Pittsburgh Coal Co. to the United States<br />
Steel Corporation.<br />
The probe came rather unexpectedly and E. W.<br />
Grosvenor, special assistant to the attorney gen<br />
eral of the United States, was sent to Pittsburgh<br />
to assist in the work of securing facts. The<br />
summoning of the jury and the calling of wit<br />
nesses followed the meeting of the Stanley com<br />
mittee of the House of Repiesentatives, which is<br />
endeavoring to secure evidence of a violation of<br />
the Sherman anti-trust law on the part of the<br />
United States Steel Corporation.<br />
Secretary LeMoyne, Engineer Taylor and Treas<br />
urer Miller of the Pittsburgh Coal Co.; Secretary<br />
Barber of the Monongahela River Consolidated<br />
Coal & Coke Co., together with officials of the H. C.<br />
Frick Coke Co.. were called before the grand jury<br />
to give testimony and they also produced the<br />
books of the companies as asked for by the grand<br />
jury.<br />
While it is not known exactly what facts the<br />
jury secured, it is intimated no evidence of any<br />
law violation was secured, and the grand jury was<br />
discharged without making any presentment to the<br />
court.<br />
It is understood the evidence secured will be<br />
sent to Washington, but whether it will be fur<br />
nished the Stanlev committee is not known.<br />
LAKE SHIPPING CONDITIONS<br />
ARE FAR FROM SATISFACTORY.<br />
Lake Superior ore interests say the present is<br />
the quietest June in years in ore shipments. Not<br />
in 20 years has there been such a general slacken<br />
ing of all shipments through lake ports. It is<br />
estimated that 450 vessels are idle between Buffalo<br />
and Duluth.<br />
The month of Maj' gave Conneaut the palm for<br />
ore shipments, it being the first time in many<br />
years that Conneaut surpassed all harbors on Lake<br />
Erie in receipts of ore for the month.<br />
Ore receipts at Ashtabula harbor for the month<br />
amounted to 669,014 tons, while the receipts at<br />
Conneaut port were 734,235 tons.<br />
Coal shipments at Ashtabula, were good during<br />
May, amounting to 500,000 tons.<br />
Official customs figures at Buffalo show a de<br />
crease of 70,000 tons in the coal shipments for May,<br />
and a decrease of 295,000 tons for the first two<br />
months of navigation.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
RIVER COAL'S STATEMENT SHOWS BIG IN<br />
CREASE IN EARNINGS FOR SIX MONTHS.<br />
At tiie regular monthly meeting of tbe board of<br />
directors of the Monongahela River Consolidated<br />
Coal & Coke Co. held June 5, President John A.<br />
Donaldson submitted the following report of the<br />
company's production and earnings for tlie first<br />
six months of the fiscal year ending April 30, 1911,<br />
as compared with the corresponding period lor the<br />
year 1910:<br />
TONNAGE.<br />
River Tons. Rail Tons. Total Tons.<br />
1911 2.757,969 890,408 3,648,377<br />
1910 2.158,047 1,017,061 3,175,108<br />
Increase<br />
Decrease<br />
599,922<br />
126.653<br />
473,269<br />
,<br />
EARNINGS.<br />
Six Months Ending v<br />
Apr. 30, 1911. Apr. 30. 1910. Increase.<br />
Gross earnings.$1,119.310.28 $775,035.95 $344,274.33<br />
Less—<br />
Allowance for<br />
royalty 257.52S.65 221,530.64 35,998.01<br />
Allowance for<br />
depreciation.. 191,187.23 208,530.SO *17,343.57<br />
Accrued taxes,<br />
estimated . . . 75,000.00 75.OHO.00<br />
Accrued interest<br />
lst mtg. bonds 227,737.94 234.266.50 *6,528.56<br />
Insurance funds 136,706.94 126,498.84 10,208.10<br />
Net gain... $231,149.52 $321,940.35<br />
Net loss $90,790.S3<br />
* Decrease.<br />
NOVA SCOTIA MINERS LOSE STRIKE<br />
THAT LASTED FOR 20 MONTHS.<br />
Tlie strike of the coal miners, at Spring Hill,<br />
Nova Scotia, has been settled. Representatives<br />
of the miners have signed an agreement with the<br />
Cumberland Railway & Coal Co. accepting a re<br />
duction of 10 per cent, in the rate of wages to be<br />
paid to coal cutters. The strike has continued<br />
for nearly two years and ends in a distinct triumph<br />
for the company and discomfiture of the men.<br />
The miners went on strike because the company<br />
refused to change a system of docking and to<br />
recognize the United Mine Workers, and lastly be<br />
cause the company declined to advance the scale<br />
of wages. The men left the mines in August, 1909,<br />
and over 1.000 of them have been idle ever since.<br />
The company announced that the men would<br />
not he taken back except at a 15 per cent, reduc<br />
tion of wages. Now they go back gaining nothing<br />
for which they struck and submitting to a re<br />
duction of 10 per cent.
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
KENTUCKY MINING INSTITUTE FORMED.<br />
The Kentucky Mining Institute was <strong>org</strong>anized at<br />
Lexington recently. It includes many of the most<br />
prominent mining men in the state.<br />
Coal, fluorspar, clay, calcite and metal mining<br />
are represented in the <strong>org</strong>anization. The objects<br />
of the Institute are to promote improvement in<br />
methods of production and preparation for market<br />
of the useful minerals of the state, to promote the<br />
welfare of those employed in the mining industry,<br />
and the development of and utilization of the<br />
state's natural resources, by means of meetings for<br />
social intercourse and tlie reading and discussion<br />
of papers. The conference lor the <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
of the Institute was largely attended from all parts<br />
of the slate, and the meeting was very successful<br />
indeed.<br />
The officers are: President, John B. Atkinson,<br />
president of the St. Bernard Mining Co.. Earling<br />
ton: secretary, Thomas J. Barr. assistant inspector<br />
of mines, located at Lexington: treasurer. M. L.<br />
Conley, of the Kentucky Block Cannel Coal Co.,<br />
Cannel City; and seven vice presidents, representing<br />
seven divisions of the state: J. D. Rogers, of<br />
the Consolidation Coal Co.. Van Lear, for the Big<br />
Sandy valley; Dr. S. R. Collier. Wast Liberty.<br />
for the Kentucky River Coal region: Hon. J. F.<br />
Bosworth. Middlesboro, for the Cumberland River<br />
coal regions: B. R. Hutchcraft. Lexington, for the<br />
Central division: C. W. Taylor, manager of the<br />
W. G. Duncan Coal Co., Greenville, for the Central<br />
City district; W. H. Cunningham, manager of the<br />
West Kentucky Coal Co., Sturgis. for the Earlington<br />
district: and C. S. Nunn. president of the Kentucky<br />
Fluorspar Co., Marion, for the Seventh district.<br />
Headquarters are at Lexington. Meetings are<br />
to be held twice a year, the June meeting to be<br />
the annual meeting.<br />
NEW TOWN TO BE BUILT<br />
ALONG WITH COKE PLANT.<br />
Didier is the name selected for the new town<br />
near South Bethlehem. Pa., that will be built<br />
around the coke ovens being erected by a German<br />
concern through their American representatives.<br />
This German company owns the patents, and the<br />
designs of the new industrial establishment and<br />
has clone all the engineering work.<br />
The works will be operated by the Lehigh Coke<br />
Co.. when completed. The Bethlehem Steel Co.<br />
will be the principal consumer of the coke and gas<br />
of the new works.<br />
The works will consist of eight batteries of coke<br />
ovens of 75 ovens to each battery, or a total of 600<br />
ovens. In addition will be the by-product plant<br />
of Ihe gas holders. Ihe coal storage yards, with the<br />
necessary coal handling machinery and other ap<br />
pliances for the operation of the works. Not<br />
withstanding that some 500 men will be required<br />
to operate the works.<br />
The first installation of 300 ovens will carbonize<br />
4,300 gross tons of coal per day of 24 hours. Each<br />
oven wild have a coal capacity of 13 gross tons.<br />
The entire installation throughout will he of such<br />
a construction as to give a minimum labor charge,<br />
as all machinery and apparatus will be operated<br />
automatically.<br />
The plant proper will consist of two lines of coke<br />
ovens, about 1,201) feet long, built on heavy con<br />
crete foundations and paralleling each other at a<br />
distance sufficient to accommodate six railroad<br />
tracks which will be used for handling the neces<br />
sary material. Each line of ovens will have four<br />
batteries, or 300 in number. At tbe present time<br />
only 300 ovens are under construction. 150 in each<br />
line. Ground for the work was broken last No<br />
vember, and in a year hence the first 300 ovens are<br />
expected to be in operation, and the remaining 300<br />
ovens under construction.<br />
The ovens are being constructed in such a man<br />
ner that all the properties contained in coking<br />
coal can be utilized. While the coke is being made<br />
tbe gas will be carried off to large holders to be<br />
utilized for illuminating, heating and power purposes.<br />
In addition, all the tar and sulphate of<br />
ammonia are to he extracted and prepared for sale<br />
as by-products'. Immense gas holders will be built<br />
on the ground for the gas. to be distributed to<br />
nearby and distant towns through pipe lines. A<br />
large storage house is to be built nearby for the<br />
sulphate of ammonia and the tar products.<br />
To each battery of ovens a large stack is to lie<br />
built, four of which are now building. These<br />
stand on immense concrete foundations, from<br />
which they will rear to a height of 225 feet, or a<br />
total height of about 240 feet. The coal handling<br />
yard will be on the south side of the plant, where<br />
the coal will be received from the mines and<br />
which will be connected with a large railroad yard<br />
to be installed by the Reading road. Here im<br />
mense coal crushers will be installed wdiich will<br />
prepare the coal for the ovens. This coal will be<br />
carried overhead in conveyors to the line of ovens,<br />
and then carried along the line to the point wanted.<br />
All the machinery will be electrical, and largely<br />
automatic in its operation.<br />
The charging of fresh coal into the ovens is performed<br />
by two patented electrically driven coal<br />
larries for each battery of ovens. These larries<br />
are equipped on one side with an especial device<br />
or door lifting mechanism for the raising and<br />
lowering of the oven doors when discharging coke<br />
from the ovens and charging coal into the same.<br />
These larries are so arranged electrically that<br />
one ojierator only is required for the traverse of<br />
the two cars, the electric wiring being so arranged<br />
that the control system for the movement of the<br />
larries is located on one larry only.
ANTHRACITE SHIPMENTS IN MAY.<br />
The shipments of anthracite coal over the vari<br />
ous roads for May, as compared with 1910, were:<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 25<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
Philadelphia & Reading 1,223,050 1.105,398<br />
Lehigh Valley 1,166,540 1,025,035<br />
Jersey Central 841,530 804.809<br />
Delaware, Lacka. & Western 886,540 836,187<br />
Delaware & Hudson 622,663 608,407<br />
Pennsylvania 598.925 527,529<br />
Erie 74S.741 553,810<br />
N. Y.. Ontario & Western... 229,361 218,486<br />
Total 6,317,352 5,679,661<br />
The shipments by months for the year, as compared<br />
with 1910. were:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
January 5,904,117 5,306,618<br />
February 5,070,948 5,031,784<br />
March 5,996,894 5.174,166<br />
April 5,804,915 6.224.396<br />
May 6,317,352 5,679,661<br />
June 5,398,123<br />
July 4,202,059<br />
August 4,996.044<br />
September 4,967,516<br />
October 5,622,095<br />
November 6,071,746<br />
December 6,231,578<br />
Totals 29.094.226 64.905.786<br />
The annual meeting of the Pratt Consolidated<br />
Coal Co. at Birmingham. Ala., elected the follow<br />
ing officers: G. B. McCormack. president; Ers-<br />
kine Ramsay, vice president; H. E. McCormack,<br />
vice president and general manager; J. A. Shook.<br />
secretary and treasurer. The directors elected,<br />
with the officers, include Mrs. M. C. Prowell. J. G.<br />
Patterson. E. E. Jackson, Joseph Birden, E. L.<br />
Hampton.<br />
What is supposed to be a new coal field has been<br />
discovered by an extensive farmer and member of<br />
the local council in the Lisnaskea district. County<br />
Fermanagh. Ireland. The county council has re<br />
quested the Irish Department of Agriculture to<br />
send an expert engineer to examine the quality of<br />
the coal and the prospects of working it success<br />
fully.<br />
"My goodness! I can't understand how she could<br />
give up her child. They say it has really been<br />
adopted by a family that lives in the country."<br />
"Yes. You see she found a flat that just suited<br />
her. and they wouldn't allow children in the build<br />
ing."—Chicago Record-Herald.<br />
Three hundred miners of the Osage Coal &<br />
Mining Co.. at McAlester, Okla., struck recently<br />
because the manager of No. 5 mine refused<br />
to allow the men to take clown into the mine drill<br />
hits with a width of 2>j inches because the wide<br />
bits and the consequent large charges of powder<br />
endangered the entire underground workings.<br />
The effort to have Congress revive the long<br />
defunct Westmoreland strike was given a decided<br />
knockout blow June 5, when the house committee<br />
on rules notified the agitators to produce documen<br />
tary evidence to substantiate the allegations if the<br />
agitators wanted the committee to do anything<br />
further in the matter.<br />
The Corona Normal and Industrial institute,<br />
Corona, Ala., has included in its curriculum a<br />
course in mining instruction for the negro, in<br />
order to fit him to work properly in the mines of<br />
the state. Actual work in mines for a certain<br />
part of the year is necessary to get a diploma of<br />
proficiency.<br />
The United Mine Workers of the First district<br />
(Lackawanna county. Pa.) will meet in annual con<br />
vention on July 17. The convention will con<br />
sider the recommendations to be made to the Tridistrict<br />
convention, which will meet in November.<br />
Following the settlement of the Tuscarawas field<br />
strike the miners of that section of Ohio have<br />
been notified by the operating cohipanies that the<br />
mines will resume at once and all men will be<br />
given employment.<br />
For their work during May, 1911, the anthra<br />
cite miners of Pennsylvania will receive an in<br />
crease of 1 per cent, in their pay. the average<br />
price of coal at tidewater during the month having<br />
been $4.55.<br />
John Moore has succeeded D. H. Sullivan as<br />
president of the Ohio United Mine Workers and<br />
John Zalinka has been chosen vice president in<br />
place of Moore.<br />
The new child labor law of Tennessee has been<br />
declared unconstitutional.<br />
The Northern Pacific railroad has started to instruct<br />
firemen and other employes in the economical<br />
use of coal. The road spends about $8,000,000<br />
a year on coal and mechanical experts figure that<br />
only about 7 per cent, is turned into energy under<br />
the best conditions.
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS<br />
One of tne largest steamship mergers in the history<br />
of Great Lakes navigation was successfully<br />
carried out at Cleveland June !), when five companies<br />
joined a combination which will be known<br />
as the Great Lakes Steamship Co. The concerns<br />
involved in the transaction are the United States<br />
Transportation Co., the L. C. Smith Transit Co.,<br />
the Wilkinson Transportation Co.. the Standard<br />
Transportation Co. and the American Transit Co.<br />
The new concern will have a paid-in capital of $6,-<br />
OOO.O'OO and a bond issue of $1,500,000, bearing interest<br />
at 6 per cent, and payable serially in<br />
amounts of $150,000 annually during the next in<br />
years. Abeut 21 freight vessels are involvel in<br />
the deal.<br />
The Interstate Commerce Commission June 13<br />
announced that it hail ordered the suspension, until<br />
July 15, of the new rates on coke from the Connellsville<br />
and West Virginia coke districts to Chicago<br />
points over all the roads running from those<br />
districts. The new rates were to have gone into<br />
effect this date. The independent coke operators<br />
and the western furnace men filed complaint with<br />
the commerce commission against the new rates<br />
and the commission suspended them until it could<br />
investigate their reasonableness. Tbe new schedule<br />
increased from $2.35 to $2.50 a ton the rate<br />
on coke for certain purposes and reduced the rate<br />
from $2.65 to $2.50 on coke for other purposes.<br />
Frazee & Leonard, of Connellsville, Pa., have<br />
purchased from J. N. Daugherty 200 acres of coal<br />
in Rich Hill township. Greene county, Pa., for $25,-<br />
000.<br />
The dealers of Elizabeth, N. .1.. have formed a<br />
credit association in which some 25 local firms are<br />
represented. The purpose is to reduce losses from<br />
bad debts.<br />
COAL OUTPUT IN FRANCE IN 1910.<br />
The output of coal and of lignite in France shows<br />
for the year 1910 a gain of 746.129 tons, or 2 per<br />
cent, for the former, as compared with 1909. and<br />
a diminished output of lignite, amounting to 15.742<br />
tons, or 2 per cent, less than the output of 1909.<br />
The figures b.v departments are as follows I in<br />
metric tons of 2204 pounds):<br />
COAL.<br />
Departments. 1909. 1910.<br />
Nord & Pas-de-Calais 24.931,656 25,608,343<br />
Loire 3,734,111 3,734,790<br />
Bourgogne & Nivemais 2,092,108 2,125,720<br />
Card 2,054.695 2,086,461<br />
Tarn & Aveyron 1,810,136 1,825,504<br />
Bourbonnais 868,690 927,349<br />
Auvergne o38,S64 538,002<br />
West-Alps 364,356 343,479<br />
Herault 232,167 275,870<br />
Sud-Vosges 205,273 155,269<br />
Creuse & Correze 151,462 142,692<br />
A new coal-dust extractor, consisting of a comOuest<br />
bination of pressure air jets worked by electricity<br />
132,313 98,541<br />
directed upon the surface to be cleaned in order 37,115,891 37,862,020<br />
to raise the dust, and the simultaneous withdrawal<br />
LIGNITE.<br />
of the dust hy suction, has been given a successful Provence 652,876 641,689<br />
demonstration by a Scottish electrical engineer, Sud-Vosges 31.435 30,939<br />
following a series of experiments conducted during Comte 26,319 19,820<br />
the past winter. The apparatus is designed to be<br />
operated either by electric motor or by compressed<br />
Sud-Ouest<br />
Haut-Rhone<br />
13,043<br />
447<br />
12,619<br />
3,313<br />
air. It is said it will soon be introduced in some<br />
of the coal mines of the Dunfermline district.<br />
Yonne 75 73<br />
: stern Bituminous Coal Co., of Philadelphia,<br />
which is in process of dissolution, last week<br />
724,195 708,453<br />
transferred 5,545 acres of coal land near Frugality, A girl had gone to a dinner in New York with<br />
Pa., together with everything on the land, to her steady. The young man noticed a speck of<br />
Richard Mayer, for the nominal sum of $1.00, there what appeared to be lint on her shoulder. When<br />
being a mortgage of $325,000 against the property. she wasn't looking he attempted to knock it off<br />
The Bessemer Coke Co.. Pittsburgh, on June 1<br />
called for their redemption of its bonds, numbered<br />
1 to 14 inclusive. The bonds are payable at the<br />
Colonial Trust Co.. Pittsburgh.<br />
with his finger. After several futile attempts he<br />
took hold of the line and strted to pull it off. He<br />
unraveled several score yards of the fleecy stuff<br />
and when he seemed to have all of it threw the<br />
wad under the table. That night the girl told<br />
The coal mine inspection bill passed by the Colo her mother that she had had a perfectly lively<br />
rado legislature was vetoed June 5 by Governor time. "But." she added. "I have just been lying<br />
Shafroth. at the request of representatives of the here in bed. mother, and wondering what became<br />
miners' union.<br />
of my union suit."—Exchange.
TEXT OF NEW MINING LAW<br />
An act to regulate the mining of coal in Alabama:<br />
Section 1. Be it enacted by the legislature of<br />
Alabama, that there shall be appointed by the<br />
governor of Alabama an inspector of coal mines<br />
lor each two and a half million tons of coal<br />
mined in the state, or majority fraction thereof,<br />
based on the report of the tonnage mined for the<br />
previous years, compiled by the chief mine inspector,<br />
one of whom shall be designated as chief<br />
mine inspector and the others shall be designated<br />
as associate mine inspectors, and one ot<br />
them shall be a mining engineer. Immediately<br />
upon the passage of this act, the chief mine inspector<br />
and one associate mine inspector shall be<br />
appointed and shall hold office for three years,<br />
and as soon as possible four associate mine inspectors<br />
shall be appointed, two of whom shall<br />
hold office for two years and two of whom shall<br />
hold office for one year, and upon the expiration<br />
of their respective terms of office, new appointments<br />
may be made for terms of three years from<br />
the date of each appointment and until his respective<br />
successor is appointed and qualified. The<br />
object being, hereafter to appoint as near as practicable<br />
one-third of the inspectors each year.<br />
Sec. 2. The salary of the chief mine inspector<br />
shall be three thousand ($3,000.00) dollars per<br />
annum, and the salary of each of the associate<br />
mine inspectors shall be two thousand ($2,000.00)<br />
dollars per annum.<br />
Sec. 2Y- That the governor of this state may<br />
require the chief mine inspector to execute bond<br />
payable to the state of Alabama in such sum as<br />
the governor may determine with condition that<br />
he will faithfully discharge the duties of his<br />
office and will account for, properly distribute<br />
and pay over all funds coming into his hands as<br />
license fees collected from applicants for certificates<br />
from the board of examiners or otherwise.<br />
It shall be the duty of said<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA*<br />
found in such mines; he must have a first class<br />
mine foreman certificate and must be not less than<br />
30 years of age. The associate mine inspectors<br />
shall be qualified electors and each shall possess<br />
a first class Alabama mine foreman certificate and<br />
shall have had at least five years practical experience<br />
in coal mining and shall be not less than<br />
25 years of age. The associate mine inspectors<br />
shall reside at. such points convenient to their respective<br />
districts as the chief mine inspector may<br />
designate, and the chief mine inspector shall designate<br />
tlie districts. No one shall be appointed<br />
mine inspector who, or tbe wife of whom, owns<br />
and operates in whole or in part, mining property.<br />
Sec. 4. It shall be unlawful for the chief mine<br />
inspector or any associate mine inspector to be<br />
otherwise employed by the state of Alabama.<br />
Sec. 5. The mine inspectors shall give their<br />
whole time and attention to the duties of their<br />
offices'. It shall be the duty of the mine inspectors<br />
to examine all the coal mines and all the<br />
working places therein as far as possible, in this<br />
state, at least every three months to see that all<br />
the requirements of this act are strictly observed<br />
and carried out; inspectors shall particularly examine<br />
the works and machinery belonging to any<br />
coal mine, examine into the state of the coal<br />
mines as to ventilation, circulation and condition<br />
of air, drainage and general security; they shall<br />
make a record of all<br />
EXAMINATIONS OF COAL MINES,<br />
showing the date when made, the condition in<br />
which the coal mines are found, the extent to<br />
which the laws relating to coal mines and mining<br />
are observed or violated, the progress made in<br />
the improvements and security of life and health<br />
sought to be secured by the provisions of this act,<br />
number of accidents, injuries received, or deaths<br />
in or about the coal mines, the number of persons<br />
employed in or by each coal mine, together with<br />
all such other facts and information of public in<br />
CHIEF MINE INSPECTOR<br />
terest concerning the condition of coal mines, de<br />
to report annually to the governor the amount<br />
velopment and progress of coal mining in this<br />
of money received by him from such applicants<br />
state, as they may think useful and proper, and<br />
or otherwise and show the disbursement thereof.<br />
so much thereof as may be of public interest to<br />
and at the expiration of his term of office, pay<br />
be included in their reports. A comprehensive<br />
over any moneys in his hands as such to his suc<br />
report of each inspection of each coal mine shall<br />
cessor in office.<br />
be promptly made to the superintendent or opera<br />
Sec. 3. The chief mine inspector shall be a<br />
tor. This report shall be on a form provided for<br />
qualified elector and shall be a competent person,<br />
that purpose and compiled by the chief mine in<br />
having had at least eight years experience in the<br />
spector, and the board of examiners. This re<br />
working, ventilating and drainage of coal mines<br />
port form may be changed by the chief mine in<br />
in the state, and having a practical and sceintifir<br />
spector and board of examiners from time to time,<br />
knowledge of all noxious and dangerous gases<br />
as may seem desirable to them.<br />
Sec. 5%- It shall be the duty of said board to<br />
<strong>•</strong>Furnished The Coal Trade Bulletin by C. H. Nesbit, Chief have one of its members to promptly investigate<br />
Mine Inspector of Alabama.
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
all accidents in coal mines resulting in serious<br />
injury or death of any person employed or work<br />
ing in or about the same.<br />
Sec. 6. That each member of said board is<br />
hereby authorized and empowered lo issue sub<br />
poenas requiring the attendance of witnesses before<br />
said board or before such member thereof,<br />
lo testily under oath in any proceeding before such<br />
board or such member, and require witnesses to<br />
answer all proper questions propounded to them<br />
by said board or such member. That it is hereby<br />
made the duty of the sheriff or constable in the<br />
county in which such witness may reside or be<br />
found, to execute subpoenas issued as above pro<br />
vided, and that they shall each receive for their<br />
services' in executing such subpoenas the same<br />
lees as are allowed them respectively for executing<br />
subpoenas in other cases. Any witnesses<br />
summoned as above mentioned shall he entitled<br />
to the same mileage and per diem as is now al<br />
lowed by law to such<br />
WITNESSES ATTENDING TRIALS<br />
in the circuit courts. If any witness subpoenaed<br />
as above mentioned shall fail to attend without<br />
good excuse, in accordance with the subpcena<br />
served on him, cr shall fail to attend without<br />
good excuse, in accordance with the subpcena<br />
served on him, or shall fail to testify when attending,<br />
it is hereby made the duty of said board<br />
or the member before whom said proceedings is<br />
being had. to certify to the failure of any witness<br />
to attend and testify, to a judge of any court of<br />
record in the county where such proceeding is<br />
being held. It is hereby made the duty of the<br />
judge to whom such certificate is made to cause<br />
such witness to appear before him at a time fixed<br />
by said judge, to show cause why he should not<br />
be punished for contempt, and to fine or imprison<br />
such witness as such judge may deem proper in<br />
case he is found guilty of contempt in llie premises.<br />
That the expense of executing subpoenas<br />
and ihe attendance of witnesses, as well as said<br />
contempt proceedings, shall be paid out of any<br />
funds in the treasury of the state on certificate<br />
of Ihe chief mine inspector, approved by the gov<br />
ernor of the state.<br />
Sec. 7. The chief mine inspector, shall, prior<br />
to the assembling of the legislature, make a written<br />
report to the governor stating the condition<br />
of the coal mining interests in this state with<br />
such suggestions, statistics and information as<br />
may be of interest to the coal mining industry,<br />
and the report shall be printed on the order of<br />
the governor and paid for out of tbe funds of the<br />
treasury not otherwise appropriated.<br />
Sec. 8. The chief mine inspector shall be fur<br />
nished by the state all necessary instruments for<br />
measurement of air in coal mines, and whatever<br />
apparatus the said inspector may recommend.<br />
Sec. 9. The chief mine inspector shall procure<br />
for the state at the state's expense a full and complete<br />
set of standards and other equipment, such<br />
as, in his opinion, are necessary in the testing of<br />
scales, beams and<br />
OTI-IPR NECESSARV APPARATUS<br />
to he used for a just weighing of coal and other material<br />
at the coal mines according to the state<br />
standard of weights; and it shall be the duty of<br />
said inspector to examine, test and cause to be<br />
adjusted as often as occasion demands, all scales<br />
and other apparatus used in weighing coal at<br />
coal mines.<br />
Sec. 10. The chief mine inspector, with the concurrence<br />
of two of the associate mine inspectors,<br />
shall have power and authority to immediately<br />
stop the operation of any coal mine or any part<br />
thereof in which there is sufficient gas or dust,<br />
in the opinion of the said chief mine inspector<br />
and said associate inspectors, to cause an explosion<br />
and endanger the lives of the persons work<br />
ing therein, but work shall not be stopped in any<br />
mine except where there is immediate danger of<br />
an explosion until the operator or person in charge<br />
of said mine shall have had reasonable time in<br />
which to remove the danger of such explosion.<br />
Any operator, whose mine or any part thereof,<br />
has been stopped under this section, may apply<br />
to the chancery court of the county, where the<br />
mine is located for an injunction, and upon ten<br />
clays notice served on the chief mine inspector,<br />
said application for injunction shall be heard by<br />
the said chancery court, if in session, or by the<br />
chancellor thereof, if the court be in vacation,<br />
upon testimony received in such manner as the<br />
chancellor may direct, provided that each party<br />
shall be entitled to have all witnesses produced<br />
by him at the hearing examined orally before the<br />
chancellor, and the testimony of each witness so<br />
examined shall lie reduced to writing and signed<br />
by the witness and shall become a part of the<br />
record of the cause. If. upon such hearing, the<br />
proof shows that such mine or part thereof was<br />
or is wrongfully closed, then the chancellor, or<br />
chancery court trying the same, shall award a<br />
writ of injunction in favor of said operator, restraining<br />
said chief mine<br />
INSPECTOR AND ASSOCIATES<br />
from stopping the operation of said mine or part<br />
thereof, and revoking the order of said chief mine<br />
inspector and associates. The chief mine inspector,<br />
or other representative of the state, with<br />
the consent of the governor may employ such experts<br />
as he deems necessary to examine the mine<br />
in question and the compensation of such experts<br />
shall be fixed by the governor and be paid out<br />
of the state treasury upon the order of the governor.<br />
An appeal by the unsuccessful party shall<br />
lie to the siipreme court of the state from any<br />
decree of the chancellor or chancery court trying<br />
the cause. In all such causes the chief mine in-
spector and associates shall be entitled to the ser<br />
vices of the solicitor prosecuting for the state in<br />
the county where the cause is triable, and the<br />
governor may provide special counsel of his se<br />
lection to represent the chief mine inspector and<br />
associates and fix the compensation of such coun<br />
sel, which shall upon the written direction of the<br />
governor be paid out of the moneys appropriated<br />
by section fifteen of this act in the manner therein<br />
provided.<br />
Sec. 11. Immediate notice must be conveyed<br />
to the chief mine inspector and the inspector of<br />
the proper district by the operator interested.<br />
Fiist, whenever an accident occurs whereby any<br />
person receives serious or fatal injury. Second,<br />
whenever it is intended to abandon any coal mine<br />
or reopen any abandoned coal mines. Third,<br />
upon the appearance of any dangerous accumula<br />
tion of fire damp in any coal mine, whether ac<br />
companied by explosion or not, and upon the oc<br />
currence of any fire within the coal mine or on<br />
the surface. Fourth, when the workings of any<br />
coal mine are approaching dangerously near any<br />
abandoned coal mine, containing accumulations of<br />
water or of gas. Fifth, upon the accidental clos<br />
ing or intended abandonment of any passage way<br />
to an escapement outlet. But none of the<br />
infoimation contained in<br />
ANY REPORT ot' ACCIDENT<br />
shall be divulged by any one of the inspectors, or<br />
their employes, to any person except in a legal<br />
proceeding or except it be to a member of the<br />
family of the party injured or killed, or to a legal<br />
representative of said party or family, and the<br />
chief mine inspector shall require such legal rep<br />
resentative to file his authority therefor.<br />
Sec. 11%. It shall lie the duty of said board,<br />
whenever notified of any fatal accident or accident<br />
causing serious personal injury, to any person em<br />
ployed in any coal mine in this state or any gas<br />
or dust explosions therein, to require a. member<br />
of said board to immediately repair to the scene<br />
of the accident or explosion and investigate the<br />
cause of such accident or explosion and make such<br />
orders as are necessary or proper to secure the<br />
safety of the persons working therein. Said<br />
board shall keep on file at its office a list of all<br />
accidents resulting in death or serious bodily injury<br />
to any person working in or about such<br />
mines. Such list subject to examination as pro<br />
vided in section 11.<br />
Sec. 12. Whenever the chief mine inspector<br />
shall require it, the owner, operator, or lessee of<br />
any coal mine shall send to the chief mine inspector<br />
on blanks furnished by him for that purpose,<br />
a report showing the amount of ventilation<br />
at the inlet and outlet: the amount of ventilation<br />
at or near the last cross cut in each split, the<br />
number of splits and the number of men and ani<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
mals on each split. The report shall also include<br />
a record of tlle pressure gauge readings.<br />
Sec. 13. On or before the twenty-fifth day of<br />
January in each year, the operator or superin<br />
tendent of every coal mine shall send lo the chief<br />
mine inspector a correct report, specifying with<br />
respect to the year ending with the thirl y-first of<br />
December preceding the<br />
NAMES OI THE OPERATOR<br />
and location of offices of coal mines, and the quan<br />
tity of coal and kind of coal mined. The report<br />
shall be in such form and give such information<br />
regarding such mine as may be from time to<br />
time required, and prescribed by the chief mine<br />
inspector. Blank tonus for such report shall he<br />
furnished by the chief mine inspector.<br />
Sec. 14. Tiie governor ma\ remove any chief<br />
mine inspector or associate inspector at any time<br />
with or without cause, the governor shall also<br />
have the power to fill vacancies occasioned from<br />
any cause.<br />
Sec. 15. The sum of twenty-five thousand ($25.-<br />
000.00) dollars is appropriated out of tiny money<br />
in the state treasury not otherwise appropriated<br />
for each of the years 1911, 1912, 1913 and 1914.<br />
to pay the salaries of the inspectors and a chief<br />
clerk to be appointed by the chief mine inspector<br />
and who shall receive a salary of not exceeding<br />
fifteen hundred ($1,500.00) dollars per annum;<br />
the necessary traveling and other expenses incurred<br />
by the members of the board of mine in<br />
spectors while traveling in the discharge of their<br />
official duties, and for extraordinary expenses at<br />
mine disasters; and for the payment of not to<br />
exceed seventy-five ($75.00) dollars per month<br />
for office rent of said board; for the expense of<br />
chief or associate mine inspector in attending<br />
mine inspectors' conventions, and for the rent or<br />
hire of a telephone at tlie residence of each mem<br />
ber of said board and telephone at the office of<br />
said board; for postage stamps, stationery, and for<br />
the payment of long distance telephone and tele<br />
graph messages sent by the members of said board<br />
when necessary in the discharge of their official<br />
duties; also for the purchase of'all necessary ap<br />
paratus usually required in an office of that char<br />
acter; said expenses will be paid monthly on ap<br />
proval by the governor of monthly itemized statements<br />
presented to him by the chief mine in<br />
spector; and the state auditor is authorized and<br />
directed to draw his warrant on the state treasurer<br />
in favor of the chief mine inspector for the<br />
monthly expenses incurred as aforesaid, when so<br />
directed by the governor.<br />
Sec. 17. When any agent or operator of any<br />
mine shall refuse or fail to<br />
COMPLY Willi ANY ORDER<br />
or direction of the chief mine inspector after the<br />
expiration of a reasonable time the chief mine<br />
inspector may, if he deem it advisable, refer the
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
matter to the judge of probate in the county in<br />
which the mine is located. Upon such reference<br />
the judge of probate shall set a day for the hearing<br />
of the same and issue citation to the owner<br />
or operator of the mine to appear and contest tbe<br />
same if be sees proper; said citation to be served<br />
by the sheriff of the county at least ten days be<br />
fore the day of trial. Upon the application of<br />
either party, the judge of probate must issue sub<br />
poena for witnesses, to be served by the sheriff<br />
as in other cases. After hearing the case the<br />
probate judge must render such decision as he<br />
may deem just and equitable, from which decision<br />
either party may appeal to the circuit court within<br />
sixty days, when it shall be tried de novo. From<br />
the decision of the circuit court either party may<br />
appeal to the supreme court of Alabama. If no<br />
appeal is taken, the decision shall be final and<br />
binding on said operator or mine owner, and any<br />
mine owner or operator who refuses to carry out<br />
the final order or determination of the case, after<br />
a reasonable time, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,<br />
and must, on conviction be fined not<br />
more than one thousand dollars.<br />
Sec. 18. The chief mine inspector, who shall<br />
be ex-officio chairman of the board, with a vote<br />
only in case of a tie vote, or in case of the absence<br />
of one member of the board, together with<br />
two practical miners and two operators of coal<br />
mines, and one mining engineer (a majority of<br />
whom shall act) and all members of which board<br />
shall hold first class certificates, shall constitute<br />
a hoard of examiners to examine and give certifi<br />
cates of fitness to persons to act as mine foremen,<br />
or fire bosses, in any coal mine in this<br />
state; a fee of five dollars shall lie paid to the<br />
chief mine inspector by each person examined for<br />
mine foreman certificate and three dollars for fire<br />
lioss certificate, to be<br />
USED AS AX EXAMINERS FUND,<br />
before examination is begun. Out of the examiners<br />
fund there snail be paid to each member<br />
of the board, except the chief mine inspector, who<br />
shall serve without extra pay, four dollars per<br />
day. Said hoard shall meet every six months<br />
at the office of the chief mine inspector, and remain<br />
in session not longer than six days and<br />
special meetings may be called hy the chief mine<br />
inspector and must be called at the request of<br />
three members of the board. The members of<br />
this board shall be appointed by the governor<br />
and shall hold office for three years and until their<br />
successors are appointed and qualified and as<br />
near as iiossible two members shall be appointed<br />
one year and three the succeeding year. The<br />
present hoard shall remain in office until their<br />
terms expire and the governor shall appoint the<br />
additional members upon the passage of this act,<br />
and other members in accordance with this sec<br />
tion as the terms of office of the present board<br />
respectively expire. The chief mine inspector<br />
shall preserve in his office a record of the meetings<br />
and transactions of the board and of all cer<br />
tificates issued.<br />
Sec. 19. The examinations herein provided for<br />
shall be conducted under such rules, conditions<br />
and regulations as the members of the board shall<br />
deem most efficient for carrying into effect the<br />
spirit and intent, of this act. Such rules, when<br />
formulated, shall be made a part of the perma<br />
nent record of the board, and such of them as<br />
relate to candidates shall be published for their<br />
information and governance prior to each exam<br />
ination; they shall also be of uniform application<br />
to all candidates.<br />
Sec. 20. In case of the loss or destruction ot<br />
a certificate the chief mine inspector may supply<br />
a copy thereof to the person losing same upon the<br />
payment of $1.00, provided, it shall be shown to<br />
the satisfaction of the chief mine inspector that<br />
the loss has actually occurred, and the loser was<br />
the holder of such certificate.<br />
Sec. 21. If any person, or persons shall f<strong>org</strong>e<br />
or counterfeit a certificate or knowingly make or<br />
cause to be made any false statement in any certificate<br />
under this act or in any official copy of<br />
the same, or shall urge or influence others to do<br />
so. or shall utter or use any<br />
SUCH FALSE CERTIFICATE<br />
or unofficial copy thereof, or shall make, give,<br />
utter, produce, or make use of any false declaiation,<br />
representation or statement in any such<br />
certificate or copy thereof, or any document containing<br />
same, or make any false statement or mislepresentation<br />
in application before examining<br />
board for any certificate be or they, shall be<br />
guilty of a misdemeanor and his certificate cancelled<br />
or annulled by the examining board.<br />
Sec. 22. Applicants for nrst and second-class<br />
mine foreman's certificates shall be at least<br />
twenty-three years of age, and shall have at leasl<br />
five years practical experience, three years of<br />
wdiich shall have been spent within coal mines<br />
after having attained the age of fifteen years as<br />
mine worker, superintendent, at or inside of any<br />
coal mine, and shall be citizens of the United<br />
States, and shall present an affidavit as to the<br />
above and a certificate of good moral character<br />
and of known temperate habits, signed by ten<br />
reputable citizens where he resides. The said<br />
hoard shall be entitled to grant certificates of com<br />
petency of two grades, namely, certificate of the<br />
first class to persons who have had experience<br />
in coal mines generating gases or accumulating<br />
dust, one or both, and who shall have the necessary<br />
qualifications to fulfill the duties of mine<br />
foreman in such mines; and certificates of second<br />
class to persons who give satisfactory evidence
of their ability to act as mine foreman in coal<br />
mines not generating explosive gases. Any person<br />
holding a first-class certificate of any other<br />
state may act as mine foreman in this state until<br />
tne first meeting of the examining board.<br />
Sec. 23. Applicants for fire boss certificates<br />
shall be at least twenty-one (21) years of age. and<br />
shall have had at least three years practical experience<br />
within coal mines after having attained the<br />
age of fifteen years and shall be a citizen of the<br />
United States and shall present an affidavit as to<br />
tne above and a certificate of<br />
I1O01) MORAL CHARACTER<br />
and of known temperate habits signed by ten reputable<br />
citizens where he resides. Said board shall<br />
be entitled to grant certificates of competency to<br />
persons who have had experience in coal mines<br />
generating gases and who shall have the necessary<br />
qualifications to fulfill the duties of fire boss in<br />
such mines.<br />
Sec. 24. Any one holding a first-class mine foreman's<br />
certificate may serve as fire boss. Whenever<br />
any exigency arises by which it is impossible<br />
for any operator, owner or lessee to secure the immediate<br />
service of a certificated mine foreman or<br />
fire boss he may employ any trustworthy man.<br />
subject to the approval of the state inspector of<br />
the district, to act as temporary mine foreman or<br />
fire boss for a period of not to exceed sixty days.<br />
Sec. 25. Certificates of service may be issued<br />
by the examining board to persons acting as fire<br />
bosses at the time of the passage of this act and<br />
such certificates shall entitle them to act, until the<br />
next examination for fire bosses.<br />
Sec. 26. The certificate of any mine foreman or<br />
fire boss may be canceled and revoked by the board<br />
of examiners, whenever it shall be established to<br />
the satisfaction of said board that the holder<br />
thereof has become unworthy of official endorsement<br />
by reason of violation of the law, intemperate<br />
habits, manifest incapacity, abuse of authority,<br />
or for other causes satisfactory to said board; provided,<br />
that any person against whom charges or<br />
complaints are made shall have an opportunity to<br />
be heard in his own behalf. And he shall have<br />
at least thirty days notice in writing of such<br />
charges, by the chief mine inspector, and if the<br />
holder of a certificate is convicted on the hearing<br />
of such charge or complaint, of violating any part<br />
of this law his certificate shall be revoked by the<br />
board. Provided, that the chief mine inspector<br />
after a thorough investigation, may suspend such<br />
holder pending a meeting of the board of examiners<br />
and its final action.<br />
Sec. 27. No person shall act as foreman in any<br />
coal mine in this state generating<br />
EXPLOSIVE OASES<br />
or dust in quantities sufficient to explode or extend<br />
an explosion unless he is in possession of a first<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
class certificate of competency, and no person shall<br />
act as foreman in any coal mine in this state which<br />
is non-gaseous unless he is in possession of a firstclass<br />
or second-class certificate of competency.<br />
Sec. 28. The duties of the mine foreman may be<br />
performed by the assistant mine foreman during<br />
the temporary absence of the mine foreman for a<br />
period not exceeding one week.<br />
Sec. 29. The mine foreman shall have charge of<br />
carrying out or directing the carrying out of his<br />
duties as prescribed in this act; and any person<br />
who shall direct or cause a mine foreman to disregard<br />
the provisions of this act. shall be amenable<br />
in the same manner as the mine foreman.<br />
Sec. 30. Whenever any entry, slope or heading<br />
or other working place in any coal mine contains<br />
dust which will ignite, explode or extend an explosion,<br />
it shall be the duty of the person or corporation<br />
operating said mine to have it sprayed or<br />
sprinkled.<br />
Sec. 31. Except as otherwise provided in this<br />
act no person shall act as fire boss in any coal mine<br />
in this state generating explosive gases unless be<br />
is in possession of a certificate of competency.<br />
Sec. 32. When gas exists in any coal mine in<br />
quantities sufficient to ignite or explode the owner.<br />
operator, lessee or agent of such mine shall employ<br />
a competent fire boss whose duties shall be to examine<br />
every working place in the mine before the<br />
men are permitted to enter for work. Said fire<br />
boss shall be at some convenient place for at least<br />
an hour each morning to inform every man as to<br />
the state and condition of his working place so far<br />
as gas in dangerous quantities is concerned before<br />
entering. Said work shall be carefully examined<br />
every morning with a safety lamp by the fire boss<br />
before the workmen are allowed to enter therein.<br />
It shall also be the duty of the fire boss after each<br />
examination to leave at a point at least twenty-five<br />
(25) feet distant from the face of every slope, drift,<br />
entry, or air course and at the neck of every room<br />
examined by him a conspicuous sign or mark indicating<br />
the presence of<br />
CAS IX DANGEROUS QUANTITIES<br />
discovered by him. together with a memorandum<br />
of the date of his examination. It shall he a misdemeanor<br />
on the part of any fire boss to fail to<br />
perform any duty imposed on him by the provisions<br />
of this section, and it shall be a misdemeanor<br />
for any person to enter in or dangerously near to<br />
any place in the mine in which he has been notified<br />
in person that gas exists in dangerous quantities<br />
or dangerously near to any place where any<br />
such sign or mark has been placed.<br />
Sec. 34. Machine runners and helpers shall use<br />
care while operating machines; they shall not<br />
operate a machine unless the shields are in place,<br />
and no persons not engaged in the operating of a<br />
machine shall go near the machine while it is in
32<br />
operation. They shall not move the machine except<br />
while cutting, while the cutting chain is in<br />
motion. If they remove props which have been<br />
placed by the miner or loader for the security of<br />
Ihe roof, they shall reset such props.<br />
Sec. 35. All employes shall promptly inform the<br />
mine foreman or his assistant of the unsafe con<br />
dition of any working place, hauling roads or traveling<br />
ways, or of damage to doors, brattices, or<br />
stoppings, or of obstructions in the air passages<br />
when known to them. Every workman employed<br />
in coal mines shall examine his working place he-<br />
fore commencing work, and after any stoppage of<br />
work during the shift, he shall repeat the examina<br />
tion.<br />
Sec. 36. It shall be unlawful for any miner,<br />
workman, or other person knowingly to injure any<br />
shaft, safety lamp, appliances, air course or brat<br />
tices or to obstruct or throw open any air way or<br />
carry any open lamp or lighted pipe or fire in any<br />
form into any place worked by the light of safetv<br />
lamps, oi' within five feet of any open powder, or<br />
to handle or disturb any part of the hoisting machinery,<br />
or open door regulating an air current and<br />
not close the same, or to enter any part of a coal<br />
mine against caution, or to do any willful act<br />
whereby the lives or health of persons working in<br />
coal mines or the security of the mine or the machinery<br />
thereof is endangered.<br />
Sec. 37. There shall be adopted by the operator<br />
of every mine in this state special rules for the<br />
government and operation of his<br />
MINE oil MINES,<br />
covering all the work pertaining thereto in and<br />
outside of the same, whicli. however, shall not be<br />
in conflict with tbe provisions of the mining laws<br />
of this state; such rules when established shall be<br />
printed on card board in the English language, and<br />
shall be posted up in tbe drum house, tipple or<br />
some other conspicuous place about the mines<br />
where the same may he seen and observed hy all<br />
the employes at such mines, and when a copy has<br />
been given an employe it shall operate as a notice<br />
to him and shall be conclusive of his acceptance of<br />
the contents thereof: and it shall be the duty of<br />
each mine operator to furnish a printed coin- of<br />
said rules to each of his employes.<br />
Sec. 38. It shall he the dutv of persons operating<br />
coal mines in this state fo keep at a convenient<br />
place at or near the main entrance of the mine,<br />
or in the mines, a sufficient supply of props and<br />
other timbers useful for propping therein, of suit<br />
able lengths and sizes, for those working in such<br />
mines. It shall be the dutv ol' those working in<br />
said mines who need props or other timbers to<br />
select and mark the same when needed for prop<br />
ping by them, designating on such props or timbers<br />
the place at which the same are to be deliv<br />
ered or give notice to the person wdiose duty it is<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
to deliver or have the same delivered, of the number<br />
and kind of props or other timbers needed and<br />
of the place at which they are to be delivered. It<br />
shall then be the duty of the operator to promptly<br />
deliver or cause to be delivered such props or<br />
other timbers at the place designated.<br />
Sec. 39. In all coal mines employing twenty or<br />
moi e men inside at any one time it shall be the<br />
duty of the owner, operator, or lessee to have and<br />
maintain at least two available openings to the<br />
surface from each seam, or stratum of the coal<br />
worked in such mines, said openings which in case<br />
of slope mines, shall be separated by natural strata<br />
of not less than twenty-five feet, and in all mines<br />
with two hundred tons or over daily capacity all<br />
stoppings between slopes and nianway shall be<br />
made of fire proof material. The said openings<br />
in case of shaft mines shall be separated by not<br />
less than one hundred feet of natural strata. Both<br />
of these openings, in all cases, shall be kept in<br />
good condition and shall be at all times reasonably<br />
safe and convenient for entering and leaving the<br />
mines: reasonable time, however, shall be given to<br />
said owner, operator or lessee to prepare the sec<br />
ond opening, in no case exceeding six months from<br />
the passage of this act. unless in the opinion of<br />
the chief mine inspector, a<br />
LONGER TIME IS REQUIRED,<br />
in which case he shall allow the additional time<br />
necessary. The said second opening may be made<br />
through another adjoining mine. At all points<br />
where the passage way to the escapement shaft.<br />
or other place of exit, is intercepted by other road<br />
ways or entries, conspicuous sign boards shall he<br />
placed indicating the direction it is necessary to<br />
take in order to reach such place of exit.<br />
Sec. 4u. The operator or superintendent of every<br />
coal mine, whether a shaft, slope or drift, shall<br />
provide and hereafter maintain ample means of<br />
ventilation for the circulation of air through the<br />
main entries and all other working places to an<br />
extent that will dilute, carry off and render harmless<br />
the noxious and explosive gases generated in<br />
the mine, the same to be not less than one hundred<br />
cubic feet per minute per man. and five hundred<br />
cubic feet per mule or horse, and shall be propel<br />
ly conducted to all working places.<br />
Sec. 41. No accumulation of explosive gas shall<br />
be allowed to exist in the worked out or abandoned<br />
parts of any coal mine in operation, and the entrance<br />
or entrances to said worked out and aban<br />
doned places shall be properly fenced off, and cautionary<br />
notices shall be posted upon said fencing<br />
to warn persons of danger.<br />
Sec. 42. It shall be the duty of the chief mine<br />
inspector to require that proper breaks through be<br />
made in all room pillars at such distance apart as,<br />
in the judgment of the mine inspector, may be
deemed requisite, but said breaks through shall<br />
not be more than seventy feet apart.<br />
Sec. 43. At all principal doorways through<br />
which cars are hauled, an attendant shall be employed<br />
for the purpose of opening and closing said<br />
doors when trips or cars are passing to and from<br />
the workings. Sufficient space shall be provided<br />
at such doorways to protect the attendants from<br />
being injured by the cars while attending to their<br />
duties; provided, that in any or<br />
ALL COAX MINES,<br />
where doors are constructed in such a manner as<br />
to open and close automatically attendants and<br />
places for shelter shall be required.<br />
Sec. 44. The doors used in a system for ventilating<br />
or regulating the ventilation of coal mines<br />
shall be so hung and adjusted that they will close<br />
themselves, or by supplying them with springs or<br />
pulleys so that they cannot be left standing open.<br />
When ordered by the chief mine inspector a second<br />
or emergency door shall he provided at all points<br />
where doors are used, said doors to be used in case<br />
of damage to the other door. After the passage of<br />
this act no ventilating fan shall be placed nearer<br />
than thirty feet to an air shaft or air course and<br />
shall he placed to one side of the line of such opening<br />
so as to remove the fan from the blast of an<br />
explosion, and the air duct connecting the fan with<br />
such opening, shall be provided with self closing<br />
explosion doors.<br />
Sec. 45. It shall he unlawful to use a furnace<br />
for ventilating any coal mine where explosive gas<br />
is geneiated in quantities considered dangerous<br />
by the chief mine inspector and associate mine inspector<br />
of the district in which such mine is located<br />
or where there is a known probability of<br />
cutting into explosive gas producing territory.<br />
This section does not apply to boiler plants in<br />
mines installed prior to the passage of this act.<br />
unless considered dangerous by the chief mine inspector<br />
and associate mine inspector of Ihe district<br />
in which such mine is located.<br />
Sec. 46. No steam pipes through whicli high<br />
pressure steam is conveyed, for the purpose of<br />
driving pumps or other machinery, shall be permitted<br />
on traveling or haulage ways, unless they<br />
are encased in asbestos, or some other suitable<br />
non-conducting material, or are so placed that the<br />
radiation of heat into the atmosphere of the coal<br />
mine will be prevented as far as practicable, provided<br />
that after the passage of this act that steam<br />
pipes shall be placed in the return airway and may<br />
he without casing.<br />
Sec. 47. If at any time the chief mine inspector<br />
or his associates are notified or discovered that the<br />
ventilation in any coal mine within the state is<br />
insufficient, the said chief mine inspector or one<br />
of his associates, shall proceed within five days<br />
to investigate said complaint or complaints by per<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
sonal inspection of any mine or mines in which<br />
the quality or quantity of air is complained of. and<br />
if on investigation he finds that the<br />
All! IX ANY MINE<br />
is insufficient, he shall direct the operator or operators<br />
of said mines to adopt such measures for the<br />
proper ventilation of said mine as he deems necessary.<br />
Sec. 4S. No person shall place refuse in or<br />
obstruct any airway or break through used as an<br />
airway.<br />
Sec. 49. It shall he unlawful for any miner or<br />
other person to make or build any fire in any coal<br />
mine without the written permission of the superintendent<br />
thereof.<br />
Sec. 50. No safety lamp shall be entrusted to<br />
any person for use in coal mines until he has<br />
given satisfactory evidence to the mine foreman<br />
that he understands the proper use thereof and<br />
danger of tampering with the same.<br />
Sec. 51. All safety lamps used for examining<br />
coal mines or for working therein, shall he the<br />
property of the operators, and shall he in Ihe care<br />
of the mine foreman, his assistant or fire boss or<br />
other competent persons, who shall fill. trim, and<br />
examine and deliver the same locked in a safe con<br />
dition to the men when entering the coal mine.<br />
before each shift. A sufficient quantity of extra<br />
safety lamps, hut not less than twenty-five per<br />
cent, of those in use shall be kept at each coal mine<br />
where methane has at any time been generated in<br />
sufficient quantities to be detected by the ordinary<br />
safety lamps for use in case of emergency. It<br />
shall be the duty of every person who knows his<br />
safety lamp to be injured or defective to promptly<br />
report such fact to the party authorized herein lo<br />
receive and care for said lamps, and it shall he the<br />
duty of that person to promptly repair or report<br />
such fact to the mine foreman.<br />
Sec. 52. Approved safety catches shall be attached<br />
to cage used for the purpose of lowering<br />
and hoisting persons into and out of coal mines.<br />
and must be provided with suitable sheet iron<br />
covers, at least one-fourth inch thick and hinged<br />
to open upward, to protect<br />
PERSONS RIDING THEREON<br />
from falling objects, and also witli iron bars or<br />
rings in proper place, and sufficient number to furnish<br />
a secure handhold for every person permitted<br />
to ride thereon. An adequate brake shall be at<br />
tached to every drum or machine for lowering and<br />
hoisting persons into and out of the mine and also<br />
indicators which shall show to the person who<br />
works the machine the position of the cage or load<br />
in the shaft or on the road way. And. all shafts<br />
used for hoisting men, shall be equipped wilh<br />
metal tubes or pipes, suitably adopted for the free<br />
passage of sound, through which conversation may<br />
be held between persons at the top and landings
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
of said shaft, all safety catches provided for herein<br />
shall be carefully inspected and properly oiled at<br />
least once a week and shall be at all times kept in<br />
good working condition.<br />
Sec. 53. The main coupling cage chain in shaft<br />
mines attached to the socket of the wire rope may<br />
be tested by weights or otherwise to the satisfac<br />
tion of the mine inspector of the district wherein<br />
the coal mine is located, and bridle chains shall<br />
be attached to the main hoisting rope above the<br />
socket, from the top cross piece of the carriage or<br />
cage, so that no single chain shall be used for<br />
lowering or hoisting persons into or out of the<br />
mines. At all shafts used for the purpose of<br />
hoisting and lowering men. the cages shall be provided<br />
with automatic self detaching hooks or the<br />
engines handling same shall he equipped with an<br />
automatic stopping device to prevent overwinding.<br />
Sec. 54. The owner, operator or lessee of anv<br />
coal mine shall place in charge of any engines used<br />
for conveying into and hoisting out of said coal<br />
mine, none but a competent engineer. No other<br />
persons unless authorized by the owner, operator<br />
or lessee shall enter the engine room, and it shall<br />
be unlawful for any person to interfere with or<br />
intimidate the engineer in the discharge of his<br />
duty. No person shall speak to the engineer while<br />
the engine is in motion, unless it be in giving<br />
signals to him. and notices to this effect shall he<br />
posted on the door of the engine house.<br />
(TO BE CONCLUDED IN TIIE ISSUE OF JULY 1)<br />
STATISTICS OF COAL PRODUCED<br />
IN COLORADO IN 1910.<br />
The recently issued report of James Dalrymple,<br />
state inspector of coal mines for Colorado, for the<br />
years 1910 and 1909 contains the following interesting<br />
statistics:<br />
1910. 1909.<br />
Number of mines in<br />
operation 155 167<br />
Number of new mines<br />
opened up<br />
Tons of lignite coal pro<br />
12 15<br />
duced 1.651.955 2,173,877<br />
Tons of semi-bituminous<br />
coal produced 1,014,588 855,762<br />
Tons of bituminous coal<br />
produced 9,284,758 7,613.332<br />
Tons of anthracite coal<br />
produced 80,586 59,519<br />
Tons of unclassified coal<br />
produced, estimated.. 70.000 70,1100<br />
Total number of tons of<br />
coal produced 12.104,887 10,772.490.<br />
Increase in number of<br />
tons as compared with<br />
1909 1.332,397<br />
Tons of coal mined by<br />
hand 10.563,651 9,033,057<br />
Tons of coal mined by<br />
machinery 1,541,236 1,739,433<br />
Total numher of mining<br />
machines used 222 208<br />
Total number of tons of<br />
coke produced 1,190.901 1,076,593<br />
Total number of coke<br />
ovens 3,164 3,240<br />
Number of employes in<br />
and about the mines. 14,768 13,156<br />
Number of employes at<br />
the coke ovens 1,090 1,089<br />
Number of non fatal ac<br />
cidents 146 116<br />
Number of fatal acci<br />
dents in the mines. . . . 319 89<br />
Tons of coal mined for<br />
each life lost 37,946.30 121.039.10<br />
Tons of coal mined for<br />
each non-fatal accident S2.910.40 92,886.30<br />
Number of employes for<br />
each life lost 46.20 147.80<br />
Number of killed per<br />
thousand employed .. . 21.60 6.76<br />
Number of employes for<br />
each non-fatal accident 101.20 113.40<br />
1910. 1909. 1910. 1909.<br />
Total nunrber of accidents. 96 79<br />
Total number of men killed 319 S9<br />
Total number men injured 146 116<br />
Serious injuries 115 79<br />
Minor injuries 31 37<br />
Total number of wives made<br />
widows 163 50<br />
Number of children left<br />
fatherless 303 7]<br />
Causes. —Killed.^ —Injured.^,<br />
Gas explosions' 10 9 13<br />
Dust explosions (including<br />
mixtures of dust and gas) 210 3<br />
Falls of roof, coal, rock.<br />
and draw slate 73 63 79 70<br />
Powder explosions 2 2<br />
Crushed by trip cars 18 7 28 25<br />
Shaft accidents 1 2 2<br />
Miscellaneous 3 2 26 6<br />
Electrocuted 1<br />
Suffocated 14 i<br />
Total 319 89 146 116<br />
The Morehead Coal Co.. C. C. Richard, president,<br />
at a meeting held in Wheeling, W. Va., recently<br />
adopted a resolution reducing its authorized capital<br />
from $500,000 to $100,000, and has filed a cer<br />
tificate to that effect with the secretary of state.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
THE FUEL PROBLEM IN RAILWAY OPERATIONS"<br />
The railway fuel problem is one of great magnitude<br />
and importance, as our locomotives burn<br />
about one-fourth of the production of this country<br />
and one-tenth of the production of the world.<br />
As much is burned in the 70,000 locomotives of<br />
the United States and Canada as in the 120,000<br />
of all the rest of the world.<br />
Of the gross earnings of America's railways<br />
(nearly three billion dollars per year) some 8<br />
or 9 per cent, is consumed in fuel, equivalent to<br />
a tax of 3 cents a day, or 2 per cent, of his wages,<br />
for every able-bodied man on the continent.<br />
Economy or waste in locomotive fuel eventually<br />
touches everybody and particularly railroad<br />
owners, the stockholders, every dollar saved in<br />
fuel being equivalent to over seven dollars' increase<br />
in gross earnings in producing a net<br />
available for dividends. Let me put this matter<br />
in concrete form. At least 20 per cent, can be<br />
saved net as a hold in the railway fuel expense<br />
in this country. This amount saved would mean<br />
the distribution of $40,000,000 yearly in dividends,<br />
or an additional one-half per cent, and indirect<br />
or direct contribution of over $2 to the income<br />
of every family in the Union.<br />
It has been stated that at least 20 per cent.<br />
can be saved in the cost of railway fuel. My<br />
personal conviction after some illuminating experiences<br />
in the practical application of methods<br />
to bring about reduction in cost, is that the complete<br />
and effective fuel supervision on almost any<br />
individual railroad will, in less than five years,<br />
result in a reduction of between thirty and forty<br />
per cent.<br />
In other words, a properly directed fuel <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
on a road spending $5,000,000 a year<br />
for fuel, can from the beginning show immediate<br />
and gradually increasing reduction in the fuel<br />
expense, resulting, in the course of a few years,<br />
in over one million, probably two million dollars,<br />
net per year.<br />
Let us, then, trace the coal from the mine to<br />
the smoke stack, and see where, at each step<br />
in its movement, we can economize. Prof. Steele<br />
has well pointed out that we may find it of ad<br />
vantage to pay a rather higher price for a grade<br />
of coal with less slack, than we do now for mine<br />
run, thus indicating an apparent increase in cost<br />
at this initial stage of our survey, rather than a<br />
reduction. From a practical railroad view, I most<br />
heartily agree with Prof. Steele, and without wishing<br />
unduly to emphasize the point, I would go<br />
a good deal further and say that even though<br />
By R. Emerson. Engineer of Track Economics. A. T. & S. F. Ry.<br />
*Paper read before the International Railway Fuel Association,<br />
at Chattanooga. Tenn.<br />
a railroad bought and paid for mine run coal it<br />
would in many cases pay to sift out almost all<br />
of the slack before loading the coal on the<br />
tender, throwing it away if other profitable disposition,<br />
such as briquetting, could not be found<br />
for it. rather than permitting it to be shoveled<br />
into the tire box only to clog up the flues, front<br />
end, choke draft, reduce evaporative efficiency,<br />
and otherwise seriously impair the hauling and<br />
running power of the locomotive. Fuel is but<br />
one item in the expense of moving a train and<br />
it seems folly to decrease by some five to twenty<br />
per cent, the earning power of a train merely<br />
for the privilege of making the fireman, already<br />
working near his capacity on the larger locomotives,<br />
heave through the fire-door a lot of dust<br />
of doubtful, if not altogether useless and deleterious,<br />
fuel value.<br />
My own opinion in this matter, which is not<br />
shared by most of those with whom 1 have discussed<br />
it, is that a special lot of extra large<br />
capacity steel car equipment should be exclusively<br />
reserved for handling the principal parts of<br />
the coal supply. Such a policy, it can be demonstrated<br />
on paper, will effect large reductions in<br />
the cost of moving and handling the coal. I regret<br />
that I have not yet had an opportunity of<br />
proving the economy in practice.<br />
Practically all coal should, of course, be inspected<br />
at the mine, preferably sampled at the<br />
mine face, and the loading and weighing of the<br />
cars supervised. An efficient mine inspection will<br />
often eliminate most of the need for check weighing,<br />
when received on company's line, thus saving<br />
about half a cent a ton. Yet check weighing<br />
is cheaper than continually paying for invoicing<br />
two to ten per cent, short.<br />
"The necessity of avoiding undue crumbling<br />
of the coal through handling at the fuel station<br />
has been touched on and deserves very important<br />
consideration on the part of the engineer installing<br />
the station. An unnecessary breakage of<br />
some 5 to S per cent, is not infrequent, and this<br />
means an average loss in fuel value of perhaps<br />
10 cents per ton, besides the bad effect on the<br />
boiler efficiency of the locomotive.<br />
Having so far considered the transfer of the<br />
coal from tbe pit mouth to the locomotive tender,<br />
let us now turn our attention to the engine that<br />
is to utilize the fuel. Prof. Goss has demonstrated<br />
that an average locomotive working under<br />
heavy load will absorb into the boiler less than<br />
half the heat in the coal. This condition does<br />
not betoken high mechanical efficiency. Much
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
can be done by the mechanical department or<br />
ganization in providing a most modern design of<br />
locomotive and parts, as well as in giving close<br />
attention to upkeep. For instance, coal gates and<br />
aprons on tenders, locomotive grates and ash<br />
pans, front ends, etc., all must be kept in fine<br />
condition if waste is to be avoided at every turn.<br />
The baleful effect of boiler scale has been men<br />
tioned.<br />
Important as are these details of current maintenance<br />
of engine condition, the broad questions<br />
of design to secure highest thermal efficiency are<br />
of still greater moment. The firebox does more<br />
than half the heat work of the boiler. Most fire<br />
boxes are inefficient as heat generators. Most<br />
flues of modern American locomotives are too<br />
long. Better pressures under present day designs<br />
should be under 200 pounds. The higher temperature<br />
range does not secure a heat efficiency<br />
to compensate any attendant disadvantages.<br />
After the coal is loaded onto the tender of a<br />
locomotive properly designed and maintained with<br />
reference to heat efficiency, including due atten<br />
tion to joints, valves, rings, etc., the next step in<br />
fuel supervision is to train and stimulate the<br />
engine crew in the economical use of the fuel and<br />
steam at their hands. This problem, nearly half<br />
the battle for economy, is such an extensive and<br />
important one that it needs a treatise to itself.<br />
I can barely touch on it here. Engine crews<br />
should be instructed in firing and locomotive<br />
handling. Instructions should be both on the<br />
foot plate and in the class or lecture room, or<br />
instruction car. Seventy-five per cent, attention<br />
should be personal, individual, practical on the<br />
road; 25 per cent, in the theory of combustion<br />
and heat, academic, general. Fuel instruction<br />
books, if required, to be in the hands of all at<br />
all times, and if the men are frequently catechised<br />
as to the content matter, which should be of a<br />
specific, practical nature, are well worth while.<br />
Too often, however, the distribution of the books<br />
is perfunctory. They are taken home and read,<br />
if at all, but once by a few.<br />
THE FUEL PREMIUM SYSTEM.<br />
While I am a believer in some form of fuel<br />
premium system applied to engine crews, the only<br />
successful examples that I know of the applica<br />
tion of such systems are in foreign countries. I<br />
do know, however, that large and direct results<br />
accrue from the payment of premiums to road<br />
foremen for efficient fuel performance on their<br />
divisions. I have had experience in originating<br />
and successfully applying an individual premium<br />
system to engineers and firemen for economy, but<br />
in view of the attitude taken by an element of<br />
certain <strong>org</strong>anizations with respect to those who<br />
would voluntarily increase their wages in return<br />
for better service rendered, I have developed a<br />
horizontal or pooled premium system that eliminates<br />
the objections raised against previous efforts<br />
in this direction, and that I believe would<br />
have the effects of bringing about greater solidarity<br />
of interest between employe and company<br />
instead of a tendency to mutual suspicion and antagonism,<br />
with continual friction on the subject<br />
of wages and a fair return therefor.<br />
Again we take the lid off a subject from which<br />
volumes could be put forth, and I shall have to<br />
be satisfied with dismissing its consideration<br />
briefly. I am a crank on statistics, on their use<br />
in practical railroad operations, I mean, and I<br />
believe that some kind of an individual recoid<br />
can be put into effect that will really mean something;<br />
that will really tell the supervisory fuel<br />
officer and his road instructor assistants howthings<br />
are going almost consecutively with their<br />
happening, and not six weeks later. But the<br />
record would be radically different from anything<br />
heretofore attempted, and the individual records<br />
in use today that I have seen are beautiful on<br />
paper, but in fact readily reduced ad absurdum,<br />
for the reason that in no two hours is the performance<br />
of the same man with the same locomo<br />
tive and the same kind of a train strictly comparable.<br />
Elemental variations in speed and stops<br />
alone affect the performance by a greater per<br />
cent, than would indicate the range between<br />
good and bad performance.<br />
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in a recent<br />
decision, bars the anthracite coal companies from<br />
dumping culm and refuse from their mines into<br />
the Susquehanna river. H. W. Pierce, of Wilkes-<br />
Barre, sued the Lehigh Valley Coal Co. for allow<br />
ing the culm from one of its collieries to overflow<br />
his truck farm lands in times of high water, and<br />
got a verdict from a jury for $6,000. The Su<br />
preme Court, in a lengthy opinion, upholds the verdict<br />
of the lower court and states that the coal<br />
companies must find some other outlet for coal<br />
and refuse besides the river.<br />
Ohio railroads have announced another departure<br />
in their dealings with coal shippers. Freight on<br />
lake coal, railroad fuel or shipments to prepay stations<br />
must be settled for within the week following<br />
the date on which the obligation is incurred.<br />
Heretofore these bills were paid only once a month,<br />
and in a number of instances railroads accepted<br />
bond-secured notes running for as long a time as<br />
four months.<br />
The Scranton Trust Co., of Scranton, Pa., has filed<br />
a petition asking for the appointment of a master<br />
to sell the property of the Pennsylvania Coal &<br />
Coke Co., whicli is in line with the re<strong>org</strong>anization<br />
plans. The sale probably will be held at Ebensburg,<br />
Pa., June 22.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
FEES FOR TESTING EXPLOSIVES AND CONDITIONS AND REQUIRE<br />
MENTS UNDER WHICH EXPLOSIVES ARE TESTED*<br />
Among the provisions of an act of Congress, approved<br />
by the President on March 4. 1911, making<br />
appropriations for the Bureau of Mines for tlie<br />
fiscal year beginning July 1, 1911, appears the following<br />
paragraph:<br />
For tests or investigations authorized by the<br />
Secretary of the Interior, other than those performed<br />
for the Government of the United States,<br />
a reasonable fee covering actual necessary expenses<br />
shall be charged, according to a schedule submitted<br />
by the director and approved by the Secretary<br />
of the Interior, who shall prescribe the rules and<br />
regulations under which such tests or investigations<br />
shall be made and under which such fees<br />
shall be charged and collected.<br />
All checks, drafts, money orders, etc., in payment<br />
of such fees shall be drawn to the order of the<br />
Secretary of the Interior to be deposited in the<br />
United States Treasury through the disbursing<br />
office to the credit of miscellaneous receipts, in<br />
accordance with United States Treasury regulations.<br />
Careful consideration has been given tbe actual<br />
necessary expenses involved in testing explosives<br />
at the Pittsburgh testing station during the past<br />
two years, and the following schedule of fees to<br />
be charged on and after July 1, 1911, has been established<br />
and approved by the Secretary of the<br />
Interior in accordance with the provisions of the<br />
statute just quoted. The conditions under which<br />
these explosives are tested are given below.<br />
For a complete official test of each explosive<br />
to determine its permissibility for use in<br />
coal mines $150.no<br />
In ease of the failure of an explosive to pass<br />
a complete official test 75.00<br />
For three propagation tests of a permissible<br />
explosive with different diameters of cartridge<br />
from that originally submitted for<br />
test 15.00<br />
For three experimental shots in ballistic<br />
pendulum 15.00<br />
For each experimental shot in gallery:<br />
Test No. 1 5.00<br />
Test No. 3 5.00<br />
Test No. 4 15.00<br />
The conditions under which the Bureau of<br />
Mines will test explosives to determine whether<br />
they shall be placed on its list of permissible explosives<br />
are as follows:<br />
1. The manufacturer is to deliver to the Bureau<br />
of Mines, Fortieth and Butler streets, Pittsburgh,<br />
<strong>•</strong>Schedule 1. United States Bureau of Mines. Dr Joseph A.<br />
Holmes. Director. .<br />
tTwo pounds of clay stemminff are used with slow-burninvi<br />
explosives.<br />
Fa., three weeks prior to date set for tests, loo<br />
pounds of each explosive that he desires to have<br />
tested. He is to be responsible for the care,<br />
handling, and delivery of this material to the testing<br />
station, and he is to have a representative<br />
present during the tests. In order to avoid duplication<br />
of work, it is requested that the smallest<br />
size of cartridge that the manufacturer intends to<br />
place on the market be sent for these tests.<br />
2. No one is to be present at or participate in<br />
these tests except the necessary government officers<br />
at the experiment station, their assistants and the<br />
representative of the manufacturer of the explosives<br />
to be tested.<br />
3. These tests will be made in the order of the<br />
leceipt of the applications for them, provided the<br />
necessary quantity of the explosive is delivered<br />
at the testing station by the date set, of which date<br />
due notice will be given by the Bureau of Mines.<br />
4. A list of the explosives which pass certain<br />
tequirements satisfactorily will be furnished to<br />
the state mine inspectors in the several states and<br />
will be made public in such manner as may be<br />
considered desirable.<br />
5. The details of results of tests are to lie considered<br />
confidential by the manufacturer and are<br />
not to be made public prior to official publication<br />
by the Bureau of Mines.<br />
6. From time to time field samples of permissible<br />
explosives will be collected, and tests will<br />
be made of these explosives as they are supplied<br />
for use in coal mines in the various states.<br />
The tests will be made by the engineers of the<br />
Bureau of Mines, in gas and dust gallery No. 1<br />
at Pittsburgh, Pa., or in one of its identical galleries.<br />
The charge of explosive to be fired in<br />
tests 1 and 3 shall be equal in deflective power, as<br />
determined by the ballistic pendulum, to one-half<br />
pound (227 grams) of 40 per cent, nitroglycerin<br />
dynamite in its original wrapper, of the following<br />
formula:<br />
Per cent.<br />
Nitroglycerin 40<br />
Nitrate of soda (sodium nitrate) 44<br />
Wood pulp 15<br />
Carbonate of lime (calcium carbonate) 1<br />
100<br />
Each charge shall be fired with an electric detonator<br />
(exploder or cap) strong enough to completely<br />
detonate or explode the charge, as recommended<br />
by the manufacturer. The explosive must<br />
he in such condition that the chemical and physical<br />
tests do not show any unfavorable results.<br />
In order that the dust used in tests 3 and 4 may
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
he of the same quality, it is always taken from the<br />
same mine, ground to the same fineness and used<br />
while still fresh.<br />
The following are the gallery tests to which are<br />
subjected the explosives that the Bureau of Mines<br />
is asked to place in the list of permissible explo<br />
sives:<br />
Test 1. Ten shots each with the charge as de<br />
scribed above, in its original wrapper, shall he<br />
fired, each tamped with 1 poundt of clay stemming,<br />
at a gallery temperature of 77 F., into a<br />
mixture of gas and air containing S per cent, of<br />
gas (methane and ethane). An explosive is considered<br />
to have passed the test if no one of the<br />
ten shots ignites this mixture.<br />
Test 3. Ten shots each with the charge as de<br />
scribed above, in its original wrapper, shall he<br />
fired, each tamped with 1 poundt of clay stemming,<br />
at a gallery temperature of 77 u F.. into 4H<br />
pounds of bituminous coal dust, 2 pounds of<br />
which is to be distributed uniformly on a wooden<br />
bench placed in front of tlie cannot and 2u pounds<br />
placed on side shelves in sections 4, .5 and 6. An<br />
explosive is considered to have passed the test if<br />
no one of the ten shots ignites this mixture.<br />
Test 4. Five shots each with l'L. pounds charge.<br />
in its original wrapper, shall be fired without<br />
stemming, at a gallery temperature of 77 F.. into<br />
a mixture of gas and air containing 4 per cent, of<br />
gas (methane and ethane) and 20 pounds of bituminous<br />
coal dust. 18 pounds of which is to he<br />
placed on shelves along the sides of the first 20<br />
feet of the gallery and 2 pounds to lie so placed<br />
that it will be stirred up by an air current in such<br />
manner that all or part of it will be suspended in<br />
the first division of the gallery. An explosive is<br />
considered to have passed the test if no one of the<br />
five shots ignites this mixture.<br />
Manufacturers who submit explosives for tests<br />
to determine their permissibility for use in coal<br />
mines will he required to furnish two (2) certified<br />
checks or bank drafts made payable to the<br />
Secretary of the Interior, each covering one-half<br />
of the total fee required for the complete tests.<br />
Such fees must be received at least three weeks<br />
prior to the date set for beginning the tests; otherwise<br />
the tests of the next applicant upon the list<br />
will be substituted. In the event that the explosive<br />
passes the tests, the amount of the checks<br />
or drafts will he collected and deposited in the<br />
Fnited States Treasury. In the event of the ex<br />
plosive failing to pass required tests, one of the<br />
checks or drafts' will be returned to the manufacturer<br />
and the amount of the other collected and<br />
deposited in the Fnited States Treasury. Checks<br />
for the full amount charged for experimental shots<br />
and propagation tests are required three weeks<br />
prior to the date set for such tests.<br />
The order of priority of the applications already<br />
received for testing explosives to determine their<br />
permissibility will remain undisturbed, subject<br />
to compliance witli the above regulations. If it<br />
is the intention of any manufacturer to withdraw<br />
any pending application number that has been<br />
assigned, or to reduce the number of explosives<br />
for tests applying on any application numher,<br />
prompt notice of such intention is desired.<br />
.1. A. HOLMES, Director.<br />
Approved. May 27. 1911.<br />
WALTER L. FISHER, Secretary.<br />
The Babcock & Wilcox Co., New York, has issued<br />
a handsome booklet describing and illustrating the<br />
Rust water-tube boiler. The Rust boiler was first<br />
installed and used in the Minnequa works of the<br />
Colorado Fuel & Iron Co.. Mr. Rust, the inventor,<br />
being chief engineer and general superintendent<br />
of that plant. It is the result of systematic efforc<br />
to produce a safe, durable and economical steam<br />
generator for difficult boiler conditions where the<br />
water and fuel are of inferior quality. There are<br />
two designs, known as "B" and "C" types, the latter<br />
being designed for locations where straight<br />
tubes only are desired. Uniform circulation con<br />
ditions are provided, the rapidity of circulation<br />
carrying the steam bubbles along with the current<br />
of water to the disengaging surface and steam<br />
space, thus preventing the formation of steam<br />
pockets and consequent overheating and burning<br />
of tubes at points where the greatest heat is applied.<br />
Rust boilers have been in operation since<br />
1901 and have been extensively adopted in blast<br />
furnace plants, rolling mills, saw mills, street railway<br />
and electric light plants and many other industries.<br />
They have proved entirely successful<br />
in the use of anthracite and bituminous coals with<br />
both hand and stoker firing. Results of tests made<br />
December 21 and 22. 1906. in Pittsburgh by Mr.<br />
William Kent, consulting engineer, are given in<br />
the booklet. Commenting on the tests. Mr. Kent<br />
says: "I believe that the efficiency results are<br />
within three per cent, of the highest that are<br />
theoretically possible with Pittsburgh coal in any<br />
boiler fitted with any kind of stoker, and not provided<br />
with an economizer, and are about as high<br />
as can ever be expected in every-day practice."<br />
During April the coal shipments over the Norfolk<br />
& Western railway amounted to 1,366,728 tons,<br />
as compared with 1,453.853 tons during the same<br />
month of 1910. a decrease of S7.125 tons, or 5.9<br />
puer cent. There was a decrease from the Pocahontas<br />
region, Thacker and Kenova fields, but an<br />
increase from the Tug river and Clinch Vallev<br />
fields.
ESCAPE OF GAS FROM COAL.<br />
"The Escape of Gas from Coal" is the title of<br />
Technical Paper No. 2 just issued by the Bureau<br />
of Mines. The authors, H. C. Porter and F. K.<br />
Ovitz, in their general statement say: "It is a<br />
matter of common knowledge that inflammable gas<br />
made up chiefly of methane, which forms with air<br />
the so-called fire damp of the miner, escapes from<br />
the coal in many mines; yet little is known as to<br />
the condition of this gas in the coal, its quantity<br />
and rate of escape. In addition to the gas set<br />
free by the coal itself, there is in many mines a<br />
large amount of inflammable gas that comes from<br />
reservoirs in the rick strata above or below the<br />
coal bed and enters the mine through cracks in<br />
the roof or floor. Gas entering the mine in such<br />
manner from extraneous sources is not considered<br />
in the following report, which presents rather some<br />
results of a laboratory investigation of the rate of<br />
escape of gas from several coals while kept in bot<br />
tles connected to gas-collecting reservoirs. This<br />
investigation was begun by tbe United States Geo<br />
logical Survey and is being continued by the Bu<br />
reau of Mines at the mining experiment station at<br />
Pittsburgh.<br />
"The results of the investigation show that gas<br />
escapes from coal not only during the breaking<br />
down of the coal in the mines, but also continuously<br />
for a long time after the coal is mined. The<br />
volume from some coals is so great as to merit<br />
serious consideration in connection with the ven<br />
tilating of the mines and the choice of methods of<br />
breaking down the coal. For example, during the<br />
first two weeks after mining, there was set free<br />
by one coal, exclusive of the gas that escaped dur<br />
ing mining, a volume of methane equal to three-<br />
fourths of the volume of the coal itself. Probably<br />
each cubic foot of this coal (in the seam I set free<br />
in all during its mining and during the first two<br />
weeks thereafter a cubic foot of methane. It was<br />
shown by further test that during the first five<br />
months after mining there was set free from this<br />
coal a volume of methane equal to one and three-<br />
fourths times the volume of the coal<br />
"Many investigators, Chamberlin, among others,<br />
have shown that methane accumulates along lines<br />
of fracture, such as joint cracks, or in places of<br />
increased porosity in the coal bed and escapes from<br />
these as they are cut in mining. In any locality<br />
of the mine where for any reason adequate ventila<br />
tion is not maintained, the methane which has<br />
thus escaped may become a source of danger from<br />
explosion.<br />
"The results of the experiments discussed in this<br />
paper show that certain American coals, whose<br />
mining is attended with danger from accumulations<br />
of inflammable gas, liberate this gas not only while<br />
they are being broken down in mining, but also<br />
during a long period thereafter. At first the gas<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
escapes rapidly, but the rate diminishes and tends<br />
toward a final cessation in three to 18 months.<br />
If the volume of the small lumps of coal used in<br />
the experiments be taken as the unit of measure<br />
ment, about one-fourth volume of methane escapes<br />
during the crushing of the coal, as shown by Cham<br />
berlin, and one-half to one and one-half volumes<br />
on continued exposure to the air. as shown by the<br />
authors. The loss of fuel value by this loss of<br />
gas is small, but, the danger of accumulation of<br />
explosive gas from this source in mines and in coal<br />
bunkers is sufficient to justify its being taken into<br />
"".count in the ventilation of mines and in the<br />
storage of coal."<br />
Those interested may obtain copies of this technical<br />
paper by applying to the Director of the<br />
Bureau of Mines, Washington, D. C.<br />
TENNESSEE COKE IN 1910.<br />
Coal is mined in 17 counties in Tennessee and<br />
c oke is made in eight of them. Nearly all the<br />
Tennessee coals possess coking qualities, according<br />
to E. W. Parker, the coal statistician of the United<br />
States Geological Survey. In his report on coke<br />
for 1910. Mr. Parker states that the production of<br />
coke in Tennessee for the year was 322,756 short<br />
ions, valued at $959,104. as against 261,808 tons.<br />
valued at $667,723, in 1909. an increase of 23 per<br />
cent, in quantity and 43 per cent, in value. The<br />
following table shows the growth of the coke industry<br />
in Tennessee:<br />
Short Tons.<br />
. 130,609<br />
4(5 432<br />
. 483,428<br />
. 467,499<br />
. 214.52S<br />
. 261.SOS<br />
. 322.756<br />
Value.<br />
$316,607<br />
684,116<br />
1 °69 575<br />
1,350,S56<br />
1,592.225<br />
561.789<br />
667.723<br />
959,104<br />
A supply of oxygen helmets and other apparatus<br />
for use in mine rescue w r ork has been installed at<br />
the College of Mines and Metallurgy, Lexington,<br />
Ky. Prof. C. J. Norwood, chief mine inspector of<br />
Kentucky, is also state geologist and dean of the<br />
school of mines, and he is devoting considerable<br />
time to teaching the use of the appliances to min<br />
ers and others who might have occasion to partici<br />
pate in rescue work.<br />
The Starr-Hocking Coal Co.. of Starr, Hocking<br />
county, O.. has placed an order with the Jeffrey<br />
Manufacturing Co.. Columbus, O.. for a complete<br />
coal crushing and washing outfit and the plans<br />
and specifications for a complete coal crushing<br />
plant and washer are now being prepared, the<br />
cost to be $50,000.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
JEFFREY ELECTI<br />
Standard 5-ton Crab Locomotive for<br />
pulling loaded cars from the rooms.<br />
The cable may be paid out from either<br />
end while gathering cars.<br />
are especially designe<br />
to meet every possib<br />
condition. Their disti:<br />
guishing qualities: His<br />
efficiency and low cost <<br />
maintenance. All finis<br />
ed parts are rigidly jj<br />
spected and tested befoi<br />
THE JEFFREY MFG. COMPAN<br />
OPENING FOR COAL IN CHILE.<br />
Tiie Chilean government, writes Consul Alfred<br />
A. Winslow, of Valparaiso, has engaged an expert,<br />
at a salary of $2,500 United States gold per annum<br />
and $5 per day for expenses, to go to Australia<br />
to study the coal question in the interest of the<br />
government railways, and to arrange for buying<br />
direct so as to reduce the cost. The government<br />
railways consume large quantities of coal and<br />
often ask for bids on 36,000 to 40,000 tons at a<br />
time. They usually pay $6.50 to $7.50 United<br />
States gold for coal delivered on shore at Valparaiso,<br />
and will take it as fast as a ship wishes to<br />
unload it.<br />
It. would therefore seem that American coal interests<br />
might find a good market here, since there<br />
is a good chance to get a return cargo of nitrate<br />
either direct to the United States or Europe. The<br />
outgoing tonnage from Chilean ports is several<br />
Years.<br />
1906<br />
1907<br />
1908<br />
1909<br />
<<br />
Hartley.<br />
. . 129,747<br />
. . 160,278<br />
. . 74.018<br />
. . 128,603<br />
1910.... . . 277,134<br />
Cardiff.<br />
364,725<br />
503,058<br />
473,504<br />
515,973<br />
546,753<br />
Steam Coal.<br />
Australian.<br />
499,448<br />
783,143<br />
734,393<br />
455,027<br />
426,861<br />
Amer<br />
ican.<br />
5,331<br />
32,270<br />
7,000<br />
7,260<br />
thousand tons more than tbe incoming tonnage and<br />
a large proportion of the former goes either to<br />
the fnited States or Europe, while in the case of<br />
Australian coal nearly all vessels must return in<br />
ballast, since there is practically nothing shipped<br />
from Chile to Australia.<br />
The Chilean navy also consumes large quantities<br />
of imported coal, having just asked for bids<br />
on 10,00(1 tons of Cardiff to be delivered at Valparaiso<br />
and Talcahuano.<br />
Coal enters free of duty, and it would seem here<br />
is an opening for American coals. I believe it will<br />
pay to send a man into this field to study the conditions<br />
and confer with the railway interests. It<br />
might be well to invite the Chilean government to<br />
send an expert to the United States to look into<br />
the question from that viewpoint.<br />
The following table gives a good idea of what<br />
has been done in coal imports for the past five<br />
years.<br />
Total.<br />
999,251<br />
1.478.749<br />
1,288,915<br />
1,097,603<br />
i<br />
1,260,008<br />
English.<br />
1,352<br />
6,888<br />
11,050<br />
7,100<br />
lelting Ci<br />
Austra<br />
lian.<br />
56,932<br />
64,528<br />
22,573<br />
45,340<br />
26,032<br />
Total.<br />
58,284<br />
70,866<br />
22.573<br />
56,390<br />
33,132<br />
Grand<br />
Total.<br />
1,057,535<br />
1,549,615<br />
1,311,488<br />
1,153,990<br />
1,293,140
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
: LOCOMOTIVES<br />
and after assembling and<br />
every known economy in<br />
shop pactice is employed<br />
in our effort to produce at<br />
minimum cost, the most<br />
highly perfected and dependable<br />
Locomotives in<br />
present day use.<br />
Columbus, Ohio,<br />
IDLE FREIGHT CARS SHOW A<br />
DECREASE OF 10.5 PER CENT.<br />
Demand for coal and box cars, chiefly in the<br />
Eastern States, resulted in a decrease of tbe surplus<br />
of idle equipment by 19,880 cars in the two<br />
weeks ended May 24, according to the fortnightly<br />
bulletin of the American Railway Association.<br />
The number of idle cars on hand in the United<br />
states and Canada as of that date was 167,398,<br />
comparing with 187,278 at the end of the previous<br />
fortnight, the reduction constituting about 10.5<br />
per cent. The number of idle ears, or the gross<br />
surplus, was 168,233, compared with 1SS.S47, while<br />
the shortage decreased from 1.569 to S35.<br />
In the two weeks ended May 24 the surplus of<br />
coal cars decreased from 84,151 to 68,043, while the<br />
box car surplus decreased from 52,213 to 51,200.<br />
There was a considerable reduction in the number<br />
of miscellaneous cars idle.<br />
This report includes the first appreciable change<br />
since the middle of March. Traffic in the Middle<br />
Atlantic States improved noticeably and there was<br />
good demand for both coal and box cars. In fact,<br />
the entire Eastern section of the eountry experienced<br />
more activity in coal car movements. In<br />
the Northwest, the surplus decreased about 4,000,<br />
putting the number of cars idle about on a par<br />
with figures of a month ago. A small decrease<br />
in cars in the Middle West was accounted for by<br />
Standard 5-ton Cable Reel Locomotive can be<br />
driven either mechanically, or with independent<br />
motor. The reel is fitted with flexible electric<br />
cable permitting the Locomotive to enter the<br />
rooms while gathering the cars.<br />
CHICAGO MONTREAL EOSTON<br />
ST. LOUIS PITTSBURGH NEW YORK<br />
DENVER ATLANTA. GA. BIRMINGHAM<br />
CHARLESTON, W. VA.<br />
somewhat heavier box car movements. The Southern<br />
roads also partook of the better offerings of<br />
merchandise, and this improvement extended to<br />
the Gulf States and into the Southwest.<br />
Along the lines in the Western plains states and<br />
the Pacific coast traffic offerings lagged somewhat<br />
behind and increased the number of available cars<br />
on hand, but the changes were unimportant. Canadian<br />
roads were in about the same position regarding<br />
car movements as two weeks ago.<br />
One reason for the decrease in idle cars for the<br />
fortnight ended May 24 is the heavier lake coal<br />
traffic. Grain and live stock shipments have also<br />
kept up well. The present surplus is about 50,000<br />
above that of a year ago.<br />
The box car decrease is 4,013, coal and gondola<br />
16,108 and miscellaneous cars 5,936, with an increase<br />
of 5,443 in flat cars.<br />
Six men have been returned as qualified for the<br />
positions of mine inspectors by the examining<br />
hoard of Lackawanna county. Pa. They are:<br />
H. O. Prytherch, Llewelyn M. Evans, P. .1. Moore,<br />
August McDade, S. J. Phillips and Jenkin T.<br />
Reese. Messes. Prytherch, Moore, McDade and<br />
Evans are present mine inspectors. Mr. Reese<br />
is a foreman of the Lackawanna company and<br />
Mr. Phillips is educational director of the Young<br />
Men's Christian Association.
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
THE SAMPLING OF COAL IN THE MINE*<br />
By Joseph A. Holmes.<br />
In connection with the fuel investigations that<br />
were begun by the United States Geological Survey<br />
about six years ago, the question of whether<br />
or not to publish all known authentic analyses of<br />
American coals was considered. It was decided<br />
not to publish them, because, with respect to by<br />
far tbe greater number of analyses, either no reliable<br />
record of the samples was available or else<br />
the purpose and method of collecting the samples<br />
had been such as to render the analyses, however<br />
carefully made, of little or no value to the public.<br />
In planning the fuel investigations of the Geological<br />
Survey, the committee having the matter<br />
in charge, Messrs. E. W. Parker, M. R. Campbell,<br />
and the writer, decided upon a plan of sampling<br />
coal in the mine that, it was believed, would satisfy<br />
the following" requirements ( 1 ) Each group of<br />
mine samples submitted for analysis to represent<br />
fairly tbe commercial shipments of coal from the<br />
mine in which they are collected; (2) the complete<br />
history of each sample to lie known and recorded;<br />
and (3) each sample to lie analyzed<br />
promptly and by the best standard method.<br />
This plan of collecting mine samples was initiated<br />
during 1904, largely under the personal supervision<br />
of Mr. Campbell. With various modifications<br />
it has been continued from that time up to<br />
the present by those geologists of the survey, wno,<br />
under Mr. Campbell's direction, have been examining<br />
the coal deposits on or near the public lands,<br />
and by those engineers of the Survey and the<br />
Bureau of Mines, who, under the direction of the<br />
writer, have continued the work of analyzing and<br />
testing the coal, from the various fields in the United<br />
States.<br />
The following statement of the system of mine<br />
sampling in use by the Geological Survey and the<br />
Bureau of Mines has been revised by Messrs. M.<br />
R. Campbell and David White, of the Geological<br />
Survey, and Mr. G. S. Rice, of the Bureau of Mines.<br />
In dealing with coals no less than in dealing<br />
with ores, the taking of the sample requires fully<br />
as much care as does the<br />
MAKING OF THE ANALYSIS<br />
or assay. And the difficulties in the way of obtaining,<br />
at reasonable cost, a sample of coal that<br />
fairly represents the commercial product as found<br />
in the mine or. more especially, as loaded in cars<br />
or in ships, have seriously retarded the movement<br />
for the sale or purchase of coal on a rigid specification<br />
basis.<br />
The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly<br />
the method now followed by the Bureau of Mines<br />
and United States Geological Survey, in an endeavor<br />
to take mine samples that fairly represent the<br />
*Technieal Paper No. 1 Bureau of Mines.<br />
beds of coal that are examined and that show, for<br />
the places sampled, the commercial possibilities<br />
of these beds. It is of the utmost importance<br />
that the sampling be done in a systematic manner,<br />
according to a prearranged pan, and that the same<br />
procedure always be followed where circumstances<br />
permit. Wherever it is possible, unless special<br />
samples are desired for a particular purpose, only<br />
clean, fresh coal should be sampled, and all dried,<br />
weathered, or long-exposed coal should be avoided.<br />
When weathered coal, either in the outcrop or in<br />
pillars, or other special samples are collected,<br />
the particular characteristics of each sample should<br />
be clearly described.<br />
The coal mine sampling outfit used by the Bureau<br />
of Mines comprises the following articles;<br />
Carrying bag, sampling cloth (heavy oilcloth),<br />
portable mortal and pestle, spring balance, screen,<br />
sampling scoop, brush, measuring tape, sample<br />
cans, adhesive tape, pick and shovel.<br />
Carrying bag.—The bag used for carrying the<br />
sampling outfit and the collected samples is of<br />
leather, has a shoulder strap, and measures 13 by<br />
12 by 3 inches.<br />
Sampling cloth.—For collecting the cuttings<br />
chipped from the face of the coal a stout sheet or<br />
blanket of waterproof material is used. The<br />
heavy enamel cloth known as buggy cloth gives<br />
good service. The cloth should measure not less<br />
than 6 by 7 feet. The enameled<br />
SIOE OF THIS CLOTH<br />
should be laid next to the ground to keep out<br />
moisture and to prevent fragments of the enamel<br />
from getting into the coal sample.<br />
Portable mortar.—A piece of %-inch board, 10<br />
inches square, covered on the upper side with<br />
heavy galvanized sheet iron, forms the bottom of<br />
the portable mortar. The collapsible sides are of<br />
stout duck, and are fastened at the top to a strapiron<br />
hand that is held up by collapsible strap-iron<br />
posts fastened by set screws. The sides are 5<br />
inches high, making the contents of the mortar<br />
about 500 cubic inches.<br />
Pestle.—The pestle for crushing samples consists<br />
of a steel head. 1 inch thick and 3 to 4 inches<br />
square, with a screw socket to receive a wood<br />
handle about 14 inches long.<br />
Spring balance.—A good spring balance of 50<br />
pounds capacity, graduated preferably to one-half<br />
pound, is used for weighing the samples.<br />
Screen.—The screen is of galvanized iron wire<br />
and has a U,-inch, or preferably %-inch, mesh. It<br />
is about 10 inches square and has a wood frame.<br />
Sampling scoop.—The scoop recommended is<br />
made of heavy galvanized sheet iron, with flat bot-
torn and vertical sides, and is 8 inches long, 2<br />
inches deep, and 1 Vi inches wide. If such a scoop<br />
is not available, a bricklayer's trowel or even a<br />
wooden shingle will answer the purpose.<br />
Brush.—A stiff brush or whisk broom is useful<br />
lor brushing off loose pieces of coal, stone or diit<br />
from the face or roof at the place where the sample<br />
is to be taken and for removing the rejected quartering^<br />
of coal from the sampling blanket. If<br />
such a brush is not available, a piece of cloth or<br />
an old coat may be used as a substitute.<br />
Measuring tape.—For measuring coal-bed sections'<br />
a 20-foot waterproof tape graduated lo one<br />
fourth inch is used. A steel tape graduated to<br />
one-sixteenth inch, though more accurate, is less<br />
convenient, since the figures are more difficult to<br />
read by the poor light available in mines.<br />
Sample can.—The vessel ordinarily used by the<br />
Bureau of Mines and by the Geological Survey for<br />
transporting coal samples is a 9 by 3-incb round<br />
can of i\o. 27 galvanized iron. The can filled with<br />
coal should not weigh more than 4 pounds, which<br />
is the limit of weight for<br />
ORDINARY TRANSMISSION<br />
by mail. The edges of the can are crimped and<br />
carefully soldered to make them tight and strong;<br />
the screw top (2 inches in diameter) has a gasket<br />
or wasner of rubber or other flexible material to<br />
exclude the air. As a further protection, the outside<br />
of the cap, when in place and screwed down<br />
tightly, is wrapped carefully with several layers<br />
of adhesive tape so that the first layer of this tape<br />
completely covers the joint between the lower edge<br />
of the cap and the neck of the can. It is not<br />
advisable to use solder, paraffine. or sealing wax<br />
of any kind. Before being filled each can should<br />
be carefully inspected as to tightness and freedom<br />
from rust.<br />
Adhesive tape.—For sealing the connection of<br />
the cap and sample can, bicycle or electrician's<br />
adhesive tape of the best quality is used.<br />
Pick and shovel.—Nothing is better than a miner's<br />
pick for cutting samples. A miner's shovel<br />
should be taken along for cleaning up the floor,<br />
etc. Pick and shovel are not regularly included<br />
in the kit, as they can be had at any working mine.<br />
The field men of the Geological Survey, because<br />
they often work long distances from a base of supplies<br />
and travel by horseback, usually carry a<br />
simpler outfit than that described above, consisting<br />
of a waterproof blanket, a measuring tape, adhesive<br />
tape, a screen, a geologist's pick, an improvised<br />
shovel, and the necessary number of sample<br />
cans. Instead of using a portable mortar and<br />
pestle, a man thus equipped must pulverize the<br />
coal with his pick, on a board or other hard surface,<br />
and instead of a scoop he must use a<br />
trowel or shingle. He does not weigh the coal;<br />
and instead of using a bruhs or broom, he removes<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
loose coal, etc., from the face and roof, and cleans<br />
the quarterings off the sampling blanket with his<br />
coat or a piece of cloth. He will ordinarily use a<br />
miner's pick, if found in the mine, instead of his<br />
geologist's pick for cutting down the coal.<br />
A map of the mine to be examined should be obtained<br />
from the company's office lor use in the<br />
preliminary examination of the mine and for indicating<br />
the exact location from which each sample<br />
is to be collected. If the tonnage output of<br />
the mine is known, the places for<br />
COLLECTING SAMPLES<br />
should he determined tentatively before entering<br />
the mine, the locations to be changed as the<br />
work progresses, if such changes prove to be desirable.<br />
To determine exactly where and how it may be<br />
best to collect samples that will satisfactorily represent<br />
the character of the coal bed and to ascertain<br />
what portion of the bed is excluded in mining<br />
and loading, the collector with map in hand should<br />
make a preliminary examination of the mine in<br />
company with a guide who is familiar with the<br />
workings. This examination will enable the collector<br />
to select the exact places for collecting samples<br />
and to indicate them on his map.<br />
From any mine shipping coal the number of<br />
samples should not be less than four for a daily<br />
production of 2oo tons or less, and the number<br />
should increase at the rate of one sample for each<br />
additional 200 tons of coal mined per day. The<br />
number should be greater from mines in which the<br />
quality of the coal varies greatly. Where only a<br />
part of a bed is being mined and the remainder<br />
(1 foot or more in thickness) is being left under<br />
ground, separate samples should be collected at<br />
each sampling place of both the worked and the<br />
unworked parts or benches of the bed. In sampling<br />
coal beds exposed in ordinary prospect openings,<br />
wdiere the coal is usually more or less<br />
weathered, one sample from each opening is considered<br />
sufficient, unless the openings are far<br />
apart; in that case occasional second or check<br />
samples are highly desirable.<br />
Having decided upon the probable number of<br />
samples to be collected and approximately where<br />
they are to be taken, the collector during his preliminary<br />
examination of the mine should decide<br />
upon the exact location from which each sample<br />
is to he collected, so that it will represent the coal<br />
mined in that part of the workings. Furthermore,<br />
certain of the samples should be taken from<br />
places in the remoter parts of tbe mine, so that<br />
the samples will indicate the<br />
CHARACTER OF THE COAL<br />
available for future as well as for present shipments.<br />
Exceptional features, such as faults, etc.,<br />
should be avoided unless special studies of the<br />
coal at these places are thought desirable. Where
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
it is possible, wet places should he avoided, as<br />
samples from such places may not represent the<br />
coal as shipped. Where wet coal must be col<br />
lected, the surplus moisture should he drained off<br />
tlie sampling cloth before mixing the sample.<br />
At each selected point, before a sample is cut.<br />
I he face of the bed should he cleared of burned<br />
powder, dirt, or loose coal from roof to floor for a<br />
width of about, 5 feet. This is done to prevent<br />
any loose fragments or foreign matter from falling<br />
off the face of the coal onto the sampling cloth.<br />
Insecure pieces of the roof sliould also be taken<br />
clown in advance for the same reason. In the<br />
middle of this cleared area on the face, the coal<br />
should be cut away with the pick from the roof to<br />
the floor for a width of t foot and a depth of at<br />
least 1 inch, with a view to removing any discolored,<br />
altered, or otherwise inferior coal that<br />
might be near the surface, and also to square up<br />
this portion of the face in preparation for the sam<br />
pling cut.<br />
There should go into tbe sample as it is cut<br />
from the face all the material that ordinarily goes<br />
into the daily shipments of coal. There should be<br />
omitted from the sample only such material as is<br />
ordinarily discarded by the miner. Usually partings<br />
more than three-eighths of an inch thick and<br />
lenses or concretions of "sulphur" or other impurities<br />
more than 2 inches in maximum diameter<br />
and one-half of an inch thick are excluded, if in<br />
the judgment of the sampler they are being excluded<br />
by the miner from the coal as loaded out<br />
of the mine or as shipped. If such impurities.<br />
or other impurities, are not generally excluded by<br />
the miner, they should be included in the sample.<br />
If pillars are being "pulled," careful note should<br />
be made not only of partings, but of materials<br />
from the roof that are not<br />
REJECTED 1SY HIE MI NEK.<br />
Where the impurity to be rejected, like hone or<br />
slaty coal, does not show conspicuously, it is advisable<br />
to outline the impurity with chalk before<br />
cutting the sample, to prevent its being overlooked<br />
when the sample is being cut.<br />
Imitating the miner in excluding impurities is<br />
the best method, but this requires care and judgment,<br />
especially where the partings are soft and<br />
crumble. No two miners can be relied on to discard<br />
the same partings to the same extent, even at<br />
mines where the most rigid regulations for cleaning<br />
the coal are in force. Since it is desired to<br />
obtain samples that represent as nearly as possible<br />
the coal that is produced commercially from tbe<br />
mine under examination, this method should be<br />
followed as closely and as uniformly as possible.<br />
The carrying out of this method demands the exer<br />
cise of judgment and experience on the part of the<br />
sampler, and he must familiarize himself with the<br />
impurities iu the coal lied anu their relation to the<br />
coal as shipped.<br />
Where the coal is washed before being shipped.<br />
duplicate samples of the washed coal and the tail<br />
ings should be collected and mailed to the Bureau<br />
of Mines with the mine samples.<br />
The collector should smooth and clean the floor<br />
and spread the sampling cloth on it close to the<br />
face of the coal. Then he should make a perpendicular<br />
cut 2 inches deep and 6 inches wide (or 3<br />
inches deep and 4 inches wide in the softer coals)<br />
from the roof to the floor down the middle of the<br />
foot-wide cut previously made in the coal face.<br />
He should be careful to make this cut uniform in<br />
width and depth and should chip off enough coal<br />
to make a sample weighing at least 6 pounds for<br />
each foot of the thickness of the bed; so that the<br />
sample collected on the blanket from a 6-foot bed<br />
will weigh not less than 36 pounds Inexperienced<br />
collectors should weigh their samples (b.v spring<br />
balance or otherwise) as a check on the accurac\<br />
of their work.<br />
As soon as the cutting of the sample has been<br />
completed, if the full outfit previously described is<br />
available, the finer portions of the sample should<br />
be put through the '..-inch or %-inch screen and<br />
the lumps should be broken in the mortar until<br />
all the sample passes through the screen. The<br />
sample should then be thoroughly mixed by two<br />
men grasping the opposite<br />
CORNERS OF TIIE BLANKET<br />
and rolling it diagonally by raising one corner at<br />
a time. When the larger pieces of coal are evenly<br />
distributed throughout the mass, the sheet should<br />
be laid on the floor and the top of the pile flat<br />
tened with a clean dry shovel, trowel or board.<br />
The sample is then quartered and two opposite<br />
quarters are discarded and brushed off. The remainder<br />
is mixed as before, and if the sample is<br />
still too bulky for convenient handling it is again<br />
quartered down. The material finally remaining<br />
is spread into a circular mass about 2 inches deep<br />
on the sheet, and the sampling scoop is used to<br />
fill the sample can compactly with portions from<br />
opposite quarters. The entire operation described<br />
above from the cutting of the sample to the sealing<br />
of the can should be done in the mine, so as<br />
not to expose the coal to the outside atmosphere.<br />
It is important that the coal be well packed iu<br />
the can, so as to occupy as much of the space as<br />
possible, since in this way the air is more nearly<br />
excluded. This is best accomplished by crushing<br />
fine a considerable proportion of the coal and by<br />
shaking or jarring the can repeatedly and vigorously<br />
while filling it.<br />
As soon as the can has been filled and the label<br />
(described below) placed inside, the cap should<br />
be screwed on so that the top of the screw fits<br />
tightly into the rubber or other flexible material
in the cap; adhesive tape should then be carefully<br />
wrapped around the lower outer edge of the cap in<br />
such a manner as to cover the joint and increase<br />
the thoroughness of the sealing.<br />
Each sample can when sent out should have a<br />
number printed on it. This number is to he used<br />
by the collector as the field number for the sample<br />
placed in that can for analysis, and is to be<br />
recorded in his notebook and on his cards. Before<br />
the can is sealed, a label should be placed in<br />
it on the top of the coal. This label should hear<br />
the field number, the name and location of the<br />
mine, the exact location from which sample was<br />
taken, the name of the collector, and the date,<br />
and should be sealed in a small envelope to prevent<br />
obliterations of the writing. Around the<br />
outside of the can a second label should be at<br />
tached. bearing the same field numher, the name<br />
of the collector, the date of the collection, and th3<br />
address of tiie Bureau of ?vlines at Pittsburgh.<br />
To facilitate the gathering and recording of data<br />
concerning the samples of<br />
COAL AM) THE MINES<br />
from which they are taken, blank forms have been<br />
prepared for the use of collectors. These forms<br />
can be had upon application to either the Director<br />
of the Bureau of Mines or the Director of the Geological<br />
Survey. The forms, which are of convenient<br />
size for the pocket, indicate what information<br />
is desired concerning the nature and operations<br />
of the mine, the number, depth and chaiacter<br />
of the beds of coal, the specific location from<br />
which each sample was taken, and the exact character<br />
of the bed at the point of sampling, and<br />
make specific mention of bands of "sulphur"<br />
(pyrite, etc.), shale, or other objectionable material<br />
that should be excluded in shipment.<br />
The record of the coal sample section should be<br />
made in tiie mine from actual measurements, immediately<br />
after the collection of the sample and<br />
the sealing of the sample can.<br />
The cans containing the samples should be delivered<br />
by the collector in person to the nearest<br />
post office for forwarding by the first mail to the<br />
Bureau of Mines laboratory at Pittsburgh.<br />
It is expected that each sample on its receipt<br />
at the laboratory will be placed in a dark, cool<br />
place, and that the analysis will lie completed<br />
within two weeks.<br />
The cards, supplied in advance to each collector,<br />
are arranged in three sections, A. B and C. After<br />
entering certain data ( his own name, the number<br />
and date of the sample, etc.) called for in the blank<br />
forms printed on each of these three section cards,<br />
the collector forwards, in sealed envelopes, for<br />
each sample, card A to the headquarters of the<br />
chief of party, and cards B and C to the Bureau<br />
of Mines chemical laboratory at Pittsburgh. As<br />
soon as these cards and the corresponding sample<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
are received at Pittsburgh, a statement of the receipt<br />
of sample is entered on cards B and C; card<br />
B is retained in the chemical laboratory files, and<br />
card C is then sent to the chief of the field party,<br />
in order to give notice of the arrival of the sample.<br />
Special attention should be given to filling out<br />
and promptly forwarding these cards. Failure to<br />
fill out a card properly or to forward il promptly<br />
may cause indefinite delay in making the analysis<br />
of a sample.<br />
The huge tipple at mine No. 36 of the Berwind-<br />
White Coal Mining Co., Windber, Pa., was destroyed<br />
by lightning setting fire to the structure<br />
on June 4. The tipple is the largest of all in the<br />
Windber field, and was equipped with the most<br />
modern machinery for handling coal. The loss<br />
will be heavy and 700 men were thrown idle until<br />
a temporary tipple was constructed. The burned<br />
structure will be rebuilt.<br />
Three mine's at Blocton. Ala., were flooded recently<br />
by the breaking of a concrete clam in an<br />
abandoned mine, permitting the water to enter the<br />
operating pits.<br />
The stable of the Meyersdale Coal Co., at Wells<br />
Creek. Pa., was destroyed by fire recently, along<br />
with 17 of the 24 mine mules in the stable.<br />
Mr. Henry Floersheim. aged 68 years, formerly<br />
a well known coal operator, died June 2 at his<br />
home, 5146 Liberty avenue, Pittsburgh, after a<br />
short illness. Mr. Floersheim was horn in Germany<br />
and came to this country when a young man.<br />
After he sold his mines in Finleyville to the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co. some years ago he came to Pittsburgh<br />
and since has been in the insurance business.<br />
Mr. Floersheim was a member of the<br />
Rodeph Shalom congregation, and leaves his<br />
widow and two daughters.<br />
The Ohio Railroad Commission has handed down<br />
a ruling which affects the coal traffic in the state<br />
to a large degree. According to the ruling the<br />
Ohio Shippers' Association gets everything asked<br />
for excepting 72 hours' free time for unloading<br />
cars of more than 66,000 tons capacity. The rules<br />
for demurrage are the same as was adopted by the<br />
Interstate Commerce Commission some time ago.<br />
The Wisconsin Steel Co.. subsidiary to the International<br />
Harvester Co., has put between 500<br />
and 600 men to work on Big Looney's creek, Harlan<br />
county, Ky.. the seat of its extensive coal and<br />
coking developments. The site for the coking<br />
plant has been laid out by the engineers and the<br />
construction work now is in progress.
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
THE EXPLOSION AT HULTON COLLIERY.*<br />
The inquest on the 344 men who were killed in<br />
the explosion at the Hulton colliery near Bolton,<br />
Lancashire, England, on December 21, 1910, came<br />
to an end ou Monday, February 13, 1911. The<br />
inquiry lasted 27 days, and in all over 400 wit<br />
nesses were heard The verdict of the jury was<br />
as follows:<br />
On December 21, 19111. at the No. 3 Bank pit,<br />
commonly known as the No. 3 Pretoria pit, Westhoughton.<br />
in the county of Lancaster, an acci<br />
dental ignition of gas and coal dust occurred on<br />
the conveyer face in the North Plodder mine, in<br />
seme manner to the jury unknown, hut probably<br />
from a defective or overheated lamp, and produced<br />
an explosion.<br />
That upon such ignition and explosion followed<br />
a large ignition and explosion of coal dust, affecting<br />
the wdiole of the coal mines working to the<br />
said pit.<br />
That the victims were at the time of the explosions<br />
employed in the mines of the said pit, and<br />
in consequence of such explosions died there on<br />
the same day, so that they came to their deaths by<br />
accident and not otherwise.<br />
To this formal verdict the jury added:<br />
There is no evidence to prove that the explosion<br />
was in any wise due to the non-observance of any<br />
statutory obligation.<br />
That the evidence and the experience of the jury<br />
satisfy them that such headings as Bradley's in<br />
the So'-th Plodder, and Brown's and Eccleston's<br />
in the North Plodder, are undesirable, unless provided<br />
with adequate ventilation, by means of bratticing,<br />
pipes or otherwise; in that they are calculated<br />
to be injurious to the health of the men working<br />
in them and likely to collect gas. They are<br />
also of opinion tbat the carrying forward of the<br />
heading at the top of the North Plodder entry, to<br />
the extent to whicli it was caried up. was unnecessary<br />
and calculated to produce danger from gas.<br />
That there seems to be some doubt, upon the evidence,<br />
as to the fitness of the men wdio have from<br />
lime to time removed the switch box. and as to the<br />
sufficiency of the instructions given to them, and<br />
the jury are of the opinion that everybody dealing<br />
with an electrical plant should be under the direct<br />
supervision of a skilled electrician.<br />
The jury also are of the opinion that the apparent<br />
failure of the night fireman in the North Plod<br />
der mine, to make his statutory report on the<br />
morning of December 21. is evidence of laxity of<br />
supervision.<br />
The verdict and criticisms are supplemented by<br />
the following recommendations:<br />
la) That it is a matter of immediate import<br />
and the best methods of removing or minimizing<br />
them; and also as to the character of the safety<br />
lamps, the use of which is to be permitted, and<br />
desire respectfully to represent to His Majesty's<br />
government that these matters merit their atten<br />
tion and call for their financial assistance.<br />
lb) That Electricity Rule 33 should be amended<br />
so as to provide that the switches, etc., referred to<br />
in the latter part of that rule shall be inclosed in<br />
a gas-tight box, and shall break under oil.<br />
lc) That the firemen's report of gas should<br />
specify the exact places where found, and the<br />
quantity found, together with similar particulars<br />
regarding the adjacent places likely to be affected<br />
by it; and that all firemen's reports should be<br />
duplicated, and one copy preserved above ground.<br />
(d) That full ventilation reports should be<br />
made at least monthly upon each and every airway<br />
in the mine.<br />
(c) That the attention of the Royal Commission<br />
be called to the desirability of a definition of<br />
the term "return airway."<br />
It is now reported, following upon the revelations<br />
made in the course of the inquiry into the<br />
Hulton Colliery disaster, that the Home Secretary<br />
has decided to establish a government testing station<br />
for lamps, a small departmental committee<br />
having apparently been appointed to consider the<br />
details of establishment and equipment.<br />
In their second report issued a few months ago,<br />
the Royal Commission on Mines made a recommendation<br />
on these lines. Referring to the ex<br />
periments made hy a previous commission, they<br />
reported:<br />
"The proposal which we were asked hy the Home<br />
Office to consider went beyond the suggestion of<br />
that commission, namely, that the government<br />
should set up a station for the testing of types<br />
of safety lamps, and that no safety lamp should<br />
be permitted to be used except of a type which<br />
had passed the government test.<br />
"We are strongly of opinion that such a test<br />
would not only tend to improve the type of safety<br />
lamps by stimulating invention but also prevent<br />
the use of imperfect lamps, such as have led to accidents<br />
in the past, and we therefore recommend<br />
that steps should be taken to establish a government<br />
testing station.<br />
"We also recommend that a list of permitted<br />
safety lamps should be drawn up by the Secretary<br />
of State, similar to the list of permitted explosives.<br />
and that the law should be so amended that where<br />
safety lamps are required to be used, one or more<br />
of the types of lamps specified in the permitted list<br />
should be used and no other."<br />
ance that the fullest investigation should be made Prof. I). J. McAdam, of Washington. Pa., has<br />
into the dangers incident to coal dust in mines. purchased 75 acres of coal in Ohio county. W. Va.,<br />
from J. E. Richardson for $6,000.<br />
"Special Correspondence Mining & Engineering Journal.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
BUFFALO-SUSQUEHANNA SAGAMORE MINE 1<br />
By R. Dawson Norris Hal<br />
The Sagamore mine, operated by the Buffalo<br />
& Susquehanna Coal & Coke Co., lies on both<br />
sides of the line dividing Indiana and Armstrong<br />
counties, Pa., most of the acreage, the town and<br />
plant being on the Armstrong county side of that<br />
line.<br />
The mine is reached by the main line of the<br />
B. & S. R. R.. that railroad being broken by a<br />
gap between Sykes and Juneau, which is temporarily<br />
filled by the use of the Buffalo, Rochester<br />
& Pittsburgh Railroad between these points. The<br />
portion of the B. & S. R. R., between Juneau<br />
and Sagamore, proceeds by Canoe Creek, Little<br />
Mahoning, and Plum Creek, a distance of 21<br />
miles, cutting off a triangular strip of Indiana<br />
county in its northwest angle.<br />
The only available way of reaching the coal<br />
by drifting exhibited itself on Little Plum Creek,<br />
the coal around the tipple running everywhere<br />
in an unbroken field from the center of operation,<br />
it was possible therefore and advisable<br />
to erect at this point a large plant capable of<br />
handling the entire field, for at no other point<br />
was it convenient of access.<br />
The method so often advocated, and with so<br />
much justice, of small scattered units of lower<br />
capacity served by a central power plant and so<br />
arranged as to avoid the congestion too often<br />
found in a larger plant, did suggest itself to the<br />
management. But as the crop on Plum Creek<br />
extends barely 9,000 feet, there seemed inadequate<br />
room for two complete tipple outfits with<br />
all the trackage now found so necessary, above<br />
and below the tipple. It was therefore decided<br />
to<br />
BUILD THE TWO TITPI.ES<br />
proposed into one structure, side by side. The<br />
coal also crops in Big Plum Creek, but though<br />
drainage at this point was a trifle convenient<br />
for a portion of the territory, here the plant<br />
would have been at the very confines of the field,<br />
increase of tonnage would have been slower and<br />
long haulages would have resulted with accompanying<br />
additional equipment. Moreover an<br />
economy in railroad construction was effected,<br />
for otherwise an extension of the road to Big<br />
Plum Creek would have been necessary- Every<br />
care has been taken to avoid congestion by having<br />
adequate accommodation and provision for<br />
a large capacity. The usual problem presented<br />
is between several plants or only one along a<br />
river front, or between many shafts or a single<br />
shaft sunk to a completely buried seam; and in<br />
these cases a number of small plants is prefer-<br />
<strong>•</strong>Paper written for "Mines and Minerals."<br />
able to one big one. But all through central and<br />
northwestern Indiana county, it is possible to<br />
avoid the expense and inconvenience of sinking<br />
and working shafts by concentrating at favorable<br />
points in the field, and the result is that this<br />
section has been exploited in no other manner.<br />
Sagamore is only one of many large plants in this<br />
section; small operations being seldom found.<br />
The area comprises roughly 10,000 acres of excellent<br />
coal. The bed mined is the Upper Freeport<br />
and has an average thickness of 4 1 /. feet.<br />
The preparation of an agricultural region, several<br />
miles from any railroad, for the operation of<br />
mines in their preliminary stage, prior to the<br />
arrival of the projected means of transportation,<br />
involves the construction of many temporary<br />
structures and installations. Almost every large<br />
mine has to be so constructed today that the<br />
railroad built to remove its coal may earn a<br />
dividend as soon as the track is completely laid.<br />
Moreover a modern mine requires too lengthy<br />
development to admit of the inception of its<br />
operations being delayed.<br />
To this end. Sagamore was provided with two<br />
portable sawmills and four<br />
TEMPORARY POWER HOUSES,<br />
each of the latter accommodating two mines and<br />
each equipped with two boilers of locomotive type<br />
of 50 horsepower each, and one Sullivan air compressor.<br />
These compressors were afterwards distributed<br />
at other plants of the same company.<br />
A large amount of stock coal accumulated between<br />
March 22, 1905, the day when ground was<br />
broken, and November 29 of the same year, when<br />
part of the stock was loaded into cars from a<br />
temporary tipple.<br />
Little Plum Creek, having a grade of 26 feet<br />
to the mile, like all streams on a gentle grade.<br />
meandered freely from side to side of the valley<br />
and for half a mile this troublesome stream was<br />
provided with a new and more efficient channel<br />
to permit of the erection of permanent buildings<br />
and railroad tracks in and around the ground<br />
formerly made useless by its irksome ubiquity.<br />
Above the projected power house, a dam confined<br />
its waters for use in the boilers, but now<br />
the water from what were Artesian wells, but<br />
which now require to be pumped, is used in preference<br />
to the creek water.<br />
There is nothing much demanding consideration<br />
in the underground projection of the Sagamore<br />
mines because the roof breaks freely and the<br />
cover is not heavy, so no elaborate or expensive<br />
treatment of the roof problems was necessary.<br />
The roof is generally of sandstone but occasion-
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
ally slate appears. The bottom is of fireclay.<br />
There has never been the slightest premonition<br />
of any squeeze or creep. The room and pillar<br />
advancing method is everywhere followed. The<br />
rooms are made 24 feet wide, the pillars 16, and<br />
are, when conditions permit, 300 feet long. All<br />
chain pillars in both butt and face headings are<br />
48 feet thick, while the wing pillars flanking the<br />
face headings on either side are kept 100 feet<br />
wide. The headings are driven 12 feet wide and<br />
occasionally the rock from these is loaded into<br />
gobbing holes instead of being brought out for<br />
disposal. The fact that the operation consists<br />
of eight separate mines with wide headings ventilated<br />
by eight distinct fans, makes it necessary<br />
to provide only a few headings in parallel system<br />
to furnish sufficient ventilation for each unit.<br />
The three-heading system is that commonly adopted,<br />
but four headings in parallel are sometimes<br />
used. Despite this fact, a sufficient current of<br />
air is furnished with a low velocity of air-current.<br />
The fans are all 10 ft. by 4 ft. Clifford-Capell. nonreversible<br />
blowing fans, belt driven by 100-horsepower<br />
motors capable of producing 100,000 cubic<br />
feet of air per minute against a 4-inch water<br />
gauge.<br />
All the coal is mined by machines; there is no<br />
hand-pick work. Some of the men both cut and<br />
LOAD THEIR OWN COAL,<br />
and it is this fact which reduces the output per<br />
machine, which would be very much greater if<br />
steady cutting were provided for each machine.<br />
There are 72 Sullivan machines and these cut<br />
not only the rooms and headings but also all the<br />
pillars in the mines.<br />
The track gauge is 3% feet, and mine ears have<br />
a capacity of 2 tons. The cars are hauled by 6<br />
Jeffrey and 6 General Electric locomotives ranging<br />
in weight from 12 to 14 tons, and each capable<br />
of pulling 100-car trains.<br />
The floor of the mine rolls in gentle undulations,<br />
but as an anticlinal makes its appearance<br />
at the railroad, there is on the whole an uphill<br />
grade against the loads throughout the mine<br />
which does not average over 1 per cent. The<br />
tipple is a large steel structure of the car-haul<br />
type, that if run at full capacity is amply competent<br />
to handle 1,000 tons per hour, although at<br />
present the tonnage does not exceed 4,000 tons<br />
per day. The cars are brought up the incline by<br />
a moving chain, one by one in a steady stream,<br />
weighed and dumped. They then pass on over<br />
the dump and reach a kick-back, returning thence<br />
to a retarder which lowers them to the empty<br />
track. This is elevated above the loaded track,<br />
by which the cars approached the tipple, so that<br />
the grade favors the haulage plant, both approaching<br />
and leaving the foot of the hoisting incline.<br />
To handle so large a tonnage as is contemplated,<br />
three Phillips cross-over dumps are installed.<br />
Under the tipple are four tracks with two miles<br />
of aggregate storage for cars both above and<br />
below the dump. A "scissors" cross-over connects<br />
all the empty tracks together conveniently near<br />
the tipple so that any car can be shifted to any<br />
track with ease and dispatch. This could have<br />
been arranged by the construction of a "double<br />
ladder" but there are objections to such an arrangement,<br />
as it takes up so much more room,<br />
since only one track can be made really straight<br />
and therefore all cars but those on that track<br />
must round the curves which constitute the ladder<br />
and because, with it, the cars have to be kept<br />
so far from the tipple. The plan which involves<br />
the "Scissors" cross over is the only one which<br />
provides for placing cars on whatever track is desired<br />
without unnecessary congestion, and loss of<br />
room, together with<br />
MINIMUM RESISTANCE<br />
to the motion of the cars and minimum risk of<br />
derailment. But above all, this method of arrangement<br />
saves many unnecessary steps to the<br />
car dropper.<br />
The grade on the railroad loading tracks is<br />
2 per cent, for 50 feet above and below the tipple.<br />
At this point each car in its transit has to be<br />
handled separately and must be stopped and<br />
started several times. But with such an abundance<br />
of grade there is no danger of the output<br />
of the mine being suspended by the stalling of a<br />
stiff car. Below the tipple, the grades run from<br />
1% per cent, down to l'i per cent., but above,<br />
where empty cars have to be handled, the grade<br />
is 1.6 per cent.<br />
To avoid breakage of coal, the tipple was provided<br />
from the first with shaking chutes. This<br />
reduced both the height of the structure and the<br />
destructive momentum due to the well-known impossibility<br />
of regulating the fall so as to suit<br />
coal of every size and shape, subject to differing<br />
frictional retardations due to its location in the<br />
pans and to changes of temperature and weather.<br />
A new method of saving coal from disintegration<br />
whilst being loaded is being installed at the<br />
tipple in accordance with the designs prepared<br />
in the office of the chief engineer. The purpose<br />
is to forward and lower the pan when the coal<br />
is low in the car and draw it back and raise<br />
it when the section of the car being filled is nearly<br />
full. The pan dumps lengthwise of the tracks.<br />
A basket could be used to lower the coal but that<br />
device has to be lowered and raised for every<br />
mine car unloaded. On the other hand this pan<br />
permits a continuous flow of coal even when the<br />
elevation and position of the point of delivery<br />
is being adjusted.<br />
The first idea was to regulate the point of<br />
discharge by a simple elevation of the end of<br />
the pan to permit of the passage of the highest<br />
steel gondolas under it. But such a pan creates
difficulty inasmuch as raising one end of the pan<br />
and leaving the other stationary causes the slope<br />
of the chute to he so reduced that the<br />
COAL WILL CEASE TO FLOW.<br />
It was accordingly decided to design a pan which<br />
could be raised at the will of the car trimmer<br />
and which nevertheless would retain the same or<br />
approximately the same pitch. This was accomplished<br />
by providing a track on which the pan<br />
could travel and installing a long air cylinder<br />
operated by compressed air to furnish the power<br />
to move the pan back and forth whilst the end<br />
was supported by a hanger of unvarying length.<br />
The power house is a massive piece of construction<br />
; the engine and boiler rooms are set<br />
parallel to each other but side by side, separated<br />
for cleanliness and fire isolation by a party wall<br />
36 feet high, the full height of the building. The<br />
power house is provided throughout with a concrete<br />
floor reinforced with iron, the lower part<br />
or basement being used for the piping and for<br />
the delivery of ashes from the boilers. The roof<br />
is supported by steel trusses and covered with<br />
slate. The engine room measures inside 67 ft.<br />
by 324 ft., and the boiler room 39 ft. by 260 ft.<br />
In the latter are five batteries of Rust vertical<br />
water-tube boilers of 350 horsepower each, making<br />
3,500 horsepower in all. These are tired by<br />
Murphy automatic stokers. The fuel is supplied<br />
by a belt conveyer from the tipple; this runs<br />
from a bin under the screen to an overhead<br />
storage bin and the coal is distributed by a traveling<br />
automatic tripper. One man tends to the<br />
fires, dumping the ashes into hoppers beneath<br />
the furnaces whilst another man takes care of<br />
the water supply of the boilers. These two men<br />
do all the work of the steam raising. Judging<br />
by other plants, at least 8 men are saved b.v the<br />
use of automatic stokers, which is a considerable<br />
saving when the cost of a year's stoking is considered.<br />
This saving would not be so apparent<br />
were the plant of less capacity and it must also<br />
be remembered that by using this automatic feed,<br />
the boilers can be made to give satisfaction using<br />
the finest and most unmerchantable slack.<br />
The ashes from the boilers, dropped into concrete<br />
hoppers, are sprinkled with water and<br />
hauled away from the basement in special ash<br />
cars by an electric locomotive and<br />
DUMPED FROM A STAGING<br />
into railroad hopper cars. To effect this, a special<br />
form of dump has been provided. The trestle will<br />
hold several ash cars, and as many as desired are<br />
pushed by the motor up an easy incline to the<br />
top of the trestle. They are permitted one by<br />
one to drop back to the head of the incline.<br />
There, singly, they are stopped on a revolving<br />
dumping table, turned a quarter circle and<br />
dumped into a railroad gondola or hopper stand<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
ing below. The tilting of the dump is performed<br />
by a small cylinder pivoted at the lower end.<br />
Thus speedily and cheaply the ashes are removed<br />
from the plant and delivered to a place where<br />
they can be made to fill a useful purpose.<br />
The water for the boilers is supplied from six<br />
wells and is pumped into two Stillwell feedwater<br />
heaters. Like all boiler rooms with automatic<br />
stokers, it is cleanly in the extreme and it is<br />
possible to keep the engine room in perfect condition<br />
despite the fact that the two are ranged<br />
side by side. The power house is flanked at each<br />
end by a brick stack -50 feet high, lined with firebrick<br />
and of 12-foot inside diameter, supported<br />
on concrete foundations. An arched concrete<br />
underground flue connects the boilers with the<br />
stacks.<br />
In the engine room are three C. & G. Cooper<br />
cross-composed engines with 2(1 and 34 inch<br />
cylinders and 42-inch stroke, making loo revolutions<br />
per minute, directly connected to Crocker-<br />
Wheeler dynamos of 500 kilowatt capacity generating<br />
a direct current of 500 volts. The Ridgway<br />
Dynamo and Engine Co. supplied the dynamo<br />
for furnishing light. It has a capacity of 100<br />
kilowatts and furnishes an alternating current<br />
of 1,10(1 volts, being a 60-cycle generator coupled<br />
directly to a McEwen engine.<br />
There are also four Allis-Chalmers cross-compound<br />
air compressors. The high-pressure steam<br />
cylinders have a diameter of 26 inches, the air<br />
cylinders are of 26-inch and 44-inch diameter, respectively,<br />
and the stroke is 48 inches. Each<br />
compressor produces 5,000 cubic feet of air per<br />
minute at a pressure of 100 pounds to the square<br />
inch with the horsepower rating of 1,000.<br />
Along the full length of the engine room and<br />
hung 26 feet above the floor, travels a standard<br />
erecting and dismantling electric crane of 22 tons<br />
capacity, manufactured by the Northern Engineering<br />
Co.<br />
A standard gauge railroad track, connected<br />
with the B. & S. R. R., enters one end of the<br />
engine room, and space is provided for one car<br />
to stand inside the power house for convenience<br />
in loading any injured machinery or for unloading<br />
any additions to the equipment.<br />
All piping in the engine room is beneath the<br />
concrete floor. The pipes from the header over<br />
the boilers drop through the floor and are passed<br />
through the concrete wall of the engine room<br />
basement, holes being provided large enough to<br />
permit of all possible side motion resulting from<br />
CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE<br />
in the steam lines. This provision keeps the engine<br />
room clear, with the head room entirely<br />
unobstructed. In both sides of the power house.<br />
there is abundance of room. On the boiler side,<br />
there is accommodation for four more batteries
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
of boilers, and on the engine side for another<br />
large compressor and two generators, the size<br />
of those already installed.<br />
Four receivers stationed outside the power<br />
house receive the air from the four compressors.<br />
Air leaves these at SO pounds per square inch<br />
pressure and is conveyed by pipe 14 inches in<br />
diameter, branching eastward and westward to<br />
ward the mines. This dimension is reduced at<br />
each mine opening, the pipes off-bearing to the<br />
drifts being uniformly S inches in diameter.<br />
The locomotive barn, car-repair shop, and ma<br />
chine shops, are all one story brick buildings.<br />
13 feet high with frame roof trusses, covered<br />
with slate, and foundations of concrete. The first<br />
measures 40 ft. by 102 ft., and the other two<br />
40ft. by 100 ft.<br />
The locomotive barn has in front one pair of<br />
double-swinging doors for each track, separated<br />
by door posts only.<br />
There is room for 24 motors though only 12<br />
are now in use. Twelve separate tracks with<br />
7-foot centers enter the building and these being<br />
of 80-pound rails need only occasional support,<br />
which is afforded by 12 in. by 12 in. brick piers<br />
set 8 feet apart and rising 4 feet above the basement<br />
floor on which they stand. The tracks are<br />
open and the space between the tracks floored.<br />
The building is heated by steam and lighted by<br />
electricity.<br />
The importance of an adequate and well-heated<br />
locomotive barn is considerable. In the first<br />
place it provides a place for a close inspection<br />
of the locomotive after the day's work is done.<br />
Resting as the locomotives do in this Sagamore<br />
barn on heavy rails supported by pillars, not<br />
by walls, it is possible to travel all around, under<br />
as well as over them, tightening loose bolts and<br />
making complete inspection. For this inspection<br />
portable lights having long leading wires are<br />
provided. A locomotive should not be permitted<br />
to become unduly chilled for when it enters the<br />
saturated air of a drift mine, it immediately becomes<br />
covered with condensed moisture with bad<br />
results. The difficulties encountered by the electrical<br />
firms in providing<br />
ADEQUATE INSULATION<br />
have been not a little increased by a lack of consideration<br />
on the part of the mine owners as to<br />
the need of such machinery.<br />
Fourteen feet of the east end of the barn is<br />
partioned off and used as a repair shop. An<br />
8-inch I beam running lengthwise of this shop<br />
carries a small traveling chain hoist for use in<br />
dismantling locomotives. A concreted pit under<br />
the track serves to remove worn wheels from the<br />
locomotive and to provide for the emplacement<br />
of new wheels. For this purpose the locomotive<br />
is jacked up, the rails over the pit removed, the<br />
axle and wheels lowered to a small truck beneath<br />
and hauled outside.<br />
The car-repair shop has two mine tracks running<br />
lengthwise of the building. In addition to<br />
the usual power grindstone and emery wheel, an<br />
automatic cut-off track saw and a large drop ham<br />
mer are installed. These tools are all operated<br />
by an electric motor. Special attention may Indrawn<br />
to the fact that the hammer, in addition to<br />
its most usual uses, shapes all the machine picks<br />
used at this plant. By the use of special dies.<br />
bar steel is hammered out in the rough, a very<br />
little hand-shaping followed by tempering resulting<br />
in a finished pick. All the general blacksmithing<br />
is done in this building, and five con<br />
crete f<strong>org</strong>es are provided. One large f<strong>org</strong>e in<br />
the center of the building is used whenever a<br />
large open space around the fire is desirable. The<br />
other four are set near the walls and these are<br />
in continuous use. The floor of this shop is of<br />
cinders and the lighting is by electricity.<br />
The machine shop has a concrete floor with<br />
2 in. by 4 in. sills laid flush with the top and<br />
over these are nailed 7f,-inch tongued and grooved<br />
yellow pine flooring. The mine track enters one<br />
end and runs through the building. The equipment<br />
consists of an 8-inch pipe machine, a large<br />
drill press, a planer and a shaper, all operated<br />
by an electric motor.<br />
'i'he supply house is most elaborate. Supplies<br />
are not allowed to go to waste or to be lost sight<br />
of, so as to be unavailable when required, nor is<br />
there any looseness and uncertainty as to the<br />
necessary provision in case of a breakdown.<br />
Where no storehouse control is maintained there<br />
i.s always a large loss in keeping small duplicate<br />
parts on hand. The need for them is felt only<br />
at long intervals, and when it appears the personnel<br />
may be changed, the duplicates may be<br />
covered up or may have been used in some other<br />
place or even with careless management destroyed.<br />
So that not only is the delay sustained, but good<br />
material, purchased for the occasion, is made<br />
unavailable or valueless. All the bins, shelves<br />
and racks are carefully stenciled with the<br />
SIZE AMI NATURE<br />
of their contents. The store-keeper not only<br />
keeps a vermin and dirt-proof depository, but also<br />
an account of material by an accurate card system<br />
which records the nature of distribution and<br />
the stock on hand. A two-story brick building<br />
measuring 100 ft. b.v 40 ft. by 30 ft. houses the<br />
supplies. The first floor contains racks and bins,<br />
in the center of the building and along the walls,<br />
for all the heavier mine supplies. On this floor,<br />
the store-keeper has his office and shelves are<br />
provided for lighter parts. A mine track, extending<br />
21) feet into the building, provides for<br />
the transfer of heavy material.
The bar iron is stored on a large vertical rack<br />
within the building. The lower floor is of concrete.<br />
A hand-power elevator of half a ton capacity<br />
connects the floors. The second floor is<br />
arranged with bins and racks mainly for supplies<br />
of lighter weight, but the bar iron rack extends<br />
through to this upper story. The railroad supply<br />
track passes the unloading platform on a level<br />
with this floor. Here also electric lights and<br />
steam heat are provided. The oil is kept in a<br />
separate brick building on the opposite side of<br />
the supply track.<br />
The town is laid out in separate sections called<br />
wards, on ground sloping in all directions separated<br />
by small streams affording good drainage<br />
and isolation in case of serious fire. The<br />
streets are 40 feet wide and fronts of houses<br />
20 feet back of street line. The building lots are<br />
50 ft. by 130 ft. with a rear alley 12 feet wide.<br />
The houses are in four styles, built on hollow<br />
block tile foundations, studded and covered with<br />
double half V and siding, underlaid with heavy<br />
building paper, then lathed and plastered and<br />
roofed with slate. The water supply is from<br />
three Artesian wells near the creek and pumped<br />
through a 6-inch cast-iron pipe to a double concrete<br />
reservoir holding 80,000 gallons on each<br />
side, located at the highest point in the town.<br />
This 6-inch pipe serves as a main for the town<br />
system with 4-inch cast-iron lines leading from<br />
it through each street, set 3 1 /, feet underground.<br />
Thus the piping system can be supplied direct<br />
from the pumps or by gravity from the reservoir.<br />
From the 4-inch lines i_,-inch branches are laid<br />
to domestic hydrants at the sidewalk, spaced<br />
100 feet apart, and located on alternate sides of<br />
the street. At all street intersections and along<br />
the streets at intervals not exceeding 400 feet<br />
HUE HYDRANTS Alii: PLACED.<br />
The elevation of the reservoir is higher than the<br />
highest house. Each ward has an <strong>org</strong>anized fire<br />
brigade and is provided with a hose house containing<br />
a hose cart and 150 feet of hose.<br />
The public school, located in a natural grove.<br />
is large and modern in every respect, containing<br />
four class rooms upstairs and four downstairs,<br />
all 24 ft. by 30 ft. 6 in. with a cloak room adjoining<br />
each class room. A drinking fountain<br />
is provided at each floor, and toilet rooms are<br />
found in the basement. The building is of brick<br />
cased, built on stone foundations. It is roofed<br />
with slate and heated by steam. There is a hotel<br />
with 31 bedrooms, in keeping with other improvements,<br />
a fine brick office (with two office rooms,<br />
a drafting room and three bedrooms and a twostory<br />
vault) and other conveniences are all interesting<br />
parts of this equipment.<br />
Nor in these days, when the care of the injured<br />
is a paramount consideration, should ref<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
erence be omitted to the doctors' office arranged<br />
with a waiting room and two offices, one for each<br />
physician. There is provided also an operating<br />
room with a concrete floor, a central drain for<br />
efficient cleansing of the room, every facility for<br />
cleanly operating, and a sterilizing cabinet. This<br />
departure may be described as a connecting link<br />
between first aid and the hospital. Here minor<br />
injuries can be adequately handled and professional<br />
aid in the case of major injuries can be<br />
supplied before the long distressing trip to the<br />
distant hospital commences. Sagamore, it must<br />
be remembered, is on a different railroad, and<br />
3D miles from the nearest hospital; viz., that<br />
founded by Mrs. Adrian Iselin, at Punxsutawney.<br />
The store of the Keystone Store Co. is a large<br />
two story building, measuring 66 ft. by 110 ft.<br />
The main details of this comprehensive plant<br />
were laid out under the immediate direction of<br />
Chas. D. Oldknow and Jas. Harvey. The former<br />
is chief engineer, whose previous affiliation was<br />
with the Temple Iron Co., of Scranton. The latter,<br />
who has made mining a life study, is the very<br />
capable general superintendent. H. A. Molder is<br />
the directing head at Sagamore, and J. A. Caseley<br />
is the auditor. The steel work and trusses<br />
and the mechanical equipment of the tipple and<br />
power house were detailed and constructed by the<br />
contracting engineeis, Heyl and Patterson, of<br />
Pittsburg.<br />
RECENT COAL TRADE PATENTS.<br />
The following recent patents of interest to the<br />
coal trade are reported expressly for Tin: COAL<br />
TRADE BULLETIN by J. M. Nesbit, patent attorney.<br />
Park building. Pittsburgh, Pa., from whom printed<br />
copies may be procured for 15 cents each:<br />
Coke oven, L. P. Palmer, Uniontown, Pa.; 982,684.<br />
Coke oven door, L. C. Flaccus, New York, N. Y.;<br />
992,492.<br />
Coal cutting machine, Louis Thomas, Ans, Belgium;<br />
993,474.<br />
Ore and coal jig. E. A. Wall, Salt Lake City,<br />
Utah; 993,481.<br />
Mining machine. William Guernsey, Prosser,<br />
Wash.; 993,593.<br />
Miller's lamp, R. D. Cochrane, Norhury, Eng.;<br />
994,123.<br />
Coal washing jig, A. C. Hoecker, CoIIinsville, 111.;<br />
994.160.<br />
Safety power for blasting. G. M. Peters, Cincinnati,<br />
an.. M. F. Lindley, Kings Mills, Ohio; 994,273.<br />
Coal drilling and reaming implement. W. T.<br />
Evans, and B. T. Reilly. Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; 994,307.<br />
Treatment of gases given off in the destructive<br />
distillation of coal, etc., Gustav Hilgenstock, Dahlhausen-Ruhr,<br />
Germany; 994,315.<br />
Bit for rock drills, moils and picks, Wallace<br />
Childs, Neosho, Mo.; 994,668.
Y2 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
THE TESTING OF LOCOMOTIVE FUEL/ 1<br />
By F O. Bunnell. Engineer of Tests. Rock Island Lines.<br />
It is gratifying to note that many railroads are<br />
giving the fuel question more serious consideration<br />
both from the standpoint of fuel and type of furnace<br />
used and b.v various tests of fuels such as<br />
tests between coal taken from different sources,<br />
coal as compared with oil, briquetting bituminous<br />
and lignite coal, evaporative efficiency under different<br />
boiler conditions, etc., they are gradually<br />
adopting the fuel most practical to use in a given<br />
territory and boiler conditions adapted to greater<br />
evaporative efficiency. There are many reasons<br />
for this activity on the part of the railroads,<br />
among which, with a brief explanation, are the<br />
following:<br />
A. Prof. Goss has estimated that in the average<br />
locomotive furnace 20 per cent, of tlie total fuel<br />
supplied to the locomotive performs no function<br />
in moving the train forward. Adding to this the<br />
losses due to radiation, adhesion to the rails, flange<br />
friction, etc., it is estimated that not over 5 per<br />
cent, of the latent heat value in the coal performs<br />
useful work in moving trains forward. In 1906<br />
out of 90,000,000 tons consumed, it is estimated but<br />
40,000,000 tons represented heat actually transmitted<br />
from the furnaces to water to be evaporated.<br />
Accepting the above figures as reasonably<br />
accurate, it is obvious there is urgent need of improvement<br />
first to utilize a greater percentage of<br />
the heat in evaporating the water, and second to<br />
reduce the losses of the resultant energy. There<br />
are certain conditions now existing on all railroads<br />
fixed by the type of locomotives now in use,<br />
in wdiich there can be an excessive use of fuel unless<br />
the furnace conditions are adapted to the fuel<br />
or the physical character of the fuel is adapted to<br />
the type of locomotive in which it is used, or if the<br />
fuel is of inferior quality.<br />
B. The fuel bills of a railroad occupy the most<br />
conspicuous part of the total cost of operation, in<br />
many cases amounting to 13 per cent, of the total<br />
cost of operation and 26 per cent, of the total transportation<br />
expenses; while these<br />
FIGURES WILL VARY,<br />
with different railroads, according to the kind of<br />
traffic handled, in glancing over the report of<br />
transportation expenses of the A & B railroad the<br />
item of fuel for locomotives amounting to about<br />
$6,600,000 stands out in bold comparison with any<br />
other item and with the total cost of transportation<br />
of about $25,000,000. In years past there has<br />
heen marked attention paid to the cost of lubricating<br />
oil which, in the statement referred to,<br />
amounts to about $106,000.<br />
C. It is a well known fact that there is a vast<br />
difference in the evaporative efliciency of fuel as<br />
obtained from the different localities and frequently<br />
between two sources in the same locality. For<br />
example the average range of heat units in locomotive<br />
fuel might be stated as follows:<br />
Fuel oil. from 15,800 to 20,200 B. t. u.<br />
Anthracite coal, from 12,900 to 14,700 B. t. u.<br />
Semi-bituminous coal, from 14.500 to 15,500 B.t.u.<br />
Bituminous coal, from 8,500 to 16,200 B. t. u.<br />
Briquettes - , 200 B. t. u. more than same grade<br />
of coal.<br />
Fuel is no longer fuel in the sense of the pioneer<br />
indiscriminate use of this utility, and while it is<br />
evident, from the above range in heat units, that<br />
fuel cannot always be used, with economy, on the<br />
basis of geographical location, attention is also<br />
called to the fact that the smallest range of variation<br />
per pound of fuel, as shown above, is 1,000<br />
heat units for semi-bituminous coal or 7 per cent.,<br />
and no railroad can afford this variation in its<br />
fuel hills without challenging the cause for same.<br />
D. There is also a great difference in the physical<br />
nature of the fuel; fuel oil varies in viscosity<br />
and specific gravity as well as in the flash and fire<br />
tests. Coals vary in specific gravity, hardness,<br />
I rittleness and tendency to crumble on exposure<br />
to the atmosphere. The character and quality of<br />
the ash of coals is also important: some coals have<br />
comparatively little ash and give no trouble from<br />
this source, while others have a large amount of<br />
ash. 18 per cent, in some cases; sometimes the ash<br />
clinkers badly or forms a semi-flux which on cooling<br />
has been known to practically seal tlie grate<br />
bars. The character of the ash made is frequently<br />
more important than the volume.<br />
To use fuel to the best practical advantage, in<br />
addition to the factors already mentioned, attention<br />
should be given to the difference in the physical<br />
nature of the fuel. The<br />
RATE OF I'RODfCIXG<br />
steam and the cost of same in a locomotive with a<br />
given furnace and front end adjustment are extremely<br />
sensitive to a change in the physical character<br />
of the fuel; is is, therefore, advisable to<br />
use fuel of the same physical character, on a railroad,<br />
over as wide range of territory as possible<br />
and it is equally important to insure that the socalled<br />
draft arrangements in all locomotives are<br />
carefully adjusted to burn the fuel to the best<br />
advantage in evaporative efficiency.<br />
While the above explains the reasons for the<br />
activity shown by most railroad managers in in<br />
'"Paper read before the meeting of the International Railvestigating fuel conditions, it also serves to emway<br />
Fuel Association.
phasize the necessity of testing fuel, it the best<br />
practicable results and greatest economies, in one<br />
of the most salient factors of operating costs, are<br />
to be realized, and with the relation of fuel costs<br />
to other items of transportation expense, the difference<br />
in heat units in different fuels, and the<br />
difference in physical character of fuels in mind,<br />
no railroad, which has not already done so, can<br />
afford to continue the use of fuel now purchased<br />
for a given territory without making a systematic<br />
investigation to determine the fuel most efficient<br />
for use and which will best serve the interest of<br />
the railroad company as a whole. It would be<br />
unjust not to mention, at this time, the excellent<br />
work which has been done, along this line, by the<br />
United States Geological Survey and later by the<br />
Bureau of Mines in making laboratory tests, including<br />
the proximate analysis, calorimetric determinations<br />
and ultimate analysis.<br />
To determine the fuel best to use on a given<br />
lailroad. it is first advisable, by means of laboratory<br />
determinations of approximate analysis,<br />
calorific value, etc., to determine the relative<br />
quality and efficiency of all the fuel either on the<br />
lines of the railroad company or tributary to same.<br />
With this information and a map of the railroad,<br />
showing various divisional points, before yon, a<br />
territorial classification of the fuel can readily<br />
be made and with the general traffic conditions,<br />
original cost of the fuel and cost of hauling in<br />
mind, it should not be difficult to determine, within<br />
reasonable limits, the most practical and economic<br />
fuel for use in a given territory and at all times,<br />
traffic conditions permitting, the<br />
QUALITY' OF THE FUEL<br />
should take precedence over favorable geographical<br />
location.<br />
The recommended method of sampling coal both<br />
in the mine and in car lots is the method outlined<br />
by the United States Geological Survey as follows:<br />
Mine samples should be taken in a number of<br />
places at widely separated points in the mine<br />
where the coal bed has an average development.<br />
It is preferable to determine these locations by<br />
an examination of the mine map before going into<br />
the mine. At each of the places designated the<br />
face of the coal should be cleared of burnt powder,<br />
loose coal or dirt for about 5 feet in width and<br />
the full height of the wormable seam. All insecure<br />
places in the roof should also be taken down<br />
to prevent tlieir falling into the sample. The<br />
sampler should then spread a waterproof blanket<br />
on the floor of the mine close up to the face of the<br />
coal and make a perpendicular cut, with a mine<br />
pick, from the floor to the roof, including in the<br />
sample everything but the parts of the coal bed<br />
which are originally discarded by the miner.<br />
Sufficient coal should be cut to make a volume<br />
equal to not less than live pounds to the foot in<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 53<br />
height, that is, a sample weighing not less than<br />
20 pounds should be cut from a four-foot, bed of<br />
coal. When shale or other partings aie to be<br />
included in the sample care should be exercised<br />
to cut them Ibe full width and depth of the groove<br />
in order to preserve the proper proportion of coal<br />
and extraneous matter. When the required amount<br />
of coal has been obtained, detailed measurement<br />
of the section of tlie bed, from top to bottom, noting<br />
every perceptible parting and variation in the<br />
seam, should be made. The parts of the bed not<br />
included in the sample<br />
SHOULD HE CLEARLY SHOWN<br />
in the record. The cuttings should then be sifted<br />
through a screen with a i^-inch mesh, the lumps<br />
broken to a size that will admit of their passing<br />
ihiough a (..-inch opening. The samples should<br />
then be mixed by two men grasping opposite corners<br />
of the blanket, rolling the sample diagonally<br />
by raising one corner of the blanket at a time, a<br />
further thorough mixing effected by hand. When<br />
the sample is thoroughly mixed, and all impurities<br />
are evenly distributed throughout the mass,<br />
the sample should be quartered and the two opposite<br />
quarters discarded. The remainder should<br />
then he mixed as before, continuing the quartering<br />
and discarding process until the sample is<br />
sufficiently small for convenient handling. The<br />
material finally remaining should then be spread<br />
in a circular mass about two inches thick on the<br />
blanket, a small trowel used to fill a sample can,<br />
taking portions from the circumference to the center<br />
of the mass, and around the entire circle. The<br />
can should then be closed, neimetically sealed and<br />
sent to the laboratory.<br />
The entire process of sampling should be carried<br />
on as rapidly as possible at the places in the mine<br />
where the sample was cut and the maximum time<br />
allowed for cutting, mixing and taking" sample<br />
should not exceed one hour. All material encountered<br />
in cutting across the face of the bed<br />
should be included in the sample except partings<br />
or binders more than three-eighths of an inch in<br />
thickness and lenses or concretions of sulphur or<br />
other impurities greater than two inches in maximum<br />
diameter and one-half inch in thickness. If<br />
the sample is taken from a very wet place it<br />
should be taken out of the mine and dried until all<br />
sensible moisture has been driven off.<br />
When samples are taken from cars they should<br />
not be limited to a few shovelfuls of<br />
COAL FROM THE TOP<br />
of the car. because the heavier pieces gradually<br />
work down toward the bottom; samples taken at<br />
the bottom of the car have shown as much as 8<br />
per cent, more ash than the coal at the top, the<br />
moisture also frequently varying from top to bottom<br />
depending on the weather. In order to get<br />
a fair car sample it is necessary to take a number
54 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
of shovelfuls of coal, from various points in the<br />
car, securing, in this way, a representative portion<br />
of the coal from top to bottom and from end to<br />
end, being careful to see that the relative propor<br />
tions of fine and coarse coal are secured.<br />
Under any circumstances with the information<br />
now at hand it is not safe to rest with the knowl<br />
edge of the source of supply of the fuel, its analysis<br />
and physical qualities as observed at the mine<br />
or laboratory as the case may be, but to avoid the<br />
serious error often existing between the theoretical<br />
and practical, it is necessary after making the<br />
analysis and subsequently establishing a territorial<br />
classification of the fuels, to conduct a series of<br />
practical road tests, before the fuel most practical<br />
and economical for a given territory can be finally<br />
determined.<br />
Road tests are also necessary to determine the<br />
relative evaporative efficiency of a given find under<br />
different furnace and boiler conditions and for the<br />
purpose of improving detail conditions in a given<br />
locomotive; these tests may include tests between<br />
two or more kinds of fuel in a given territory,<br />
such as different kinds of coal, coal and oil, or<br />
tests between the best fuel of different territories.<br />
It is not too theoretical to assume that, trafficconditions<br />
permitting, with a given type of locomotive<br />
a change in the source of supply or kind<br />
of fuel for a given territory will result in<br />
AX APPRECIABLE SAVING<br />
due to less fuel being required for a given performance<br />
on account of the superiority of its physical<br />
character and heating efficiency.<br />
The spring and fall months of average seasons<br />
are preferable on account of more uniform weather<br />
conditions.<br />
Unless extraordinary operating conditions pre<br />
vent, fuel tests should be made on the division<br />
where the fuel is to be used.<br />
Passenger service is sometimes desirable on account<br />
of requiring less time and a fewer number of<br />
trips can be made than in freight service when it<br />
generally requires one or two additional trips to<br />
obtain a fair average on account of a greater num<br />
ber of stops and delays.<br />
It is often desirable to use the same type of locomotive<br />
for all tests, in order that tests made on<br />
different divisions may be directly compared.<br />
It has been estimated that scale deposits ,',; inch<br />
thick on the sheets and flues of a locomotive boiler<br />
cause a loss in evaporating efficiency of 13 per<br />
cent, and scale :; , inch I hick a loss of 91 per cent.<br />
It is, therefore, evident the boiler should he prac<br />
tically free from scale deposits.<br />
If previous experience has not afforded opportunity<br />
to adjust the draft arrangement or if a<br />
fuel of different character is to be tested, it may<br />
be necessary to make one or two trips over the<br />
division, using the engine and crew assigned to<br />
the test, in order that they may become familiar<br />
with the fuel and also to change the grates, size<br />
of nozzle, petticoat pipe arrangement, the size of<br />
stack or any other changes necessary to secure<br />
conditions normal to proper combustion of the<br />
fuel.<br />
The author of this paper concludes with tech<br />
nical details for properly conducting" tests with oil,<br />
with coal and with briquettes, and for properly<br />
tabulating the results obtained.<br />
OTTUMWA LOADERS INSTALLED.<br />
The Ottumwa Box Car Loader Co. of Ottumwa,<br />
la., is installing for the Lethbridge Collieries Co.<br />
one of its largest Cradle Box Car Loaders. The<br />
capacity of the Ottumwa Cradle Loader is practi<br />
cally unlimited, and it is able to take care of the<br />
output of the very largest mines.<br />
The equipment of the Lethbridge Collieries is<br />
being made the very best. This Loader will be<br />
in operation within the next 30 days.<br />
The Chinook Coal Co. of Lethbridge, Alberta.<br />
has purchased, and is now having installed Shaker<br />
Screens, and Coal Handling equipment purchased<br />
from the Ottumwa Box Car Loader Co.<br />
<strong>•</strong> NEW ENTERPRISES <strong>•</strong><br />
Crown Hill-Kanawha Coal Co., Charleston, W.<br />
Va.; capital, $5(l,n00; incorporators, J. Gluck, J. T.<br />
Lightner, Leo Schaeffer, and S. Smith, of Char<br />
leston, and J. S. Miller, of Crown Hill, W. Va.<br />
Crown Hill-Kanawha Coal Co., Charleston, W.<br />
Va.; capital, $50,000; incorporators, J. Gluck, J. T.<br />
Lightern, Leo Schaeffer and S. Smith, of Charles<br />
ton, and J. S. Miller, of Crown Hill, W. Va.<br />
Big Sandy Supply Co.. Kenova, W. Va.; capital,<br />
$10,000: incorporators, J. F. York, Will Mount,<br />
A. L. McGinnis, and C. G. Elder, of Huntington,<br />
and J. M. York, of Fort Gay, W. Va.<br />
American Pocahontas Collieries Corporation,<br />
Roanoke, Va.; capital. $50,000; incorporators, J.<br />
H. Flanaghan, Welch. W. Va.; H. M. Fox. Roanoke,<br />
Va.<br />
Cherry Run Mining Co., Pittsburgh; capital,<br />
$500,000; incorporators. Samuel A. Taylor, J. M.<br />
Taylor, of Pittsburgh, and James W. Hamilton, of<br />
Knoxville, Pa.<br />
Luton Coal Co., Providence, Ky.; capital, $100,-<br />
000; incorporators, S. K. Luton, J. E. M<strong>org</strong>an and<br />
R. W. Hunter.<br />
The annual meeting of the Sunday Creek Co.<br />
will be held in Jersey City, N. J., on June 26,<br />
wdien the annual report for the fiscal year ending<br />
March 31, will be submitted. No change in the<br />
present officials and directors is anticipated.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK & KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H. W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA,<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
56<br />
BESSEMER AND BASIC PIG<br />
IRON PRODUCTION IN 1910.<br />
The production of Bessemer and basic pig iron<br />
in Pennsylvania and Ohio, by districts in 1910 as<br />
compared with 1909, according to the Iron and<br />
Steel Bulletin of James M. Swank, was;<br />
BESSEMER AND LOW PHOSPHORUS.<br />
Districts. , Tons. x<br />
Pennsylvania— 1910. 1909.<br />
Lehigh and Schuylkill valleys 101.970 112,547<br />
Lower Susquehanna 126,403 119,874<br />
Allegheny county 2.352,149 2,143.009<br />
Balance of slate 1,750,317 1,446,176<br />
Totals, Pennsylvania 4,393,905 3.S51.600<br />
Ohio-<br />
Mahoning Valley 1.738,907 1,682,839<br />
Lake counties 830,921 1,051,329<br />
Balance of state 890,908 893,878<br />
Totals, Ohio 3,460,736 3,628,046<br />
Pennsylvania—<br />
BASIC PIG IKO.N.<br />
Lehigh valley 366,132 297,007<br />
Schuylkill and Lower Susequehanna<br />
754,290 606,447<br />
Allegheny county 2,807,551 3,187,687<br />
Shenango valley 620,658 553,206<br />
Balance of state 698.434 611,898<br />
Totals, Pennsylvania .... 5.247,065 5,256,245<br />
Ohio—<br />
Mahoning and Lake counties. 690.941 460,552<br />
Balance of state 464.493 385.404<br />
Totals. Ohio 1.155,434 845,956<br />
Fourteen slates made either Bessemer or lowphosphorus<br />
pig iron in 1910, against 12 states in<br />
1909 and the same number in 1908.<br />
In 1910 basic pig iron was made b.v 68 plants<br />
in lo states, as follows: Pennsylvania. 32 plants;<br />
Ohio, 15; New York, 5; Virginia, 4; Alabama, 4;<br />
New Jersey, 2; Indiana, 2; Illinois, 2; Missouri,<br />
1 ; and Colorado, 1.<br />
Commenting on the statistics by districts, so<br />
far as tabulated, Editor Swank says:<br />
"There was a decrease in the production of<br />
basic pig iron in 1910 as compared with 1909 in<br />
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia,<br />
Missouri and Colorado. The falling off in Allegheny<br />
county, Pennsylvania, was especially heavy<br />
and amounted to over 380,000 tons."<br />
The figures on active and idle blast furnaces in<br />
the United States at the close of each year since<br />
1873, compiled by Mr. Swank, are:<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
FURNACES.<br />
Com- Corn-<br />
Year. Active. Idle, pleted. Year. Active. Idle, pleted.<br />
1873.<br />
1874.<br />
1S75.<br />
1876.<br />
1877.<br />
1878.<br />
1879.<br />
1880.<br />
1881.<br />
1 882.<br />
1883.<br />
1884.<br />
1SS5.<br />
1S86.<br />
1S87.<br />
1888.<br />
1889.<br />
1S90.<br />
1891.<br />
410<br />
365<br />
293<br />
236<br />
270<br />
265<br />
388<br />
446<br />
455<br />
417<br />
31)7<br />
236<br />
276<br />
331<br />
339<br />
900<br />
344<br />
311<br />
313<br />
247<br />
328<br />
420<br />
476<br />
116<br />
427<br />
309<br />
0 r, r<br />
261<br />
270<br />
376<br />
433<br />
315<br />
246<br />
244<br />
257<br />
226<br />
25 1<br />
256<br />
657<br />
693<br />
713<br />
712<br />
716<br />
692<br />
697<br />
701<br />
716<br />
687<br />
683<br />
669<br />
591<br />
577<br />
583<br />
589<br />
570<br />
562<br />
569<br />
1892.<br />
1893.<br />
1894.<br />
1S95.<br />
1S96.<br />
1897.<br />
1898.<br />
1899.<br />
19U0.<br />
19111.<br />
1902.<br />
1903.<br />
1904.<br />
1905.<br />
1906.<br />
1907.<br />
1908.<br />
1909.<br />
1910.<br />
253<br />
137<br />
185<br />
242<br />
159<br />
191<br />
202<br />
2S9<br />
266<br />
307<br />
182<br />
261<br />
:; 1 3<br />
340<br />
167<br />
236<br />
338<br />
206<br />
The figures on active and idle blast<br />
the close of April of this year were:<br />
idle, 205; total number furnaces, 416.<br />
311<br />
384<br />
326<br />
226<br />
311<br />
9 %9,<br />
212<br />
125<br />
174<br />
140<br />
105<br />
243<br />
168<br />
11 1<br />
89<br />
276<br />
223<br />
131<br />
564<br />
521<br />
511<br />
468<br />
470<br />
423<br />
414<br />
414<br />
406<br />
406<br />
412<br />
425<br />
429<br />
424<br />
429<br />
443<br />
459<br />
469<br />
268 474<br />
furnaces' at<br />
Active. 211;<br />
HOW TO KEEP IN<br />
TOUCH WITH<br />
AFFAIRS.<br />
Mines of information on every subject are at<br />
your disposal—Just say the word and we'll<br />
drive an entry for you - - - - - - - -<br />
USE OUR<br />
PRESS CLIPPINGS.<br />
) Ours is the only Clipping Bureau in the greatest ,<br />
I Industrial Center of the World. )<br />
) We have two branches—<br />
> A LOCAL SERVICE—AND—A GENERAL SERVICE.<br />
[ Both are splendid aids to busy men.<br />
5 Ask us for definite information<br />
r and rates.<br />
| The Central Press Bureau,<br />
906 4.908 WABASH BUILDING<br />
) Ttltphont 2164 Court. PITTSBURGH, PA.
COKE PROBUCTION IN OHIO IN 1910.<br />
Ohio ranks fourth among the states as a coal<br />
producer but only fourteenth in the manufacture<br />
of coke, and until 1905, when the first installation<br />
of by-product ovens was put into operation, Ohio<br />
could lay claim to little importance as a producer<br />
of coke, according to E. W. Parker, of the United<br />
States Geological Survey.<br />
During 1910 the work of dismantling 80 Roth-<br />
berg ovens by the Cleveland Furnace Co. and con<br />
structing 49 Semet-Solvay ovens from the old ma<br />
terial was completed and the new ovens contrib<br />
uted nearly 20 per cent, of the total output of the<br />
state. Nearly 4n per cent, of the total output of<br />
the state came from the Otto-Hoffman plant at<br />
Hamilton. The 25 Rothberg ovens' left standing<br />
at Cleveland were not in operation in 1910. The<br />
average yield of coal in coke in the retort ovens<br />
was 72 per cent. In the 322 bee-hive ovens that<br />
constituted tne remainder of the coke-producing<br />
facilities of Ohio the yield of c-oal in coke was<br />
but 64 per cent.<br />
The total production of coke in Ohio in 1910<br />
YOU CAN'T :,i<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
C A N get you a large J<br />
clean core of all strata un- J<br />
der your land to be ex- '<br />
amined in broad daylight. 5<br />
. No Guess Work. . '<br />
The J. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
Field Office, House Buildine, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING, OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING<br />
was 282,315 short tons, valued at $911,987. In<br />
quantity this was, with the exception of that for<br />
1906, the largest production in the history of the<br />
state. The value of the product in 1910 was<br />
exceeded in two earlier years, 1905 and 19116.<br />
Compared with 1909 the production in 1910 showed<br />
an increase of 59,604 short tons, or 20.S per cent..<br />
in quantity, and of $228,832, or 33.5 per cent, in<br />
value. The average price per ton advanced from<br />
$3.07 in 1909 to $3.23 in 1910. As in Illinois, the<br />
higher value of tlie coke made in Ohio, as com<br />
pared with that of the neighboring states of Penn<br />
sylvania and West Virginia, is due to the fact that<br />
a large part of the coal used conies from the West<br />
Virginia mines and ihe transportation charges have<br />
been borne by the coal, the coke being made at or<br />
near the points of consumption.<br />
Fire destroyed ihe coal tipple, boiler house and<br />
air compressor at the Nellie Coal Co. mine at<br />
Argentine, Pa.. May 28, causing a loss of $15,000.<br />
One hundred men will be idle till the destroyed<br />
buildings' are rebuilt.<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
PUBLISHERS OF<br />
\ The Coal Dealers' Blue Book<br />
5 Contains a Complete List for the United States and<br />
^ Canada of all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
i, Gas Companies. Elevators, Foundries. Mills, Iron<br />
C Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coal and<br />
z Coke in oar load lots, with capital and pay ratines.<br />
3 ««.. » lu, RMI f„„ ,. « 1438 SO. PENN SQUARE,<br />
- 550 Monon Building, 440 Dearborn St. _U1I -«-., -,,_..«<br />
CHICAGO. PHILADELPHIA.<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
„ FAMOUS<br />
TT<br />
"ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
C O ^ A V<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
FOR. SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909- IO.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which Is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the loca<br />
tion and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
F. G S„ Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVIIXK, PA.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.<br />
Position Wanted<br />
As company inspector, superintendent or assistant<br />
superintendent. Hold all known certificates<br />
as a mining official. Have had many<br />
years practical experience in all known systems of<br />
coal mining, etc., based upon the most economic<br />
principles. Have testimonials of high order from<br />
prominent mining men, inspectors, mining engineers<br />
and mine superintendents. Address, care<br />
William Hardy, 1131 Lang Avenue. Pittsburgh, Pa.<br />
6-15<br />
For Sale<br />
A well improved coal farm of 205 acres in a<br />
new coal belt, between two railroads, commanding<br />
the only natural inlet to over 500 acres solid coal<br />
land. Write Mr. Milton Taggart,<br />
Cadiz, Ohio.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey<br />
wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full particulars,<br />
analysis of coal, name, location and outfit<br />
of mine, etc.<br />
C. V. EMERIOK, Easton, Pa.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, 1*4 tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TI;ADE BULLETIN'. 6-1<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VEXEER & LUJIBER CO.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.
67>e<br />
GOAL JRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, JULY 1, 1911 No. 3<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STRAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matters<br />
relating to coal or coal production are invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDING, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
fore navigation closes. As the docks this year<br />
will have been enlarged and will have a capacity<br />
larger than at any previous time, it will mean,<br />
if they can be filled to capacity, a smaller amount<br />
of coal to be handled by rail during the closed<br />
season on the lakes. The reduced freight rate,<br />
made for some ports earlier in the season seems<br />
to have fixed itself on the carrying situation and<br />
is now the ruling figure for the ports involved<br />
and those other ports taking the same rate. All<br />
the shipping ports on the lower lakes report an<br />
improvement in the situation save Buffalo, where<br />
the anthracite coal seems to keep activity down<br />
to a certain extent. While June figures are not<br />
yet available, it is believed that the lake ship<br />
BETTEB THINGS ARE IN SIGHT for the coal trade,<br />
now that the second half of the year has arrived<br />
ments for the month will compare favorably with<br />
those of the same month of other years.<br />
is the belief of those in touch with affairs, and<br />
this belief apparently is justified by the fact that<br />
In the Pittsburgh district there is more activity<br />
the coke trade has taken an upward spurt, and the<br />
than has been the case since early in the first<br />
shipments of bituminous coal have been on the<br />
quarter of the year. More coal is going forward<br />
increase, both by rail, and by water to upper lake<br />
from mines, and the number of trains made up en<br />
ports. On top of this is the additional fact that<br />
tirely of coal, bound lakeward and eastward thai<br />
the steel and iron trade has turned for the better,<br />
are passing over the railroads of the district is<br />
and, consequently there is more demand for fuel<br />
much larger, and the increased activity is dis<br />
of all kinds, with a consequent hardening of prices,<br />
tinctly noticeable to those who are observers in<br />
this line.<br />
which latter fact is the one that is dearer to the<br />
In consequence of this there is a much<br />
heart of the producer than any other, foi' it means<br />
better feeling among the producers, and as a corol<br />
that, in addition to getting more coal on the marlary<br />
much better times being made at the mines.<br />
ket he is more likely to profit to a greater degree<br />
This, in turn, means that the activity is not of<br />
than if there were soft spots, with rumors of price<br />
the kind that keeps the mines running merely to<br />
cutting coming to his ears.<br />
meet overhead charges trusting to the sale of<br />
Lake trade at last seems to have taken on some<br />
product to bring this about. Rather it is the<br />
real life and coal is going forward in larger quan<br />
activity that comes when the trade is on the uptities<br />
than it has at any time this season, with<br />
ward trend and the operator sees the rainbow of<br />
still better times in prospect. Vessels are obtain<br />
profit clear in the sky after the storm of hard<br />
able as fast as required, and less difficulty is ex<br />
times and lessened demand. The river shipping<br />
companies still are suffering from a low stage of<br />
perienced in getting bottoms than earlier in the<br />
season. It is believed that these conditions wili<br />
water, but as they are increasing their all rail<br />
continue to obtain, with the result that late August<br />
facilities, this condition is less detrimental than<br />
and early September will see coal going forward in<br />
it was in former years when they depended alto<br />
quantities sufficiently large to put an entirely adegether<br />
on the rivers for their transportation<br />
quate stock of fuel on the head of lake docks be means, and were unable to get their coal to mar-
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
ket daring the period of low water. The all rail<br />
mines are sending more coal to the lakes than at<br />
any time since navigation opened, and therefore,<br />
operating officials are much more cheerful. The<br />
main thing, however, that is causing the better<br />
feeling in the trade is the stiffening in prices,<br />
whicli is indicated by the fact that producers are<br />
demanding, and what is more, getting close to card<br />
figures for their tonnage, and are not at all anxious<br />
to close long term contracts at even those figures.<br />
If anything were needed to put backbone into the<br />
trade, this would do it. and the bargain hunter<br />
is having a hard time in the Pittsburgh district<br />
just now. With the optimism that prevails, and<br />
the inciease in demand, there is no difficulty in EMPLOYEES HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW what employes<br />
getting card prices, which are: $1.25 to $1.35 for do off duty is a doctrine just promulgated by the<br />
run-of-mine coal; $1.35 to $1.45 for three-quarter head of one of the best of trades unions, the loco<br />
coal; $1.45 to $1.55 for inch and one-quarter coal. motive engineers. It is something of a departure<br />
and S5 to 95 cents for slack.<br />
lor a trades unionist to take such a stand. But if<br />
For the first time in several months, the num a similar position was taken by leaders of other<br />
ber of coke ovens in blast shows an increase at the <strong>org</strong>anizations there would be less industrial strife<br />
latest date for which figures are available. The than now obtains. The words of Grand Chief<br />
production, which at the middle of the month just Stone of the locomotive engineers are worthy of<br />
closed had made its first spurt, continues to in study by every employe of an individual or a corcrease,<br />
and those interested in the trade feel that poration.<br />
the real turn for the better has come at last.<br />
Figures for the first half of the year are available,<br />
and they show that the trade has run considerably<br />
behind that of the same period of 1910, but not<br />
6o far behind that it will be unable to equal that<br />
year's record when the final figures of the present<br />
year are available. The increase in active ovens<br />
and the increase in tonnage is divided about<br />
equally between the furnace and the independent<br />
producers, thus indicating that the upward trend<br />
is not spasmodic or confined to any particular part<br />
of the trade. More than any other branch of the<br />
coal mining industry, the coke trade is dependent<br />
on the iron and steel industry fer its business,<br />
and the increase, therefore, indicates that there is<br />
more activity in iron and steel than there has been<br />
foi- some time. Prices, like those for coal, are<br />
firmer than they have been for some time, and<br />
there is little coke to be had at a bargain, nor is<br />
there any coke going into stock because of low<br />
prices. Manufacturers are adhering close to<br />
regular rates, which are: $1.75 to $1.85 for fur<br />
nace coke and $2.00 to $2.25 for foundry coke.<br />
In the anthracite branch of the trade the usual<br />
midsummer dullness is reported, and the press<br />
dispatches say that the largest producing company<br />
will shut down its mines during the week in which<br />
the Fourth of July occurs. This must not be<br />
taken to mean, however, that the trade is on the<br />
down grade, for that hardly is true. It is just<br />
the case of the season making its presence felt.<br />
with the prospect that, so soon as the holiday<br />
time is over the trade will resume the even tenor<br />
of its way. Prices were given the usual boost<br />
of 10 cents per ton this date, which brings them<br />
within 20 cents of winter figures. As a whole<br />
this branch of the trade is in a satisfactory condi<br />
tion, despite the unseasonable weather.<br />
* * *<br />
Jere Wheelwright sees better times ahead. He<br />
usually doesn't make any wild guesses when he<br />
discusses trade conditions and we opine this is<br />
no exception to the rule.<br />
* * *<br />
The Pittsburgh testing station is playing some<br />
large attractions. President Taft is down in its<br />
bookings.<br />
* * *<br />
The turn has come at last, and now let every one<br />
get down to work and keep tiie trade moving.<br />
* * *<br />
Get out your fireworks and celebrate the Fourth<br />
and the betterment of trade conditions.<br />
<strong>•</strong> * 9<br />
Prices are firmer is the report. Best news that<br />
has leaked out in a month of Sundays!<br />
* * *<br />
Chief Stone of the engineers has just heaved a<br />
rock that landed in the right place.<br />
* * *<br />
Were you at one of the conventions? If you<br />
were not, you're a loser.<br />
* * *<br />
Coke manufacturers once more see the silver<br />
lining to the cloud.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
SUMMER MEETING OF COAL MINING INSTITUTE OF AMERICA IS WELL<br />
ATTENDED AND INTERESTING PROGRAM IS CARRIED OUT.<br />
The summer meeting of the Coal Mining Institute<br />
of America was held at Indiana, Pa., June<br />
28 and 29, and was one of the best attended in<br />
the history of the <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
The sessions opened with about 150 members<br />
present and after the delegates had been welcomed<br />
to the town, President S. A. Taylor, of<br />
Pittsburgh, delivered his annual address, taking<br />
for his subject, "How Can the Bituminous Coal<br />
Industry be Placed on a More Substantial Basis?"<br />
He said:<br />
The subject or title of this paper is made upon<br />
the assumption that the coal industry is in an<br />
unsatisfactory state. I am of the opinion that<br />
there is little danger of this being contradicted,<br />
and yet, if it should be. all that is necessary for<br />
any person taking such exception to do, to satisfy<br />
himself that there is something radically wrong<br />
with business, is to consult those persons interested<br />
in the matter in any way. Let him first<br />
go to the ordinary consumer and he will tell<br />
him that he is paying a much higher price for<br />
his coal than some other person similarly situated,<br />
and he will quote him the figures that will<br />
at once convince him of the correctness of his<br />
statement. Then let him ask the operator about<br />
his affairs and he will at once and very quickly<br />
tell him that he is expected to do things which<br />
are impossible for him to do, because he cannot<br />
make the expense or cost of so doing, under the<br />
present existing conditions. And lastly let him<br />
go to the miners and laborers at the mines, employed<br />
in the production of the coal, and he will,<br />
in less time than it can be described, give so<br />
many reasons and name so many things that<br />
are not what they desire or demand, that he will<br />
go no further, being thoroughly convinced that<br />
there are many things in connection with the<br />
industry that can be greatly and beneficially<br />
changed, and that such changes should be made.<br />
In the discussion of the question there are several<br />
phases of the industry that<br />
REQUIRE SOME CONSIDERATION<br />
in order to devise some remedy, if possible, to<br />
cure the disorder.<br />
We will therefore consider the four conditions<br />
which must, to a degree at least, be satisfied in<br />
order to bring about a more stable condition in<br />
the industry, as follows:<br />
lst. The elements entering into the cost of<br />
coal to the consumer.<br />
2nd. The position of the Operator to the Bituminous<br />
Coal Industry.<br />
3rd. The position of the Mine Worker to the<br />
Bituminous Coal Industry.<br />
4th. What position should the Government<br />
take in connection with the Industry?<br />
In discussing this first condition, we must consider<br />
the deposits or existence of materials which<br />
are available for fuel: their proximity to the<br />
place of consumption; the cost, of production, as<br />
well also the cost of transportation of the fuel<br />
to the place of consumption.<br />
Within the boundary lines of the United States<br />
has been deposited probably the greatest amount<br />
of fuel in the form of anthracite and bituminous<br />
coal, lignite, peat, oil, gas and other forms of<br />
carbon which can be used for fuel, of probably<br />
any similar area of the world. As a result of<br />
this liberal treatment by nature of the United<br />
States, and specially of the Eastern or Appalachian<br />
section, the coal market of this territory<br />
has had very little stability.<br />
In some districts of the Appalachian section,<br />
while a large body of coal is near at hand and<br />
can be mined cheaply, the wood available for fuel<br />
can be so much more cheaply obtained that the<br />
owners of the coal cannot undertake to mine<br />
it for their own use because of the fact that they<br />
can use the wood at less risk and cost. In other<br />
districts, where there is a large domestic consumption<br />
of fuel on account of their location<br />
being somewhat distant from the coal fields and<br />
which consequently entails in the use of coal an<br />
additional cost for transportation over and above<br />
the cost of the production of coal, and when these<br />
two factors are combined, they render<br />
THE COST 01' COAL<br />
laid down to the consumer such that the wood<br />
available for fuel is much cheaper for them to<br />
use than the coal.<br />
Again in other districts oil and gas have been<br />
taken from the earth at such a cost that even<br />
though the coal is near at hand it cannot compete<br />
as a fuel because of the much higher cost<br />
of production per heat unit of coal than of oil<br />
or gas. A great number of conditions which are<br />
special and particular to each location might be<br />
dwelt upon in order to arrive at a proper understanding<br />
of the conditions affecting the cost of<br />
coal in these particular locations, and each case<br />
would be different in character but of practically<br />
the same result in the end—that the using of coal<br />
at a price that is fair to the consumer, fair to<br />
the operator and fair to the mine labor—cannot<br />
be accomplished easily, and wherever such a<br />
condition cannot be established in a fair and<br />
equitable way. there can be no stability obtained<br />
for the industry so controlled. As stated above,<br />
the proximity to the place of consumption is one
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
of the determining features of the price, for the<br />
price to the consumer must always, to lie in<br />
equilibrium, bear a lair cost of transportation<br />
from the location of the coal mines to the place<br />
of consumption. If this be all by rail and no<br />
competition entering into the transportation, the<br />
cost will naturally be greater. If it is both b.v<br />
rail and by water, the cost will be considerably<br />
less. If it can be transferred entirely by water,<br />
the transportation will lie very much less. In<br />
some cases where tiie transportation is all by<br />
rail and there is no competition, tlie price for<br />
service rendered is very much greater than<br />
that for the same service where competition<br />
exists. So location of coal as compared to the<br />
place of consumption becomes a very important<br />
factor in the cost of coal to the consumer.<br />
In the cost of production of coal there are a<br />
number of things that enter into this cost, namely.<br />
the manner or occurrence of the coal seam;<br />
whether it be practically horizontal, or whether<br />
it be on medium pitch or whether it be on a very<br />
deep pitch; whether the coal veins be (hick or<br />
thin; whether the coal outcrops<br />
ABOVE WATER LEVEL<br />
and therefore can be opened by drift mines;<br />
whether the coal occurs slightly below water<br />
level and can consequently be opened as slope<br />
mines, or whether the coal occurs at such a<br />
depth below water level thai shafting must be<br />
resorted to in order to reach it: whether the<br />
mines are gaseous or non-gaseous; whether they<br />
are wet or whether they are dry. And so we<br />
might enumerate a great many conditions in<br />
mining, each of which would cause a slight<br />
change in the cost of producing coal and consequently<br />
should logically affect Ihe price to the<br />
consumer.<br />
Again a strike in some district of the country<br />
will drive many people into the coal business,<br />
in the district from which coal must come to<br />
supply that suspended temporarily by the strike.<br />
who have had little or no experience in connection<br />
with mining. On account of the fact that<br />
in many places coal can be obtained, and opened<br />
up ready for shipment at such a small cost or<br />
outlay of money that many people with little<br />
capita] have been able to embark in the coal<br />
business, and after they are once in il, it seems<br />
compulsory for them to continue therein as long<br />
as they can keep their business going, which results<br />
very often in unfair treatment of their men<br />
and customers, in their over anxiety to succeed.<br />
With such conditions confronting the industry,<br />
there can be little or no control of the output<br />
requirement, recovery, prices, etc., if the control<br />
of the business is to be left entirely in the hands<br />
of such men.<br />
There is another factor which recently has<br />
become quite an item of cost to the consumer,<br />
thai is the requirements of some of the specifications<br />
that coal shall be purchased only on the<br />
basis of heat units contained in the coal and<br />
compelling forfeits to be paid by the producer<br />
if the coal he ships should fall below the amount<br />
required to be guaranteed. Our own government<br />
is one of the large consumers who purchase on<br />
this basis, and is therefore<br />
PLACING A PREMIUM<br />
on tiie waste of the coal, in the mines from<br />
which they purchase, for the reason that only<br />
llie highest grade of coal can meet the require<br />
ments of the specifications, and for this loss<br />
and extra cost of production the operator must<br />
be paid, if he in turn can pay the miners and<br />
others employed in connection with the iiroduction<br />
of the coal. This is, however, levying a toll<br />
upon the future population of our country which<br />
cannot be abolished until the national govern<br />
ment shall take cognizance of the same and act<br />
in a fair and intelligent manner in the matter.<br />
This may seem at first thought as an unwarranted<br />
interference on the part of the government,<br />
but, as I will attempt to show, I believe<br />
that not only would it be well for the coal industry<br />
to have the government so interfere, but<br />
it is a duty the government owes to the industry<br />
as well as posterity to so interfere.<br />
I might continue to elaborate many more conditions<br />
in detail which enter into the cost to the<br />
consumer, but I think the above sufficient to<br />
show how serious a matter it is to adjust all<br />
conditions in order that the cost of coal to the<br />
consumer shall be fair and equitable.<br />
THE POSITION OF OPERATOR TO THE BITUMINOUS<br />
COAL INDUSTRY.<br />
The coal operator holds the position of a middleman<br />
between the consumer on one hand, the labor<br />
necessary to produce the coal, the owner of the<br />
lands and all other things, excepting transportation,<br />
that enter into the cost of the coal to the<br />
consumer, on the other hand. He is therefore<br />
placed in a position, as it were, between two mill<br />
stones: the consumer on one hand demanding low<br />
prices, all the elements entering into the production<br />
of coal on the other, demanding higher wages<br />
and higher prices. The position of operator is<br />
one very hard to fill and do justice to all. He<br />
must also answer to those who have the money<br />
invested in the operation, for, in order to main<br />
tain equilibrium, the prices, wages and all other<br />
things necessary to be paid in connection with<br />
the production of coal must, in the total, be<br />
sufficiently less than the amount which he receives<br />
for the production of his mines to leave<br />
a balance sufficient that the capital invested shall<br />
receive a fair remuneration on the investment,<br />
otherwise there will be trouble with the people<br />
holding the investments. In addition to the<br />
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 45)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 25<br />
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF MINES SHOWS<br />
REMARKABLE GROWTH<br />
With the increasing complexity in operating<br />
conditions in the mining industry, including both<br />
the coal and metalliferous interests, the demand<br />
on the part of operators for technically trained<br />
young men to assume charge of their properties<br />
is increasing at a rapid rate. Men whose minds<br />
are well grounded in the basic principles of<br />
chemistry, engineering, geology and also in subjects<br />
related to the financial and administrative<br />
departments—in other words "broad-gauge" men<br />
—are desired. The day when the college-trained<br />
man was scoffed at by practical men is related<br />
only to the past and it is admitted by all up-todate<br />
business men engaged in the development<br />
of coal and mineral holdings that such a man,<br />
with his superior training and his broad knowledge<br />
of subjects related to the industry, is essential<br />
to the complete success of large projects<br />
which they undertake. The curriculum of the<br />
modern technological school includes sufficient<br />
practical work to give its graduates a well-developed<br />
idea of the requirements they must meas<br />
ure up to in the active business world and enables<br />
them to grasp with facility the new problems<br />
which confront them in every-day practice.<br />
Western Pennsylvania has an institution which<br />
is doing splendid work in developing men of this<br />
caliber. The School of Mines of the University of<br />
Pittsburgh, located in the city which bears its<br />
name, is the one referred to. During the past<br />
three years, through the tireless efforts of Ur.<br />
M. E. Wadsworth, its dean, this school has been<br />
coming forward with leaps and bounds, until today<br />
it is regarded as<br />
ONE OK THE LEADING INSTITUTIONS<br />
for instruction in mining subjects in the United<br />
States. Its location in the center of the famous<br />
Western Pennsylvania bituminous coal district is<br />
an admirable one for a school of this design.<br />
That it has become a potent factor in the development<br />
of this great region is universally recognized.<br />
The School was established in 1895 when the<br />
Pennsylvania Legislature appropriated the sum<br />
of $50,000 for this purpose. The Governor of the<br />
Commonwealth, the Secretary of Internal Affairs<br />
and the Superintendent of Public Instruction were<br />
constituted as an Advisory Board. Dr. Daniel<br />
Carhart, noted for his authorship of Carhart's<br />
"Civil Engineering" and "Civil Engineer's Field<br />
Book," was the first dean, retaining the position<br />
until 1908. Selwyn E. Taylor, M. E., W. Clyde<br />
Wilkins, C. E., and F. Z. Shellenberger, C. E.,<br />
whose n-mes are closely linked with many of<br />
the large coal and coke development enterprises<br />
in the Western Pennsylvania region, were instructors<br />
in the School from 1895 to 1903 at<br />
various times. From 1904 to 1907 Harold C.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e, a graduate of Pennsylvania State College,<br />
had charge of the School under the direction<br />
of Dr. Carhart.<br />
On Mr. Ge<strong>org</strong>e's lesignation in the summer of<br />
1907, the present incumbent, Dr. M. E. Wadsworth,<br />
an author, geologist and teacher of national<br />
fame, was chosen dean. Dr. Wadsworth<br />
was at the time in charge of the Pennsylvania<br />
Du. M. E. WADSWORTH,<br />
Dean, University of Pittsburgh School of Mines.<br />
State College School of Mines. He was connected<br />
with Harvard University as instructor in<br />
mathematics, mineralogy and geology from 1873 to<br />
18S5, was president of Michigan College of Mines<br />
from 1887 to 1899, and became dean of the Pennsylvania<br />
State College School of Mines in 1901.<br />
Dr. Wadsworth was graduated from<br />
HISTORIC OLD BOWDOIN COLLEGE<br />
in the class of 1809 and has followed the profession<br />
of teaching since the age of 16 years. From<br />
1888 to 1893 he was State Geologist of Michigan.<br />
He is the author of almost 200 books and pamphlets<br />
on subjects related to geology, mining geol-
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
ogy and education. Notable among these are his<br />
work on "Crystalography," published since taking<br />
up his abode in Pittsburgh; "Lithological Studies,"<br />
"The Azoic System" (.in conjunction with J. D.<br />
Whitney), and "Geology of the Iron and Copper<br />
Districts of Lake Superior."<br />
At the annual commencement exercises of the<br />
University, held in the Soldiers' Memorial Hall,<br />
Pittsburgh, June 14, eighteen young men received<br />
their diplomas from the School of Mines. The<br />
list of graduates, with degrees conferred, follows:<br />
Degree of Mining Engineer—Robert Breckenridge<br />
Blackburn, Oakmont, Pa.; James Harrison<br />
Crea, Mars, Pa.; Edward Lewis Estabrook, Platteville,<br />
Wis.; Ira Harold Wynne, Glen Williard, Pa.;<br />
James Russell Fleming, West Alexandria, Pa.;<br />
Mitchell Freeman, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Morris M.<br />
Marcus, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Karl Irwin Mohler,<br />
Freedom, Pa.; Harry Phythyon, West Middlesex,<br />
Pa.; Upandra Nath Roy, Chittagong, India.<br />
Metallurgical Engineer—James Thompson Mc<br />
Leod, Wilkinsburg, Pa.; Floyd Rose, Pittsburgh,<br />
Pa.; Raymond Ge<strong>org</strong>e Yost, Pittsburgh, Pa.;<br />
Kasimir Martin Ziemba, Maerisch, Ostran, Austria.<br />
Bachelor of Science in Mining—William Howard<br />
Humphries, Latrobe, Pa.; Harry Earle Ross,<br />
Pittsburgh, Pa.; James Zachariah Zimmerman,<br />
Delmont, Pa.<br />
Bachelor of Science in Metallurgy—Charles<br />
Meade Peters, Hamilton, O.<br />
THE GROWTH OF THE SCHOOL<br />
during the past three years has been remarkable.<br />
The enrollment, including undergraduates,<br />
graduate and special students during the year<br />
ending this month was seventy-two. In the year<br />
1908, when Dr. Wadsworth assumed active charge,<br />
it was but eight. Previous to that time, covering<br />
a period of some 13 years, the School had a varied<br />
career. Due to lack of financial support and inferior<br />
equipment, little progress was attained in<br />
developing the courses, and the average attendance<br />
was only four men. Under Dr. Wadsworth's<br />
regime the average has been raised to fifty. A<br />
State appropriation of $150,000 in the year 1907<br />
enabled the University to erect a building for<br />
the School of Mines, and immediately the upward<br />
march commenced. The building was occupied<br />
in September, 1909. It is 84 by 59 feet with a<br />
wing 70 by 46 feet, each containing four floors.<br />
Thousands of dollars' worth of equipment was<br />
secured and has been added from time to time<br />
to the laboratories and mineral collections until<br />
to-day they are not excelled by any in the United<br />
States. The students also have access to the complete<br />
collections of the Carnegie Institute, which<br />
is located within two blocks of the new University<br />
campus. Experts connected with the<br />
Institute are co-operating with the faculty of the<br />
School of Mines, several of them being engaged<br />
as post graduate instructors and for research<br />
work.<br />
One of the important features of the School<br />
of Mines curriculum is<br />
THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM IN VOGUE.<br />
This is an original conception of Dean Wadsworth,<br />
who believes in developing the students<br />
along the lines of their greatest capabilities.<br />
When a student enters the School of Mines he<br />
is given a heart-to-heart talk by the dean. He<br />
is quizzed as to what subjects he preferred in<br />
his preparatory work; whether mathematics were<br />
difficult for him to master; whether he preferred<br />
to work intricate questions in algebra and geometry<br />
or found pleasure delving into the mysteries<br />
of the sciences. In this way Dr. Wadsworth is<br />
able to form a pretty fair idea of what the young<br />
student is "cut out for," to rely on the slang<br />
expression. His course of studies is then assigned,<br />
according to the judgment of the dean<br />
and his faculty members. After the first year,<br />
by carefully studying the individual members, the<br />
dean is still better qualified to judge their requirements,<br />
and the result is that when they are<br />
ready to specialize for their degree he is competent<br />
to give expert advice as to just what studies<br />
they should elect. As Dr. Wadsworth puts it:<br />
"The adoption of a suitably arranged elective<br />
system enables men to be graduated along the<br />
lines of their highest efficiency and thus prepares<br />
them for greater future usefulness. This also<br />
enables the School to graduate a larger proportion<br />
of its entering students than other schools do,<br />
without in any way lowering its standard, for<br />
an equal amount of work is demanded of all.<br />
The subjects studied, and not the amount of<br />
work, is varied.<br />
IN THIS DAY OF CONSERVATION<br />
of our resources, it would certainly seem that<br />
the retention and graduation of a larger proportion<br />
of young men entering technological schools<br />
than the customary 25, 50 and 75 per cent, are<br />
most praiseworthy objects."<br />
In the Echool of Mines, the Bachelor of Science<br />
degrees and Engineering degrees are available.<br />
These do not differ in the length of time, in the<br />
number of credits required or in the difficulty of<br />
the studies, but solely in the scope of these<br />
studies. For the Bachelor of Science degrees, the<br />
higher mathematics and mechanics are not required,<br />
but instead equally useful branches of<br />
relatively different kind; while the higher mathematics<br />
and other engineering branches are demanded<br />
for any engineering degree. It is not<br />
considered that there is any essential difference<br />
in the ease or difficulty of obtaining any of these<br />
degrees, beyond that introduced by the mental<br />
constitution of the student himself. The require-<br />
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 40)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
WEST VIRGINIA MINING INSTITUTE HOLDS INTERESTING SESSION<br />
AT WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS.<br />
The West Virginia Coal Mining Institute held<br />
its summer meeting at White Sulphur Springs<br />
on July 19 and 20 and the attendance was not<br />
only large, but included many of those present<br />
at the meeting of the Mine Inspectors Institute,<br />
which held its sessions at Charleston, W. Va.,<br />
June 14-18.<br />
After the preliminary opening exercises, President<br />
Frank Haas delivered his annual address, as<br />
follows:<br />
It is indeed a pleasure to nave the opportunity<br />
to greet this representative body of our institute<br />
at this, our fifth, biennial meeting.<br />
Our previous meetings have all been held at<br />
some one of our various mining coal fields' and I<br />
am glad to say that this is no longer considered as<br />
essential. Let it be known that the members oi<br />
our institute can and do appreciate other things in<br />
this life than simply coal mines, and this meeting<br />
will show that wits will work just as readily<br />
in the pure fresh air of the mountains as in the<br />
none too pure atmosphere of our mines. White<br />
Sulphur Springs is reputed as being the prettiest<br />
spot of its kind in West Virginia and I feel that<br />
we are under obligations to those members whose<br />
happy thought suggested this locality for a meeting<br />
place and to that committee which has so successfully<br />
managed it.<br />
Were one to chonicle the events of the past half<br />
year in the coal industry of West Virginia, he<br />
would put forth as the predominating feature the<br />
demoralized condition of the coal trade. The<br />
severity and continued period of this depression<br />
has been remarked by some of our older operators<br />
to lie the worst they have experienced. The causes<br />
of any of these commercial depressions are evidently<br />
so entangled in multitudinous conditions<br />
that our wisest economists have not yet been aide<br />
to dissect them.<br />
The present controversy in our National Congress<br />
over Canadian reciprocity can have but little<br />
effect, and that indirectly, on the West Virginia<br />
coal industry. One of our senators has offered<br />
an amendment to the Reciprocity bill, the effect<br />
of which will be to place Canadian soft coal on the<br />
free list whenever the President shall have sufficient<br />
evidence that the Canadian duty on American<br />
coal is removed. It would be an interesting<br />
subject indeed to investigate, free from all political<br />
features and localism, whether as a whole, this<br />
country would be benefited by free coal with Canada.<br />
True, some districts would be materially<br />
benefited while some others might suffer. It is<br />
stated that statistics show that American coal is<br />
imported into Canada largely in excess of Cana<br />
27<br />
dian toa'i imported into this country, the piopoition<br />
being aijout 17 to 3. We trust, whatever the<br />
legislation, that the most good will come to the<br />
greatest number of people.<br />
The recent decisions of the Supreme Court on<br />
the famous trust cases, particularly that of the<br />
Standard Oil Co. and others pending almost as important,<br />
seem to have had a reassuring effect on<br />
the laiger industrial interests of the country. We<br />
are told that business conducted with no unreasonable<br />
restraint of trade is legitimate, whatever they<br />
may mean. The iayman can be f<strong>org</strong>iven, however,<br />
it he does not understand a subject or decision<br />
about which our wisest counsel cannot agree. The<br />
country at large has faith in our courts and we<br />
trust that their action will relieve the apparent<br />
strain to which this matter has subjected the business<br />
inteiests of the country.<br />
A question of particular interest to West Virginia<br />
coal operators, is now in hearing before the<br />
Interstate Commerce Commission. This is the<br />
demand from the so-called Pittsburgh operatois<br />
lor a reduction of freight rates from the Pittsburgh<br />
district to the lakes. The point really at issue is<br />
a further differential against West Virginia coals.<br />
The argument is advanced that the cost of operation<br />
in the Pittsburgh region is greater than that<br />
of the West Virginia fields, that their coals cannot<br />
be sold in competitive regions at a profit for this<br />
reason. I believe that a careful analysis would<br />
reveal that their excess of cost is due, not to natural<br />
conditions, labor or materials, but to high<br />
fixed charges which they carry on their coal lands.<br />
The coal land speculators of the Pittsburgh field<br />
have boasted that the value of coal lands has<br />
risen from $50 an acre to as high as $3,000 per<br />
acre. Evidently someone is confused as to the<br />
relative definition as to value and price. Would<br />
it be unreasonable to suppose that such profit as<br />
the Pittsburgh operatois are justly entitled to<br />
has been long anticipated and discounted by the^e<br />
speculators in coal lands and has long since been<br />
carefully tucked away in their pockets? Should<br />
the Interstate Commerce Commission be. convinced<br />
that a readjustment of freight rates is reasonable<br />
or just, the fust indication of prosperity for Pittsburgh<br />
operatois will be the glad news that Pittsburgh<br />
coal lands have again increased in value.<br />
Coal dust is still in the lead of subjects of technical<br />
discussion not only in this country but in<br />
nearly all foreign countries in which coal mining<br />
is an important industry. Some time ago the<br />
question of permissible explosives was considered<br />
of greatest importance, but for some reason the interest<br />
in this has begun to lag. The theory then
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
was, that the most important feature in the pre<br />
vention of coal dust explosions was to prevent an<br />
initial explosion. I should be sorry, indeed, to<br />
learn that this is no longer considered as the most<br />
important feature. We, and I mean Americans,<br />
especially, have yet much to learn about permis<br />
sible explosives, and, among many others, I am<br />
not yet moved to the spirit of implicit faith in the<br />
permissible explosives now offered us commercially.<br />
The trend of endeavor now seems to be to prevent<br />
the propagation of an explosion if once started.<br />
Watering, once so universally urged, has apparently<br />
been temporarily abandoned and in its place<br />
stone dust is highly recommended. It must be<br />
borne in mind that most of these rapidly succeeding<br />
conclusions emanate mostly from foreign countries,<br />
and it is highly essential that we keep before<br />
us the relative conditions under which coal is<br />
mined in the various countries. For instance, in<br />
most Eurouean countries the main haulways are<br />
in rock tunnel while ours are in coal, and they do<br />
not have the loose end gate mine cars which are<br />
used almost exclusively in this country.<br />
Belgium still pins its faith to permissible explosives<br />
and allows no watering; Germany is extra<br />
vagant in its watering systems, while England and<br />
France tend toward the stone dust as a preventive<br />
of propagation. Where there is still such a lack<br />
of agreement as to the proper remedy I would advise<br />
you to keep your mines wet, when you have<br />
to shoot, shoot with care, and do not fail to practice<br />
eternal vigilance, the lack of which has caused<br />
more disasters than all others.<br />
It is gratifying to.note that our National Bureau<br />
of Mines is still working with the enthusiasm that<br />
characterized its beginning. It has had several<br />
opportunities within the past year to lend itself<br />
to practical rescue work. It is reported that the<br />
experimental mine at Bruceton will scon be ready<br />
for practical experiments. I do not hesitate to<br />
state that this method of taking an actual mine<br />
for experimental purposes will prove a great success,<br />
not only for verifying 7 some of the conclu<br />
sions which have been tentatively reached with less<br />
accurate methods', but also in the discovery of<br />
new things which nothing but the actual combinations<br />
of conditions as found in a coal mine can<br />
illustrate.<br />
Only a few days ago my attention was called to<br />
tbe fact that a mine explosion had occurred in a<br />
mine near Clarksburg, in which there was no open<br />
light and the shot which was set off, and coincident<br />
in time with the explosion, was discharged<br />
by battery from the outside and the powder used<br />
was one of the permissible type, passed by the<br />
Pittsburgh Testing Station. True, the mine contained<br />
fire damp, which was well known at the<br />
time, but every known precaution had been taken<br />
to avoid accident. One man evidently had faith<br />
and stood partially in front of the mine opening<br />
and was badly burned and had his face shot full<br />
of coal.<br />
Another incident not quite so recent has come to<br />
my notice, where a permissible powder set the<br />
mine on fire possibly in the presence of a small<br />
gas feeder.<br />
It is such cases as these that need special investigation,<br />
to find out just what the peculiar con<br />
ditions were which made them possible. In the<br />
first case mentioned the mine was small and no<br />
one was in it when the explosion occurred. In<br />
the latter case men were present and extinguished<br />
the flame before it had time to spread.<br />
West Virginia had but one dust explosion to<br />
record during the past year. The unfortunate<br />
accident at Ott mine, on April 24, which cost the<br />
lives of some 23 men, was caused, in the opinion of<br />
our chief mine inspector, by a shot fired in the<br />
solid and that the explosion was propagated<br />
through the mine by the presence of dry dust.<br />
Whether black powder or Monobel was used was<br />
not definitely determined, but Mr. Laing is of the<br />
opinion that it was black powder. The fact that<br />
a battery and wire led from this shot would<br />
indicate a rather unusual method of shot firing<br />
if black powder was used.<br />
The coal mining industry has lost through death,<br />
two great men during the last six months. Senator<br />
Stephen B. Elkins was one of the foremost<br />
men of West Virginia in the development of its<br />
coal fields. He has done much for West Virginia,<br />
and, at the time of his death, was engaged in the<br />
great national problems of the day in his capacity<br />
as United States Senator.<br />
Along other lines, but also with a world-wide<br />
reputation, Prof. N. W. Lord, professor of Mining<br />
and Metallurgy, at the Ohio State University, was<br />
suddenly stricken. Prof. Lord was probably the<br />
highest authority on coal and its applications, in<br />
this country. While Prof. Lord has carried on all<br />
his work in Ohio, yet West Virginia can share with<br />
the whole country in regret at the loss of such a<br />
useful worker.<br />
Papers were read as follows during the two days<br />
session:<br />
"Some Practical Methods of Detecting Mine<br />
Gases," Charles Connor, office and field assistant.<br />
Department of Mines, Charleston, W. Va.<br />
"Pillar Falls and the Economical Recovery of<br />
Pillar Coal in the Pittsburgh Seam." A. E. Rep-<br />
pert, mining engineer, Consolidation Coal Co.,<br />
Frostburg, Md.<br />
"Standard Panel System of Long-Wall Mining.<br />
Worked Advancing," C. E. Kress, mining engineer.<br />
Charleston, W. Va.<br />
"Mine Explosions from Natural Gas Wells," C.<br />
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 47)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
MINE INSPECTORS' INSTITUTE OF THE UNITED STATES HOLDS<br />
ANNUAL SESSION AT CHARLESTON, W. VA., JUNE 13-16.<br />
The Mine Inspectors' Institute of the United<br />
States held its annual convention at Charleston,<br />
W. Va., June 13-16, and it was attended by coal<br />
mine inspectors from all over the United States.<br />
Former Governor W. A. MacCorkle welcomed<br />
the delegates to the city and the response was<br />
made by President Ge<strong>org</strong>e Harrison, of Ohio, who<br />
said:<br />
Fellow Members:—Since our last gathering the<br />
usual number of lives have been sacrificed in the<br />
mines of this country, and, in consequence, the cus<br />
tomary number of wives, children and dependents<br />
have been called on to mourn the untimely end of<br />
their bread winners.<br />
A year ago we prided ourselves on the establishment<br />
of a Federal Bureau of Mines, and the enactment<br />
of more adequate mining laws in various<br />
mining states, and many of us were buoyant with<br />
hope that the fatalities in mines would be materially<br />
reduced in consequence of added safe-guards.<br />
The number of lives lost from gas and dust explosions<br />
and other causes classed as mine calamities,<br />
may not have been so great, but the number<br />
of individual fatalities seems to have more than<br />
kept pace with the ever increasing production of<br />
coal, and we are still confronted with the unsolved<br />
and important problem of how to accomplish the<br />
prime object which prompted the establishment of<br />
our Institute.<br />
A careful investigation of the causes leading to<br />
fatalities in the mines in Ohio, at least, gives positive<br />
proof that over SO per cent, of all fatalities<br />
are avoidable, and would not occur if employes and<br />
the management of mines were more obedient to<br />
the requirements of laws and more disposed to a<br />
strict performance of duty. Lack of discipline is,<br />
to a great extent, the secret of the high death rate<br />
in our mines, compared with that of older mining<br />
countries where greater responsibility is imposed<br />
on the management of mines, and where inside<br />
foremen have sufficient help to insure not less than<br />
two visits each day to every miner under his jurisdiction.<br />
These visits are not made at break-neck<br />
speed, as it were, on a flying velocipede or automobile,<br />
but time is taken to see that working<br />
places are properly timbered, and all dangerous'<br />
roof taken down or secured at the proper time,<br />
and miners not permitted to work under it. The<br />
order of the mine foreman or superintendent, in<br />
regard to the safety of working places and general<br />
security are as binding as statutory law, and quick<br />
punishment for violations always follows. There<br />
is no disposition to aid each other in dangerous<br />
violation of law and orders given by the management,<br />
and, in consequence, prompt prosecution of<br />
ouenders has a very beneucial effect in the way of<br />
lessening the number of fatalities.<br />
The Federal Rescue Stations have been recently<br />
<strong>org</strong>anized, and are doing a very commendable<br />
work in training mine inspectors and practical miners<br />
direct irom the mines, in the use of the helmets<br />
and in rescue and first aid work necessary in mine<br />
calamities. Four of our inspectors spent a week<br />
at the training station at Pittsburgh in February<br />
last. They were very courteously treated and assisted<br />
in every way by Mr. Paul, and all those in<br />
charge, and gained much information of great<br />
value regarding rescue and first aid work. We<br />
heartily recommend to mine inspectors, and those<br />
connected with the management of mines, to take<br />
advantage of the opportunities offered in this connection<br />
by the Federal Bureau of Mines.<br />
One of the objects of our Institute was to exercise<br />
our influence, in every reasonable way, to<br />
make the mining departments in various mining<br />
states, institutions of efficiency, relieving the inspectois<br />
of any political obligation that would embarrass<br />
them in the performance of their important<br />
duties in the enforcement of laws and protection of<br />
life and property in the mines. Judging from the<br />
many changes of mine inspectors that have recently<br />
taken place in a number of state mining departments,<br />
there has not been much progress made<br />
in eliminating politics. Ohio has endeavored to<br />
keep faith with the policy of the Institute in elim<br />
inating baneful political influence, and in securing<br />
the most efficient, practical men as inspectors at<br />
our command. The state mining department, the<br />
miners and mine operators of Ohio' 1 are all deeply<br />
indebted to Governor Harmon for his stern determination<br />
to make the mining department non-partisan,<br />
and his insistence that where so many lives<br />
are at stake, political influence must have no consideration<br />
in the ability and faithful performance<br />
of the duties of inspectors.<br />
For some time past the inspection force of our<br />
state has been composed of six Democrats and six<br />
Republicans, and we have the governor's assurance<br />
that, this policy will be maintained by him.<br />
I am prompted to call attention to the fact that<br />
we are not deriving the benefit that most of us expected,<br />
in an educational way; from our annual<br />
meetings. Much of our time is consumed in ways<br />
other than was intended, in discussions of important<br />
subjects pertaining to every-day occurrences,<br />
in mines, which unnecessarily fill our cemeteries<br />
and grave-yards with victims, and leave countless<br />
thousands of innocent women and children helpless<br />
and dependent upon others.<br />
It is true that many intelligent and well pre-
3D THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
pared papers on subjects ol first importance, are<br />
either hurriedly read to the Institute or submitted<br />
to the secretary without reading, and we have no<br />
opportunity even to read them until time, and another<br />
shower of annual subjects crowd them out<br />
of our memory; the greatest benefit to be derived<br />
from these papers read at our meetings, is the<br />
logical, practical discussion of their merits and dements;<br />
a frank, free but friendly criticism of their<br />
strong and weak points that will enable us to<br />
arrive at just, unbiased and intelligent conclusions<br />
that will not only benefit our own membership, but<br />
that we can support and maintain against all illogical<br />
opposition.<br />
In conclusion I desire to say to the practical<br />
mine inspectors, especially those who are still on<br />
the sunny side of life, "Don't think you know it<br />
all—don't get it into your heads that the other fellow<br />
knows nothing—learn all you can about mining<br />
matters either from the Federal Bureau of<br />
.Mines or any of its branches—from contact with<br />
technical and scientific men or in any other honorable<br />
way you can, but let me implore you. remember,<br />
that with you, and witli those connected with<br />
the management of mines under your jurisdiction<br />
and the judicial but rigid manner in which you<br />
enforce the law, depends the lives and health of<br />
those underground. Eternal vigilance and faithful<br />
perfoimance of duty is the only way to insure<br />
success."<br />
President Harrison was followed by John Laing,<br />
chief of the mine department of West Virginia,<br />
who welcomed the inspectors in behalf of the<br />
mine department of the mountain state.<br />
The morning session of the meeting was entirely<br />
taken up in transacting business, and the<br />
registration of members, of whom there are nearly<br />
one hundred present from all parts of the<br />
Union.<br />
Following the business session an elaborate<br />
banquet was held in the large banquet hall of<br />
the Ruffner Hotel. Those called upon to respond<br />
to a toast were:<br />
Dr. J. J. Rutledge, of the Federal Bureau<br />
of Mines, and who is in charge of one of the<br />
government rescue cars, who spoke briefly on the<br />
work his department is doing. He was followed<br />
by J. B. McDermott, Chief Mine Inspector of the<br />
Mining Department of Montana, his subject being<br />
"The Compensation for Injuries in Coal<br />
Mines."<br />
D. J. Roderick next responded to the subject<br />
of "The Work of the Mining Department of Pennsylvania."<br />
He spoke of different works the mine<br />
department of his state was doing. Mr. Roderick<br />
was followed by W. E. Glasscock, Governor of<br />
West Virginia, who welcomed the visitors.<br />
Mr. Thomas Moses, of Illinois, responded to<br />
"The Difference Between a Mine Inspector and a<br />
Mine Manager," which subject was very ably<br />
handled by him, he being at one time a mine inspector<br />
and being promoted to superintendent.<br />
Ex-Governor W. M. O. Dawson, of West Virginia,<br />
discussed mine inspection work.<br />
J. W. Paull responded to the toast "The Hills<br />
of West Virginia." Mr. Paull, who was former<br />
Chief Mine Inspector of the state, spoke on the<br />
varied work of this department, and how the department<br />
came to be created.<br />
The second day's session was taken up with<br />
routine business and the discussion of the practical<br />
phases of the mining industry.<br />
The secretary and treasurer delivered their reports,<br />
which were taken up and discussed. Following<br />
this was acceptance of new members and<br />
the reports of other committees, which occupied<br />
the whole morning.<br />
In the afternoon a paper on "Lessons to be<br />
Leai ned from Recent Mine Disasters," was ably<br />
delivered by John Verner, of Iowa. The reading<br />
was followed by a general discussion upon this<br />
subject. Following this Mr. James Epperson, of<br />
Indiana, delivered a paper on "Stemming of Shot<br />
Holes."<br />
James Taylor, of Illinois, delivered a paper on<br />
"Acetylene Lamps as Used in Coal Mines," followed<br />
by William Clifford, of Pennsylvania, with<br />
a paper on "The Miner's Safety Lamp," Dr. Joseph<br />
A. Holmes, of Washington, D. C, winding<br />
up with an address on "The Federal Bureau of<br />
Mines."<br />
At the third day's sessions Clarence Hall, explosives<br />
expert with the Bureau of Mines, read<br />
a paper on "Nature and Characteristic Components<br />
of Permissible Explosives," and J. W. Allen,<br />
of Tennessee, one on "Uniform Mine Statistics."<br />
This was followed by the election of the following<br />
officers:<br />
President, John Laing, of W. Va.; first vice<br />
president, Jas. Taylor, of Illinois; second vice<br />
president, D. C. Botting, of Washington; third<br />
vice president, J. M. McDermott, of Montana;<br />
secretary, J. W. Paul, of W. Va.; treasurer, Thomas<br />
Morrison, of Ohio; assistant secretary, William<br />
Cunningham, of Pennsylvania.<br />
After a warm contest Columbus, O., was chosen<br />
as the next convention city.<br />
The final day was devoted to trips through West<br />
Virginia coal fields.<br />
The visitors registered were:<br />
Illinois—Thos. Hudson, James Taylor, W. I.<br />
Watts, John Dunlop.<br />
Pennsylvania—J. J. Rutledge, A. McCanch, D.<br />
J. Roderick, John J. Pratt, J. D. Beard, Clarence<br />
Hall, W. Clifford, Thos. H. Price, P. J. Moore,<br />
David Young, Alex. Monteith and John F. Bell.<br />
Ohio—Thos. Morrison, Geo. Harrison, L. D.<br />
Devere, Edward Kennedy, W. H. Miller, John<br />
Burke, Isaac Hill, John L. McDonald, Robert S.
Wheatley, Alex. Smith, James Hennessey, Abel<br />
Elwood, Lot Jenkins, John Laing.<br />
West Virginia—Chas. Connor, Karl F. Schoew,<br />
F. E. Parsons, L. D. Vaughn, E. A. Henry, B. H.<br />
Hill, James Martin, R. Y. Muir, Arthur Mitchel,<br />
L. B. Holliday, Wm. Nicholson, P. A. Grady, A. J.<br />
King, J. W. Paul.<br />
Montana—J. 'B. McDermott.<br />
Alabama—C. H. Nesbit, Edward Flynn, Robert<br />
Neill, James Hillhouse.<br />
Indiana—M. Scollard, James Epperson.<br />
Oklahoma—Frank Haley, Martin Clark, Pete<br />
Hanraty.<br />
Idaho—F. C. Moore.<br />
Iowa—John E. Jeffreys, John Verner, R. T.<br />
Rhys.<br />
Wyoming—Joseph Bird, J. E. Stout.<br />
Washington—D. C. Botting.<br />
Washington, D. C.—Dr. J. A. Holmes.<br />
Michigan—Andrew Stevenson.<br />
Kentucky—C. J. Norwood.<br />
Minnesota—W. H. Harvey.<br />
New Mexico—Jos. E. Sheridan.<br />
Missouri—Chas. B. Spicer.<br />
CHIEF RODERICK RE-APPOINTED BY GOVER<br />
NOR JOHN K. TENER OF PENNSYLVANIA.<br />
Mr. James E. Roderick, of Hazleton, Luzerne<br />
county, was reappointed chief of the Department<br />
of Mines of Pennsylvania for his fourth term on<br />
June 24 by Gov. J. K. Tener.<br />
Mr. Roderick has been at the head of the department<br />
since 1899, when he was appointed by<br />
Governor William A. Stone. He was subsequently<br />
reappointed by Governors Samuel W. Pennypacker<br />
and Edwin S. Stuart.<br />
Earlier in the year announcement was spread<br />
broadcast that Mr. Roderick would not succeed<br />
himself, but the official promulgation of his appointment<br />
by the Governor sets at rest any doubt<br />
in the matter.<br />
RATE HEARING POSTPONED<br />
UNTIL NEXT SEPTEMBER.<br />
The Pittsburgh lake coal freight rate case, before<br />
the Interstate Commerce Commission, in<br />
which the Pittsburgh Coal Co. joined, will not be<br />
heard again until September.<br />
At the last hearing the case was adjourned until<br />
June 21, but it has been decided to further<br />
postpone until after the recess of the committee.<br />
The exact date will be announced later.<br />
The Erie railroad has equipped one of its passenger<br />
engines with a smoke-consuming device,<br />
and the tests made so far indicate that it may<br />
prove of value in preventing smoke and saving<br />
coal.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
NATIONAL FIRST-AID MEET TO BE HELD<br />
UNDER AUSPICES OF FEDERAL BUREAU<br />
OF MINES AT PITTSBURGH.<br />
In line with its efforts to reduce the number of<br />
deaths in the coal mines of the United States,<br />
the Bureau of Mines will hold a National First-<br />
Aid-to-the-Injured field meet, on Saturday, September<br />
16, in Arsenal Park, Pittsburgh. President<br />
Wm. H. Taft, Secretary of the Interior<br />
Walter L. Fisher, and Dr. Joseph A. Holmes,<br />
director of the Bureau of Mines, will attend and<br />
speak to the miners.<br />
The Bureau of Mines will have the co-operation<br />
of the Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association<br />
and the American Red Cross. It is expected that<br />
between 20,000 and 30,000 miners will attend and<br />
that many of the important coal companies will<br />
send tlieir trained first aid and rescue corps to<br />
lake part in the exhibition. Already a number of<br />
teams have entered and are in training for the<br />
event, which promises to be the most important<br />
gathering of miners ever assembled.<br />
The arrangements for this first national field<br />
meet are in the hands of H. M. Wilson, engineer<br />
in charge of the Bureau of .Mines, Pittsburgh;<br />
Major Charles Lynch, Medical Corps, U. S. A., in<br />
charge of the First Aid department of the Red<br />
Cross, and Dr. M. J. Shields, of Scranton, Pa.,<br />
both of whom are pioneers in this movement, are<br />
assisting. The first-aid-to-the-injured work will<br />
be the feature of the entire day. The teams from<br />
the various coal mines will not contest but will<br />
give exhibitions of their skill in bringing injured<br />
miners from the mines and binding the wounds<br />
and fractures. Many of these teams have been<br />
instructed in first aid by the surgeons of the<br />
American Red Cross and also by the Rescue<br />
corps of the Bureau of Mines.<br />
In addition to the exhibitions by the first aid<br />
teams, the miners will witness gas and coal-dust<br />
explosions in miniature, which will be staged in<br />
the great explosives gallery of the Bureau of<br />
Mines. In Arsenal Park there will also be a<br />
temporary gallery which will resemble a coal<br />
mine. This will be placed at the bottom of a<br />
natural amphitheater, giving a clear view to<br />
thousands of persons. There will be a gas explosion<br />
in this play mine; miners will be entombed,<br />
and one of the government rescue corps<br />
in oxygen helmets will enter and save the men.<br />
One side of the miniature mine will be open its<br />
entire length, in order that the onlookers may<br />
witness everything that happens in an underground<br />
horror except the loss of life. The famous<br />
oxygen helmets that members of the Rescue corps<br />
of the Bureau wear, and which have been instrumental<br />
in saving a number of lives, will be on<br />
exhibition and explained to the miners. The<br />
oxygen reviving apparatus, which automatically
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
takes the poisonous gases from the lungs of an<br />
asphyxiated miner and fills them with oxygen,<br />
will also be demonstrated. This apparatus has<br />
already brought back to consciousness a number<br />
of miners given up as dead.<br />
The following letter has been and is being sent<br />
to coal operators throughout the country:<br />
Dear Sir:—Arrangements are being perfected<br />
for the First Annual National First Aid Field<br />
Meet, to be held in Arsenal Park, Pittsburgh, probably<br />
September 16. This will be conducted under<br />
the auspices of the Bureau of Mines and the Pitts<br />
burgh Coal Operators' Association, wilh the cooperation<br />
of the American Red Cross. There will<br />
be souvenir programs, souvenir buttons, a military<br />
band, public speakers, etc.<br />
On behalf of the Bureau of Mines I wish to extend<br />
to your company an invitation to enter first<br />
aid teams in this meet. It is believed that you<br />
may feel more inclined to do this as it will not be<br />
a competition but merely an exhibition of skill.<br />
If this bureau can do anything in the way of<br />
giving instruction in first aid at the Pittsburgh<br />
Station, or from one of the rescue cars, or through<br />
the good offices of the first aid department of the<br />
American Red Cross or the Young Men's Christian<br />
Association, please advise me.<br />
I would appreciate early advice from you as to<br />
the number of teams you will enter.<br />
Sincerely,<br />
J. A. HOLMES, Director.<br />
The rules adopted for the contest are:<br />
1. Non-competitive exhibition of skill in first<br />
aid to the injured in mines, to be held in Arsenal<br />
Park, between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth streets<br />
and Butler street and Penn avenue, Pittsburgh,<br />
September 16, 1911, 1:30 to 5:30 P. M.<br />
2. Not more than one team of five men to represent<br />
any one coal mine, or the U. S. Bureau<br />
of Mines, or state mine deiiartments, provided<br />
that coal mining companies operating more than<br />
one mine may enter additional teams representative<br />
of groups of miners, helpers, trapper boys,<br />
or other mine workers.<br />
3. All persons entering to submit certificates<br />
showing that they are, or have been, bona-fide<br />
mine workers.<br />
4. All entries to close one month prior to<br />
date finally selected for the meet.<br />
5. Coal companies entering teams to be invited<br />
to present, not later than one month in<br />
advance of meet, a list of live events as their<br />
choice, these to be submitted to the managers,<br />
who will select five for adoption from the various<br />
events suggested, each entering team to<br />
exhibit in those events suggested by them and<br />
such others of the five as they may elect. All<br />
teams to exhibit in unison.<br />
6. Should any unusual or valuable events be<br />
suggested, the managers may increase the program<br />
by one or two such special stunts.<br />
7. In addition to the five first aid events there<br />
will be a representation of a coal dust explosion,<br />
with rescue by helmet men and first aid treat<br />
ment.<br />
8. Exhibition of skill in adjusting and use of<br />
rescue apparatus by teams of four with a cap<br />
tain; entries to be as above for first aid teams.<br />
PLANS FOR REDISTRICTING STATE OF<br />
PENNSYLVANIA ARE BEING MADE.<br />
Plans for redisricting the bituminous coal regions<br />
of Pennsylvania for the purpose of creating<br />
four new districts are being studied at the State<br />
Department of Mines and will probably be submitted<br />
to Gov. John K. Tener for approval within<br />
a short time. James E. Roderick, chief of the<br />
department of mines, was in Pittsburgh and the<br />
mining towns in its vicinity recently making<br />
some observations regarding the possible lines of<br />
districts and has carried on a detailed investigation<br />
into the subject.<br />
The soft coal region has 21 inspection districts<br />
at present. Four new districts were directed by<br />
the Legislature to be created according to the<br />
needs, ln the anthracite region one new district<br />
has been created, making 21 in all.<br />
UNITED COAL COMPANY PURCHASES CON<br />
TROL OF MERCHANTS COAL COMPANY<br />
The United Coal Co. of Pittsburgh, one of the<br />
large coal companies in Pennsylvania, has purchased<br />
75 per cent, of the capital stock of the Merchants<br />
Coal Co. The United Coal Co. now owns<br />
and controls through its stock-ownership in the<br />
Merchants Coal Co. 10 mines in full operation, and<br />
one field shortly to be developed, the mines being<br />
located in the Pittsburgh district and the Johns<br />
town basin, Pennsylvania, and in Preston county,<br />
West Virginia. The properties of the United Coal<br />
Co. have been appraised recently at over $19,000,ooo.<br />
In connection with the announcement of the purchase,<br />
J. S. & W. S. Kuhn, Inc., investment bank<br />
ers, are offering $750,000 6 per cent, notes of the<br />
United Coal Co. which have been issued to reimburse<br />
that company in part for the purchase of<br />
control of the Merchants Coal Co.<br />
The operations of the various sinking funds will<br />
retire the bonds before one-half of the coal in the<br />
one seam, which is now being worked, is exhausted.<br />
The surplus of the United Coal Co. for the past<br />
nine years, amounting to over $1,100,000, has been<br />
expended in permanent improvements to its properties.
LABOR LEADERS MAKE STATEMENTS THAT<br />
SHOULD BE TAKEN TO HEART BY THE<br />
TRADES UNIONISTS EVERYWHERE.<br />
Grand Chief Warren L. Stone, of the Brotherhood<br />
of Locomotive Engineers addressed the<br />
quarterly meeting of the members of his <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
employed on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad,<br />
at Connellsville, Pa., during the fortnight<br />
and made some statements that should be taken<br />
to heart by trades unionists everywhere. Among<br />
the things he said were:<br />
"I am fighting for four things, and if I can<br />
achieve them I will be looked on as the greatest<br />
labor leader in the world. I don't know whether<br />
any man can attain the ideals I seek, but I am<br />
going to try, no matter how long it takes.<br />
"I believe every member of this order should<br />
save his money, pay his honest debts, leave drink<br />
alone and be a brotherhood man in all the name<br />
implies. I am the only labor leader in the world<br />
who insists that his union fire the man who will<br />
not meet his honest obligations.<br />
"A railroad has every right to restrict the use<br />
of liquor among its employes whether on or off<br />
duty It has the right to know what you are<br />
doing when you are off duty. It has the right to<br />
know on whom it can rely in case of emergency.<br />
The poorest kind of courage an engineer can take<br />
before going out on a hard run is two drinks of<br />
bad whiskey.<br />
"They call us aristocrats. Well, if believing<br />
men should be honest, sober, thrifty and fraternal<br />
is 'aristocratic,' I am proud to be called that.<br />
We stand for high principles and believe that<br />
only by elevating the individual member can the<br />
order be elevated. Save your money, pay your<br />
honest debts, leave booze alone and treat every<br />
fellow member as a brother before he gets killed.<br />
Don't wait until he dies and then draw up resolutions<br />
and send flowers. He probably longed for<br />
a cheery word and a hand shake when he was<br />
alive."<br />
John Lochrie, of Windber, Pa., has closed a<br />
deal with Dr. J. W. Clark, of Windber; C. J.<br />
Clark, of Baltimore, and S. J. Sawyer, of Glen<br />
Campbell for the lease of 2,300 acres of virgin<br />
coal lands at Bear Run, Indiana county. Mr.<br />
Lochrie says he will begin operations on the tract<br />
on this date. Mr. Lochrie has the option of<br />
purchasing the land. The coal will be shipped<br />
over a spur to be built on the Punxsutawney line<br />
about seven miles from McGee's Mills.<br />
The Consolidation Coal Co. will erect forty-six<br />
dwelling houses at its Acosta and Belmont operations<br />
in the Jenner District in Pennsylvania, a<br />
contract having just been let to the Somerset<br />
Lumber Co. Thirty-five of the houses will be<br />
double dwellings and the balance single houses.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
# RETAIL TRADE NOTES MM<br />
The annual convention of the Ohio-Michigan-<br />
Indiana Coal Association was held at Detroit,<br />
Mich., during the fortnight, with over 900 delegates<br />
present. The reports of the president and<br />
secretary showed the association to be in splendid<br />
condition, the membership being 1,388, and the<br />
receipts $7,430.42, expenditures $7,052.94, balance<br />
in treasury, $377.48. The officers elected were:<br />
President, Robert Lake, Jackson, Mich.; vice president,<br />
H. H. Deam, Bluffton, Ind.; treasurer, W.<br />
A. Gipson, Upper Sandusky, Ohio; board of directors,<br />
H. A. Bauknecht, Muskegon, Mich.; W. F.<br />
Voegele, Mansfield, Ohio; I to fill vacancy) E. II.<br />
Herr, Dayton, Ohio, and R. M. Johnson, South<br />
Bend, Ind.<br />
The following officers were elected by the Pennsylvania<br />
Retail Coal Dealers Association at a<br />
meeting in Philadelphia during the fortnight:<br />
President, Howard W. White, of Philadelphia;<br />
vice president, Joseph H. Palmer, of Wallingford;<br />
treasurer, C. Frank Williamson, of Media; secretary,<br />
Wellington M. Bertolet, of Reading; directors,<br />
J. Arthur Strunk of Reading; H. S. Kelly, of<br />
Harrisburg; J. S. Tattersall, of Trenton; Samuel<br />
Hayes, of York, and W. J. Swan, of Lancaster.<br />
The Canadian Retail Coal Dealers Association<br />
has elected these officers: President, J. M. Peregrine,<br />
Hamilton; vice president, J. K. McLaughlan,<br />
Owen Sound; secretary-treasurer, R. J. Webster,<br />
London; directors, J. C. Hay, Listowel; J. M.<br />
Daly, London; B. Blair, Woodstock; E. Brown,<br />
Port Hope, F. Mann, Brantford, D. B. Jacques.<br />
Toronto, and W. Heaman, London.<br />
The coal teamsters and handlers of Holyoke,<br />
Mass., have reached an agreement with their employers,<br />
and the threatened strike was thereby<br />
averted. Upon being granted an increase of $1<br />
a week in wages, the men withdrew their other<br />
demands.<br />
The Northwestern Retail Coal Dealers Associa<br />
tion will hold its annual convention in Minneapolis,<br />
Minn., Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, July<br />
10, 11 and 12, 1911, at the same time the National<br />
Order Kokoal will hold its convention.<br />
The coal teamsters and handlers of Holyoke,<br />
Mass., have asked for an increase in wages of $1<br />
a week and a shortening of the working day from<br />
10 hours to nine. They threaten to strike unless<br />
these terms are granted.<br />
The New York State and Western Pennsylvania<br />
Retail Coal Merchants' Association, which was <strong>org</strong>anized<br />
some time ago by the merger of two district<br />
associations, filed articles of incorporation at<br />
Albany, N. Y., recently.
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
<strong>•</strong> ) INDUSTRIAL NOTES <strong>•</strong><br />
The Ohio Brass Co., Mansfield, 0., has just<br />
promulgated its new Valve and Steam Specialty<br />
catalogue "K" to the trade. The following are<br />
listed: Hot Air and Steam Radiator Valves,<br />
Union Elbows, Globe, Angle and Check Valves,<br />
Lock and Shield Globe and Angle Valves, Gate<br />
Valves, Standard Gauge Cocks, Water Gauges and<br />
Pressure Regulating Valves. The Ohio Gauge<br />
Cock is intended for a working pressure of 200<br />
pounds and less. The design is such that any<br />
ordinary leak developed in service may be quickly<br />
ground out while pressure is on by manipulation<br />
of an adjusting screw with a screw driver from<br />
without. The Ohio Water Gauge is of the quick<br />
operating type, opening and closing with a quarter<br />
turn of the levers. All are guaranteed for a<br />
working pressure of 200 pounds and are tested<br />
under a cold water pressure of 400 pounds before<br />
leaving the factory. These gauges can be<br />
supplied with the Ohio Ball Bearing Gland<br />
Safety feature, if desired. By means of this<br />
simple device, it is possible to screw down the<br />
packing nut of water gauge fitting tight enough<br />
on the rubber gasket to make a perfect joint<br />
without danger of breaking the gauge glass.<br />
The Ohio Pressure Regulating Valve is a connection<br />
which automatically delivers steam or air<br />
at any desired uniform pressure. It not only<br />
reduces the pressure but regulates it, maintaining<br />
a constant pressure on the service side, even<br />
though the initial pressure from the boiler or<br />
the demand for steam on the service side may<br />
vary.<br />
Henry R. Worthington, 115 Broadway, New York<br />
City, has sent to the trade pamphlets W-185 illustrative<br />
and descriptive of the Worthington Cen<br />
tralized House and Sump Pumps, and W-176-A of<br />
the Worthington Type D. Centrifugal Pumps for<br />
Low Head Service. Both these pamphlets are complete<br />
in every way giving complete views and sectional<br />
views of the pumps together with instructions<br />
for installation and operation.<br />
G. L. Simonds & Co., Chicago, are submitting<br />
to the trade a neat booklet entitled, "Economical<br />
Steam Production." "Economical Steam Production"<br />
is the only work of its kind published and<br />
is a scientific and practical treatise on soot and<br />
the modern methods of its removal from steam<br />
boilers. Copies may be obtained by addressing<br />
the firm.<br />
No. 66B deals with Sullivan Rock Drill Mountings<br />
and Accessories and No. 66C describes Sullivan<br />
Stoping Drills and Hand Feed Hammer<br />
Drills, for mining and construction work.<br />
The Schuylkill county, Pa., court has appointed<br />
the following boards to examine for miners' certificates:<br />
Sixth District: W. F. Shutz, and Thos.<br />
Flanagan, of Shenandoah; Simon Combe, Wm.<br />
Davidson, W. H. Paul and Dennis Whalen, of Mahanoy<br />
City; Edward J. Burke, of New Mahanoy,<br />
and David Williams, of Wm. Penn, and Daniel<br />
Neiswender, of E. Union township. Seventh District:<br />
Thomas Burnham, Henry Krapp and Edward<br />
Lowry, of Ashland; Dennis Reardon, of<br />
Shamokin: A. Donaldson, of Girardville; James<br />
Penman and John Dropkesie, of Mt. Carmel;<br />
Richard Howell, of Wisconisco. Eighth District:<br />
Harry Goodman, Tower City; J. F. Cannon.<br />
Mai yd; Henry W. Miehleib, Cumbola; John Dando,<br />
Minersville; James Kennedy, Newton; James<br />
Dally, Coal Dale; John Hoke, Pottsville; William<br />
H. Long, and Lewis W. Kopp, of Tremont.<br />
At the annual convention of Alabama District<br />
No. 20, United Mine Workers of America, held in<br />
Birmingham recently, the old officers were reelected,<br />
as follows: J. R. Kennimer, president;<br />
J. L. Clemo, secretary; William Harrison, Coal<br />
City, Alabama member of the national executive<br />
board. It is announced that the <strong>org</strong>anization will<br />
be maintained in Alabama.<br />
A committee of the United Mine Workers of<br />
America, which has been considering a proposition<br />
to remove the national headquarters to Columbus,<br />
has decided to make an adverse report<br />
and to recommend that the <strong>org</strong>anization erect an<br />
office building of its own at Indianapolis.<br />
Following the appointment of John Zalenki to<br />
the vice presidency of the United Mine Workers of<br />
the Ohio or No. 6 district, C. J. Albasin, vice president<br />
of sub-district No. 5, has succeeded to the<br />
presidency, vice Zalenki, and William Roy has been<br />
made sub-district vice president.<br />
The strike in the Indiana bituminous mines has<br />
been referred to a sub-committee of three operators<br />
and three miners for settlement.<br />
The Monon Coal Co., which recently purchased<br />
the old Walsh holdings from the Alliance Coal Co.,<br />
has elected Harry N. Taylor, of Chicago, head of<br />
The Sullivan Machinery Co., Chicago, 111., has the Illinois Coal Operators' Association, as presi<br />
just published three new bulletins describing their dent; A. M. Ogle, Jr., vice president and manager,<br />
specialties. No. 66A includes advance pages of and the following board of directors: Harry N.<br />
Sullivan Rock Drills with description and dimen Taylor, A. M. Ogle, Jr., Fairfax Harrison, James<br />
sions of differential and tappet valve machines. Imbrie and Frederick W. Stevens.
COST FIGURES FOR TRANSPORTING COAL<br />
ARE FURNISHED THE INTERSTATE COM<br />
MERCE COMMISSION.<br />
Frank Lyon, the attorney for the Interstate<br />
Commerce Commission, has submitted, in what<br />
are generally termed the West Virginia coal<br />
cases now pending before the Interstate Commerce<br />
Commission, very elaborate tabulated statements<br />
of cost figures of moving coal from the<br />
West Virginia coal fields to Lake Erie ports, from<br />
which it appears generally that the assignable or<br />
train service cost of moving coal one way is<br />
about one-half of a mill per ton per mile; that<br />
the total cost, assignable and unassignable, is<br />
about one and two-tenths mills. If all cars return<br />
empty these figures have to be doubled. In<br />
other words, the estimate of the assignable or<br />
train service cost northbound loaded, southbound<br />
all cars empty, figures about a mill, and the total<br />
cost about two mills. These general figures are<br />
gathered from the cost of the Pittsburgh & Lake<br />
Erie, Pennsylvania Company, Lake Shore & Michigan<br />
Southern, Norfolk & Western, Chesapeake<br />
& Ohio, Kanawha & Michigan, Hocking Valley and<br />
Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton. On some of these<br />
lines the cost is less and on others greater. The<br />
complete figures are set forth in the table below.<br />
The statement also set forth in detail the cost<br />
and revenue via the different lines, it being borne<br />
in mind that the cost includes all overhead<br />
charges. Some of the lines appear not to earn<br />
sufficient to pay more than the expenses of operation,<br />
while the ratio of cost to revenue via<br />
the Norfolk & Western and the Pennsylvania being<br />
the haul from the Pocahontas field to Sandusky<br />
docks, is about 71 per cent. This means<br />
that out of every dollar taken in for hauling lake<br />
coal it costs 71 cents to perform the service and<br />
29 cents available for fixed charges and dividends.<br />
COST OF MOVING COAL FROM MINES TO THE LAKES.<br />
Per Ton (cents).<br />
Loaded Loaded<br />
West Virginia movement & empty Present<br />
District— only movement, rate.<br />
N. & W. and Pa. Co 4S.882 80.588 112.00<br />
K. & M. and H. V 4S.370 78.047 97.00<br />
C. & O. and C. H. & D. . . .57.862 96.391 97.00<br />
B. & O 40.330 60.266 96.75<br />
Pittsburgh District—<br />
P. & L. E. and L. S. & M. S..29.532<br />
Pa. Co. (to harbor) 28.000<br />
Pa. Co. (to Bedford) 27.100<br />
B. & 0 31.340<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
88.00<br />
88.00<br />
88.00<br />
88.00<br />
Includes 6c per ton for assembling at mines,<br />
and 6c for switching and distribution at dock.<br />
AVERAGE COST OF MOVING COAL FROM .Ml.NFS TO THE<br />
LAKES.<br />
Per ton mile I mills ).<br />
Assignable cost. Total cost.<br />
Loaded Loaded<br />
West Virginia Loaded and Loaded and<br />
District— only, empty, only, empty.<br />
N. & W 438 .SIS .799 1.492<br />
Pa. Co 603 1.095 1.335 2.424<br />
K. & M 701 1.250 1.320 2.370<br />
H. V 524 .960 1.081 1.980<br />
C. & 0 45S .868 .808 1.703<br />
C. H. & D 584 1.019 1.341 2.340<br />
B. & 0 589 1.000 1.202 2.040<br />
Pittsburgh District—<br />
P. & L. E 413 1.242<br />
L. S. & M. S 476 1.181<br />
Pa. Co. (to harbor). .688 1.523<br />
Pa. Co. (to Bedford) .578 1.279<br />
B. & 0 695 1.418<br />
Where no figures appear for empty movement<br />
it is because that movement was not greater than<br />
average of country-<br />
LAKE COMMERCE DURING MAY.<br />
Lake commerce during the month of May as<br />
indicated by the volume of shipments between<br />
American ports on the Great Lakes shows a considerable<br />
reduction as compared with the commerce<br />
for May, 1910.<br />
The domestic shipments of coal during the<br />
month, including the quantities of bunker coal<br />
supplied to vessels in the domestic trade, aggregated<br />
2,652,S3S short tons, of which 424,959 short<br />
tons represent hard coal shipments, 2,040,117 short<br />
tons shipments of soft coal and 187,762 short tons<br />
bunker coal supplied to vessels in the domestic<br />
trade. As compared with May, 1910, figures, there<br />
was a slight gain in the shipment of soft coal, while<br />
the shipments of anthracite declined almost 100,-<br />
000 tons. Over 90 per cent, of the hard coal and<br />
even a larger per cent, of the soft coal proceeded<br />
from Lake Erie ports, Toledo, and Ashtabula<br />
claiming over one-half of the total soft coal shipments<br />
for the month. Of the soft coal received<br />
during the month, 1,909,231 short tons, almost<br />
60 per cent., was landed at Lake Superior ports;<br />
receipts at Lake Michigan ports totaled 718,620<br />
short tons, while over 70,000 short tons were landed<br />
at Lake Huron ports.<br />
The vessel movement during the month as<br />
gauged by the number of vessel departures, 8,580,<br />
was slightly larger than the year before, when<br />
8,506 departures were reported. The lighter traffic<br />
for the month is shown by the smaller vessel<br />
tonnage reported, 11,474,607 net tons register, as<br />
against 13,429,098 net tons register for May, 1910.
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
COKE PRODUCTION BROKE RECORD IN TON<br />
NAGE BUT VALUE WAS LESS THAN 1907.<br />
The year 1910 was a record-breaker in coke<br />
manufacture, with an output of 41,681,410 short<br />
tons, an increase of 2,366,345 short tons over the<br />
1909 figures, and even exceeding by 901,846 short<br />
tons the banner year of 1907, although the value<br />
of the 1910 product was $11,842,859 less than that<br />
of 1907. The following figures compiled by Edward<br />
W. Parker, the coal statistician of the Unit<br />
ed States Geological Survey, show the production<br />
and prices of coke manufactured in the Unit<br />
ed States during the last four years:<br />
Coke pro- Average<br />
duced price<br />
(short tons). Value. per ton.<br />
1907 40,779,564 $111,539,126 $2.74<br />
1908 26,033,518 62,483,983 2.40<br />
1909 39,315,065 89,965,483 2.29<br />
1910 41,681,410 99,696,267 2.39<br />
Coal con- Average<br />
sumed price<br />
(short tons). Value. per ton.<br />
1907 61,946,109 $72,784,851 $1.18<br />
1908 39,440,837 45,222,474 1.15<br />
1909 59,354,937 62,203,382 1.05<br />
1910 63,045,795 74,808,114 1.19<br />
It will be observed that in the production of<br />
coke in 1910 there was a larger relative increase<br />
in value than in quantity, and that the average<br />
price per ton advanced from $2.29 in 1909 to $2.39<br />
in 1910, from which it might appear that the<br />
state of the coke industry in 1910 was highly satisfactory.<br />
Such, however, was not the case, for<br />
whereas the value of the product of 1910 exceed<br />
ed that of 1909 by $9,730,784, this increase was<br />
more than offset by the higher value of the coal<br />
charged into the ovens. The quantity of coal<br />
used in the manufacture of coke in 1909 was 59,-<br />
354,937 short tons, valued at $62,203,382; in 1910<br />
the quantity of coal used was 63,045,795 short<br />
tons, valued at $74,808,114. The increase in the<br />
value of the coal used in 1910 over 1909 was $12,-<br />
604,732, or $2,873,948 more than the increase in<br />
the value of the coke.<br />
To many readers the term "coke" implies a byproduct<br />
of city gas plants which is used for summer<br />
cooking in the kitchen range. Such coke is,<br />
however, of slight commercial importance, the<br />
above figures representing the industrial coke production<br />
of the country. Coke is an important and<br />
necessary factor in the metallurgical world, being<br />
the principal fuel used in the reduction of<br />
ores and the making of steel rails, structural steel,<br />
and other such products. Thus the coals which<br />
have fine coking qualities are of the highest industrial<br />
value. In the Geological Survey's coal-<br />
classification schedule, high-grade coking coals<br />
rank equal in value and importance to anthracite.<br />
In the United States industrial coke is produced<br />
by two methods—in beehive ovens, where<br />
the coke is the only product recovered, and in<br />
by-product ovens, where all the important subsi<br />
diary products are conserved, such as gas, ammonia,<br />
creosote, and coal tar. At the present<br />
time the bulk of the coke is made in the oldfashioned<br />
beehive ovens with an annual wastage<br />
of millions of dollars worth of by-products. In<br />
1910, according to Mr. Parker, 17.13 per cent of<br />
the total coke output was made in by-product<br />
ovens, as against 15.91 per cent, so produced in<br />
1909. The figures obtained by the Geological Survey<br />
show that there is a gradual increase in the<br />
use of by-product ovens. At the close of 1910<br />
there were 2,187 coke ovens in course of construction,<br />
and of these 920, or 42.07 per cent.,<br />
were by-product ovens.<br />
Notwithstanding the increased production and<br />
the higher value of the coke in 1910 as compared<br />
with 1909, the year was decidedly unsatisfactory<br />
from the producer's standpoint. It has already<br />
been noted that the increase in the value of the<br />
coal used exceeded the increase in the value of<br />
the coke produced and that the net result of the<br />
year's business was really a loss rather than a<br />
gain over the preceding year. The tendency of<br />
prices was downward from January to December<br />
and in the later part of the year much of the<br />
coke business was conducted at a loss.<br />
Connellsville furnace coke, which is recognized<br />
as the standard blast-furnace fuel, declined from<br />
the high record of $2.75 a ton in January to $1.40<br />
in December, and the values of other cokes competing<br />
with Connellsville showed a corresponding<br />
decline.<br />
Kohinoor Coal & Coke Co., Logan, W. Va.; capital,<br />
$60,000; incorporators, Thomas J. Davis,<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Ball and Thomas Godfrey, of Minersville,<br />
Pa.; Harrison Ball, Mahanoy City, Pa., and<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e J. Beddow, of Logan, W. Va.<br />
Williams Creek Coal Co., Williams Creek, Ky.;<br />
capital, $25,000; incorporators, J. W. Williams,<br />
Dover Williams, Louis Francis, Philip Francis.<br />
Buck Coal Co., Clarion, Pa.; capital, $20,000; incorporators,<br />
Charles Miller, Franklin; J. M.<br />
Curry, Clarion, and G. W. Megeath, Omaha.<br />
Illinois Valley Coal Co., Sparland, 111., capital<br />
$50,000; incorporators, Jno. I. Thompson, E. L.<br />
Buchanan and Frank E. Sprecht.<br />
New Straight Creek Coal Co., Blanche, Ky.; capi<br />
tal, $10,000; incorporators, Henry C. Thompson,<br />
E. S. Jouett and B. R. Jouett.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT COALS OF<br />
JOHNSTOWN BASIN BROUGHT OUT<br />
THROUGH SUIT IN SOMERSET COUNTY<br />
COURTS.<br />
"The finding of a verdict for the Berwind-White<br />
Coal Mining Co., in the suit instituted by Mrs.<br />
Annie E. Ott, is of great importance to the mining<br />
business in Somerset and adjoining counties," declared<br />
a well known mining engineer of Somerset,<br />
in an interview just after the close of the case.<br />
"The decision in this case settled a controversy<br />
extending over a period of five or six years, carried<br />
on at great expense to both sides, and incidentally<br />
established definitely the coal measures<br />
in the First Bituminous Coal Basin." Continuing<br />
this engineer says:<br />
"The only question involved was whether the<br />
Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. had been engaged<br />
for years in mining the seam of coal known as<br />
C prime, as alleged by the plaintiff, or whether it<br />
had been and is mining the vein known as Bed B,<br />
owneiship of which was acquired by the company<br />
before development of the Windber coal field was<br />
started 15 years ago. On this important point<br />
the gological doctors differed widely, notwithstanding<br />
all agreed that each seam is marked by unmistakable<br />
characteristics, not alone as to the quality<br />
of the fuel itself, but as well by the cover and bed<br />
of the various seams.<br />
"It was admitted as a general proposition that a<br />
deposit of fire clay is invariably found underlying<br />
Bed B, and that a deposit of cement limestone underlies<br />
C prime, which is also known as the Cementa<br />
seam, owing to local conditions at Johnstown,<br />
where it was first uncovered in this region.<br />
"The beginning of the controversy was the discovery<br />
of two seams of coal beneath the seven previously<br />
known to exist under the Ott farm. This<br />
discovery was made by Ott himself when drilling<br />
and he appears to have jumped to the conclusion<br />
that the newly discovered beds were presumably<br />
of workable size, thus ging him four workable<br />
beds in Upper and Lower Kittanning. He then<br />
consulted John Fulton, who identified these two<br />
lower coal seams, which were separated by only<br />
13 feet of shale, as the A, or Brookville, and B,<br />
or Lower Kittanning, notwithstanding the fact that<br />
these two seams have never been known to be so<br />
close together in any part of the First Bituminous<br />
coal bed of Pennsylvania. Starting on this alleged<br />
entirely erroneous identification, and disregarding<br />
entirely the existence of the well known<br />
Clarion, or A prime bed, and mistaking the true<br />
Brookville A and Clarion A prime for the Lower<br />
Kittanning. Ott naturally identified the real C<br />
prime as the Lower Freeport coal, and also the<br />
Upper Freeport as the Lower Freeport, notwithstanding<br />
the fact that the limestone found beneath<br />
this bed was separated from it by only a few inches<br />
TIIE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
of shale, whereas the Upper Freeport limestone<br />
never occurs immediately beneath the bed but almost<br />
invariably from five to 20 feet below it. He<br />
then mistook the Upper Freeport coal for the Mahoning,<br />
which lies between the two great divisions<br />
of this formation. In this drill hole the conditions<br />
were abnormal, for the Upper Freeport limestone<br />
was not present. On the Nancy Lehman<br />
farm a short distance from the Ott farm, the<br />
Upper and Lower Freeport coals and limestones<br />
were found in the same hill, and on the farm of<br />
John Weaver, adjoining, the Upper Kittanning coal<br />
and limestone were found at the proper intervals<br />
below the Lower Freeport, and beneath these<br />
farms, at an interval of 90 feet, were the workings<br />
of the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. mine No. 30<br />
on the B, Miller, or Lower Kittanning bed. On<br />
the P. C. Isaac farm, adjoining Ott's, on the same<br />
hill, the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. sunk a<br />
drill hole and found all of the limestone and coal<br />
beds in their proper places. To make the matter<br />
doubly sure, so that anyone could see by going<br />
there, a series of trial pits was sunk from the<br />
top of the hill to near the level of Shade creek,<br />
exposing to view all the coal beds and limestones,<br />
which were found in their proper positions, and<br />
demonstrating beyond cavil that the coal mined at<br />
No. 30 under the Ott farm is not the C prime but<br />
the B seam.<br />
"Of all the coal beds in the lower productive<br />
series, no seam possesses and maintains to such a<br />
marked degree over so wide an area such striking<br />
characteristics as the B, whether found in Clearfield,<br />
Cambria or Somerset counties. It is almost<br />
invariably a double seam, and likewise almost invariably<br />
rests on a bed of fire clay. The Miller.<br />
or B, seam derives its name from the fact that it<br />
was worked in 1840, at the head of Plane No. 6,<br />
of the Portage railroad, in Cambria county, by the<br />
firm of Shoenberger & Miller. This is the same<br />
seam now being operated by the Lorain Steel Co.<br />
at Ingleside, and at the Haws shaft at Johnstown,<br />
and the croppings are traced from these two operations<br />
into the Scalp Level district at mine No. 30.<br />
"At the Rolling Mill mine of the Cambria Steel<br />
Co. the operations are in the C prime vein. This<br />
vein is traced to the mine of the Valley Stone &<br />
Coal Co., near Moxham, and thence to the new-<br />
John Lochrie operation, thence to the Jordan bank,<br />
and from there to Mine No. 37% of the Berwind-<br />
White Coal Mining Co. in the Scalp Level district,<br />
where it is located 90 feet above the B vein, which<br />
is mined hy the same company in its Mine No. 37,<br />
immediately under No. 37 ] -..<br />
"The great key-rock or guide in this territoryis<br />
the Johnstown Cement Limestone, and this has<br />
been so recognized for more than 35 years. It<br />
can be readily distinguished from the Upper and<br />
Lower Freeport limestones, from the fact that the
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
bottom bench, when there are but two, and the<br />
middle bench when three benches ai e found, is invariably<br />
high in carbonate of magnesia, much lower<br />
in calcium carbonate, and is a natural cement rock.<br />
This limestone when taken in connection with the<br />
Upper and Lower Freeport limestones forms an<br />
invaluable key to the Lower Productive Coal measures.<br />
There is not the slightest resemblance<br />
whatever between the coal in the Upper Kittanning<br />
seam and the Lower Kittanning, the structure<br />
being entirely different. The Upper Kittanning<br />
is cuboidal, and the Lower Kittanning is<br />
columnar or prismatic. There is hardly any variation<br />
whatever between the character of the B coal<br />
between Bennington. Blair county, and Johnstown,<br />
or between Johnstown and the Scalp Level district.<br />
"In the trial of the case it was developed that<br />
the average intervals between the coal beds in the<br />
Windber district and those of an average section<br />
of the entire First Bituminous basin, extending<br />
over a distance of 100 miles, are almost identical.<br />
The average interval for the Windber district between<br />
the E and D coal is 52 feet, whereas the<br />
average for the entire first basin is 48 feet. From<br />
E to C prime in the Windber district the average<br />
is 99 feet, while for the first bituminous basin tlie<br />
average is 94.8 feet. From D to C prime at Wind-<br />
ber the interval is 40 feet, while the average for<br />
the entire first basin is 41 feet. From C prime to<br />
C the average at Windber is 48 feet, while the<br />
average for the first basin is 44.7 feet. From C<br />
to B the interval at Windber is 36 feet, that of the<br />
first basin being 34 feet. From the Upper Free-<br />
port to the B, or Miller, coal the average distance<br />
is 184 feet at Windber, while the average interval<br />
of the First Bituminous basin is 183.5 feet, a most<br />
remarkable case of continuity in thickness of the<br />
intervals, and one rarely, if ever before, disclosed."<br />
PERSONAL <strong>•</strong><br />
;A;<br />
W. B. Plaster, a district mine inspector, and<br />
H. W. Davis, foreman of a mine at Thomas, W.<br />
Va., were injured recently by a blast fired by a<br />
miner in a spirit of revenge. The man had been<br />
reproved for preparing his shots in a manner<br />
that violated the rules, and to show his disapproval<br />
he fired a particularly heavy blast when<br />
the two officials were passing his working place.<br />
Mr. S. A. Carson, formerly connected with the<br />
brokerage firm of Matlack & Bates, Philadelphia,<br />
has been appointed general manager of the Southern<br />
Connellsville Coke Co. and has opened an office<br />
in the First National Bank building, Uniontown,<br />
Pa.<br />
Mr. W. B. McCarthy, of Huntingdon, Pa., has<br />
been elected president of the Keystone Coal Co.<br />
and the W. H. Sweet Coal Co., well-known concerns<br />
operating in the Broad Top district of<br />
Pennsylvania, succeeding the late W. H. Sweet.<br />
Mr. J. H. Wheelwright, president of the Consolidation<br />
Coal Co., has been made a director of the<br />
Jenkins National Bank, an institution <strong>org</strong>anized<br />
at Jenkins. Ky., in connection with coal land development<br />
plans of that section.<br />
Mr. Thomas J. Williams of Hazleton, Pa., has<br />
been appointed mine inspector of the Eighth Anthracite<br />
district to fill the vacancy caused by the<br />
death of Mr. P. M. Boyle.<br />
Mr. Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. Atkinson, Baltimore manager of<br />
the Merchants and United Coal Cos., has been<br />
elected a director of the Drovers' & Mechanics'<br />
National bank.<br />
STATEMENT OF BITUMINOUS COAL MINED IN OHIO AND SHIPPED OVER RAILROADS<br />
SPECIFIED, DURING APRIL AND FOUR MONTHS, 1910-1911.<br />
RAILROADS<br />
Hocking Valley<br />
Toledo and Ohio Central<br />
Baltimore and Ohio<br />
Wheeling and Lake Erie <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong> ...<br />
Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling<br />
Zanesville and Western ...<br />
Toledo Division Pennsylvania Company<br />
Lake Erie. Alliance and Wheeling . .<br />
Marietta, Columbus and Cleveland Railway<br />
Wabash Pittsburg Terminal Railway -<br />
Kanawha & Michigan Ry<br />
Total<br />
Net tons<br />
61.041<br />
6.067<br />
137.717<br />
211.478<br />
196.657<br />
4.276<br />
83.841<br />
68.385<br />
1 293<br />
2,407<br />
773,162<br />
APRIL—<br />
214.821<br />
145,313<br />
138.455<br />
248.435<br />
205.230<br />
7S 896<br />
149.012<br />
82,268<br />
2.271<br />
6.574<br />
2.405<br />
FOUR MONTHS-<br />
Net tons<br />
1.273.473<br />
492.545<br />
749.542<br />
1.151.624<br />
994.195<br />
389.396<br />
756.729<br />
391.723<br />
42.509<br />
14,574<br />
952.337<br />
484.243<br />
583.296<br />
959,978<br />
703.970<br />
356,338<br />
671.557<br />
406.434<br />
11,422<br />
25.356<br />
16.512<br />
5.171.443
OHIO MINING DEPARTMENT ESTABLISHED<br />
ON BI-PARTISAN BASIS BY APPOINT<br />
MENT OF NEW INSPECTORS.<br />
For the first time in its history, the Mining<br />
Department of the State of Ohio is now on a bipartisan<br />
basis, six inspectors of each party being<br />
in office.<br />
Since first elected Governor, the attitude of<br />
Governor Harmon towards the mining interests<br />
of the state and his determination to make the<br />
Mining Department bi-partisan and free the inspectors<br />
from any undue political influence, has<br />
given the very strongest evidence of his broadmindedness,<br />
as well as his keen interest in seeing<br />
that the best possible service from state appointees<br />
is secured, whose duty it is to see that<br />
the Ihe.-, and property of citizens are properly<br />
cared for by a judicious application and enforcement<br />
of the laws.<br />
With the approval of Governor Harmon, Mr.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Harrison, chief inspector of mines, made<br />
the following appointments of inspectors in the<br />
department of mines:<br />
Second District—Edw. Kennedy, Carbon Hill,<br />
Hocking County, Ohio; composed of the counties<br />
of Hocking, Meigs, and a portion of Athens and<br />
Gallia; for a term commencing July 1, 1911, and<br />
ending June 30, 1914.<br />
Third District—John L. McDonald. Glouster,<br />
Athens County, O.; composed of the county of<br />
Athens; for a term commencing July 1, 1911, and<br />
ending June 30, 1914.<br />
Sixth District—Alex. Smith, New Philadelphia,<br />
Tuscarawas County, O.; composed of the counties<br />
of Coshocton and Tuscarawas; for a term of<br />
three years commencing July 1, 1911, and ending<br />
June 30, 1914.<br />
Seventh District—W. H. .Miller, Massillon, Stark<br />
County, O.; composed of the counties of Holmes,<br />
.Medina, Ottawa, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull,<br />
and Wayne; for a term commencing July<br />
1, 1911, and ending June 30, 1914.<br />
Eighth District—Lot Jenkins, .Martin's Ferry,<br />
Belmont County, O.; composed of a portion of<br />
both Belmont and Jefferson counties; for a term<br />
commencing July 1, 1911, and ending June 30,<br />
1914.<br />
The Brier Hill Coke Co. stockholders have elected<br />
officers as follows: President, H. H. Stambaugh;<br />
vice president, R. C. Steece; treasurer,<br />
John Tod; secretary and general manager, Thomas<br />
McCafferty.<br />
The property of the Cosmopolitan Coal & Coke<br />
Co., in Braxton county, W. Va., will be sold at<br />
public sale at Sutton, W. Va., on July 15, to satisfy<br />
a deed of trust to the Real Estate Trust Co.,<br />
of Pittsburgh. The property consists of 9,249.79<br />
acres.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
SELLING AGREEMENT HAS BEEN<br />
ABROGATED BY OPERATORS.<br />
Announcement was made June 17 to the effect<br />
that the selling agreement heretofore existing between<br />
the coal operators of the New River and<br />
Norfolk & Western districts of West Virginia, had<br />
been dissolved, and that hereafter the disposition<br />
of the products of these two great districts<br />
would become a matter of independent selling,<br />
every producer looking out for himself.<br />
A meeting of the selling committee was held<br />
recently in Philadelphia and after a heated debate<br />
the Norfolk & Western operators are said to<br />
have announced their withdrawal from the agreement.<br />
New River operators are taking steps to form<br />
an <strong>org</strong>anization of their own for selling purposes.<br />
PROPERTY OF PENNSYLVANIA COAL & COKE<br />
COMPANY SOLD TO BONDHOLDERS.<br />
The biggest public sale in the history of Cambria<br />
county, Pa., measured by the value of the<br />
property involved, took place in the court house<br />
at Ebensburg, Pa., June 22, when the personal<br />
holdings and real estate of the Pennsylvania Coal<br />
& Coke Co. were disposed of under an order of<br />
the courts of Lackawanna county. The sale covered<br />
every possession of the company in the<br />
county, including coal lands, mines, leaseholds,<br />
operating plants and stocks and bonds to the<br />
face value of several hundred thousand dollars.<br />
It was all sold subject to the obligations of<br />
the company, which are heavy, and so the price<br />
was a small one, $103,000. The purchasers were<br />
a committee representing holders of the $4,000,000<br />
consolidated bond issue. The Pennsylvania properties<br />
include about 88,000 acres, embracing some<br />
of the best coal lands in Cambria county.<br />
GOODMAN MANUFACTURING<br />
COMPANY OPENS OFFICE IN OHIO.<br />
The Goodman Mfg. Co. of Chicago, has recently<br />
ai ranged through their Pittsburgh office<br />
with Mr. Parker Cott to represent their wellknown<br />
line of electric coal mining machines and<br />
locomotives in Ohio. Mr. Cott's headquarters will<br />
be at Athens, Ohio, where he has made his home<br />
for the past five yeais as division mining engineer<br />
for the Sunday Creek Co., for 15 of their<br />
mines.<br />
Mr. Cott's familiarity with the Ohio coal field<br />
and his wide acquaintance among the operators<br />
will make his services a valuable acquisition to<br />
the sales department of the Goodman Co., while<br />
his training and experience in engineering problems<br />
in coal mining enables him to be of assistance<br />
to the operatois in this field with whom he<br />
comes in contact.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
University of Pittsburgh School of Mines Shows<br />
Remarkable Growth.<br />
( CONTINUE!) FROM PACK 20 )<br />
ments for the Bachelor degrees contain all the<br />
h'gher mathematics tin- average mining engineer<br />
has occasion to use in his actual practice, and it<br />
is therefore thought best to allow the student<br />
more time for training in business principles,<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization, management, law, accounting, facility<br />
in the use of English, and the nun.ler of other<br />
subjects so essential to successful management<br />
in the various geological, mining and metallurgical<br />
industries.<br />
The advantage which students of the School of<br />
Mines have for obtaining<br />
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE 1 .X \ll\l\i;<br />
operations is another prime feature of the courses.<br />
In 1908 a custom was introduced in the School<br />
which permitted the student to substitute for his<br />
other elective work one year of practical or cooperative<br />
work. Under a new distribution of<br />
terms made recently, instead of taking his practical<br />
work during vacation time as heretofore, the<br />
student may engage upon this work for one entire<br />
year successively, or for one or more terms a year,<br />
as best suits him. As stated, this practical work<br />
is elective and is not required of all students.<br />
It has been tin- rule, however, that the majority<br />
of students take advantage of it, realizing the<br />
importance of securing experience and noting the<br />
conditions surrounding practical mine workings.<br />
Naturally, students who have already had considerable<br />
practical expoi ience before entering the<br />
School of Mines are urged to devote their time<br />
largo to theoretical studies, while those whose<br />
work has been more of the theoretical type are<br />
induced to engage in practical work during most.<br />
if not all, the time allotted for this purpose.<br />
Careful record is kept of the practical work done<br />
by students, certificates being sigm d ly the employers<br />
testifying as to the ground covered, and<br />
theses and examinations being required from the<br />
students 1 elating to it. Through the University<br />
employment bureau and the influence of the<br />
University and School of Mines administrative<br />
officers, litle trouble has been experienced securing<br />
employment for students where their lime can be<br />
most advantageously occupied in this way.<br />
In addition lo the elective practical work, there<br />
are n any courses in<br />
THE i URRII I I I'M OF THE SCHOOL<br />
which give the students other opportunities of<br />
observing and engaging in practical work. The<br />
course in Mine Surveying, which is required,<br />
takes the students out en expeditions to mine<br />
workings where actual surveying work is done,<br />
plans drawn and prope- calculations made.<br />
Realizing the importance of training the stud<br />
ents :n the manipulation and use of devices<br />
whereby underground workings may be explored<br />
and rescue work carried on even though the<br />
mine is filled with irrespirable gases, the School<br />
is covering this feature of training for the embryo<br />
engineers through the assistance of the United<br />
States Bureau of Mines. In Pittsburgh that<br />
Bureau maintains an extensive testing station,<br />
equipped with gaseous chambers, and all the<br />
paraphernalia such as oxygen helmets and resuscitation<br />
apparatus used in the experimental work;<br />
students of the School of Mines have access to<br />
this. A thorough training is given in the use of<br />
f he equipment and methods of mine rescue work.<br />
The students are given practice in the smoke<br />
chamber filled with poisonous gases such as<br />
would be encountered in a dangerous mine, and<br />
are trained in carrying and erecting props, erecting<br />
brattice, building brick stoppings, carrying<br />
injured men cn stretcher, general mine work, etc.<br />
These couises are supplemented by elementary<br />
first aid work under the direction of the American<br />
Red Cross Society. Certificates of competency<br />
are issued to them by the Bureau of Mines and<br />
the Red Ci oss Society upon completion of the<br />
courses.<br />
The students may also elect a course in First<br />
Aid to the Injured and Minor Rescue Work, the<br />
instructor being a medical practitioner of many<br />
years' experience. In this course, instruction is<br />
given in anatomy and physiology, how to render<br />
first aid in cases of bruises, sprains, fractures,<br />
wounds and hemorrhages.<br />
THE COURSES IN MINING ECONOMICS<br />
include mine management, mining corporation<br />
and finance, mining securities and investments,<br />
mine accounts, labor problems, legislation, etc.<br />
The principles and problems involved are treated<br />
from the mining point of view and give the stud<br />
ents first-hand knowledge of the important subjects<br />
of conservation of mineral resources, policy<br />
of Congress with reference to mineral lands.<br />
economic importance of mineral resources, gen<br />
eral mining laws, laws relating to coal mining<br />
and metal mining, laws of negligence and personal<br />
injuries, and labor problems.<br />
The summer term of the School of Mines opened<br />
last Monday, June 26, with a large attendance.<br />
The work of the Summer Term is conducted upon<br />
the same basis as other terms, by regular instructors<br />
of the School of Mines.<br />
The National Commissary Managers' Associa<br />
tion will hold its annual convention in St. Louis,<br />
August 22, 23 and 24. This <strong>org</strong>anization was<br />
formed last year by the managers of company<br />
stores at mining plants, lumber camps and similar<br />
places and has a membeiship of about 500.
I Photo by O C. Henry. Pittsburgh 1<br />
CLASS OF 1911, Sonoi
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
COKE PRODUCTION FOR FIRST HALF OF 1911.<br />
The production of coke in the Connellsville re<br />
gion for the first half of 1911, according to figures<br />
compiled from the Connellsville Courier reports,<br />
was 7,750,634 tons, as compared with 10,954,949<br />
tons for the same period in 1910. The statistics<br />
for the six months were:<br />
Week<br />
Ovens in<br />
Ending. Ovens. Blast.<br />
Jan. 7. . . . 39,336 22,540<br />
Jan. 14 39,474 22,630<br />
Jan. 21 39,423 22,633<br />
Jan. 2S. . . . 39,431 23,832<br />
Feb. 4. . . . 39,605 24,741<br />
Feb. 11 39,617 25,873<br />
Feb.<br />
26,231<br />
Feb. 25 . . 39,617 26,160<br />
Mar. 4. . . . 39,617 26,541<br />
Mar. 11 . . . . 39,617 27,148<br />
Mar. 18. . . . 39,617 28,115<br />
Mar. 25. . . . 39,617 28,337<br />
April 1 39,617 28,385<br />
April s. . . . 39,399 28,514<br />
April 15... . . 39,399 28,427<br />
April 22 . . 39,399 20,297<br />
April 29. . . . 39,399 26,13(1<br />
May i; 39,399 25,180<br />
May 13 39,399 24,612<br />
May<br />
39,399 24,332<br />
May 27. . . . 39,399 24,214<br />
June<br />
39,399 24,080<br />
June 10 39,399 23,754<br />
June 17 39,399 23,604<br />
June 24 39,399 23,616<br />
Ovens<br />
Idle.<br />
16,796<br />
16,842<br />
16,760<br />
15,509<br />
14,864<br />
13,744<br />
13,386<br />
13,457<br />
13,076<br />
12,469<br />
11,502<br />
11,280<br />
11,232<br />
10,885<br />
10.972<br />
13,102<br />
13,269<br />
14.219<br />
14,787<br />
15,067<br />
15,185<br />
15,319<br />
15.645<br />
15,795<br />
15,783<br />
Tons.<br />
281,885<br />
280,320<br />
287,475<br />
291.705<br />
302,275<br />
323,333<br />
322,756<br />
339,388<br />
352,077<br />
357,471<br />
364,596<br />
371,255<br />
368,029<br />
362,769<br />
349,475<br />
312,942<br />
300,540<br />
280,367<br />
278,037<br />
273.108<br />
270,749<br />
269.256<br />
266,646<br />
271,088<br />
273,422<br />
ENGINEER OFFICERS MAKES<br />
FAVORABLE REPORT ON CANAL.<br />
That the Lake Erie and Ohio River Ship Canal<br />
will cost $60,000,000 instead of $50,000,000 is the<br />
opinion of Lieutenant Colonel H. C. Newcomer,<br />
United States Army Engineer Officer at Pittsburgh,<br />
expressed in a special report upon this<br />
project, recently made at the request of the Xational<br />
Waterways Commission. ISut, despite this<br />
estimate of increased cost, Colonel Newcomer declares<br />
the project feasible; says the tonnage is<br />
in existence to make it a paying proposition;<br />
approves the idea of government engineers supervising<br />
its construction, and even suggests that<br />
the government might go further and provide<br />
part of the funds for construction and maintenance,<br />
for, says Colonel Newcomer, "there can be<br />
no doubt that the work would lie of national im<br />
portance."<br />
As to the tonnage that awaits a ship canal,<br />
the officer says: "There is no other route in the<br />
country where the existing commerce is so fav<br />
orable for the development of a heavy canal<br />
traffic."<br />
The only question as to the feasibility of the<br />
project is the one affecting freight rates, according<br />
to Colonel Newcomer. He expresses the fear<br />
that the construction of the canal would result<br />
in lowering railroad freight rates to a point where<br />
the great bulk of coal and ore would continue to<br />
be shipped by rail, in which event there might<br />
not be sufficient commerce on the canal to provide<br />
a revenue commensurate with the expense<br />
of the work.<br />
TEXT OF AGREMENT BETWEEN DOMINION<br />
COAL COMPANY AND MINERS AT SPRING-<br />
HILL, NOVA SCOTIA.<br />
The text of the agreement between the Dominion<br />
Coal Co. and the miners at Springhill, N. S.,<br />
whereby the 20 months strike was settled is:<br />
1. All the men will be taken back to work at<br />
Springhill as soon as places can be found for them.<br />
It is confidently believed that the majority of the<br />
men can be provided with work within 45 days,<br />
and every reasonable effort will be made on the<br />
part of the company to accomplish this sooner.<br />
2. That the award of the Longley board in re<br />
gard to the docking system will go into effect on<br />
June 1 next, but this can be mutually adjusted<br />
after trial if considered desirable.<br />
3. There will be no reduction in the wages of<br />
the day hands in and around the mines in the rate<br />
paid prior to the loth of August, 1909, and any advances<br />
in the schedule dated January 26, 1911, shall<br />
remain in force.<br />
4. That the reduction of 15 per cent, announced<br />
by Mr. J. R. Cowans and authorized on January 20,<br />
1911, by the Dominion Coal Co. in the rate paid<br />
coal producers immediately prior to the 10th of<br />
August, 1909, be reduced to lo per cent., and in<br />
any part of the mine where, owing to conditions of<br />
the working place, a cutter is unable to earn his<br />
average wage, fair consideration will be allowed,<br />
and such consideration may be altered from time<br />
to time to meet conditions as they arise.<br />
5. Coal cutters shall not be required to carry<br />
timber or other material necessary to work at the<br />
working face, such material to be supplied at the<br />
most convenient place near the working face of<br />
the boards or pillars by the company, except in<br />
special cases or cases of emergency.<br />
6. Every man will be accorded his right to present<br />
any just grievances to his immediate superior<br />
with a right of appeal ultimately to the president,<br />
and at any stage for that purpose he may be accom<br />
panied by one or two of his fellow-workmen frcm<br />
the section in which the alleged grievance exists.<br />
Agnes Coulter, of Bolivar, Pa., recently sold 120<br />
aci es of coal land to the Lacolle Coal Mining<br />
Co., of Greensburg, Pa., for the sum of $18,348.75.
A NEW ELECTRIC FORGE BLOWER.<br />
The advantages of the electric f<strong>org</strong>e blower over<br />
the hand blower or bellows need hardly be mentioned.<br />
It saves space as it is- so small it can be<br />
put under the f<strong>org</strong>e or any other place out of the<br />
way. It is started and stopped by a switch, which<br />
latter can be located wherever it will be handy to<br />
reach from the f<strong>org</strong>e or anvil. The blast produced<br />
is strong and positive. The fire builds up quicker<br />
and better than with a bellows or hand blower.<br />
More can be done in the same time, as it requires<br />
No. 00 No. 0 No. 1<br />
1 Heavy Fire 2 Heavy Fire<br />
1 Light 2 Medium Fires 4 Medium Fires<br />
Fire 3 Light Fires 5 Light Fires<br />
no attention; while the iron is heating, other work<br />
can be prepared or finished.<br />
The latest development in electric f<strong>org</strong>e blowers<br />
is an adaptation of the already famous "Sirocco"<br />
blower to that service. The "Sirocco" electric<br />
f<strong>org</strong>e blower is truly the little blower with a big<br />
purpose. The three sizes shown in the illustration,<br />
figure 1, are 6%, 9% an d 1214 inches respectively,<br />
the largest one being capable of caring for<br />
five fires.<br />
Fig. 2. Sirocco (Patented) Fan Wheel.<br />
Because of the high mechanical efficiency of the<br />
for single light fire, uses less than half the current<br />
consumed by an ordinary electric lamp. The<br />
larger sizes are relatively of equal efficiency. Comparing<br />
these blowers with a hand blower or belnew<br />
"Sirocco" turbine type wheel, figure 2, the<br />
electric current consumption is so small as to be<br />
almost insignificant. The smaller size, suitable<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
lows, it will be noted that there are no belts, no<br />
levers, no gears, no pulleys, no cranks, no springs.<br />
The "Sirocco" patented wheel being set-screwed<br />
to the motor shaft, there are only two bearings on<br />
the entire machine.<br />
A few of the many advantages of "Sirocco" elec-<br />
Fig. 3. One of the Sirocco Electric F<strong>org</strong>e Blowers<br />
In Operation.<br />
trie f<strong>org</strong>e blowers over all other electric f<strong>org</strong>e blowers<br />
are: Higher mechanical efficiency, hence<br />
smaller current consumption. Quiet running—<br />
the "howl" of the ordinary blower being almost<br />
unbearable. Larger volume of air at ample pressure<br />
to overcome resistance of tuyere and fire.<br />
Quicker and hotter fires because of perfect combustion<br />
of fuel in fire bed. Smoother operation<br />
due to extremely small diameter of runner.<br />
The method of installation is shown in figure 3.<br />
These blowers are manufactured by the American<br />
Blower Co. of Detroit, Mich.<br />
OHIO WILL HAVE MINIATURE<br />
MINE IN THE CAPITOL.<br />
In the basement of the state house, at Columbus,<br />
O., under the office of the state mine inspector,<br />
the state of Ohio is going to build a miniature<br />
mine, where its mine experts' will produce mine<br />
explosions and rescue victims of black damp by<br />
use of the latest mine rescuing devices.<br />
The recent legislature appropriated $2,500 for<br />
the mine rescue work. The equipment already has<br />
been ordered by Chief Mine Inspector Ge<strong>org</strong>e Harrison.<br />
The Ohio apparatus will be kept in Columbus<br />
and can be shipped in trunks to scenes of mine<br />
explosions.<br />
An ordinance has been introduced at Wilkes-<br />
Barre, Pa., requiring mining companies to equip<br />
their breakers within the city limits with devices<br />
for preventing the escape of coal dust in quantitieslarge<br />
enough to cause annoyance to nearby residents<br />
or those passing through the streets.
41 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
day filled to a depth of over 100 feet. No fatalities<br />
<strong>•</strong> PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS <strong>•</strong> were reported. The Port Hood mines are operated<br />
by the Port Hood Coal Co. The company em<br />
The Lehigh Valley Coal Co. has just closed its ployed 600 men and had a daily output of 1,000<br />
schools for mine workers for the season. The tons.<br />
company maintains two of these—one at Centralia,<br />
one at Lost Creek. In the Centralia school, The Interstate Commerce Commission has au<br />
139 students were enrolled at the end of the term; thorized the rate on coke from Pennsylvania and<br />
in the Lost Valley, 103. Since the students, min West Virginia points to Chicago at $2.50 per ton.<br />
ers and shopworkers, old and young, are drawn Formerly the coke carrying roads had in effect<br />
froin all nationalities, one of the first ideas of the a rate of $2.35 on coke to Chicago for smelting<br />
schools is to teach English. The other courses purposes and a rate of $2.65 on coke for all other<br />
are as nearly as possible substitutes for the tech purposes, exception was taken to the "average"<br />
nical education obtained in colleges, although rate of $2.50, but the I. C. C, after investigation,<br />
necessarily much elementary work must be done. has approved of it.<br />
The State Railroad Commission of Ohio will<br />
appeal to the United States Supreme Court from<br />
the decision of Federal Court of Appeals in case<br />
of B. A. Worthington, receiver of the Wheeling<br />
& Lake Erie, against Ohio Railroad Commission.<br />
The commission, in an order in February, 1910,<br />
reduced freight rates on coal shipments from<br />
points in Ohio to the Lakes from 90 to 70 cents<br />
a ton. The receiver of Wheeling & Lake Erie enjoined<br />
an enforcement of this order. A permanent<br />
injunction was granted, and the finding has<br />
been sustained by the Court of Appeals.<br />
The Anthracite Mine Cave Commission, appointed<br />
by Governor John K. Tener of Pennsylvania,<br />
to consider the problems of surface settlings<br />
which confront the hard coal sections of Pennsylvania,<br />
has been <strong>org</strong>anized. W. J. Richards, of<br />
Pottsville, was chosen chairman; Ge<strong>org</strong>e Lewis,<br />
secretary, and C. B. Stevens, clerk. The commission<br />
is comprised of former Mayor J. B. Dimmick,<br />
W. L. Connell, Col. R. A. Phillips', and E. J. Lynett<br />
of Scranton. Pa.; W. A. Lathrop and Charles Enzian<br />
of Wilkes-Barre; W. J. Richards of Pottsville,<br />
and Ge<strong>org</strong>e Lewis of Lansford, Pa.<br />
At the annual meeting of the Coal Operators'<br />
Association of the Fifth and Ninth districts of<br />
Illinois, held at the Missouri Athletic Club in St.<br />
Louis, Mo., recently, all of the present officers and<br />
members of the executive committees were reelected<br />
as follows: President, R. W. Ropiequet;<br />
vice president, Thomas T. Brewster; secretary,<br />
F. F. Tirre; and treasurer. J. E. Yoch. The executive<br />
committee comprises: E. C. Donk, P. M.<br />
Hucke. D. F. Cameron, Thomas Jeremiah, Louis F.<br />
Lumaghi, Otto Michaelis, J. P. Reese and J. E. Rutledge.<br />
The Port Hood coal mines at Sydney, C. B.,<br />
Canada, have been flooded with sea water, causing<br />
a probable total loss of the property. The<br />
main shaft of the mine is only a short distance<br />
from the sea, and it is supposed that the constant<br />
wear of the waves broke through the retaining<br />
walls of the mine pit, where water to<br />
The Dakota Coal Products Co. is opening up the<br />
lignite deposits at New Salem, N. D., on a rather<br />
extensive scale. Development work was begun<br />
last fall and has been carried on continuously since<br />
then, slopes have been sunk to two seams, the<br />
lowest of which is at a depth of 105 feet. It is<br />
expected that everything will be in readiness to<br />
commence commercial shipments late in the Slimmer.<br />
Mr. John A. Bell, vice president of the Colonial<br />
Trust Co., Pittsburgh, has acquired 4,500 acres of<br />
coal in Cross creek township, Washington county,<br />
Pa., and has plans in preparation for developing<br />
the property. The mine will be a shaft mine, it<br />
is reported, and will have all modern improvements.<br />
The Board of Managers of the Pennsylvania Industrial<br />
Reformatory, Huntingdon, Pa., have advertised<br />
for bids for 5,500 tons of bituminous coal,<br />
the bids to be in by July 14, and the contract to<br />
be awarded July 15. T. B. Patton, general superintendent,<br />
will furnish all information.<br />
P. M. Boyle, of Kingston, Pa., mine inspector<br />
of the eighth anthracite district of Pennsylvania,<br />
died on June 22. He was 62 years of age, and<br />
previous to becoming an inspector had been a<br />
mine official in the vicinity of Wilkes-Barre.<br />
The general offices of the Luhrig Coal Washery<br />
& Mining Co. will be removed from Charleston,<br />
W. Va., to Athens, O., and after July 1, will be<br />
located in the Campbell block, in the suite of offices<br />
formerly occupied by the Sunday Creek Co.<br />
Claude S. Wetherill is erecting a new retail<br />
plant at Doylestown, Pa., one feature of which<br />
will be a boiler and pipes for thawing out cars<br />
of frozen coal in the winter, as is done at the<br />
shipping piers.<br />
Miners of the Monongahela valley held their<br />
annual muster at Bellevernon on June 24. Officers<br />
of the United Mine Workers or America and<br />
of the coal companies were in attendance.
Summer Meeting of Mining Institute of America.<br />
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24)<br />
above, the operator is usually the recipient of<br />
the rebuffs of the public. The press has much to<br />
do with the reputation and misinterpretations<br />
w-hich the public place upon the coal operators,<br />
calling them Coal Barons and other terms which<br />
hold them up to more or less derision and place<br />
them in a false light before the public. Many<br />
people, without any knowledge of the facts in<br />
the case claim, without any apparent thought of<br />
truthfulness, that the operators make a great<br />
amount of money out of their property, at the<br />
sacrifice of everything that is manly, including<br />
the killing of their employees and charging the<br />
consumer exorbitant rates for coal. Statements<br />
of this kind made in the public press are permitted<br />
to go without being contradicted by any<br />
person for several reasons.<br />
lst. A contradiction by the operators would<br />
not avail them anything because the people who<br />
would be willing to believe<br />
SUCH A CONTRADICTION<br />
w-ould not have the matter brought to their attention<br />
in a way that they would give it any<br />
consideration.<br />
2nd. If it were denied, the denial would not be<br />
brought to the attention of the public anything<br />
like as vigorously as the statements made originally,<br />
unless the operator would pay for the space<br />
necessary, which would under those circumstances<br />
not have the same effect as the original statement.<br />
It is therefore of little or no use for the operator<br />
to undertake to contradict these statements.<br />
Again many yellow journals, including a number<br />
of the cheap magazines, have published articles<br />
in connection with the coal mining industry that<br />
are gross fabrications and mis-statements of the<br />
facts, in order to sell their publications. The<br />
general reading public, however, are not able to<br />
judge of these matters and therefore get the impressions<br />
which are sent forth through the columns<br />
of these journals. All of which tend to<br />
create a feeling of animosity against those who<br />
have probably much more than their share of<br />
the burden to bear.<br />
3rd. The operator is forced often times by a<br />
number of conditions to sell his coal at a price<br />
that means no profit to him. When this occurs<br />
it is only a question of time until some person<br />
suffers.<br />
4th. The operator also deals with the labor<br />
around the mine and in his negotiations with labor,<br />
either personally or through representation,<br />
such as the labor unions, he is oftentimes forced<br />
by reason of circumstances, public opinion, or<br />
other considerations beyond his control, to grant<br />
prices for the labor which will not be at all war<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
ranted by the price at which he must sell his coal.<br />
5th. Another matter which is a serious one to<br />
the operator is the position which our Government<br />
is advocating and which posterity also demands<br />
from him, namely the conservation of<br />
fuel. As conditions exist to-day, taking for example<br />
in the Pittsburgh District<br />
FROM 40 TO 60 PER CENT.<br />
of the Pittsburgh seam of coal, including as<br />
the seam roof coal and all, is lost in the mining,<br />
for the reason that the operator could not<br />
sell this coal for a price that would be equal to<br />
that of the cost of production, and yet the demand<br />
is upon him just the same to mine this<br />
coal in order to protect the fuel supply for future<br />
generations. Under the present existing<br />
methods of operation, a greater percentage of the<br />
recovery of coal cannot be expected or accomplished.<br />
It therefore becomes a matter of importance<br />
that the Government should in some<br />
way assist in solving this problem, and not place<br />
the entire blame and burden on the operator.<br />
6th. The most serious problem, however, that<br />
confronts the operator is that if he should attempt<br />
to join with his fellow operators in some<br />
sort of combination, by which the industry can<br />
be put on a more equitable basis, as to the amount<br />
of coal produced, the wages paid, the price at<br />
which the coal is to be sold and various other<br />
matters which are of vital interest to all persons<br />
concerned, he will at once be haled into court<br />
as attempting a combination in restraint of trade<br />
under the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. The result<br />
is that the operators in each district or each operator<br />
alone, must decide a number of these questions<br />
alone, which can only be decided by them<br />
equitably by their joining in some sort of union<br />
so that all interests in connection with the matter<br />
should be protected.<br />
THE POSITION OF .MINE LAHOR TO THE BITUMINOUS<br />
COAL INDUSTRY.<br />
There is no part of the business of producing<br />
coal that comes more directly in touch with the<br />
people at large than the question of conditions<br />
that surround the mine labor at the mines. This<br />
applies to his conditions of living, whether the<br />
house which he occupies be comfortable and commodious<br />
for his family, whether the rent which<br />
he pays for it is fair and equitable, and not so<br />
high that he is not able to pay for it without<br />
being burdensome to him. Whether the cost of<br />
food stuffs and clothing shall be at a price that<br />
will enable him to properly clothe and feed his<br />
family. Whether the conditions surrounding his<br />
work, at or in the mine, are such that he is<br />
given the greatest amount of safety compatible<br />
with his work. Whether he shall be given employment<br />
regularly, and last of all whether, considering<br />
all of these conditions, he shall receive<br />
a fair price for his labor, in order that he may
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
be able to meet the above requirements. Another<br />
matter which should be uppermost in his<br />
mind is the care of those depending upon him<br />
in case he meets with an accident or is suddenly<br />
called away by death. This matter has largely<br />
in the past been taken care of by some death or<br />
accident insurance, taken out either through an<br />
insurance coinpany or some beneficial society. Recently,<br />
however, this matter has received the attention<br />
of a number of people closely interested<br />
and identified with the coal industry b.v way of<br />
creating an accident insurance and pension fund.<br />
This scheme seems to be making headway and<br />
could in all probability through the assistance of<br />
those interested and the State, or possibly the<br />
National Government, be made a satisfactory and<br />
PROPER METHOD<br />
and one of great benefit to the families of the<br />
men employed in the industry.<br />
There is one condition, however, in which as it<br />
exists to-day the mine workers have an advantage<br />
over the operator or the consumer, namely,<br />
that they are permitted to combine in the form<br />
of labor unions, in such a way that they can and<br />
do demand a great many things that the individual<br />
worker could not secure. Just why the<br />
Government will permit these forms of combination<br />
which are certainly as much in restraint of<br />
trade as a combination of operators or consumers,<br />
I will not attempt to answer, but the fact<br />
remains, however, that they do have these combinations,<br />
while the operator and consumer are<br />
not under the present conditions permitted to<br />
form such combinations for their protection. I<br />
will not undertake to defend the position that<br />
this combination has always been used to the best<br />
advantage of the worker but I do say that the<br />
fact that they are able to combine in forming the<br />
unions, without any governmental interference, is<br />
a strong factor in their favor in making and securing<br />
demands, which others not being permitted<br />
to so combine are not in position to withstand,<br />
but I am of the opinion that if some such<br />
combinations were permitted to exist among the<br />
operators, and the consumers as well, with the<br />
additional condition that the government shall<br />
be a party to all of these combinations, that the<br />
entire industry would then be placed on a much<br />
better basis.<br />
WHAT POSITION SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT TAKE IN<br />
CONNECTION WITH TIIE INDUSTRY?<br />
And lastly we come to the consideration of<br />
what position the Government should take in connection<br />
with the Bituminous Coal Industry, and<br />
1 think there are several positions which they<br />
can very consistently and with good effect take.<br />
First, I believe the Government should, as they<br />
are now undertaking to do to some extent,<br />
through the Mining Bureau, designate what<br />
things should be done for the safety and welfare<br />
of the men employed in and around the mines.<br />
Second, the things that should be done in connection<br />
with the mining of coal so as to recover<br />
a larger per cent, of the coal in the seams. By<br />
such action the Government would become a party<br />
to the conserving of not only life and property,<br />
but also the fuel resources for the future generations.<br />
Third, I think the Government should also<br />
take a position in connection with the Industry<br />
somewhat analogous to the German Government<br />
in connection with their coal Industry, and without<br />
going into details in connection with this<br />
German syndicate scheme, I believe that the Government<br />
should go further in connection with demanding<br />
conditions as set forth above, to the extent<br />
that they should also demand that the price<br />
at which coal should be sold should also be fair<br />
and equitable between all parties interested. This<br />
can be done in either one of two ways. Either<br />
by having a commission something similar to<br />
the inter-State Commerce Commission, to review<br />
all conditions in controversy and have power to<br />
regulate same through their decision, taking into<br />
consideration the cost of producing coal in the<br />
various districts, and permitting the fixing of a<br />
price above this cost that will guarantee to the<br />
capital invested a fair return; or they could permit<br />
combinations of the operators in the various<br />
districts as well as also combinations of all large<br />
consumers who could meet together and take into<br />
consideration all the conditions necessary to the<br />
carrying out of the requirements made by the<br />
Government, and then fixing their price accordingly,<br />
granting the Commission above mentioned<br />
the right to review these prices and if they should<br />
be considered exorbitant or<br />
IN ANV WAY UNFAIR,<br />
to have power to reduce them to such an amount<br />
as to render them fair and equitable to all concerned.<br />
This latter is somewhat after the scheme<br />
of the German Syndicate, with the exception that<br />
the Government would not hold any interest in<br />
the coal mines or in the coal syndicate as the<br />
German Government does in the German syndicate,<br />
but would simply act as the arbitrator in<br />
the matter. This could, however, be modified in<br />
case of the coal lands which the Government now<br />
own in the territories and Alaska so that the<br />
Government could retain an interest in the operations<br />
something similar to the scheme of the<br />
German Government and the German syndicate.<br />
In conclusion I believe that before the coal Industry<br />
can be placed on a permanent and equitable<br />
basis, the present methods of handling the<br />
business must be revised and all parties interested<br />
therein must deal with this matter in a<br />
fair, business-like manner. The Government<br />
should also be a party to this as outlined above<br />
or in some similar arrangement, which I think<br />
could be easily worked out, and then all parties
interested should be satisfied and the Industry<br />
would then be placed on a more stable basis.<br />
A general discussion of the paper followed by<br />
the delegates.<br />
State .Mine Inspector W. F. Cunningham, of<br />
Charleroi, Pa., then took up the discussion of his<br />
paper on ".Mine Pillar Drawing," which had been<br />
read at the winter meeting, and the discussion<br />
was participated in by other delegates.<br />
This discussion was followed by Mr. Jesse K.<br />
Johnston, also of Charleroi, who read a paper on<br />
"The Loss of Life in Coal Mining, as Compared<br />
with Other Hazardous Occupations," and the discussion<br />
of the paper closed the first day's sessions.<br />
The Indiana board of trade entertained the<br />
visitors at a banquet on the evening of June 28.<br />
.Mr. Edwin S. Wallace, vice president of the<br />
Pittsburgh-Westmoreland Coal Co., was toastmaster,<br />
and responses were made by the following<br />
visitors: Justice John P. Elkin, president of<br />
the board of trade; Prof. H. H. Stock, professor<br />
of mining engineering. University of Illinois; Mr.<br />
John Reed, general superintendent of the Clearfield<br />
& Jefferson Coal & Iron Co.; H. M. Wilson,<br />
chief engineer of United States Bureau of Mines,<br />
and President Taylor.<br />
Mr. Taylor told of the United States Government<br />
work in the canal zone, and illustrated his<br />
remarks with 100 lantern slides prepared by him<br />
while in the canal zone recently.<br />
An illustrated lecture on "The Geology of Indiana<br />
County," by Mr. R. H. Dawson Hall, mining<br />
engineer of Dubois, was the principal feature of<br />
the second day's session.<br />
Mr. C. E. Ward of the Pittsburgh Coal Co., Pittsburgh,<br />
addressed the meeting on "Oils for Lubricating<br />
and Burning Purposes." The convention<br />
closed with an address of "Symbols for Electrical<br />
Installation in Mines," by Mr. H. F. Randolph of<br />
Pittsburgn. Excursions to the various coal operations<br />
in the Indiana field were made by the visitors<br />
during the afternoon.<br />
Mr. James K. Kay has been appointed receiver<br />
for Carver Bros., of Charleston, W. Va., who have<br />
mines in Fayette county. It is announced that<br />
operations will be continued under the receivership.<br />
No details concerning the firm's financial<br />
condition have been made public.<br />
Governor Deneen, of Illinois, has signed the<br />
bill, exacting the use of a high grade of powder<br />
in Illinois coal mines. The specific gravity must<br />
be between 1.74 and 1.91 and the moisture not to<br />
succeed one per cent, at time of shipment. The<br />
granulation is limited to seven sizes. The law<br />
was recommended by the mining investigation<br />
committee of the state.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
West Virginia Mining Institute Holds Interesting<br />
Session.<br />
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28)<br />
H. Tarleton, superintendent of mines. Consolidation<br />
Coal Co.. Fairmont, W. Va.<br />
"Nature and Characteristic Components of Permissible<br />
Explosives," Clarence Hall, explosive expert.<br />
Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh.<br />
"Shafts and Shaft Sinking for American Coal<br />
Mines'," R. C. Johnson, civil engineer with Dravo<br />
Contracting Co., Pittsburgh.<br />
The committee to which had been referred the<br />
subject of consideration of the dangers of oil and<br />
gas wells in proximity to mines was continued.<br />
because, until the matter is again brought up in<br />
the legislature, little can be done in a definite way.<br />
The committee on the standardization of electricity<br />
installations in mines was also continued to permit<br />
it to give further consideration to the subject.<br />
The next meeting will be held at Fairmont in<br />
December. The Fairmont members already having<br />
<strong>org</strong>anized a committee to arrange for the meeting<br />
and entertainment of the visitors at that time.<br />
About 300 members were in attendance at the<br />
meeting.<br />
ffl COAL TRADE CASUALTIES &<br />
Fire destroyed the large building, housing the<br />
machine shop and blacksmith shop connected<br />
with the St. Michael shaft of the Berwind-White<br />
Coal Mining Co., at St. Michaels, Pa., on June 17.<br />
The supply house was also gutted. The loss will<br />
reach $10,000.<br />
The rescreening plant of the No. 1 mine of the<br />
W. P. Rend Coal & Coke Co., Rend City, UL, was<br />
destroyed by fire during the fortnight. It will<br />
be replaced at once by a modern steel structure.<br />
Work will be completed about September 1st.<br />
Fire which caused a loss of $20,000 destroyed<br />
the engine house of the Smoky Hollow Coal Co.,<br />
Monroe county, Iowa, on June 17. Over 300 mine<br />
workers will be thrown out of work for at least<br />
six weeks as a result of the fire.<br />
Nearly 200 people were made homeless by a<br />
fire which destroyed 19 dwelling houses belonging<br />
to the Thaeker Coal Co., near Thacker, W.<br />
Va., during the fortnight. The loss is $10,000.<br />
The washery of the Peabody Coal Co., at the<br />
mines at Marion, 111., was burned during the<br />
fortnight.<br />
A recent lease in the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., district<br />
provides for the following royalties: 40 cents per<br />
ton for all sizes larger than pea, 20 cents per ton<br />
for pea, and five cents per ton for all sizes smaller<br />
than pea.
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
TEXT OF NEW MINING LAW OF THE STATE OF ALABAMA 1<br />
Sec. 55. The ends' of all hoisting cables shall be<br />
well secured on the drum, and have at least two<br />
and a half laps of the same remain on the drum<br />
when the cage or trip is at rest at the lowest landing.<br />
Sec. 56. All shafts more than 300 feet deep from<br />
which hoisting is done by means of a bucket must<br />
be provided with suitable guides, and in connection<br />
with the bucket there must be a cross-head traveling<br />
upon these guides. The height of the crosshead<br />
shall be at least two-thirds of its width. If<br />
the cross-head be a type that is not secured to the<br />
hoisting rope, a stopper must be securely and rigidly<br />
fastened to the hoisting rope at least seven<br />
feet above the rim of the bucket.<br />
Sec. 57. No open hook shall be used with a<br />
bucket in hoisting. Safety hooks shall be employed.<br />
See. 58. Persons engaged in deepening a shaft<br />
in which hoisting from an upper level is going on<br />
shall be protected from the danger of falling material<br />
by a suitable covering extending over the<br />
whole area of the shaft, sufficient openings being<br />
left in the covering for the passage of men, a<br />
bucket or other conveyance used in the singing<br />
operations. No hoisting shall be done in any<br />
compartment of a shaft while repairs are being<br />
made in that compartment, excepting such hoisting<br />
as is necessary in order to make such repairs.<br />
Sec. 59. Any person riding upon any cage, skip<br />
or bucket that is loaded with tools, timber, powder<br />
or other material except for the purpose of assisting<br />
in passing such material through a shaft<br />
or incline and then only after a special signal has<br />
been given, shall be guilty of a violation of this<br />
act. When tools, timber or other materials are<br />
to be lowered or hoisted in a shaft, their ends, if<br />
projecting above the top of the bucket, skip or<br />
other vehicle shall be securely fastened to the hoisting<br />
rope or to the upper part of the vehicle. This<br />
shall not apply to workmen carrying their own<br />
tools in a shaft.<br />
Sec. 60. No person shall carry any timber or<br />
other materials other than tools and the day's supplies,<br />
with him on anv cage in motion, except for<br />
use in repairing the shaft; and<br />
NO ONE STTAT.T, RTDE<br />
on a cage containing a loaded car, or on a single<br />
deck cage with an empty car. No cage having an<br />
unstable or self dumping platform shall he used<br />
for the carriage of men or materials, unless the<br />
same is provided with some convenient device by<br />
which said platform can be securely locked, and<br />
unless 1t is so locked whenever men or materials<br />
are being conveyed thereon. No coal shall be<br />
(CONCLUDED FROM JUNE 15)<br />
hoisted in any shaft while men are being lowered<br />
therein.<br />
See. 61. The upper and lower landing at the top<br />
of each shaft and the opening of each intermediate<br />
seam from or to the shaft, shall be kept clear and<br />
free from loose materials, and shall be securely<br />
fenced with automatic or other gates, so as to prevent<br />
either men or materials from falling into the<br />
shaft.<br />
Sec. 62. At the bottom of every shaft and at<br />
every caging place therein, an adequate passage<br />
way must be provided around said landing place<br />
to serve as a traveling way by which men or animals<br />
may pass from one side of the shaft to the<br />
other without passing under or on the cage.<br />
Sec. 63. It shall be unlawful to use in any coal<br />
mine included within the provisions of this act,<br />
any rope or cable for hoisting or lowering either<br />
man or material, when, such hoisting is done by<br />
other means than human or animal power, unless<br />
such rope or cable shall be composed of iron or<br />
steel wires, with a factor of safety determined as<br />
hereinafter set forth, provided, however, that such<br />
iron or steel wires may be laid around a hemp<br />
center. The factor of safety of all ropes or cables<br />
shall, when installed in no case be less than five<br />
and shall be calculated by dividing the breaking<br />
strength of the rope as given in the manufacturers'<br />
published tables by the sum of the maximum<br />
load to be hoisted, plus the total weight of the<br />
rope in the shaft when fully let out. plus 10 per<br />
cent, of such values, to take account of shock at<br />
starting and stopping.<br />
Sec. 631'.,. It shall be unlawful for any mine<br />
operator, superintendent or mine foreman to haul<br />
or cause to be hauled on any slope or plane where<br />
the grade is against the loaded cars or<br />
TRIPS OF CARS<br />
without using a drag on the rear end of the cars<br />
or trips of cars when required by two or more mine<br />
inspectors for the purpose of derailing the cars<br />
or trips of cars in ease they break loose and run<br />
back. The drag may be of heavy wrought iron or<br />
of soft steel.<br />
Sec. 64. No driver or other person shall descend,<br />
or ascend a shaft with any horse or mule.<br />
unless the said horse or mule is secured in a suitable<br />
box or safely penned, and only the driver in<br />
charge of said horse or mule, and such assistants<br />
as he may need, shall accompany it in any case.<br />
Sec. 65. The owner, operator or lessee of any<br />
coal mine in this state, shall make or cause to he<br />
made by a competent engineer an accurate and<br />
exact detail map of said mine showing the exact<br />
position of said mines in reference to the section
line, which shall be connected with some known<br />
boundary line of the section or subdivision of the<br />
section. Said map shall show accurately the position<br />
of any branches, creeks, rivers or railroads<br />
under which said mine may extend; also as near<br />
as possible the position of any old coal mine nearby.<br />
The location of all oil and gas wells shall be<br />
shown on said map. Said maps shall show all<br />
shafts, slopes, tunnels or other openings to the surface<br />
or to the workings of a contiguous coal mine;<br />
all excavations, entries, rooms and cross-cuts; the<br />
location of the fan and furnace and the direction<br />
of the air currents; the location of pumps, hauling<br />
engines, engine planes, abandoned works, fire walls<br />
and standing water; and the boundary line of any<br />
surface outcrop of the seam. A separate and similar<br />
map, drawn to the same scale in all cases, shall<br />
be made of each and every seam, which after the<br />
passage of this act, shall be worked in any coal<br />
mine and the maps of all such seams shall show all<br />
shafts, inclined planes or other passage ways connecting<br />
the same. Each map shall also show by<br />
elevation in feet and decimals thereof the rise and<br />
dip of the seam from the opening in either direction<br />
to the face of the workings. Said map shall<br />
be sworn to by the engineer making same. The<br />
map provided for herein shall be filed with the<br />
chief mine inspector during the month of January,<br />
next after opening of said mine, and shall show<br />
its condition on the first day of such January, and<br />
all new work inside of the mine must be added to<br />
said map, or a new map filed<br />
EACH YEAR THEREAFTER.<br />
showing the condition of the mine on the first day<br />
of January of the same year, and this provision<br />
for additions to maps shall apply to all maps which<br />
have heretofore been filed in the office of the chief<br />
mine inspector. Said maps shall be filed in the<br />
office of the chief mine inspector, who shall provide<br />
a suitable and safe place for keeping them.<br />
The chief mine inspector with the approval of the<br />
board of examiners may refuse to accept maps<br />
made by persons claiming to be mining engineers<br />
who are not known to be such and of good standing<br />
and character in their profession. The mine<br />
boss in charge of such mine shall certify to the<br />
correctness of such map, to the best of his knowledge<br />
and belief, and the additions made thereto.<br />
Said map shall be made on a uniform scale of<br />
one hundred or two hundred feet to the inch. The<br />
persons entitled to examine maps, plats and records<br />
of a coal mine shall be the owner, operator<br />
or lessee or agent of such coal mine, the persons<br />
financially interested in such mine: the owner, or<br />
owners, of land adjoining such mine; the owner<br />
or owners of land adjacent to such mine: the<br />
owner, operator, lessee or agent of a coal mine adjacent<br />
to such mine, and the authorized representatives<br />
of the employes of such or the employes<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
driving any break through liable to break into<br />
adjacent mine. The chief mine inspector shall<br />
not permit sucu maps, plans, records and papers<br />
to be removed from his office, and shall not furnish<br />
copies thereof to any persons except by request<br />
of the owner, operator, lessee or agent of<br />
the mine to which such maps, plans and records<br />
pertain. The chief mine inspector during the first<br />
three days of January of each year, shall forward,<br />
or cause to be forwarded by express, or hy other<br />
safe means of transmitting at the expense of the<br />
owner, operator or agent of the respective coal<br />
mines, all maps on file in his office of mines in<br />
operation to the chief office of the respective mine<br />
as such chief office shall be reported to him, in<br />
order that said map may be revised showing the<br />
condition of the mine on the first day of January<br />
of each year and such owner, oiierator or agent of<br />
each mine in this state shall have such maps revised<br />
during tlie month of January of each year,<br />
and return the same to the office of the chief mine<br />
inspector charges prepaid, during the said month<br />
of January.<br />
Sec. 66. Whenever the operator of any coal mine<br />
shall neglect or refuse, or, for any cause not satisfactory<br />
to the chief mine inspector, fail for the<br />
period of three months, to<br />
FURNISH TO SAID INSPECTOR<br />
the map or plan of such mine, or a copy thereof.<br />
or of the extension thereto, as provided for in this<br />
act, such operator shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.<br />
In addition thereto the chief mine inspector<br />
is hereby authorized to make or cause to<br />
be made, an accurate map or plan of such mine at<br />
the expense of the owner thereof; and the cost of<br />
the same may he recovered by law from the operator<br />
in the same manner as other debts by suit, in<br />
the name of the chief mine inspector and for his<br />
use.<br />
Sec. 67. If the chief mine inspector shall believe<br />
that any map or plan of any coal mine made or<br />
furnished in pursuance of the provisions of this<br />
act is materially incomplete, inaccurate, or imperfect,<br />
then the chief mine inspector is hereby authorized<br />
to cause a correct survey and map or plan<br />
of said mine to be made at the expense of the<br />
operator thereof, the cost of which shall be recoverable<br />
from said operator as other debts are recoverable<br />
by law; provided, that when the chief<br />
mine inspector shall cause a new survey and map<br />
or plan of any such coal mine, and it is found that<br />
the map or plan furnished by the operator was substantially<br />
correct, then the cost of the survey,<br />
map or plan caused to be made by the chief mine<br />
inspector shall be paid by the state.<br />
Sec. 6S. The chief mine inspector may order a<br />
survey to be made between the regular survey<br />
periods, of the workings of any coal mine and the<br />
results to be extended on the maps of the same
60 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
and the copies thereof, whenever, in his judgment,<br />
the safety of the workmen, the support of the surface,<br />
and the conservation of the property or the<br />
safety of an adjoining coal mine require it.<br />
Sec. 69. When any coal mine is worked out. or<br />
is about to be abandoned or indefinitely closed, the<br />
operator of the same shall make or cause to be<br />
made a final survey, where not already made, of all<br />
parts of such mine and the results of the same shall<br />
be duly extended on all maps of the mine and<br />
copies thereof, so as to<br />
SHOW AIL EXCAVATIONS<br />
and Ihe most advanced workings of the mine and<br />
their exact relation to the boundary or section<br />
lines on the surface and such abandoned mines<br />
shall be properly fenced off.<br />
Sec. 70. When it is known that a place is likely<br />
to obtain a dangerous accumulation of gases or<br />
water, workings when approaching such places,<br />
shall not exceed eight feet in width, and the person,<br />
or persons, driving such place, shall constantly<br />
keep at a sufficient distance ahead, not less<br />
than three yards in advance, one bore hole near<br />
the center of the working, and one in each corner<br />
15 feet deep, at an angle of forty-five degrees, at<br />
intervals of six feet. These holes shall not be<br />
used for blasting but separate holes for blasting<br />
not over four feet deep, must be drilled. These<br />
precautions must begin at least 100 feet from the<br />
probable source of danger.<br />
Sec. 71. In any coal mine, or coal mines, or<br />
parts thereof, wherein water may have been allowed<br />
to accumulate in large and dangerous quantities,<br />
putting in danger the adjoining or adjacent<br />
coal mines, and the lives of the miners working<br />
therein, and when such can be tapped and set free<br />
and flow by its own gravity to any point of drainage,<br />
it shall be lawful for any operator or person<br />
having a mine so endangered, with the approval<br />
of the chief mine inspector, to proceed and remove<br />
the said danger by driving a drift or drifts protected<br />
by bore holes as- provided by this act, and<br />
in removing said danger it shall be lawful to drive<br />
across property lines if needful, provided, that all<br />
coal removed in such driving from adjacent land<br />
shall be paid for on the basis of 25 'cents per ton<br />
of 2.000 pounds. And, it shall be unlawful for any<br />
person to dam or in any way obstruct the flow of<br />
water from said mine or parts thereof, when so set<br />
on any part of its passage to point of drainage.<br />
See. 72. Tn no case shall the workings of any<br />
coal mine be driven nearer than 15 feet to the<br />
boundary line of the coal rights of the owner of<br />
said mine, except for the purpose of establishing<br />
an underground communication between contiguous<br />
mines, as provided for elsewhere in this act. Provided,<br />
that by mutual consent of adjacent property<br />
owners, this distance may be reduced or elimin<br />
ated entirely and provided, further, that any operator<br />
working up to an<br />
ABANDONED COAL MINE<br />
may be permitted to work to his property line if approved<br />
by the chief mine inspector, but in such<br />
cases proper precautions must be taken as provided<br />
in this act.<br />
Sec. 73. Whenever the owner, operator or lessee<br />
of any land adjacent to other land on which any<br />
coal mine is being worked, shall have reason to<br />
believe that such mine is being so worked as to<br />
encroach upon this land, and has been refused by<br />
the owner, operator or manager of the mine, per<br />
mission at reasonable time to enter upon said mine<br />
with a competent engineer for the purpose of inspecting<br />
and surveying such mine, he may make<br />
application under oath to the probate court of the<br />
county in which the mine is situated, setting out<br />
the facts and praying for an order that such mine<br />
shall be surveyed. Upon the hearing after such<br />
notice to the owner, operator or lessee of the mine,<br />
as tne court may prescribe, the court may make<br />
an order requiring the chief mine inspector to employ<br />
a competent engineer to make a survey of<br />
such mine and file such survey in the office of the<br />
judge of probate and such survey when filed shall<br />
be received in any court as prima facie correct.<br />
The court may at any time during the progress of<br />
the proceedings require security for costs and may<br />
tax the costs in such manner as may be just and<br />
equitable.<br />
Sec. 74. No gasoline, or naphtha, shall be used<br />
in a coal mine, excepting for operating machinery,<br />
blow torches', safety lamps or for operating under<br />
the following regulations: Notice shall be made<br />
to tbe chief mine inspector before installing, and<br />
the installation and operation shall be subject lo<br />
his approval. The supply tank from which the<br />
gasoline or naphtha is fed to the engine, shall be<br />
of metal with a suitable screw cap opening, fitted<br />
with a gasket so as to make the tank tight and the<br />
tank kept free from leaks; the gasoline or naphtha<br />
shall be fed from a tank to the carburetor or<br />
mixer by metal tubes securely connected so as to<br />
reduce the possibility of leaks to a minimum; the<br />
exhaust from the engine, when discharged in the<br />
mine, must not contain more than 12 volumes of<br />
carbon dioxide and 1 volume of carbon monoxide<br />
to 10,000 volumes of air. At no time shall there<br />
be more than two day's supply of gasoline or<br />
naphtha in the supply tanks; at no time shall<br />
more than one day's supply of same he taken into<br />
the mine at any one time and at no time shall<br />
there be more than two days'<br />
SUPPLY IN THE MINE;<br />
including that in the supply tank. No gasoline<br />
or naphtha shall be taken into the mine except in<br />
metallic cans, with a screw cap opening at the<br />
top, fitted with a suitable gasket; no package oi
can or the supply tank of an engine, containing<br />
gasoline or naphtha shall be opened until ready to<br />
make the ti ansfer from the package or can to the,<br />
supply tank, and in transferring, a funnel shall<br />
lie used so as to avoid spilling the gasoline 01<br />
naphtha, and the cap on the supply tank shall lie<br />
immediately closed; in no case shall the package,<br />
can, or the supply tank, be opened with any open<br />
light or other thing containing fire within twentyfive<br />
feet of the same.<br />
See. 75. The oiling or greasing of cars inside 01<br />
coal mines' is strictly forbidden, unless the place<br />
where said oil or grease is used is kept reasonably<br />
clean. Not more than one barrel of lubricating<br />
oil shall be permitted in the mine at any one time<br />
No explosive oil shall be used or taken into the<br />
mines for lighting purposes except when used in<br />
approved safety lamps and illuminating oil shall<br />
not be stored or taken into mines in quantities exceeding<br />
five gallons. Any person using explosive<br />
or impure oils in any coal mine contrary to any<br />
of the provisions of this act, shall be guilty of a<br />
misdemeanor; provided, this does not apply to<br />
gasoline used in gasoline engines or pumps, or<br />
naphtha, so used.<br />
Sec. 76. ft shall be unlawful for any workman<br />
to fire a Mast without first notifying all persons in<br />
the immediate working places of that entry, and<br />
without giving sufficient alarm so that any person<br />
or persons approaching shall be warned of danger.<br />
Sec. 77. It shall be unlawful for any miner to<br />
charge any hole for blasting coal before the hole<br />
has been thoroughly cleaned of dust by suitable<br />
scraper. It shall be unlawful for any miner to<br />
tamp any blasting hole with coal or other inflammable<br />
material and it shall be the duty of the<br />
owner, operator or lessee of any coal mine wherein<br />
clay or other non-inflammable material suitable for<br />
use in tamping in preparing shots cannot be readily<br />
obtained to provide and deposit within said<br />
mine such material in each working heading, and<br />
such miner shall keetp a<br />
SUFFICIENT QUANTITY OF CLAY<br />
or other non-inflammable material convenient to<br />
his working place, and in case he has not the necessary<br />
supply of clay or other non-inflammable material<br />
for tamping purposes he shall not charge any<br />
blasting hole until the same has been procured.<br />
Sec. 78. At a coal mine where the firing of shots<br />
is restricted to specific times, it shall be unlawful<br />
for any miner to fire a shot until the time appointed<br />
for him to do so, and then only in such<br />
rotation as designated.<br />
Sec. 79. It shall be unlawful for any miner,<br />
shot firer or workman to fire a blast in any working<br />
place which is likely to generate sudden volumes<br />
of fire-damp, or where locked safety lamps<br />
are used, except with the consent of the mine fore<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
man, or other competent person designated by the<br />
mine foreman for that purpose.<br />
Sec. 80. A miner, workman or shot firer who<br />
is about to explode a shot with a manufactured<br />
squib, shall not shorten the match thereof or saturate<br />
with oil or ignite it except at the end; and<br />
he shall see that all persons are out of danger from<br />
the probable effects of such shots, and whether<br />
using squibs or fuse shall take measures to prevent<br />
anyone approaching by shouting "fire" immediately<br />
before lighting the same.<br />
Sec. SI. It shall be unlawful for any miner,<br />
workman or shot firer to explode any shot with a<br />
fuse of insufficient length to project from the hole,<br />
v. hen the cartridge is at the back of the hole, and<br />
in no case less than three feet or to fire any shot<br />
which is not tamped the full length of the hole.<br />
Sec. 82. No person shall return to a missed shot,<br />
if lighted with a squib until five minutes have<br />
elapsed from the time o* lighting the same, or if<br />
lighted with fuse, until the following day; and no<br />
person shall return to a missed shot when the<br />
firing is done by electricity unless the wires are<br />
disconnected from the battery or power line.<br />
Sec. 83. Whenever a workman is about to open<br />
a box or can containing powder or other explosive,<br />
and while handling the same, he shall place his<br />
lamp at least five feet distant from said explosive,<br />
and in such position that the air current cannot<br />
convey sparks to it, and no person shall knowingly<br />
approach nearer than ten feet to any open<br />
box containing an open can of powder or other<br />
explosive with a<br />
LIGHTED LAMP, LIGHTED PIPE,<br />
or other thing containing fire. No miner, workman,<br />
or other person shall open any keg, can or other<br />
container of blasting powder with any pick, wedge,<br />
tool or in any manner except by the means of opening<br />
of the same provided by the manufacturer<br />
thereof, and it shall be unlawful, and a violation<br />
of this act, for any person to have in his possession<br />
in any mine any can or other container of blasting<br />
powder containing blasting powder, which has<br />
been opened in violation of this act.<br />
Sec. 84. Every person who has powder or other<br />
explosive in a coal mine shall keep same in a<br />
wooden box securely locked, with hinged lid, and<br />
said box shall be kept as far as practicable from<br />
the track; and said powder boxes shall be kept as<br />
far as practicable from each other and each in a<br />
secluded place, nor shall any explosive be kept<br />
nearer than 100 feet to any working place. All<br />
black powder or other loose blasting material shall<br />
be carried into the mine by the miner in a proper<br />
receptacle with a securely fastened top.<br />
Sec. 85. No blasting powder or other explosives<br />
shall be stored in any coal mine and no workman<br />
shall have at any time more than the supply allowed<br />
by the rules and regulations of the mine,
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
and in no case shall more than one kind of explo<br />
sives be used in any one drill hole; provided, that<br />
nothing in this section shall be construed to pre<br />
vent the operator from taking into the mine, under<br />
proper precautions, a sufficient quantity of explo<br />
sives for the reasonable requirements of such mine<br />
for the next succeeding working day.<br />
Sec. S6. It shall be unlawful for any person to<br />
take or have in his possession or under his con<br />
trol within any coal mine, any explosive not per<br />
mitted in the mine by the rules of said mine.<br />
Sec. 87. No stocks of blasting powder and explosive<br />
materials shall be kept for storage in a<br />
wooden structure.<br />
Sec. SS. It shall be unlawful for any person to<br />
take or have in his possession or under his control<br />
within any coal mine in the state of Alabama, any<br />
dynamite, or any other explosive which may be<br />
prohibited by the rules and regulations of said<br />
mine from being in said mine, unless such person<br />
shall first have the written consent of the mine<br />
foreman or other person in<br />
CHARGE OF THE OPERATION<br />
of said mine, which said consent in writing shall<br />
set forth the use for which any such dynamite or<br />
other prohibited explosives may be particularly intended.<br />
Sec. 89. The owner or operator of each coal<br />
mine, at which the miners are paid by weight,<br />
shall provide such mines with suitable scales of<br />
standard make for the weighing of all coal, when<br />
contracted for to be weighed<br />
Sec. 90. All coal mined in this state, contracted<br />
for payment by the ton or other weight shall be<br />
weighed, and tne full weight thereof shall be credited<br />
to the miner of such coal, and two thousand<br />
pounds of coal shall constitute a ton.<br />
Sec. 91. In all coal mines, the miners employed<br />
and working therein may furnish a check weighman,<br />
who shall, at proper times, have full access<br />
and examination of the scales, and see all measures<br />
and weights and accounts kept of same; provided.<br />
th.it not more than one person shall have<br />
such right of access, examination and inspection<br />
of scales, measures and accounts at the same time.<br />
Sec. 92. The mine inspector, miners employed<br />
in the coal mines and the owner of the land or<br />
persons interested in the rental and royalty of<br />
such mines, shall al all times have full right of<br />
access to scales used at said mines, including tally<br />
sheets or tally book in which the weight of coal is<br />
kept, to examine the amount of coal mined, for the<br />
purpose of testing the accuracy thereof.<br />
See. 93. It shall be the duty of the owner, op<br />
erator or lessee or superintendent of each coal<br />
mine to keep at or near the mouth of the mine, or<br />
at such other place about or in the mine as shall<br />
be designated by the chief mine inspector, a<br />
stretcher, properly constructed, and so arranged<br />
that it may be carried on top of the mine car with<br />
out slipping, and a woolen and water-proof blan<br />
ket in good condition, for use in carrying away<br />
any person who may be injured at the mines; and<br />
where more than 100 men are employed two<br />
stretchers and two woolen and water-proof blan<br />
kets shall be kept at or in mines generating fire<br />
damp. A sufficient quantity of linseed oil, olive<br />
oil or sterilized sweet oil<br />
KEPT IN CLOSE PACKAGES,<br />
and also carbolized vasoline, bandages, and linen<br />
shall be kept in the store at the mines or at such<br />
other place as would be convenient to the mines<br />
lor use in emergencies and bandages shall be kept<br />
at all times.<br />
Sec. 94. Any building, erected after the passage<br />
of this act, for the purpose of housing the hoisting<br />
engine or boilers at any shaft, shall be substan<br />
tially fireproof and no boiler house shall be nearer<br />
than sixty feet to the main shaft, or opening, or<br />
to any inflammable structure connected therewith.<br />
Sec. 95. After the passage of this act, it shall<br />
be unlawful to place a main or principal ventilat<br />
ing fan inside of any coal mine.<br />
Sec. 96. The owner, operator, lessee or agent of<br />
a coal mine at which the live stock is kept underground,<br />
shall observe the following: The stable<br />
or stalls shall be separated from the main inlet<br />
and main outlet air courses by not less than twenty<br />
feet of solid strata or a solid wall of brick masonry<br />
not less than twelve inches in thickness, except at<br />
two doors not more than five feet wide, which shall<br />
be made of steel plate not less than one-quarter<br />
of an inch in thickness and hinged to the solid<br />
strata or masonry without the use of wood; the<br />
ventilation for the stable shall be taken from the<br />
main inlet air courses by a by-pass or separate<br />
split and returned tc. the main outlet air course<br />
so that the air passing the stables will not enter<br />
the inward working places of the mine, and arranged<br />
so that the by-pass or split can readily be<br />
closed at both inlet and outlet sides of the stable<br />
by steel doors described above; the construction<br />
of the stable inside shall be free from pine or<br />
light lumber; shall be of brick masonry as much<br />
as practicable, and any timber used shall be of<br />
hardwood of a cross section not less than three by<br />
six inches; no hay or straw shall be taken into the<br />
mine or stable unless the same be compressed into<br />
compact bales, and then only from time to time in<br />
such quantity as will be required for two days' use;<br />
no greater quantity of hay or<br />
STRAW SHALL BE STORED<br />
in the mine or stable, and when such is taken into<br />
the mine it shall be taken inside the stable at<br />
once; the lights used inside the stable shall be in<br />
candescent electric lamps, placed so that the same<br />
will not be injured by the stock or persons required<br />
to enter the stable, or lanterns of railroad
type suitable for using lard or signal oil, and only<br />
such oil shall be used therein; all refuse and waste<br />
shall promptly be removed from the stable and<br />
mine and shall not be allowed to accumulate.<br />
Stables constructed underground, after the passage<br />
and approval of this act shall be located not nearer<br />
than one hundred and fifty feet of any opening to<br />
the mines used as a means of ingress and egress.<br />
Sec. 97. It shall be unlawful for any person to<br />
take a lighted pipe or other thing containing fire,<br />
except lanterns as provided for in the precedingsection<br />
into any stable in any coal mine in this<br />
state.<br />
Sec. 98. No person, or persons, except those in<br />
charge of trips, superintendents, mine foremen,<br />
electricians, machinists and blacksmiths and<br />
others, when required by their duty shall ride on<br />
haulage trips, except a special trip of entry cars<br />
may be operated for the purpose of taking employes<br />
into and out of the mine, when the distance<br />
to and from their work exceeds one mile. No person,<br />
excepting trip riders, shall ride on loaded car<br />
or cars, and they shall ride only the front or rear<br />
end of the trip.<br />
Sec. 99. No other person shall be allowed to<br />
travel on foot to or from his work on any incline<br />
plane, rope or locomotive roads, when other roads<br />
are provided for that purpose. Regulation concerning<br />
the installation, maintenance and operation<br />
of electrical apparatus in coal mines in the state<br />
of Alabama.<br />
Sec. 100. Voltage.—Rule 1. Electrical pressure<br />
or vouage referred to in these regulations is understood<br />
to mean that measured on all apparatus<br />
wires and cables installed and used underground.<br />
It not only applies to voltages measured between<br />
terminals, conductors, etc., but also to the voltage<br />
measured between any one conductor, terminal.<br />
etc., and the earth. Rule 2. Three systems of<br />
voltages are described as follows: Class 1. Low.<br />
300 volts direct current, or<br />
240 VOLTS ALTERNATING<br />
current or less. Class 2. Med. Between 3011 volts<br />
and 600 volts direct current, or 240 volts and 480<br />
volts alternating current. Class 3. High. 600<br />
volts direct current or 480 volts alternating current<br />
and higher. Rule 3. No apparatus or conductors<br />
carrying a voltage within class three shall<br />
be allowed in or about working places. Rule 4.<br />
Portable apparatus using a voltage of class three<br />
are prohibited. Rule 5. Electrical equipments installed<br />
after this date shall not use any voltage<br />
higher than that in class one in or about working<br />
places. This does not prohibit the use of voltages<br />
defined in classes two and three (except in or<br />
about working places) provided such apparatus is<br />
installed and maintained according to these regulations.<br />
Rule 6. Power circuits entering the mine<br />
must be protected against lightning by lightning<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 63<br />
arresters at all points ol entrance to the mines.<br />
Rule 7. The three wire double voltage system<br />
having a maximum voltage within class two may<br />
be used provided the neutral is effectively grounded<br />
and the maximum voltage between any conductor<br />
and the earth complies with these requirements.<br />
Utile 8. The regulations covering the installation<br />
and maintenance of conductors do not apply to<br />
the grounded or return conductor or any grounded<br />
system. Rule 9. Trolley wires are prohibited<br />
in any part of the mine where safety lamps are<br />
used. Rule 10. iSeries arc and incandescent systems<br />
of class three shall not be used. Rule 11.<br />
Conductors in shafts and slopes used as traveling<br />
ways and in escape ways shall be protected.<br />
Rule 12. Conductors of voltage of class three shall<br />
lie reasonably protected against mechanical injury<br />
and be adequately insulated to minimize the danger<br />
of fire and shock. Such conductors shall not<br />
be used where they cannot be made to comply with<br />
these regulations. Rule 13. All trolley wires<br />
carrying a voltage of class two must be properly<br />
shielded except where the same are at least 6 VLfeet<br />
above top of rail. Rule 14. Signal wires shall<br />
be run at a safe distance and where possible placed<br />
on side of slope or heading away from other circuits.<br />
Rule 15. A separate or<br />
INDEPENDENT CIRCUIT<br />
shall be provided for shot firing, where done<br />
by electricity from the outside. A switch above<br />
the surface controlling all the shot firing circuits<br />
must be kept in a locked box, accessible only to<br />
the authorized shot firers, and switch not closed<br />
except to fire shots after which it must be opened<br />
and locked opened. Rule 16. All shot firing<br />
switches shall be kept open until immediately before<br />
the shots are fired. After the shots are fired,<br />
the switches must be locked in open position.<br />
Rule 17. No lighting on power circuits in the<br />
mines shall be used for firing shots except in sinking<br />
shafts or rock slopes, and then only when a<br />
special switch for such firing circuit is provided<br />
and fixed in a locked box accessible only to the authorized<br />
shot firers. Rule 18. Shot firing wires,<br />
shall, where possible, be put on the side of the<br />
heading or slope away from power and lightingcircuits.<br />
Rule 19. Where this system is used a<br />
suitable means of disconnecting wiring in working<br />
places shall be provided, and kept open at all<br />
times, when miner is working in his place. Rule<br />
20. Oil switches only shall lie used for voltages<br />
of class three. Rule 21. Any unusual arching,<br />
sparking, or heating of any of the electrical equipment<br />
shall be reported at once to the proper mine<br />
officer by the attendant or any other person having<br />
knowledge of same.<br />
Sec. 101. No person shall erase or change a<br />
mark or reference or monument made in connection<br />
with measurements: change the checks on
64 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
cars; wrongfully check a car, or do any act with<br />
reference thereto with the intent to defraud.<br />
Sec. 102. Any employe, or other person, who<br />
shall wilfully deface, pull down or destroy any notice<br />
board, danger signal, general or special rules<br />
or mining laws, shall be<br />
GUILTY OF A MISDEMEANOR.<br />
Sec. 103. All persons are forbidden to meddle or<br />
tamper in any way with any electric or signal<br />
wires in or about the mines.<br />
Sec. 104. Persons not employes of a coal mine<br />
shall not enter such mine unless the consent of the<br />
operator or his authorized representative has been<br />
secured and shall not stand on the tracks or go<br />
near the machinery or other place of danger.<br />
Sec. 106. Whoever shall, while under the influence<br />
of intoxicating liquor, enter any coal mine,<br />
or any of the buildings connected with the operation<br />
of tne same, within this state, where mineis<br />
or other workmen are employed, or whoever shall<br />
carry intoxicating liquors into the same, shall be<br />
deemed guilty of an offence against this act, and<br />
upon conviction shall be punished accordingly.<br />
Sec. 107. On and after the passage of this act<br />
any coal mine superintendent, mine foreman, or<br />
assistant mine foreman, or any other person or<br />
persons, who shall receive or solicit any sum of<br />
money, or other valuable consideration, from any<br />
of his or their employes for the purpose of continuing<br />
in his or their employ, or for the purpose<br />
of procuring employment, or procuring or<br />
keeping working places shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,<br />
and upon conviction shall be subject to<br />
a fine of not less than fifty dollars, nor more than<br />
three hundred dollars, and shall be sentenced at<br />
hard labor for the county for not less than six<br />
months.<br />
Sec. 108. No woman of any age or boy uuder<br />
the age of fourteen shall be employed to work or<br />
labor in or about any coal mine in this state.<br />
Sec. 109. For the purpose of making known the<br />
rules and provisions of this law to all persons<br />
employed in or about coal mines, to which this<br />
law applies, an abstract of the law and rules shall<br />
be furnished by the chief mine inspector and<br />
posted up in legible characters in some conspicuous<br />
place or places at or near the mines where they<br />
may be conveniently<br />
READ BY THE PEItSONS EMPLOYED,<br />
and so often as they become obliterated or<br />
destroyed, the owner, operator, lessee or superintendent,<br />
shall cause them to be renewed with all<br />
reasonable dispatch. Any person who pulls down,<br />
injures, or defaces such abstract of the law or<br />
rules when up in pursuance of the provisions of<br />
this chapter, shall be guilty of an offense against<br />
the law. The mine rules and regulations so<br />
posted shall limit and govern the amount and kind<br />
of explosives used in said mine.<br />
Sec. 110. Any wilful neglect or refusal or failure<br />
to do the things required to be done by any<br />
section, clause or provision of this act, on the part<br />
of the person, or persons, herein required to do<br />
them, or any wilful violation of any of the provisions<br />
or requirements hereof, or any wilful attempt<br />
to obstruct or interfere with any inspectors<br />
in the discharge of the duties herein imposed upon<br />
him, shall be deemed a misdemeanor, and unless<br />
herein otherwise provided punishable by a fine of<br />
not less than five dollars or more than five hundred<br />
dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for<br />
a period not exceeding six months, one or both,<br />
at the discretion of the court; provided that in addition<br />
to the above penalties, in case of the failure<br />
of any operator to comply with the provisions of<br />
this act in relation to the sinking of escapement<br />
shafts and the ventilation of mines, the state's<br />
attorney for the county in which such failure occurs<br />
shal. proceed against such operator by injunction<br />
without bond, to restrain him from continuing<br />
to operate such mine until such legal requirements<br />
shall have been fully complied with.<br />
Sec. 110%. The word person wheresoever used<br />
in this act shall include corporation association copartnership<br />
or fiim as well as an actual person.<br />
Sec. 111. All laws and parts of laws, local, general<br />
or special in conflict with the provisions of<br />
this act are hereby repealed.<br />
Approved April 18, 1911.<br />
NOVEL FIRE DAMP SIGNALING<br />
SYSTEM FOR USE IN MINES.<br />
The automatic current shut-off of two British<br />
engineers is designed to stop the electric motors<br />
of mines when firedamp is present, its action depending<br />
on the curious property of platinum of<br />
condensing hydrogen on its surface and becoming<br />
heated in the process.<br />
Two slightly separated strips of dissimilar metals—such<br />
as iron and brass—are placed in the<br />
motor circuit. One strip is connected with a coil<br />
of copper, the other with a coil of platinum, and<br />
under normal conditions the current passing<br />
through these coils and the strips heats the latter<br />
about equally, so that they bend similarly, without<br />
touching.<br />
But in the presence of firedamp, which is chiefly<br />
light carburetted hydrogen, the platinum becomes<br />
heated, its resistance being thus increased so that<br />
less than the usual current passes to one of the<br />
parallel strips. This causes the strip to cool and<br />
contract, so that it touches the other, closing a<br />
circuit, and operating a cut-off to stop the motors,<br />
at the same time lighting a red light or ringing a<br />
bell.<br />
It is asserted that two per cent, of firedamp can<br />
be detected, an alarm being given much more<br />
promptly than by any other method.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK & KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
66 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
METHODS OF SAMPLING AND<br />
ANALYZING FURNACE GAS.<br />
In connection with its investigations bearing<br />
upon the improvement of furnace conditions and<br />
on efliciency in the use of fuel, the Bureau of<br />
Mines has just issued a bulletin describing the<br />
apparatus and methods in use by the bureau for<br />
the sampling and analysis of furnace gases. The<br />
authors, J. C. W. Frazer and E. .1. Hoffman, say<br />
in their foreword: "The furnace conditions pre<br />
vailing both in small plants and in large indus<br />
trial establishments in this country are frequently<br />
far from satisfactory. If such conditions<br />
are to be improved, they must be more thor<br />
oughly understood, and means must be found<br />
to insure complete combustion of the fuel, and<br />
yet to permit operation with such an excess of<br />
air as will result in the greatest efficiency.<br />
"In this work the services of the chemist are<br />
indispensable. A very important problem is the<br />
determination of the small percentage of un-<br />
burned combustible matter that escapes from the<br />
furnace in the flue gases. Under ordinary cir<br />
cumstances so little as 0.1 per cent, of unburned<br />
combustible matter in a furnace gas is equivalent<br />
to about 1 per cent, of the fuel used; and<br />
for the determination of such small percentage<br />
of gas more accurate and refined methods are<br />
!Y0U CAN'T<br />
LOOK INTO THE<br />
EARTH, but WE<br />
C A N get you a large<br />
clean core of all strata un<br />
der your land to be ex<br />
amined in broad daylight.<br />
. No Guess Work. .<br />
STheJ. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
' Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
I Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING, OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
FOR THE<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
required than have ordinarily been available be<br />
fore."<br />
This bulletin, which is No. 12, may be obtained<br />
by those interested by writing to the Director<br />
of the Bureau of Mines, Washington, D. C.<br />
PRESIDENT WHEELWRIGHT SEES<br />
GOOD TIMES AHEAD FOR TRADE.<br />
Mr. J. H. Wheelwright, president of the Con<br />
solidation Coal Co., on returning from a business<br />
visit to New York to the company's head offices<br />
in Baltimore, recently, gave an interview in which<br />
he states he is very enthusiastic over the future<br />
business outlook, and he also believes that the<br />
whole country is on the eve of great prosperity.<br />
"I do not predict a boom," said Mr. Wheel<br />
wright, "but I do believe that the improvement<br />
in business that has already set in will gather<br />
force as the year draws to a close and that we<br />
will be enjoying real prosperity by fall.<br />
"I am not alone in entertaining this belief.<br />
While in New York 1 met and talked with bank<br />
ers, merchants, railroad presidents and manu<br />
facturers from various parts of the country, and<br />
they were unanimous in saying that good times<br />
had begun and that business would continue to<br />
expand."<br />
HOW TO KEEP IN<br />
TOUCH WITH<br />
AFFAIRS.<br />
Mines of information on every subject are at<br />
your disposal—Just say the word and we'll<br />
drive an entry for you - - - - - - - -<br />
USE OUR<br />
PRESS CLIPPINGS.<br />
i<br />
J Ours is the only Clipping Bureau in the greatest<br />
Industrial Center of the World.<br />
We have two branches—<br />
| A LOCAL SERVICE—AND—A GENERAL SERVICE.<br />
I Both are splendid aids to busy men.<br />
Ask us for definite information<br />
PUBLISHERS OF<br />
\ The Coal Dealers' Blue Book I<br />
\ Contains a Complete List for the United States and ;<br />
\ Canada of all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
i Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron !<br />
i<br />
z<br />
Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coal and<br />
Coke in oar load lots, with capital and pay ratines.<br />
]<br />
j 550 M.non MMtaMU D.art.rn St.. U3 JJ°- «"" S0UARE and rates.<br />
The Central Press Bureau,<br />
; 906 & 908 WABASH BUILDING.<br />
' \ ) T.l.phon. 2154 Court. PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
.- CHICAGO. PHILADELPHIA. i<br />
)
MINING ENGINEERS VISIT EUROPE TO<br />
STUDY CONDITIONS IN COAL MINES.<br />
At the request of the Bureau of Mines a committee<br />
consisting of some of the best known<br />
mining engineers of the United States are visiting<br />
England, Belgium, France and Germany to<br />
study the methods employed in the prevention<br />
of accidents and in mining generally.<br />
This committee, which is headed by Mr. Ge<strong>org</strong>e<br />
S. Rice, ot Pittsburgh, chief coal mining engineer<br />
of the Bureau of Mines, sailed from New York<br />
on the steamer St. Louis, June 17, aud will be<br />
gone two months.<br />
The party includes Erskine Ramsey, of Birmingham,<br />
Alabama, representing the Pratt Consolidated<br />
Coal Co.; A. B. Jessup, of Wilkes-Barre,<br />
Pa., representing the Lehigh Valley Co. and the<br />
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co.; IL M. Warren, of<br />
Scranton, Pa., representing the Delaware, Lackawanna<br />
& Western Co., and John Bart, of Windber,<br />
Pa., representing the Berwind-White Coal<br />
Mining Co.<br />
The members of the committee have been fully<br />
equipped with passports and credentials which<br />
HIE COM. TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
will welcome them to any country or any mines<br />
or metallurgical works they care to visit. Especial<br />
attention will be paid to the safe-guards<br />
used in European countries to prevent accidents<br />
in mines. Among other problems to be considered<br />
is the most efficient method of working thick<br />
beds of coal in such manner as to make possible<br />
the maximum removal of coal with the least<br />
amount of waste and the least amount of surface<br />
settling or caving.<br />
The members of the party will make individual<br />
reports to their companies and a general report<br />
to the Bureau of Mines.<br />
The idea that a committee of the most prominent<br />
mining engineers of the country visit Europr<br />
in such a manner originated with Dr. J. A.<br />
Holmes, the Director of the Bureau of Mines,<br />
who expects valuable results from the visit and<br />
results that may tend toward a reduction in the<br />
number of deaths in the American coal mines.<br />
The Latrobe-Connellsville Coal & Coke Co. has<br />
tiled at Harrisburg, Pa., a notice of increase of<br />
capital from $997,0(10 to $2,000,000.<br />
LONG LEAF YELLOW PINE SHAFT<br />
GUIDES, SURFACED^^=<br />
TIMBER ANY SIZE FOR TIPPLES AND TRESTLES,<br />
LINING, LAGGING, BRATTICE BOARDS<br />
TERHUNE LUMBER CO. Pittsburgh<br />
< House Building, No. 4 Smithfield St. 'Phone-Court 3457 ><br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
, FAMOUj<br />
TT<br />
"ARGYLE" PENNSYLVANIA.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
JAMISON MINES TO RUN TO CAPACITY.<br />
The Jamison Coal & Coke Co. mines in West<br />
Virginia, have been ordered to ship all of the<br />
coal that they have on hands and to have the mines<br />
operated to their capacity, says a press dispatch<br />
from Fairmont, W. Va. This company has been<br />
selling coal right along through the dull season<br />
and now the orders are increasing.<br />
The two mines at Barrackville and York are<br />
now producing daily one thousand tons and the<br />
old mine at Farmington is one of the biggest in<br />
this section of the state.<br />
FOR SALE-<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909- IO.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
F. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes' up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
For Sale<br />
A well improved coal farm of 205 acres in a<br />
new coal belt, between two railroads, commanding<br />
the only natural inlet to over 500 acres solid coal<br />
land. Write Mr. Milton Taggart,<br />
Cadiz, Ohio.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey<br />
wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full particulars,<br />
analysis of coal, name, location and outfit<br />
of mine, etc.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, IY tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address IT, B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VENEER & LUMBER CO.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madison ville, Ky.
^GOALJTRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, JULY 15, 1911 No. 4<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:<br />
PUBLISHED SBMI-MOKTHLI.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL THADB COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STRAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matteri<br />
relating to coal or coal production are Invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDING, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
BETTER THINGS ARE COMING TO THE COAL TRAOE<br />
these days, practically every branch of the indus<br />
try making a better showing during the first half<br />
of the month than was the case for some time.<br />
This statement must not be taken to mean that<br />
miraculous things have happened, but rather is to<br />
be understood that the trade is progressing instead<br />
of retrogressing as was the case during a large<br />
portion of the second quarter of the year. The<br />
bituminous situation shows continued improve<br />
ment, the coke trade showed an advance in tonnage<br />
for three successive weeks but slumped a little a<br />
few days since, and there are reports that there is<br />
little probability of the anthracite collieries closing<br />
down for any length of time. These features of<br />
the trade cannot but lend stability and activity to<br />
the industry as a whole.<br />
Reports to operating companies' that the coal<br />
loading machinery at lower lake ports have gone<br />
one twenty-four hours duty in response to orders<br />
from the home offices to rush shipments is the<br />
cheering news that comes to the lake trade. More<br />
bottoms are available and are seeking cargoes—<br />
this fact applying alike to big and little vessels—<br />
than at any time since the lake season opened.<br />
The net result is that shipments from the lower<br />
docks are at record breaking figures just now.<br />
There is expected to be a lull, however, in a short<br />
time, but it will be brief and of small import is<br />
the consensus of opinion. All rail shipments,<br />
toward the west and northwest, also are good,<br />
and this means better things in store. Tidewater<br />
shipments from the different fields are showing<br />
considerable improvement and, at some ports, new<br />
records of dumping coal over the piers are being<br />
made.<br />
The labor situation shows some signs of "sun<br />
spots," particularly in Indiana, while the differ<br />
ences in the Canadian northwest are as far from<br />
settlement, apparently, as ever. Otherwise things<br />
are moving along nicely.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district things are fairly active,<br />
each succeeding week showing some betterments.<br />
All rail shipments to lower lake ports are being<br />
made in goodly quantities, the only hindrance<br />
being the embargoes placed every now and then<br />
by some particular road whose docks are con<br />
gested. The tonnage of the mines is showing<br />
satisfactory increases and, what is more to the<br />
point, prices are held strong at card figures. The<br />
river shipping concerns are hampered by a con<br />
tinued low stage of water and to-day there is tied<br />
up in the harbor one of the largest tonnages for<br />
a long time. Until there is a substantial rise in<br />
the upper rivers this coal will remain tied up,<br />
thereby hampering operations to the extent of a<br />
lessened number of empty craft to load. Labor<br />
and car supply are good and all indications point<br />
to still further betterments in the trade. Because<br />
of the increased demand, there is, for once, no<br />
rumor of shading to get business and card quota<br />
tions are easily obtained, and are: Run-of-mine<br />
coal, $1.25 to $1.35; three-quarter coal, $1.35 to<br />
$1.45; inch and one-quarter coal, $1.45 to $1.55;<br />
slack, 85 to 95 cents.<br />
After an increase in tonnage for three consecu<br />
tive weeks, including the first of the present<br />
month, coke production took a slump about the<br />
middle of the present fortnight and tonnages that<br />
had been creeping upward once more show figures
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
that almost touch the bottom weekly production can settle the strike without the drastic measures<br />
lor the year. Of course, the celebration of the he is empowered to use it will put the law in a<br />
Fourth came in this period and it had much to do firmer position than ever, but if not then it id<br />
with the decline in tonnage, even with a net in<br />
crease of half a hundred ovens. But the hopes of<br />
the coke makers are not crushed, for with so many<br />
AUDITORS' REPORTS SHOW A DECREASE in the Mine<br />
furnaces out of blast stocks of iron must soon be<br />
Workers treasury for the first two months of the<br />
used up and then will come the demand for in<br />
present administration's regime. With the pros<br />
creased production with its consequent increased<br />
pect of a further drain due to differences in In<br />
demand for more coke. Oespite all the cold water,<br />
diana it is altogether likely that much of the re<br />
prices are held steady at $1.75 to $1.85 for furnace<br />
trenchment of the early part of the year that<br />
coke and $2.00 to $2.25 for foundry coke.<br />
brought the treasury back to a condition of pros<br />
The anthracite trade seems to be on a parity<br />
with the other two branches, and the production<br />
figures for June, just announced, show that a new<br />
lecord was established for the month. The col<br />
lieries, it is reported, will not shut down for any<br />
considerable time, while rumors of storage by pro<br />
ducers are already heard. Prices are the same<br />
as at the opening of the month and within twenty<br />
cents of winter quotations.<br />
* * *<br />
INCREASES ARE SHOWN I.\ THE COAL PRODUCTION OF<br />
KENTUCKY and the coke production of Illinois by<br />
reports just issued. Both these states are among<br />
the leaders in the coal industry, and the increase<br />
Coke makers' hopes got a jolt just when least<br />
noted in both instances shows just how the in<br />
expected. Some one has remarked that a "pig"<br />
dustry is progressing. In the latter case a new<br />
phase of the trade is brought more prominently<br />
to the front than it has ever been before, and that<br />
is the transportation of coal to the consumption<br />
plant to be converted into coke, rather than coking<br />
it at the mines and then shipping the coke to the<br />
furnaces. As the big plant at Gary gets into<br />
better working shape this phase of the trade wiil<br />
have still more prominence than it has at present,<br />
and will be watched with interest hy the trade at<br />
large.<br />
* * *<br />
CANADA'S NEW ARBITRATION LAW IS GETTING A SE<br />
VERE TEST these days due to the strike of the coal<br />
miners in Alberta. The conciliation board ap<br />
pointed under the new law made a proposal for<br />
settling the strike, and it was promptly refused<br />
by the operators and miners concerned. The<br />
members of the board made a report to the min<br />
ister of labor and his action now is being watched<br />
by employers and employes everywhere. If he<br />
likely to lessen the effectiveness of the law.<br />
* * *<br />
perity will have been all for naught.<br />
* * *<br />
INSPECTOR HILLHOUSE'S "DONT'S" are good ones<br />
and their posting at all mines by consuls of for<br />
eign governments is one of the best moves made<br />
along this line.<br />
<strong>•</strong> LONG WALL BRUSHINGS <strong>•</strong><br />
The government is still trying to divest the<br />
anthracite coal roads of their coal mining inter<br />
ests. This seems to have been a hard coal propo<br />
sition.<br />
of iron dropping on them was the cause.<br />
* <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
If the coal man could store up the energy the<br />
sun is expending just now, wouldn't he have a<br />
gold mine next winter?<br />
* * *<br />
Just one more skeleton unearthed that it might<br />
be buried again, sums up rumors from the Irwin<br />
field.<br />
* * *<br />
Ralph Conner seems to have more success with<br />
books than with mine arbitrations.<br />
* * *<br />
Night turn at lower lake coal docks looks like<br />
"some" prosperity once more.<br />
* * »<br />
Indiana has prospects of "trouble." Gee, they<br />
must like to scrap out there!<br />
* * *<br />
Anthracite's new June record "suttinly looks<br />
good" these days.
GOVERNMENT RENEWS EFFORTS TO HAVE<br />
COAL ROADS DECLARED VIOLATORS OF<br />
THE HEPBURN LAW.<br />
The government has renewed the fight to disassociate<br />
the great coal carrying railroads from<br />
their virtual control of mines and to vitalize tha<br />
commodities' clause of the interstate commerce law.<br />
A test case against the Lehigh Valley railroad was<br />
filed July 6 in the United States Court in Philadelphia.<br />
That tne Lehigh Valley Coal Co., Coxe Bros.,<br />
Inc., the New York & Middlefield Railroad & Coal<br />
Co. and the Locust Mountain Coal & Iron Co. are<br />
not bona fide coal companies but merely adjuncts<br />
to the Lehigh Valley railroad and are "devices for<br />
evading the commodity clause" is the government's<br />
principal complaint.<br />
It is also alleged that the Lehigh Valley Railroad<br />
Co., with the object of removing competition, has<br />
caused the Lehigh Valley Coal Co. to contract at<br />
a loss for the output of other anthracite operators',<br />
has transported the coal over its own lines<br />
and through the coal company fixed the price in<br />
New York and other markets.<br />
The government charges that although the buying<br />
of coal from old operators has been done at a<br />
loss to the coal company, it has enabled the Lehigh<br />
Valley road to transport the coal over its<br />
lines and profit in freight charges.<br />
As a further allegation that the Lehigh Coal Co.<br />
is an adjunct of the Lehigh Valley railroad the<br />
government's complaint says that since the capital<br />
stock of the coal company had been owned by the<br />
railroad, it has paid no dividends', that millions of<br />
dollars have been advanced by the railroads to the<br />
coal company which has never been refunded and<br />
that the railroad has paid the interest upon the<br />
coal company, being compensated, the government<br />
claims, by the earnings of transportation of coal<br />
over its lines. By proving the Lehigh Valley<br />
railroad is actually the legal owner of the Lehigh<br />
Valley Coal Co.'s anthracite mines, or has a pecuniary<br />
interest in them, the government hopes to<br />
bring its' case into line with the recent decision of<br />
the supreme court in the commodity clause, strike<br />
down dummy coal companies and force the coal<br />
carrying railroads from their control of mines.<br />
The New York up-State Public Service Commission<br />
has authorized the New York Central<br />
& Hudson River Railroad Co. to guarantee the<br />
payment of the principal and interest of the<br />
bonds of the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation,<br />
aggregating $2,500,000. The capital stock<br />
of the coal company is owned by the New York<br />
Central, having been acquired for the purpose of<br />
securing a supply of coal for its use.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
ARSENAL TESTING STATION TO REMAIN IN<br />
PITTSBURGH AND TO BE ENLARGED.<br />
Mr. Walter L. Fisher, secretary of the interior,<br />
came to Pittsburgh during the fortnight to attend<br />
the convention of the Sigma Chi fraternity, and<br />
to inspect the experimental station of the United<br />
States Bureau of Mines in Old Arsenal park and<br />
the experimental mine at Bruceton. At both<br />
these places' Secretary Fisher followed closely experiments<br />
and later announced that the work demanded<br />
large quarters that its scope may be extended.<br />
He wishes the station to become the<br />
most important in its line of work in the country.<br />
The visit to Bruceton mine was the first<br />
official inspection made of this station. The secretary<br />
was accompanied to Pittsburgh by Dr. G. 'A.<br />
Holmes', director of the Bureau of Mines.<br />
"I am greatly pleased with the work of the experimental<br />
stations here," said Secretary Fisher,<br />
"and believe that the scope should be enlarged. I<br />
came to Pittsburgh principally to look over this<br />
plant. I am satisfied that the station should be<br />
greatly enlarged. This is the most important<br />
work with which the department of the interior<br />
has to do. It should have originated years ago.<br />
"Pittslburgh is the logical place for this station.<br />
It is in the center of the coal fields and I am satisfied<br />
will remain here. We will either enlarge the<br />
present quarters or erect an entirely new plant.<br />
The engineers are greatly handicapped with their<br />
present facilities, but have accomplished wonders.<br />
f have pledged my support to the improvements as<br />
I believe it should be made a model plant. This<br />
is work in which we are trying to save human<br />
lives and there is' nothing which the government<br />
should not do to assist the experiments.<br />
"The mine at Bruceton is an excellent place for<br />
making practical experiments with modern safety<br />
appliances which have been indorsed by the government.<br />
There the miners can have a practical<br />
demonstration of the various kinds of explosives,<br />
and lamps that will fit them better for the work<br />
in the mines. Every experiment possible will be<br />
furnished for carrying on these experiments."<br />
After the inspection tour, Secretary Fisher was<br />
entertained at dinner hy the Pittsburgh Chamber<br />
of Commerce, in the Country club, and, in the evening<br />
he attended the banquet of the Sigma Chi fraternity<br />
in the Fort Pitt hotel. The secretary left<br />
on a late train for Chicago. Dr. Holmes returned<br />
to Washington.<br />
In the party that visited the mine, with Secretary<br />
Fisher and Dr. Holmes, were H. M. Wilson.<br />
engineer in charge of the bureau of mining at<br />
Pittsburgh: J. J. Rutledge. United States mining<br />
engineer; S. A. Taylor, secretary of the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Operators' Association: Ge<strong>org</strong>e Z. Hosack.<br />
vice president of the Pittsburgh Coal Co.: Ge<strong>org</strong>e<br />
AV. Sehluederberg, general manager of mines of th&
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Pittsburgh Coal Co.; W. W. Keefer, president of<br />
the Pittsburgh Terminal & Railroad Coal Co.;<br />
E. J. Taylor, chief engineer for the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co.; James C. Gray, president of the Meadowlands<br />
Coal Co., and Reid Kennedy, of the Henderson<br />
Coal Co.<br />
Secretary Fisher and Dr. Holmes went to the<br />
Arsenal grounds and were met by Engineer H. M.<br />
Wilson and J. J. Rutledge, who took them through<br />
the plant and directed the experiments. From<br />
the Arsenal the party proceeded to the Duquesne<br />
Club where Secretary Fisher was entertained at<br />
luncheon by several Pittsburgh coal operators.<br />
DIFFERENTIALS ARE UPHELD.<br />
The Alabama Coal Operators' Association, in a<br />
case against the Southern and other railways, recently<br />
sought to obtain from the Interstate Commerce<br />
Commission an increase of the present differentials<br />
on coal shipped from the Birmingham<br />
district to destinations in Ge<strong>org</strong>ia, South Carolina<br />
and Florida. As against the Coal Creek district<br />
in Tennessee, the Birmingham district now enjoys<br />
differentials on coal shipments varying from 15 to<br />
70 cents a ton.<br />
The commission has decided that the present differentials<br />
are not unreasonable or discriminatory.<br />
The opinion adds that "the realms of commercial<br />
activity of a producing point cannot be limited to<br />
a definite radius and all other producers excluded<br />
therefrom."<br />
OKLAHOMA CORPORATION COMMISSION<br />
MAKES NEW COAL RATE ORDER<br />
A new coal rate order has been issued by the<br />
corporation commission of Oklahoma making final<br />
the rates of the proposed order on which extended<br />
hearings were recently held by the commission.<br />
The order becomes effective on July 31, and the<br />
railroads are required to file their tariffs b.v July<br />
27. The new rates are on a straight mileage basis,<br />
doing away with all of the groupings which were<br />
favored by many of the coal producers.<br />
A graduated scale of rates is provided, charging<br />
with every five miles up to 100 miles, and every<br />
10 miles from 100 to 400 miles, and ranging from<br />
25 cents for five miles on coal and coke or on<br />
slack to $2.30 on coal and coke for 400 miles, and<br />
$1.93 for slack. A lower rate is made throughout<br />
for slack, which is defined as any coal that will<br />
pass through a bar screen with bars 1% inches<br />
apart or through a round hole two inches in diameter.<br />
The carriers are allowed to add 10 cents per ton<br />
for shipments moving over two lines not under the<br />
same control and management and 15 cents per<br />
ton for shipments over three or more lines. Where<br />
shipments are re-consigned either before or after<br />
reaching the first destination and such re-consignment<br />
causes a total movement of over 300<br />
miles from point of origin to final destination, 2<br />
cents per ton for each 10 miles or fraction thereof<br />
over 300 miles may be added. The commission<br />
reserves the right to direct the basis for revenue<br />
divisions whenever carriers fail to agree.<br />
FREIGHT RATES ON ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
ARE CUT BY INTER-STATE COMMERCE<br />
COMMISSION.<br />
The Interstate Commerce Commission July 1<br />
ordered reductions in rates on anthracite coal from<br />
the Wyoming region in Pennsylvania to Perth Amboy,<br />
N. .1.—tidewater—averaging approximately 11<br />
cents per ton. Reparation for a period covering<br />
about 10 years and amounting to several hundred<br />
thousand dollars was awarded by the commission<br />
against the Lehigh Valley railroad.<br />
The case decided by the commission was that of<br />
Meeker & Co. against the Lehigh Valley Railroad<br />
Co. It has been pending for years' and was one<br />
of the most bitterly contested coal cases ever<br />
brought to the attention of the commission. The<br />
decision was prepared by Commissioner McChord<br />
and is the unanimous judgment of the commission.<br />
The commission holds, in brief, that the rates<br />
collected by the Lehigh Valley were unjustly discriminatory<br />
and resulted in damage to the complainant.<br />
The defendant's present rates for the<br />
transportation of anthracite coal in carloads from<br />
the Wyoming region to Perth Amboy of $1.55 a<br />
gross ton on prepared sizes, $1.40 on pea coal and<br />
$1.20 on buckwheat coal are found to be unreasonable<br />
to the extent that they exceed $1.40 on prepared<br />
sizes, $1.30 on pea coal and $1.15 on buckwheat<br />
coal. The last-named rates are established<br />
as maximum for the future.<br />
The commission asserts in its opinion that the<br />
reduction made in the rates "will have no serious<br />
effect on the defendant's revenues, and will afford<br />
ample allowance for interest charges, operation,<br />
dividends and all proper reserve funds." The<br />
commission will undertake a proceeding to determine<br />
the amount of money due the complainants<br />
as reparation. The reduced rates are made effective<br />
on or before August 15 next.<br />
The annual report of Ge<strong>org</strong>e Bartholomaues,<br />
secretary of the State Bureau of Mines, shows<br />
that the coal output of Missouri fell off 1,041,533<br />
tons last year, owing to the strike which tied<br />
up operations for several months. Production<br />
in 1910 amounted to 2,809,215 tons, as compared<br />
with 3,850,748 tons in 1909.
DATE OF FIRST-AID MEET IS<br />
CHANGED TO OCTOBER 27th.<br />
The date for the national first aid meet at the<br />
Arsenal Testing Station of the Bureau of Mines.<br />
Pittsburgh, has been changed from Sept. 16 to<br />
Oct. 27. The decision to make the change was<br />
announced on July S.<br />
The change of date was made to enable President<br />
William H. Taft to lie present.. The President had<br />
been invited to attend and the date was fixed for<br />
Sept. 16, when it was believed he could be present,<br />
but this was found to be impossible and, as he was<br />
to come to Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, the latter date<br />
was chosen for the first aid meet.<br />
ARBITRATOR SELECTED FOR SOUTH<br />
WESTERN DISTRICT LABOR DISPUTE.<br />
Mr. W. L. A. Johnson, for 14 years commissioner<br />
of the Kansas Bureau of Labor, is to arbitrate all<br />
labor difficulties between the miners and mine<br />
owners in Kansas, Missouri. Oklahoma and Arkansas.<br />
It is Mr. Johnson's job to prevent strikes and to<br />
decide labor difficulties that may come up in the<br />
coal mines of the southwest district, and when<br />
he settles the question both sides must adopt the<br />
decision.<br />
The new position was decided upon by the<br />
Southwestern Coal Operators' Association and the<br />
district branch of the United Mine Workers. It<br />
was more or less as an experiment. The miners<br />
had been out of work for four months, and the big<br />
mines had been going to rack and.ruin because<br />
they were not being operated throughout all of<br />
last summer.<br />
The miners wanted to work and the operators<br />
wanted the coal mined, so it was agreed that the<br />
coal operators would pay some $3,000 a year and<br />
the coal miners $2,000 a year and hire a professional<br />
arbitrator—a man who had been a laborer,<br />
had handled strikes and knew something about<br />
arbitrating labor difficulties.<br />
The new plan was agreed upon and it went into<br />
effect recently. Mr. Johnson is paid $3,000 a year<br />
and expenses. He makes his headquarters in Topeka,<br />
but travels over the mining sections of the<br />
four states in the district most of the time.<br />
If the miners object to some labor condition, or<br />
the manner of operating a mine, they file their objections<br />
with the arbitrator. He sends a copy<br />
to the operator and asks what the operator has to<br />
say about it, and as soon as his reply is received.<br />
Mr. Johnson will give each side notice of a hearing.<br />
The operators and miners appear with their witnesses,<br />
and each side tells about the complaint and<br />
the reply to this. Lawyers are permitted to be<br />
present, but they do not take any hand in the discussion<br />
except to answer legal questions. The<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 25<br />
men and the operators simply tell their side of the<br />
complaint and make the rebuttal as simple as possible<br />
and without legal technicalities.<br />
After taking all the evidence, the arbitrator goes<br />
to the mines and makes a personal investigation<br />
and then will make his decision. Under the contract<br />
between the miners and operators, the decision<br />
of the arbitrator is final in every respect.<br />
If the operators have a complaint against the<br />
miners, they go through the same formalities.<br />
Each side has equal rights in submitting propositions.<br />
The arbitrator is bound to hold hearings<br />
and investigate every complaint, no matter how<br />
trivial, and to make a written decision, and this<br />
decision stands.<br />
COAL OPERATOR DEEDS PROPERTY TO<br />
TRUSTEES FOR BENEFIT OF CREDITORS.<br />
A deed of trust from Mr. Thomas T. Bosnian,<br />
president of the Big Vein Pocahontas Coal Co.,<br />
with offices in the Continental building, Baltimore,<br />
conveying his property to John F. Sippel, William<br />
Hopps and Benjamin F. Caston, trustee, for the<br />
benefit of creditors, was filed July 2. in the office<br />
of the clerk of the circuit court at Towson. Md.<br />
The trustees filed a bond for $80,000, with the<br />
American Bonding Co. as surety. No statement of<br />
the assets and liabilities of Mr. Boswell has been<br />
filed.<br />
The deed of trust stipulates that the trustees<br />
shall take charge of all the property of Mr. Boswell,<br />
and after the payment of the wages due his<br />
clerks and other employes, shall devote the proceeds<br />
realized to the payment of Mr. Boswell's<br />
other creditors without preference or priority.<br />
Any surplus left over shall be paid to Mrs. Boswell<br />
to tbe extent of the amount of the insurance<br />
policies a' ove referred to.<br />
LAKE COAL TONNAGE EXCEEDS 1910.<br />
Coal tonnage records of various carriers to ports<br />
on the Great Lakes for the 1911 season up to and<br />
including May 31, as compared with last year,<br />
show that, with one exception, tonnage is in advance<br />
of last year. The figures are as follows:<br />
Pennsylvania. 1911, 957,034 tons; 1910. 7S3.490<br />
tons: Baltimore & Ohio. 1011. 333,282 tons; 1910,<br />
408,493 tons; Hocking Valley, 1911, 132,541 tons;<br />
1910, 101.415 tons; Chesapeake & Ohio, 1911, 395,-<br />
S18 tons; 1910, 243,372 tons, and Norfolk & Western.<br />
1911. 26S.337 tons; 1910. 259,956 tons.<br />
The railroads, on an average, make a profit of<br />
29 per cent, on lake cargo coal at existing rates,<br />
which are highest on the Norfolk & Western-Pennsylvania<br />
haul to the Sandusky (Ohio) docks, $1.12<br />
per ton from the Pocahontas field, which are farthest<br />
away from the lakes.
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
AUDITORS REPORT SHOWS DECREASE<br />
IN FUNDS OF MINE WORKERS.<br />
Indianapolis, Ind., June 30, 1911.<br />
On acount of the change of administration on<br />
April 1, 1911, a special audit was made for the<br />
month of March; for that reason this report is<br />
given in two parts. The first part is for the<br />
month of March, while the second part includes<br />
April and May.<br />
REPORT IOR THE MONTH OI MARCH, 1911.<br />
We, the undersigned Auditors of the United<br />
Mine Workers of America, have examined the<br />
books and accounts of the International Secretary-Treasurer,<br />
Edwin Perry, for the month of<br />
March, 1911, find them correct and respectfully<br />
report as follows:<br />
INCOME.<br />
Tax $ 69,516.21<br />
Supplies 443.61<br />
Journal 549.59<br />
Assessment 111,780.46<br />
Miscellaneous 1,205.16<br />
Total $1S3,495.03<br />
EXPENDITURES.<br />
Salaries and expenses $ 21,121.36<br />
Supplies 393.97<br />
Office expenses 422.07<br />
Printing 4,808.65<br />
Journal 1,049.92<br />
Telephone, postage and express 1,049.92<br />
Aid 163,333.45<br />
Miscellaneous 3,731.11<br />
Total $195,627.53<br />
RECAPITULATION.<br />
Balance on hand March 1, 1911 $209,795.15<br />
Income for the month of March, 1911. 183,495.03<br />
Total $393,290.18<br />
Disbursements for the month of March,<br />
1911 195,627.53<br />
Balance on hand at close of business,<br />
March 31, 1911 $197,662.65<br />
REPORT FOR THE MONTHS OK APRIL AND MAY, 1911.<br />
We, the undersigned Auditors of the United<br />
Mine Workers of America, have examined the<br />
books and accounts of the International Secretary-Treasurer<br />
Edwin Perry, for the months of<br />
April and May, 1911, find them correct and respectfully<br />
report as follows:<br />
INCOME.<br />
Tax $120,051.13<br />
Supplies 913.56<br />
Journal 1,596.44<br />
Assessment 195,076.20<br />
Miscellaneous 515.02<br />
Total $318,152.35<br />
EXPENDITURES.<br />
Salaries and expenses $ 27,545.97<br />
Supplies 1,927.68<br />
Office expenses 1,313.58<br />
Printing 8,474.05<br />
Journal 2,205.92<br />
Telephone, postage and express 868.32<br />
Aid 299,969.13<br />
Miscellaneous 8,274.05<br />
Total $350,578.70<br />
RECAPITULATION .<br />
Balance on hand April 1, 1911 $197,662.65<br />
Income for April and May, 1911 318,152.35<br />
Total $515,815.00<br />
Disbursements for April and May, 1911 250,578.70<br />
Balance on hand May 31, 1911.. .$165,236.30<br />
Respectfully submitted,<br />
JOHN J. MOSSOP,<br />
ALISERT NEUTZLING,<br />
WM. DONALDSON,<br />
Auditors U. M. W. of A.<br />
COAL SHIPMENTS SHOW DECREASE.<br />
Coal shipments for the first six months period<br />
of 1911, closing June 30, did not total up as well<br />
as those of last year, according to Lock No. 4,<br />
Monongahela river, reports, owing to comparatively<br />
slack business. June itself, with a total shipment<br />
of only 8,176,000 bushels, fell away behind<br />
the average for the month. For the first six<br />
months the total was' 94,489,000 bushels, which<br />
compared with the total for the first six months<br />
of last year of 95,490,000 shows a decrease of 1,-<br />
001,000 bushels.<br />
Comparative figures for the various months in<br />
1911 and 1910 follow:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
January 17,067,000 15,158,000<br />
February 18,198,000 16,524,000<br />
March 19,552,000 19,405,000<br />
April 15,962,000 5,607,000<br />
May 15.533,000 18,597,000<br />
June 8,176,000 20,199,000<br />
Total 94,489,000 95,490,000<br />
The Marmet Coal Co., of Cincinnati, has arranged<br />
to increase its capital stock from $500,000<br />
to $1,500,000.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
TEXT OF NEW BITUMINOUS MINING CODE OF PENNSYLVANIA<br />
PASSED BY THE LEGISLATIVE SESSION OF 1911.<br />
The following is the full text of the new bituminous<br />
mining code of Pennsylvania:<br />
AN ACT<br />
To provide for the health and safety of persons<br />
employed in and about the bituminous coal<br />
mines of Pennsylvania and for the protection<br />
and preservation of property connected therewith.<br />
ARTICLE I.<br />
DEFINITIONS.<br />
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and<br />
House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of<br />
Pennsylvania in General Assembly met, and it is<br />
hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That,<br />
for the purposes of this act, the terms and definitions<br />
contained therein shall be as follows:<br />
Mine—In this act the term "mine" includes<br />
the shafts, slopes, drifts, or incline planes connected<br />
with excavations penetrating coal stratum<br />
or strata, which excavations are ventilated by one<br />
general air current or divisions thereof, and connected<br />
by one general system of mine railroads,<br />
over which coal may be delivered to one or more<br />
points outside the mine, when such is operated<br />
by one operator.<br />
Excavations and Workings—The term "excavations<br />
and workings" includes all the excavated<br />
portion of a mine, those abandoned as well as<br />
the places actually being worked, also, all underground<br />
workings and shafts, tunnels, and other<br />
ways and openings, and all such shafts, slopes,<br />
tunnels and other openings in the course of being<br />
sunk or driven, together with all roads, appliances,<br />
machinery and material connected with the<br />
same below the surface.<br />
Shaft—The term "shaft" means a vertical opening<br />
through the strata that is, or may be, used<br />
for the purpose of ventilation or drainage or for<br />
hoist men or material, or both, in connection with<br />
the mining of coal.<br />
Slope—The term "slope" means an incline or<br />
opening used for the same purpose as a shaft.<br />
Operator—The term "operator" means any firm,<br />
corporation, or individual, operating any coal<br />
mine or any part thereof.<br />
Superintendent — The term "superintendent"<br />
means the person who shall have, on behalf of<br />
the operator, immediate supervision of one or<br />
more mines.<br />
Mine Foreman — The term "mine foreman"<br />
means the person whom the operator or superintendent<br />
shall place in charge of the inside workings<br />
of the mine and of the persons employed<br />
therein.<br />
Inspector — The term "inspector" means the<br />
person commissioned by the Governor to have supervision<br />
of mines as hereinafter prescribed.<br />
Bituminous Mines — The term "bituminous<br />
mines" shall include all coal mines in the State<br />
not now included in the anthracite boundaries,<br />
and whenever the term "mine" appears in this<br />
act it shall be construed to mean "bituminous<br />
coal mine."<br />
Approved Safety Lamp—The term "approved<br />
safety lamp" shall mean any bonneted safety lamp<br />
approved by the Department of Mines.<br />
ARTICLE II.<br />
MAPS AND PLANS.<br />
Section 1. The operator, or the superintendent,<br />
of any bituminous coal mine shall make, or cause<br />
to be made, by a competent mining enginer or<br />
surveyor, an accurate map of the mine, on a<br />
scale of not less than 200 feet to the inch, which<br />
map shall show as follows:<br />
First—All the openings, excavations, shafts,<br />
slopes, drifts, tunnels, planes, main entries, cross<br />
entries, and rooms and the name or number of<br />
each.<br />
Second—An accurate delineation of the boundary<br />
lines between said mine and all adjoining<br />
mines, or coal lands, and the relation and proximity<br />
of the workings of said mine to all adjoining<br />
mines or coal lands, and, if required by the<br />
inspector, the blue print in the office at the mines<br />
shall show, by arrows, the direction of the air<br />
currents in said mine; each split to show in<br />
different color in pencil.<br />
Third—The elevation, above or below mean tide<br />
at Sandy Hook, of the top and bottom of each<br />
shaft and slope of all drifts, tunnels, planes, and<br />
of the faces of entries as found at each semiannual<br />
survey and in rooms and entries adjacent<br />
to boundary lines between such mine and any<br />
adjoining mine, or mines, at points not more than<br />
300 feet apart; also the number of last survey<br />
station and the date of such survey on the entries<br />
as they are represented on the map; the location<br />
of streams, rivers, lakes, dams, or any other<br />
bodies of water on the surface, with their elevations<br />
accurately and plainly marked; the location<br />
and elevation of any body of water dammed in<br />
the mine or held back in any portion of the<br />
mine, giving the true area of said body of water,<br />
unless inaccessible before the passage of this act;<br />
the location of all bore holes penetrating the coal<br />
strata and the location of all oil and gas wells<br />
and oil and gas pipe lines; Provided, however,<br />
for the purpose of this paragraph, the owner or
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
owners of the oil and gas wells and the oil and<br />
gas pipe lines shall furnish at his, their, or its,<br />
own expense, to the operator of the mine on<br />
which said wells are located or lines are constructed,<br />
a survey, showing the location thereof,<br />
within 60 days after the passage of this act, or<br />
within a like time after the construction or location<br />
of wells and pipe lines hereafter made.<br />
Section 2. When the workings of a mine are<br />
within 300 feet of the boundary lines between<br />
such mine and any adjoining mine or mines,<br />
application shall be made by the operator, or<br />
the superintendent, to the inspector for information<br />
as to the proximity of the workings of such<br />
adjoining mine or mines, and if the workings<br />
of such adjoining mine or mines are at their<br />
nearest point within 300 feet of such boundary<br />
line, the inspector shall so notify the said operator,<br />
or the said superintendent, who shall have<br />
such portion of the workings of said adjoining<br />
mine or mines surveyed and shown on the map<br />
of the mine first mentioned. For the purpose of<br />
making only the survey herein required, the<br />
engineer or surveyor of any mine shall have the<br />
right of entry into any adjoining mine on the<br />
written authority of the inspector.<br />
Section 3. A true copy of said map shall be<br />
kept in the mine office at the mine, for the use<br />
of the mine officials and the inspector, and for<br />
the inspection (in the presence of the superintendent<br />
or the mine foreman) of any person<br />
working in said mine whenever said person shall<br />
fear that any working place is becoming dangerous<br />
by reason of its proximity to other workings<br />
that may contain dangerous accumulations of<br />
water or noxious gases.<br />
Section 4. At least once every six months, the<br />
operator, or the superintendent, of every mine<br />
shall cause to be shown accurately, on the original<br />
map of said mine, and on the copy of the map in<br />
the mine office, all the excavations made therein<br />
during the time that has elapsed since such<br />
excavations were last shown thereon.<br />
The operator, or the superintendent, at the request<br />
of the inspector, in writing, shall order that<br />
any portion of any mine shall be surveyed and<br />
entered on the original map, when, in the opinion<br />
of the inspector, such portion of the mine is approaching<br />
accumulations of water or noxious<br />
gases. And whenever any of the workings, or<br />
excavations, of any mine shall be driven to their<br />
destination, it shall be the duty of the operator,<br />
or the superintendent, to cause the mining engineer<br />
or surveyor to check up all his previous<br />
work and notes of said mine so that he can certify<br />
that the said map shows correctly all the excavations<br />
made therein, as he is required to do by<br />
section 6 of this article.<br />
Section 5. the operator, or the superintendent,<br />
of every mine shall furnish the inspector of the<br />
district with a true and correct copy of the aforesaid<br />
original map of said mine on tracing cloth,<br />
and, at the end of every six months thereafter,<br />
the inspector shall return said copy to the operator,<br />
or the superintendent, who shall place, or<br />
cause to be placed, thereon all the extensions made<br />
and all portions of the mine worked out, or abandoned,<br />
during the preceding six months, as provided<br />
for in section 4 of this article, and shall<br />
forward the map to the inspector within 30 days<br />
from the time of receiving it; Provided, that, in<br />
lieu of the map on tracing cloth as aforesaid, the<br />
operator, or the superintendent, shall have the<br />
privilege of furnishing, every six months, a blue<br />
print showing the complete workings of the mine<br />
to date. When more than one seam of coal is<br />
being worked in any mine, the inspector shall be<br />
provided with a separate copy of the original map<br />
on tracing cloth or a blue print of the complete<br />
workings of each seam, as provided for in this<br />
article. The copies of the maps of the several<br />
mines, as hereinbefore required to be furnished to<br />
the inspector, shall remain in the care of the<br />
inspector of the district in which said mines are<br />
situated as official records pertaining strictly to<br />
the office of said inspector, to be transferred by<br />
him to his successor in office, and in no case<br />
shall any copy thereof be made, or any information<br />
therefrom be given, to any person without<br />
the consent of the operator, except as provided<br />
for in section 2 of this article.<br />
Section 6. Whenever a mine is worked-out, or<br />
abandoned, the operator, or the superintendent,<br />
shall, within 60 days thereafter, extend the inspector's<br />
map to show clearly all the worked-out,<br />
or abandoned, territory with all property and<br />
boundary lines and elevations, as required in<br />
section 1 of this article.<br />
The owner, or the operator, of the abanaoneu<br />
mine shall also, within 60 days after its abandonment,<br />
send to the Department of Mines a tracing<br />
of said complete original map, which shall be<br />
kept in the Department as a public document.<br />
The mining engineer or surveyor shall certify<br />
that said tracing is a true and correct copy of the<br />
original map of said mine, and that the original<br />
map is a true, complete, and correct map and<br />
survey of all the excavations made in said abandoned<br />
mine.<br />
Section 7. If the inspector shall have reason<br />
to believe that any map of any mine furnished to<br />
him in pursuance of the provisions of this article<br />
is inaccurate or imperfect, he is hereby authoiized<br />
to have made a survey and a new map of said<br />
mine. The cost of said survey and map shall be<br />
recoverable from the operator as other debts are<br />
recoverable by law; Provided, however, that if<br />
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 47)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
COAL PRODUCTION OF ILLINOIS BY COMPANIES FOR<br />
FISCAL YEAR 1910*<br />
O'Gara Coal Co 2,185,818<br />
Superior Coal Co 1,909,791<br />
Consolidated Coal Co 1,469,337<br />
Madison Coal Corporation 1,332,763<br />
Big Muddy Coal & Iron Co 1,092,498<br />
Springfield Coal & Mining Co 978,071<br />
Chicago, Wilmington & Vermillion Coal Co. 977,893<br />
Brazil Block Coal Co 912,128<br />
Douk Bros. Coal & Coke Co 868,027<br />
Spring Valley Coal Co 833,385<br />
Mt. Olive & Staunton Coal Co 830,935<br />
St. Louis & O'Fallon Coal Co 803,741<br />
Bunsen Coal Co 798,308<br />
Illinois Midland Coal Co 640,545<br />
Bruse-Trenton Mining Co 619,249<br />
Peabody Coal Co 614,464<br />
New Staunton Coal Co 613,962<br />
Southern Coal & Mining Co 607,347<br />
La Salle County Coal Co 597,140<br />
Lumaghi Coal Co 575,768<br />
Centralia Coal Co 573,640<br />
Saline County Coal Co 555,324<br />
Bessemer Washed Coal Co 551,738<br />
Chicago & Carterville Coal Co 547,202<br />
St. Paul Coal Co 545,437<br />
Burnwell Coal Co 430,659<br />
Shoal Creek Coal Co 429,270<br />
Johnston City Coal Co 405,559<br />
Sunnyside Coal Co 379,542<br />
United Coal Mining Co 374,272<br />
Royal Colliery Co 372,674<br />
Jones & Adams Coal Co 348,940<br />
Willis Coal & Mining Co 346,526<br />
Benton Coal Co 332,127<br />
Jos. Taylor Coal Co 321,031<br />
Maplewood Collieries Co 319,307<br />
Citizens Coal Mining Co 317,550<br />
Big Creek Coal Co 311,344<br />
Zeigler District Colliery Co 301,269<br />
Franklin County Colliery Co 294,148<br />
Christian County Coal Co 284,579<br />
Cooperative Coal & Mining Co 282,626<br />
Pana Coal Co 274,202<br />
Star Coal Co 272,408<br />
Clark Coal & Coke Co 271,024<br />
Majestic Coal & Coke Co 266,810<br />
Southern Illinois Coal & Coke Co 266,579<br />
Girard Collieries Co 257,500<br />
Carterville District Coal Co 248,349<br />
Hillsboro Coal Co 245,780<br />
Woodside Coal Co 242,509<br />
Big Four Wilmington Coal Co 239,767<br />
Toluca Coal Co 234,927<br />
*Compiled from the Twenty-ninth Annual Coal Report of<br />
the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics. David Ross, Secretary<br />
Latham Coal Co 234,866<br />
Chicago & Big Muddy Coal & Coke Co... 232,923<br />
Hart Williams Coal Co 232,777<br />
Prairie Coal Co 227,052<br />
Paradise Coal Co 220,449<br />
Black Diamond Coal Co 217,216<br />
Carterville Coal Co 216,645<br />
Kortkamp Coal Co 214,993<br />
Monmouth Coal Co 210,549<br />
Missouri & Illinois Coal Co 203,856<br />
Capital Coal Co 198,197<br />
Chicago, Springfield Coal Co 197,195<br />
Illinois Third Vein Coal Co 192,692<br />
Wasson Coal Co 190,723<br />
B. F. Berry Coal Co 187,739<br />
Coal Valley Mining Co 187,002<br />
Western Coal & Mining Co 185,800<br />
Chicago Sandoval Coal Co 182,043<br />
W. P. Rend Collieries Co 181,079<br />
Stonington Coal Co 180,477<br />
Wabash Coal Co 177,513<br />
Muddy Valley Mining & Manufacturing Co. 175,661<br />
Williamson County Coal Co 174,974<br />
Montgomery County Coal Co 173,299<br />
Oglesby Coal Co 173,112<br />
Kolb Coal Co 171,535<br />
Electric Coal Co 170,241<br />
Cantrall Cooperative Coal Co 166,800<br />
Royal Coal & Mining Co 166,595<br />
Cardiff Coal Co 166,395<br />
Cora Coal Co 164,897<br />
Canton Coal Co 164,105<br />
De Camp Coal Mining Co 163,795<br />
Wilmington Star Mining Co 163,679<br />
St. Louis, Carterville Coal Co 159,599<br />
Hafer Washed Coal Co 158,620<br />
Marion County Coal Co 157,717<br />
Duquoin Operating Co 155,934<br />
Penwell Coal Co 154,170<br />
Odin Coal Co 151,868<br />
Sangamon Coal Co 150,091<br />
Tuxhorn Coal Co 147,451<br />
Braceville Coal Co 143,652<br />
Alden Coal Co 142,410<br />
Jones Bros. Coal & Mining Co 137,946<br />
Marquette Third Vein Coal Mining Co... 137,309<br />
Vivian Collieries Co 137,058<br />
West End Coal Co 136,618<br />
Simmons Coal Co 134,784<br />
Taylor Coal Co 132,991<br />
Smith Lohr Coal Mining Co 129,454<br />
Decatur Coal Co 129,274<br />
M. & H. Zinc Co., M. & H 125,740<br />
Clover Leaf Coal Mining Co 125,164<br />
Manufacturers & Consumers Coal Co 121,242
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
W. P. Rend Coal & Coke Co 117,773<br />
Superior Coal & Mining Co 117,734<br />
Carterville Big Muddy Coal Co 117,722<br />
Norris Coal Mining Co 117,091<br />
Newsam Bros 113,629<br />
Roanoke Coal Co 113,473<br />
Standard Washed Coal Co 112,536<br />
Kerns-Domewald Coal Co 107,624<br />
Wenona Coal Co 107,401<br />
Lincoln .Mining Co 106,428<br />
Suburban Coal & Mining Co 105,685<br />
Watson Coal Co 105,000<br />
Pocahontas Mining Co 103,537<br />
Borders Coal Co 103,189<br />
Barclay Coal & Mining Co 101,118<br />
Carterville & Herrin Coal Co 99,816<br />
Eldorado Coal Mining Co 98,670<br />
Standard Collieries Co 98,164<br />
Century Coal Co 97,885<br />
West Virginia Coal Co 97,610<br />
Moffat Coal Co 97,567<br />
Springfield Cooperative Coal Co 96,700<br />
Williamsville Coal Co 96,239<br />
Illinois Zinc Co 90,687<br />
Fullerton Coal Co 89,699<br />
Spring Creek Coal Co 88,361<br />
McLean County Coal Co 88,000<br />
Donnally-Koenniek Coal Co 86,401<br />
International Coal & Mining Co 86,098<br />
Wilmington Coal Mining & Mfg. Co 86,016<br />
Gartside Coal Co 82,485<br />
Eagle Mining Co 82,299<br />
Empire Coal Co 81.793<br />
Illinois Fuel Co 79.656<br />
Sholl Bros 76,669<br />
Mulberry Hill Coal Co 76,232<br />
Robert Dick Coal Co 75,535<br />
E. S. Gray Coal Co 74,855<br />
Bald Eagle Mining Co 74,480<br />
Wolschlag Cooperative Coal Co 72.837<br />
Gus Blair Big Muddy Coal Co 70,793<br />
Middletown Coal Co 69,028<br />
Reilly' & Doughterty 68,673<br />
Dickerson Coal Co 68,518<br />
Wilson Bros. Coal Co 68,015<br />
Carlinville Coal Co 65,938<br />
Tilton Coal Co 64,863<br />
Auburn & Alton Coal Co 64,609<br />
Kewanee Coal & Mining Co.. . 63,415<br />
Brilliant Coal & Coke Co 62,692<br />
Tazewell Coal Co 61,287<br />
Assumption Coal Co 60,781<br />
T. J. O'Gara 57,580<br />
Big Muddy Carterville Mining Co 57,283<br />
Minonk Coal Co 56,762<br />
Chicago Herrin Coal Co 56,568<br />
Cahill Coal Co 56,058<br />
Crescent Coal Co 55,483<br />
Lincoln Park Coal & Brick Co 54,789<br />
Johnson Allen Coal Co 54,096<br />
Lukins & Andrews 52,440<br />
Gallatin Coal & Coke Co 52,407<br />
Athens- Mining Co 52,077<br />
Farmersville Coal Mining Co 51,424<br />
Glenridge Coal Co 50,965<br />
Acme Coal Co 49,949<br />
Applegate & Lewis 49,369<br />
St. Louis Coulterville Coal Co 49,040<br />
Murphy, Linskey & Rasher 48,835<br />
Pittsburg Mining Co 47,800<br />
Collier Cooperative Coal Co 46,733<br />
Pond Creek Colliery Co 45,993<br />
Moweaqua Coal Mining & Mfg. Co 45,982<br />
National Coal Mining Co 45,859<br />
Summit Coal Co 45,744<br />
Harrison Coal Co 44,996<br />
Danville Colliery Co 44,465<br />
ClubyMiller Coal Co 42,439<br />
Boyd Coal & Coke Co 40,918<br />
Johnson Coal Co 40,591<br />
Wilharmile Coal & Coke Co 40,050<br />
Randolph County Coal Mining Co 39,899<br />
South Mountain Coal Co 38,063<br />
Avery Coal & Mining Co 38,045<br />
Big Muddy Fuel Co 37,864<br />
Litchfield Coal Co 36,090<br />
Edwardsville Coal Co 34,263<br />
Tallula Coal Co 32,078<br />
Central Indiana Coal Mining Co 31,000<br />
Scranton & Big Muddy Coal Mining Co. 30,874<br />
August Reents 29,470<br />
Keystone Big Muddy Coal Co 28,742<br />
Warsaw Coal Co 28,590<br />
West Mine Coal Co 28,397<br />
Mapleton Coal Co 27,843<br />
Carroll & Franklin Counties Coal Co 27,609<br />
Winters Coal Co 26,864<br />
Danville Consumers Coal Co 26,789<br />
Tamaroa & Little Muddy Coal Co 26,517<br />
-Manufacturers Coal Co 26,496<br />
White & Son 26,401<br />
Bretz & Schilling 26,050<br />
Greenview Mining Co 26,022<br />
Brookside Coal Co 25,620<br />
Dewey Coal Co 25,469<br />
Sunlight Coal Co 24,954<br />
C. W. Vandever 24,611<br />
Frank Sergent 24,000<br />
Fairbury Coal Co 23,812<br />
Norris City Coal Co 23,780<br />
Vulcan Coal & Mining Co 23,422<br />
St. Louis & Illinois Coal Co 23,028<br />
Easton Coal Co 23,000<br />
Galatea Coal Co 22,924<br />
Abbey Coal & Mining Co 22,400<br />
L. Senior 21,552<br />
Edwardsville Home Trade Coal Co 21,354<br />
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 43)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
OILS FOR LUBRICATING AND BURNING PURPOSES<br />
Your executive committee requested me to submit<br />
a paper on oils. While I feel honored by such<br />
a request, I do not feel capable of doing justice in<br />
the face of all the papers and books published and<br />
believe it would be very unsatisfactory to this body<br />
to take up its valuable time with such a paper.<br />
Therefore, the purport of this paper is not to<br />
dwell so much on the subject of oils as it is to<br />
bring out criticism and a discussion, as to conditions,<br />
costs, efficiency, etc.<br />
Lubrication, in itself, is defined in a very interesting<br />
article by E. F. Dieterichs in his book on<br />
Fats and Oils, page 6, and for the benefit of those<br />
that have not read it I reproduce it here and believe<br />
it covers very clearly the theory of the subject:<br />
"Nature teaches us the laws of lubrication by its<br />
wonderful workings in the human body and in the<br />
bodies of all animals. All the joints of the bones<br />
in the body would be useless and stiff were it not<br />
for their being constantly lubricated by the socalled<br />
'joint water,' an unctuous fluid which surrounds<br />
all the joints of the skeleton part of the<br />
body. This 'joint water' is constantly produced<br />
and supplied by nature, and is constantly consumed<br />
by the frictional heat created by our exertions<br />
and movements, and is likewise constantly<br />
disposed of and frees the body from the otherwise<br />
accumulating frictional heat by transferring it,<br />
with the perspiration and exhalations from the<br />
body, into space.<br />
"When the recuperative powers of the body fail<br />
to operate properly, from one cause or another, the<br />
inflammatory condition of the joints gives evidence<br />
of the<br />
ABSENCE OF PROPER LUBRICATION,<br />
and the final failing and drying up of this lubricating<br />
'joint water' under diminished generating<br />
power in advanced age causes the joints to move<br />
with difficulty and pain, and in the end make them<br />
lose their usefulness altogether."<br />
We are all aware the same conditions exist with<br />
all mechanical movements. We know that the<br />
metal bearing can absorb a great amount of frictional<br />
heat but it cannot free itself of it as fast as<br />
generated, therefore, we must apply a lubricant<br />
with a fire test far above the normal temperature<br />
of bearing so it can absorb and carry away the<br />
frictional heat, thus keeping the bearing in normal<br />
condition.<br />
On the other hand, if the oil or lubricant be of<br />
low fire test the consequence is a hot journal; do<br />
not understand by a high fire test oil that I mean<br />
*Paper read before the Mid-Summer Meeting of the Coal<br />
Mining Institute of America, at Indiana. Pa., June 28 and 29.<br />
By Mr. C. E. 'Ward. Pittsburgh Coal Company.<br />
a cylinder stock of 600 to 650 degrees Fahrenheit<br />
as this class of lubricant on a rapidly moving<br />
journal would cause as much trouble as a low fire<br />
test lubricant, due to the fact that it being heavy<br />
and viscous it could not readily flow over the<br />
rapidly moving parts and if a square inch of the<br />
surface or even a very much smaller area were<br />
not covered friction would immediately take place<br />
and run the temperature of the bearing up and<br />
if not carefully attended to would result in a hot<br />
bearing.<br />
Have any of you given it a thought while you<br />
MR. CHARLES E. WARD.<br />
Oil Inspector. Pittsburgh Coal Company.<br />
were riding in a railroad train that you were riding<br />
on oil? Take, for instance, a simple illustration<br />
of how friction and how lubricating parts<br />
will act; rub your hands while in a dry state rapidly<br />
together, you can feel the heat generated and<br />
if one could have soap, which we all know contains<br />
a certain amount of grease, or some oil dropped<br />
between the moving hands, you would find one<br />
hand gliding over the other and become cool almost<br />
immediately, thus overcoming the friction.<br />
If water should be applied the
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
HANDS WOULD BECOME COOL<br />
but would not move past one another readily.<br />
Should any pressure be applied they grit by one<br />
another, showing conclusively water is an excellent<br />
cooler but not a lubricant.<br />
As everything depends upon the successful turning<br />
of the wheels around a mine, mill, railroad,<br />
steamboat, and in fact every mechanical device,<br />
it is necessary to overcome friction with the proper<br />
lubricant or we would be at a standstill.<br />
Returning to the lubrication around mines, the<br />
writer finds the greatest expense around a coal<br />
mine is the lubrication of the mine wagons, still<br />
the care of these wagons as to lubricating them is<br />
left to boys, who think all they have to do is<br />
squirt the oil at the wheel on sides of wagons and<br />
use it up as fast as possible or the boss won't think<br />
they are oiling tne wagons. Evidence of this is<br />
seen along the track where oiling is done. Four<br />
or five times more oil is used than is necessary to<br />
run the cars successfully if the oil is properly applied.<br />
The make of wheel also cuts a big figure in poor<br />
lubrication, the method of carrying the oil in a<br />
receptacle between the spokes is a poor method.<br />
in my opinion, as when a wheel is revolving at the<br />
rate of two miles per hour with a thin limpid oil<br />
the centrifugal motion throws the oil away from<br />
center of axle, thus while the wheel is in motion<br />
it gets no lubricant. If someone would get up a<br />
practical wheel that could be lubricated with<br />
grease, one that grease would work in the winter<br />
months' as well as summer, and a device that<br />
would feed the grease gradually to the journal<br />
without generating any heat to liquify it, it would<br />
solve the question of the greatest expense of lubrication<br />
around the coal mines. T know of one<br />
company that its<br />
COST OF PIT OAR On.<br />
runs as high as 1 & mills per ton while all other<br />
lubricants average fn of a mill per ton of coal<br />
mined.<br />
Very often the oil has been condemned unjustly.<br />
not that T am trying to shield the oil company.<br />
I am aware they are not infallible, but in many<br />
cases the oil is condemned unjustly. For example:<br />
you have a car with two-inch axles, so<br />
when loaded you have about 4,000 pounds weight<br />
of car, body and coal resting on four axles or 1,000<br />
pounds per axle, that simply has a bearing on its<br />
under side of ^-inch and 6 inches long, thus you<br />
are carrying on % of a square inch 1,000 pounds.<br />
From the best authorities we learn tbat oil will<br />
not pass between two surfaces carrying over 800<br />
pounds per square inch unless forced there. Again<br />
many have increased the capacity of the bodies<br />
never giving the axle or the weight of the wheel<br />
any though!; the consequence is the axles are battened<br />
on the under side due to excessive weight<br />
and the two metals coming in contact tear par<br />
tides away from each other, thus reaming out the<br />
wheel and flattening the axle. Then a new wheel<br />
is applied to this flat axle and in a very short<br />
time this is reamed out, due to flat axle, and the<br />
oil is blamed. Then again bent axles are frequent<br />
under heavy loads. A bent axle will ream<br />
out a wheel in a very short time and the oil is the<br />
cause again to the uninitiated. Thus we could go<br />
on and fill page after page with cases where the<br />
oil is unsatisfactory, due to some mechanical defect,<br />
when one sifts the complaint down. There<br />
are cases where the oil is at fault, but in every<br />
instance thus far that has come under my observation<br />
where the oil was at fault a mistake was<br />
either made in shipment or it was improperly used.<br />
Several instances came to my notice where they<br />
were having trouble lubricating the cylinders of a<br />
hoisting engine. Upon investigating I found they<br />
were using pit car oil in the cylinders, which is<br />
LOW IN FIRE TEST<br />
and having no admixture of animal or vegetable<br />
oils, did not emulsify and coat the walls as would<br />
a properly compounded oil.<br />
Now we come to the physical test of an oil or<br />
the method used to determine whether an oil is<br />
suitable for the different uses it is to be put to<br />
and will endeavor to explain them in their order<br />
of importance.<br />
Viscosity is the degree of fluidity of an oil or<br />
tre ability to adhere to—viscous, sticky. By comparing<br />
the viscosity of one oil with another which<br />
has been giving good results in practice we use<br />
a viscosimeter, a number of which are on the market,<br />
but as one cannot always have these instruments<br />
in the engine room, a simple method to<br />
test the viscosity of one oil with another, i. e.:<br />
(This will only apply to engine oils) is to take a<br />
medium piece of glass, place on an incline and<br />
drop a drop of each kind of oil on the glass at top<br />
of incline side by side. The oil that reaches the<br />
bottom first is the less viscous.<br />
Viscosity is, in my opinion, the first thing to be<br />
considered, as the fluid oil that will do the work<br />
and stay in place is the best engine oil. The viscosity<br />
is generally taken at 70 degrees Fahrenheit<br />
to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which compares with<br />
tbe temperature of the average bearing, while the<br />
cylinder oils are tested at 212 degrees Fahrenheit<br />
or the boiling point of water.<br />
The writer, in testing cylinder oils, heats the<br />
oil to 338 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the temperature<br />
of steam at 100 pounds pressure. In<br />
making a number of tests with cylinder oils I<br />
have found cylinder stocks from a petroleum with<br />
an asphalt base will stand up in viscosity with the<br />
best of Pennsylvania cylinder stock at 212 degrees<br />
Fahrenheit, but go all to pieces at 338 degrees Fahrenheit.<br />
Hence the reason of testing at 338 de-
grees Fahrenheit or the temperature at which it<br />
is used.<br />
Specific Gravity. The standard is water and the<br />
gravity is the<br />
WEIGHT OF THE OIL<br />
as compared with water, and is readily obtained<br />
by the use of the Beaumc hydrometer. The temperature<br />
is taken at the time. In case it is not<br />
60 degrees Fahrenheit, for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit<br />
subtract one degree Beaum£ from the hydrometer<br />
if it be above, and add 1 degree Beaume<br />
for every 10 degrees Fahrenheit, below 60 degrees<br />
Fahrenheit.<br />
The flash test of an oil is the temperature to<br />
which the oil is heated to give off vapors, which,<br />
when mixed with air, produce an explosive mixture<br />
and act somewhat like a grain of powder.<br />
The flash point of an oil is considered important.<br />
as an oil with low flash point in mills, especially<br />
the cotton mills, that would give off gaseous vapors<br />
at low temperatures would be dangerous.<br />
The fire test of an oil is obtained by continuing<br />
to run the temperature of the oil up after the flash<br />
test, until the vapors that are given off will ignite<br />
and burn continuously, the size of cup, quantity<br />
of oil and size of test flame to be considered.<br />
Cold test of an oil is the temperature at which<br />
the oil will just flow.<br />
Compounded oils' are used to a great extent, in<br />
fact it is very hard nowadays to get an oil that<br />
is not compounded, but it is the writer's opinion<br />
if an oil is properly compounded by reliable and<br />
conscientious people and with petroleum products<br />
of proper physical test that good results will be<br />
obtained, but, on the other hand, if they be compounded<br />
with semi-drying oils such as corn oil.<br />
rape seed, castor oil. or any of the brown oils,<br />
(the latter is sometimes used to increase the viscosity<br />
of lubricating oils) the results will not be<br />
as satisfactory.<br />
It is also the opinion of a number that a mistake<br />
is made by many in using a light colored oil.<br />
To obtain<br />
THIS CLASS OF OIL<br />
it is treated with sulphuric acid. The acid is<br />
then neutralized with caustic soda. In a number<br />
of cases when a well known oil, treated as de<br />
scribed, came in contact with the water from cylinders,<br />
it became milky and emulsified, clogging<br />
and making the oiling system inoperative. One<br />
point should always be kept in view: that is, you<br />
do not lubricate with color.<br />
I have found the best universal results obtained<br />
by using a non-treated engine stock with the<br />
proper physical test, run through a bone charcoal<br />
filter once to eliminate any burnt carbon or suspended<br />
matter. It has never turned milky or<br />
emulsified. Tne compounder is the same in rela<br />
tion to mechanical movements as the doctor is to<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
his patient in prescribing for the different ailments<br />
and troubles to be overcome, and is a science<br />
in itself.<br />
In conclusion, I will say I would very much like<br />
to hear the opinions of any gentleman present as<br />
to his experience regarding lubricating troubles.<br />
Personally, I believe the only practical method of<br />
reducing the cost and keeping it down to the minimum<br />
is to have one conversant with oils and lubrication<br />
in general, to pass all requisitions, to visit<br />
mines and keep in touch and familiarize himself<br />
with all the machinery and their requirements.<br />
CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANY LETS<br />
CONTRACT FOR BIG IMPROVEMENTS.<br />
The Consolidation Coal Co. of Baltimore, ,Md.,<br />
has awarded the contract for extensive construction<br />
work in connection with the development<br />
work of its 100,000-acre tract of coal land in Kentucky<br />
to the Nicola Building Co. of Pittsburgh.<br />
The contract provides for the erection of about<br />
1,000 buildings, including miners' dwellings,<br />
churches, schools, a theater, etc., distributed over<br />
an area of 15 miles near the new town of Jenkins,<br />
in Letcher county, Ky.<br />
In addition the Consolidation Coal Co. will erect<br />
a boulevard several miles long and a lake one<br />
mile wide, on the shores of which the corporation's<br />
offices will be located. Electric and water<br />
plants are also planned.<br />
The Nicola Building Co. is now erecting saw<br />
mills, planing mills, brick works, limekilns and<br />
blacksmith shops on the company's property, all<br />
of which will be necessary in connection with the<br />
construction work to be done for the Consolidation<br />
Coal Co.<br />
The construction work on the railroad which is<br />
being built into the heart of the Consolidation's<br />
new coal properties in Kentucky is progressing<br />
rapidly, and will, if no unforeseen difficulties arise<br />
in the future to delay matters, the line will be<br />
ready to be placed in operation by January 1.<br />
This' is much earlier than the officials of the Consolidation<br />
Coal Co. had anticipated completing the<br />
road.<br />
In dismissing the bill of the plaintiffs in the<br />
case of James Lazzelle et al. against John P.<br />
Keenan's wife and heirs Judge Mason at the<br />
July term of the Circuit Court of Monongahela<br />
county, W. Va., decides a case which has been<br />
pending for the last 16 years, and which involved<br />
ISO acres of property in the Cass district, underlaid<br />
with the Pittsburgh vein of coal and valued<br />
at $100,000. The chief point involved in the<br />
case was the competency of Thomas F. Lazzelle<br />
to make a deed.
34<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
NATURE AND CHARACTERISTIC COMPONENTS OF<br />
POSSIBLE EXPLOSIVES*<br />
By Clarence Hall. Explosives Engineer, U. S. Bureau of Mines.<br />
From September 2, 1908, to June 1, 1911, during<br />
which time the gallery for testing explosives'<br />
has been in operation in Pittsburgh, Pa., one hundred<br />
and forty-five (145) explosives have been submitted<br />
for official tests, eighty-four (84) of which<br />
have passed all test requirements of the Bureau<br />
of Mines and are considered permissible for use in<br />
coal mines under certain provisions. The remainder<br />
have either failed to pass the tests or<br />
have been withdrawn by the manufacturers when<br />
introducing new and improved explosives.<br />
' During the year 1909, 8,598,0'27 pounds of permissible<br />
explosives were used in the United States.<br />
In the mines of Great Britain there were used during<br />
the same year, 8,502,232 pounds of permitted<br />
explosives. For the year 1910 the use of permissible<br />
explosives has shown a marked increase in<br />
the coal mines of this country. The returns received<br />
from the manufacturers indicate that the<br />
quantity used during the year 1910 will reach 12,-<br />
000,000 pounds.<br />
The underlying reasons why one explosive passes<br />
and another fails when tested in the presence of<br />
gas and dust have been investigated at the testing<br />
station. The results of researches made, especially<br />
on explosives which failed to pass tests, have<br />
been reported to the manufacturers and in nearly<br />
all cases' resulting in the manufacturers so changing<br />
and perfecting their explosives that later when<br />
new explosives were submitted they have successfully<br />
passed all requirements of the bureau. The<br />
results of tests indicate that every explosive if<br />
fired in very large quantities will cause ignition<br />
of gas and coal dust mixtures. An arbitrary<br />
charge, namely, 1% pounds, has been established<br />
as the amount of explosive to be used in making<br />
tests and all explosives in order to be placed on<br />
the permissible list must pass the gas and dust<br />
test with this charge of explosive. A charge of<br />
iy, pounds per drill hole should never be exceeded<br />
in practice. In good mining practice it<br />
need not exceed one pound and, accordingly, a<br />
greater factor of safety obtains. Explosives of<br />
many different compositions are now on the permissible<br />
list but all have been formulated with a<br />
view to producing explosives which on detonation<br />
give a relatively low flame temperature of short duration.<br />
It has 'been found that in<br />
ORDEK TO IGNITE<br />
inflammable gas and coal dust mixtures a certain<br />
temperature, acting through a certain length of<br />
time, is required. It has also been determined<br />
'Paper read before the West Virginia Coal Mining Institute,<br />
White Sulphur Springs. W. Va.. June 19 and 20 by permission<br />
of the U. S. Bureau of Mines.<br />
that the lemperature on detonation of all explosives<br />
exceeds the ignition temperature of inflammable<br />
gas and dust mixtures, but fortunately the<br />
flame of the permissible explosives is of such<br />
short duration when properly detonated that the<br />
requisite time necessary for igniting the inflammable<br />
mixture does not obtain. It is evident that<br />
any factor that increases the duration of the flame<br />
temperature of a permissible explosive, such as the<br />
use of a weak detonator or the use of any explosive<br />
not in accordance with the provisions prescribed<br />
by the Bureau of Mines, will increase the<br />
danger in their use.<br />
The energy developed by the detonation of permissible<br />
explosives, like other high explosives,<br />
depends upon the change of the small solid particles<br />
and liquids of the explosive into large volumes<br />
of gases and the rate of detonation or the<br />
rapidity with which these gases are formed. To<br />
meet the varying coal mining conditions in this<br />
country the manufacturers have formulated explosives<br />
varying in rates of detonation from 1447 to<br />
4439 meters (4746 to 14560 feet) per second. It<br />
is evident that for certain work where a shattering<br />
effect is desired in driving through or bushing<br />
rock, or producing coal for coking purposes the<br />
explosive reaction should be rapid, and permissible<br />
explosives should be selected from the list having<br />
a high rate of detonation. In a similar manner a<br />
suitable permissible explosive for use in soft friable<br />
coal, and especially so when lump or steam<br />
coal is desired, should be selected which develops<br />
its gases at a slow rate in order that the pressure<br />
developed will be more prolonged. I have been<br />
informed, by your president, that the coal operators<br />
of West Virginia are overwhelmed with agents<br />
of permissible explosives with their various claims<br />
of efficiency. To establish their claims it means<br />
that their demonstrators must conduct a series of<br />
experiments over a considerable period of time in<br />
the mines. This procedure should not be discouraged<br />
for the reason that the manufacturers are<br />
constantly improving their explosives and in many<br />
cases permissible explosives which are more suitable<br />
to the work have been selected as a result of<br />
such tests. However, much of this unnecessary<br />
work could be eliminated by careful consideration<br />
of the physical<br />
OHARCTERISTTCS OF EACH EXPLOSIVE<br />
before making teste. The chemical composition<br />
would be of little value to the operator and it is<br />
not proposed to publish such information. In<br />
several instances in mining bituminous coal it<br />
has been found that permissible explosives con-
taining only 20 per cent, of nitroglycerin have<br />
given better results and produced better coal than<br />
those made under a similar formula containing<br />
25 per cent, nitroglycerin. The physical tests of<br />
explosives, such as in the gallery, rate of detonation,<br />
strengths of explosives as determined by lead<br />
blocks, gauges, ballistic pendulum, height and duration<br />
of flame, will be published as Bulletin No.<br />
15 by the Bureau of Mines during the present<br />
month. This information will be of value to both<br />
the manufacturers and users of explosives.<br />
Suppose, for instance, an operator has tried several<br />
permissible explosives in a certain mine where<br />
the coal is soft and friable and has' selected one<br />
as the most suitable for the work in question.<br />
From this bulletin he will note that the rate of<br />
detonation of this explosive is ,2,000 meters per<br />
second. Now suppose the operator receives a<br />
request to try out a new explosive. He should<br />
first ascertain the physical characteristics of the<br />
new explosive. If he learns that the new explosive<br />
has a rate of detonation of 4,000 meters per<br />
second, it would be obvious that this explosive<br />
would be too quick in action and not suitable for<br />
this particular coal. It is true a powder man<br />
skilled in the use of a quick explosive might possibly<br />
in a limited series' of tests, through special<br />
skill, demonstrate the new explosive to be more<br />
economical and at the same time equally efficient<br />
as a slower permissible explosive, but it should<br />
not be expected that the average miner would obtain<br />
the same results.<br />
By carefully considering the location of the drill<br />
holes and using special conditions' in loading and<br />
tamping to reduce the pressure developed, a permissible<br />
explosive of a high rate of detonation<br />
could be successfully used in nearly all coal mines.<br />
It is well known that the pressure developed by<br />
the detonation of explosives in a closed STjace is<br />
directly proportional to the charging density: that<br />
is to say, a 1%-inch drill hole loaded with IVi-inch<br />
cartridges will produce about one-half as much<br />
pressure per square inch on the<br />
WALLS OF THE DRILL<br />
holes as it would if loaded with cartridges of 1%inch<br />
diameter and, accordingly, explosives of a<br />
rapid rate of detonation if used in this manner<br />
would be productive of a better quality of coal.<br />
This procedure of air spacing to reduce the shattering<br />
effect is recommended by the Bureau of Mines.<br />
There are other means of reducing the shattering<br />
effect of explosives, such as the use of a weak<br />
detonator, reducing the amount of stemming used<br />
in a drill hole, using explosives that are frozen or<br />
partly frozen, using cartridges of explosives of less<br />
diameter than were originally tested, introducing<br />
foreign substances between cartridges of explosives<br />
and other equally dangerous methods which<br />
not only eliminate the safety qualities of the ex<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
plosives but enhance the chance of a resultant dust<br />
or gas explosion.<br />
The American manufacturers' deserve a great<br />
deal of credit for their efforts in producing suitable<br />
permissible explosives to meet the economic<br />
conditions in the coal mines of this country.<br />
Many of the permitted explosives used in European<br />
countries would not be suitable for use in the bituminous<br />
coal mines of this country for the reason<br />
that they are much stronger and quicker in action.<br />
If such explosives were used in mines of this country<br />
according to our American practice, depending<br />
to a great measure on the execution of the explosive,<br />
they would fail in their purpose. For this<br />
reason the American manufacturers have found it<br />
necessary to reduce the strength and quickness<br />
of explosives for coal mining purposes by adding<br />
inert materials or restraining substances. With<br />
explosives of this kind the average miner after a<br />
short time obtains successful and satisfactory results.<br />
The ideal permissible explosive for use in shooting<br />
hard coal would be one that has a comparatively<br />
high rate of detonation containing all combustible<br />
materials and which on detonation produces<br />
the maximum volume of gases. Explosives<br />
of this kind could, no doubt, be used satisfactorily<br />
under all coal mining conditions, but, as stated<br />
before, they would have to be used in small quantities,<br />
in an intelligent manner, in coal previously<br />
mined so that the<br />
AMOUNT OF EXPLOSIVES REQUIRED<br />
would be to simply exert a wedging effect on the<br />
coal.<br />
This procedure is followed in many European<br />
countries and in some cases no explosives are used<br />
in friable coal or where the longwall system is<br />
used, but it is not expected that these conditions<br />
will obtain in this country for some time. Considering<br />
the comparatively high wages paid to<br />
miners in this country, cheaper coal can, no doubt,<br />
be produced with explosives rather than by pick<br />
work exclusively, but the excessive use of explosives,<br />
as practiced in many of our mines to-day,<br />
is certainly unnecessary and a menace to safety.<br />
In order that the users of permissible explosives<br />
may know the nature and characteristic component<br />
of permissible explosives, I will take up<br />
the different kinds of explosives as classified in<br />
Miners' Circular 2.<br />
Class 1. Ammonium nitrate explosives. All explosives<br />
belong to this class in which the characteristic<br />
material is ammonium nitrate. This<br />
class may be sub-divided into two classes.<br />
(a) Containing a sensitizer which is itself an<br />
explosive.<br />
(b) Containing a sensitizer which is not in itself<br />
an explosive.<br />
All the ammonium nitrate explosives mentioned
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
in the circular belong to sub-class "a" with the exception<br />
of Kanite A and Masurite M.L.F. These two<br />
explosives contain sensitizers which are not in<br />
themselves explosives, and, accordingly, are classified<br />
under sub-class "b."<br />
The ammonium nitrate explosives of sub-class<br />
"a" consist principally of ammonium nitrate with<br />
small percentages of nitroglycerin, nitrocellulose,<br />
or nitro-substitution compounds which are used as<br />
sensitizers. The explosives Aetna coal powder<br />
AA. Bental coal powder No. 2. Bituminite Nos. 5<br />
and 7, Coalite 3X, Coal Special No. 4, Collier powders<br />
Nos. 3, 5. 5 Special. 5 L.F., and X, and Monobel<br />
Nos. 1, 2 and 3 are explosives of this class and<br />
contain nitroglycerin as a sensitizer. They are<br />
similar in composition to or a slightly modified<br />
form of the English permitted explosives Abbcite<br />
and Monobel.<br />
The explosives Hecla No. 2, Titanite 3P. 7P,<br />
and 8P are explosives of the ammonium nitrate<br />
class under sub-class "a" and contain nitro-substitution<br />
compounds as a sensitizer. These explosives,<br />
as well as those which will be mentioned<br />
later, under sub-class "b." have the advantage of<br />
not freezing when<br />
EXPOSED TO LOW TEMPERATURES<br />
for the reason that nitroglycerin is not used as an<br />
ingredient. They are a modified form of the<br />
English permitted explosives Withnell and Faversham.<br />
The ammonium nitrate explosives of sub-class<br />
"b," namely, Kanite A and Masurite M.L.F.. consist<br />
principally of ammonium nitrate with small<br />
percentages of metallic oxides or other non-explosive<br />
compounds used as sensitizers. They are a<br />
slightly modified form of the English permitted<br />
explosive Westfalite. They are detonated with<br />
difficulty, requiring an extra strong detonator, and<br />
for this reason and the fact that they burn with<br />
great difficulty are one of the safest classes of explosives<br />
in respect to handling and transportation.<br />
All of the ammonium nitrate explosives are quite<br />
deliquescent, absorbing moisture from the atmosphere<br />
very readily, and great care should be exercised<br />
in storing them or using them in damp places.<br />
They are not suitable for use in wet mines. If<br />
an original package of an ammonium nitrate explosive<br />
is opened in such mines and the cartridges<br />
are exposed for only a few hours to the<br />
damp atmosphere they will deteriorate, and many<br />
of the failures to completely detonate are attributed<br />
to this cause. The ammonium nitrate explosives<br />
when stored under favorable conditions<br />
for only a few months show signs of deterioration,<br />
and nearly all explosives of this class after six<br />
months storage at the Pittsburgh testing station<br />
have failed to detonate or detonated incompletely<br />
when retested. For this reason the ammonium<br />
nitrate explosives should be obtained in as fresh<br />
condition as possible and should be used as soon<br />
as possible after their receipt. The ammonium<br />
nitrate explosives when in a fresh condition have<br />
the advantage of producing on detonation small<br />
quantities of poisonous and inflammable gases and<br />
are especially recommended for mines that are not<br />
unusually wet and also in mines and working<br />
places that are not well ventilated.<br />
Class 2, Hydrated explosives. All explosives<br />
belong to this class in which salts containing water<br />
of crystallization are the characteristic materials<br />
and which modify the<br />
RESULTS OF THE EXPLOSION.<br />
They are somewhat similar in composition to the<br />
ordinary low grade dynamites, except that one or<br />
more salts containing water of crystallization are<br />
added to reduce the flame temperature. They are<br />
not now in general use and tests at the station and<br />
in the field indicate that the four hydrated explosives<br />
on the list at the present time are not as<br />
efficient as some types of explosives. They have<br />
the advantage of being easily detonated, producing<br />
small quantities of poisonous gases, and can be<br />
used successfully in wet holes.<br />
Class 3. Organic nitrate explosives. All explosives<br />
belong to this class in which the characteristic<br />
material is an <strong>org</strong>anic nitrate other than nitroglycerin.<br />
The permissible explosives of this<br />
class are listed in Miners' Circular 2 as nitrostarch<br />
explosives. They do not contain nitroglycerin<br />
and for this reason do not freeze. They<br />
contain large quantities of inert matter and, therefore,<br />
are not as effective as they might be if they<br />
were made containing smaller quantities' of this<br />
material.<br />
Class 4. Nitroglycerin explosives. All explosives<br />
belong to this class in which the characteristic<br />
material is nitroglycerin. Forty of the explosives<br />
on the permissible list are classified as<br />
nitroglycerin explosives. The flame temperatures<br />
of this class of explosives are reduced by the addition<br />
of free water or by using an excess of carbon<br />
for the purpose of reducing the amount of carbon<br />
dioxide formed. A few contain salts which reduce<br />
the strength and shattering effect of the explosives<br />
on detonation. They are somewhat similar<br />
to or a modified form of the English permitted<br />
explosives Britonite. Carbonite, and Kolax. The<br />
nitroglycerin class of explosives have the advantage<br />
of ease of detonation and not being readily<br />
affected by moisture. Less skill is required in<br />
their use and" the average miner obtains satisfactory<br />
results with this class of explosives in a much<br />
shorter time than with the other explosives. They<br />
have the disadvantage of freezing at comparatively<br />
high temperatures and even when nitro-substitution<br />
compounds or other materials are added to<br />
lower the freezing point they will not remain unfrozen<br />
when the temperature falls below 35 degrees
Fahrenheit. They produce a large percentage of<br />
poisonous and inflammable gases on detonation,<br />
many of them producing quantities equal to that<br />
of black blasting powder, and for this reason should<br />
not be used in mines that do not have efficient ventilation.<br />
Permissible explosives are detonated by means<br />
of detonators or electric detonators, the weight of<br />
tulminating charge varying<br />
ACCORDING TO THE TYPE<br />
of explosive used. Detonators are usually employed<br />
in connection with fuse for firing charges<br />
of explosives. When detonators are fitted with a<br />
means of firing them with an electric current, the<br />
device is called an electric detonator. As electric<br />
detonators are embedded in the explosives with<br />
which they are used and isolated by means of<br />
stemming, they are the safest means of igniting<br />
charges of explosives in gaseous mines. Fuse has<br />
heretofore been called safety fuse and the practice<br />
still obtains, though the word safety has come to<br />
mean something far different from the original intention<br />
when associated with the word fuse. The<br />
variation in the moisture conditions of material<br />
to be blasted has necessitated the manufacturers<br />
of fuse to make several kinds in order that they<br />
will be adapted to the various conditions. There<br />
are five classes of fuse as follows:<br />
(1) Fuse for use in dry material.<br />
(2) Fuse for use in damp material.<br />
(3) Fuse for use in wet material.<br />
(4) Fuse for use in very wet material.<br />
(5) Fuse for use in submarine work.<br />
The first two classes are generally used in the<br />
coal mines ol this country. They are the cheapest<br />
grades and on account of the lateral sparking<br />
which obtains on burning are not recommended<br />
for use with permissible explosives. If the detonator<br />
is buried in the explosive, the lateral sparking<br />
which occurs with these types of fuse may set<br />
fire to the explosive about it before the detonator<br />
is set off. This has been the common cause of<br />
inferior and dangerous explosions. Classes 3, 4<br />
and 5 are well made fuse and these grades showlittle,<br />
if any, lateral sparking or glowing at the<br />
sides. However, even these classes of fuse are<br />
not considered permissible for use in gaseous<br />
mines. Tests made at the station with fuse generally<br />
offered for sale in this country have shown<br />
that the end spitting of the fuse will cause ignition<br />
of inflammable gas mixtures.<br />
A new kind of fuse has recently been submitted<br />
at the station and the tests so far made indicate<br />
that it will be much safer than the fuse now generally<br />
used in coal mines. This fuse is of a good<br />
mechanical construction<br />
HAVING A SUFFICIENT RATIO<br />
between the pressure required to burst through the<br />
envelope of the fuse and the pressure produced<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
within il. by the burning powder train. The quantity<br />
of powder per toot is less than that whicn<br />
obtains in the ordinary fuse and in the preliminary<br />
tests which have been made at the station, no<br />
ignition of inflammable gas mixtures has occurred<br />
from the spit of this fuse. However, as fuse<br />
does not per se contain its own means of ignition,<br />
it cannot be considered apart from the fuse igniter,<br />
a means employed to cause the ignition of the<br />
fuse. Clearly, any fuse igniter that would ignite<br />
gas when properly attached to a fuse would be<br />
condemned as well as any fuse igniter which did<br />
not surely ignite fuse with which it is used. No<br />
great difficulty sliould be encountered when perfecting<br />
such a fuse igniter for there has been submitted<br />
to the Pittsburgh station for test, a fuse<br />
igniter which, though it failed to pass the requirements,<br />
has some merit. It should not be concluded,<br />
however, that any fuse having the proper<br />
envelope and even when a safe and reliable method<br />
is provided for its ignition can be safely used in a<br />
1 ody of inflammable gas. There are various kinds<br />
of fuse sold of different rates of burning, varying<br />
from 18 seconds per foot to 40 seconds per foot<br />
when tested in the open air. The miner or shot<br />
firer seldom has information as to the rates of<br />
burning of the different kinds of fuse. It is true<br />
that some fuse is marked slow or fast burniDg and<br />
it is also indicated by different colors of paper<br />
wrapper, but this is not always the case. Without<br />
such information a miner may become accustomed<br />
to a certain fuse and on using anotner<br />
brand of a faster rate of burning, the charge may<br />
explode prematurely. This is a menace to all<br />
connected with the work. It is generally conceded<br />
that the use of fuse of different rates of burning<br />
is not desirable, that if all classes were made to<br />
burn about 90 seconds per yard in the open air<br />
and this rate maintained within 10 per cent, over<br />
or under the stated time, such requirements would<br />
meet all ordinary mining conditions and offer<br />
greater assurance of safety. The manufacturers<br />
of fuse realize that the many kinds now manufactured<br />
having different<br />
RATES OF BURNING ARE UNNECESSARY,<br />
and they would, no doubt, welcome a universal<br />
rate of burning of fuse. It is believed<br />
that the required rate of burning of fuse, namely,<br />
90 seconds per yard, recently adopted by the Isthmian<br />
Canal Commission and the United States Reclamation<br />
Service would meet the various mining<br />
conditions in this country.<br />
The tests which have been made by the spit<br />
from squibs invariably ignite inflammable gas mixtures.<br />
As squibs must be propelled from the<br />
mouth of the drill hole to its heel by a propelling<br />
power of the spit of the squib proper, it seems<br />
quite impracticable to adequately protect this spit<br />
from inflammable gas mixtures within mines and
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
hence the use of squibs of any kind cannot be air by means of steam and water sprayers has prorecommended<br />
for use in mines generating inflam- gressed rapidly in the last two years. The enmable<br />
gases. forcement of the law by the state mine inspectors<br />
The system of firing shots in connection with concerning coal mining operations has greatly imelectric<br />
detonators from the surface when all men proved in recent years. The mining conditions of<br />
are out of the mine previously adopted in Utah this country as regards prevention of explosions<br />
has been introduced in Colorado, Alabama and are approaching a position of equality with Euroother<br />
states. This method has many advantages pean countries and it is expected that there will<br />
and its adoption in mines where the local condi- be a steady reduction of accidents from this source<br />
tions permit would, no doubt, reduce accidents in jn the coal mines of the country in the future.<br />
coal mines. P01. tne information of the members of the In-<br />
The dangerous practice of using inflammable . „i„„;„„„ „,u,-,v,<br />
, ... stitute, I will give the names of explosives which<br />
material for stemming is generally being remedied<br />
by the employment of clay and like substances in have passed all test requirements of the bureau<br />
all parts of the country. The humidifying of mine subsequent to January 1, and prior to June 1, 1911.<br />
Brand. Manufacturer.<br />
Carbonite No. 5 E. I. duPont de Nemours Powder Co., Wilmington, Del.<br />
Carbonite No. 6 E. I. duPont de Nemours Powder Co., Wilmington, Del.<br />
Coalite No. 3XA Potts Powder Co., New York City.<br />
Coalite No. 3XB Potts Powder Co., New York City.<br />
Collier No. 9 Keystone National Powder Co., Emporium, Pa.<br />
Cameron mine powder No. 1A Cameron Powder Manufacturing Co.. Emporium, Pa.<br />
Cameron mine powder No. 2A Cameron Powder Manufacturing Co., Emporium. Pa.<br />
Cameron mine powder No. 3A Cameron Powder Manufacturing Co., Emporium. Pa.<br />
*Masurite B Masurite Explosive Co., Sharon, Pa.<br />
*Masurite C Masurite Explosive Co., Sharon. Pa.<br />
Monobel No. 4 E. I. duPont de Nemours Powder Co., Wilmington, Del.<br />
Monobel No. 5 E. I. duPont de Nemours Powder Co., Wilmington, Del.<br />
tPolar C Potts Powder Co., New York City.<br />
*For these explosives the detonator sha'l be of not less strength than No. 7 (1% grams charge).<br />
tFor this explosive the detonator shall be of not less strength than No. 8 (2 grams charge).<br />
MOVEMENT OF COAL AND COKE OVER VARIOUS RAILROADS, RIVERS, AND CANALS<br />
FOR FOUR MONTHS AND APRIL, 1910 AND 1911.<br />
RAILROADS.<br />
Baltimore and Ohio* <strong>•</strong><br />
Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh<br />
Buffalo and Susquehanna<br />
Chesapeake and Ohiot<br />
Huntingdon and Broadtop Mountain* ...<br />
New York Central and Hudson River - <strong>•</strong> -<br />
Norfolk and Western*<br />
Pennsylvania (east of Pittsburg and Erie)* <strong>•</strong><br />
Pittsburg and Lake Erie <strong>•</strong><br />
Pittsburg. Shawmut and Northern<br />
Southern Railway!<br />
Virginian Railway RIVERS AND CANALS.<br />
Barren River. Lock No. 1 ...<br />
Black Warrior River, Lock No. 12<br />
Canal and Falls at Louisville <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal <strong>•</strong><br />
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal ...<br />
Davis Island Dam<br />
Green River, Lock No. 1<br />
Great Kanawha River<br />
Kentucky River, Lock No. 1 . . . .<br />
Monongahela River<br />
MONTH OF APRIL-<br />
Tons<br />
2.662.304<br />
32 .196<br />
29.421<br />
1.524.544<br />
92.830<br />
252.514<br />
1.722.799<br />
4.717,342<br />
738,928<br />
26.145<br />
360.555<br />
101.244<br />
281<br />
51<br />
59.242<br />
8.792<br />
21,884<br />
61,950<br />
3,601<br />
131.340<br />
2.400<br />
232,524<br />
2.637.255<br />
620.896<br />
124.557<br />
1.128.035<br />
85.264<br />
600.641<br />
1.513.857<br />
5.219.785<br />
1.142.632<br />
128.803<br />
305.495<br />
192,661<br />
42<br />
462<br />
240.835<br />
11.024<br />
22,087<br />
430.090<br />
3.696<br />
133.360<br />
11.200<br />
814,444<br />
FOUR MONTHS—<br />
1910<br />
Tons.<br />
11.486.117<br />
2.441.915<br />
437.983<br />
4.091,233<br />
456.123<br />
2.802.227<br />
6.576.128<br />
22.793.101<br />
5.244.990<br />
359.081<br />
1.080,211<br />
394.421<br />
1,006<br />
157<br />
463,782<br />
24.591<br />
21,884<br />
897.130<br />
11,507<br />
453,620<br />
23.800<br />
3.012,453<br />
1911<br />
Tons<br />
10.319,469<br />
2.594.613<br />
651.041<br />
3.703.768<br />
390.247<br />
2,715.305<br />
6.096.890<br />
21.110.621<br />
4,451.638<br />
485,766<br />
970,096<br />
766.086<br />
* Includes coal received from connecting lines. t March and three months figures.<br />
726<br />
673<br />
882.923<br />
33.368<br />
23.087<br />
1.723.630<br />
11,942<br />
542,140<br />
39.700<br />
3.802.957
The Schuylkill county, Pa., court has handed<br />
down the appointment of the various boards of<br />
examiners who are to examine for miners' certificates<br />
in the three districts comprising the<br />
county as follows: Sixth district—William F.<br />
Shutz and Thomas Farrington, of Shenandoah;<br />
Simon Coombe, William Davidson, William H.<br />
Paul and Dennis Whalen, of Mahanoy City; Edward<br />
J. Burke, of West Mahanoy township;<br />
David Williams, of William Penn, and David<br />
Niswenter, of Union township. Seventh district<br />
—Thomas Burns, Henry Krapp and Edward<br />
Lowrey, of Ashland; Dennis Reardon.<br />
Shamokin; Alexander Donaldson, Girardville;<br />
James Penman and John Dropeskie, of<br />
Mount Carmel, and Richard Howell, of Wisconson.<br />
Eighth District—Harry Goodman, Tower<br />
City; J. F. Cannon, Maryd; Henry W. Miehleib,<br />
Cambola; John Dando, Minersville; James Kennedy,<br />
Newtown; James Dally, Coaldale; John<br />
Hoke, Pottsville; William H. Long and Lewis<br />
W. Kopp, of Tremont.<br />
Union negro miners of Ogden, la., numbering<br />
161, are suing John P. White international president;<br />
W. H. Rogers, Iowa president of the United<br />
Mine Workers of America, and other mine officials,<br />
for more than a million and a half dollars.<br />
The negroes claim they were imported into Ogden<br />
under misrepresentation and ask damages in the<br />
sum of $10,000 each. The suit grows out of labor<br />
troubles a year ago, when white miners, learning<br />
that the strike was costing the union $200<br />
a day, resumed their work and later resigned.<br />
The negroes were imported to fill their places,<br />
but were refused admission to the union. They<br />
also ask that they be permitted to form a union<br />
of their own.<br />
Because of stoppages at a number of mines in<br />
the bituminous district of Indiana and failure of<br />
operators and miners to reach an agreement over<br />
their differences there is some talk of a state-wide<br />
stoppage. District and national officers of the<br />
Mine Workers have had a conference over the<br />
matter, but have announced no result.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
Charles P. Neill, commissioner of labor, of Washington,<br />
has notified all anthracite coal operators<br />
that, according to the prices of coal at tidewater<br />
points, the rate of wages tc be paid the anthracite<br />
mine workers for the month ot July was 1 per cent.<br />
above the basis, or an increase of 1 per cent.<br />
The so-called insurgent locals of the United<br />
Mine Workers of America of the Central Pennsylvania<br />
or No. 2 district have adopted a set of<br />
resolutions in which they deny the right of the<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization to suspend locals that oppose the<br />
so-called centralization idea.<br />
The joint scale committee of the fifth sub-district<br />
of Ohio is in session at Cleveland, to interpret<br />
two points in the scale relative to thick stone<br />
and room necks.<br />
Former President T. L. Lewis, of the United<br />
Mine Workers of America, was ill from lumbago<br />
during the fortnight, but has recovered his usual<br />
health.<br />
The first examination for mine foremen under<br />
the administration of Chief Mine Inspector Nesbitt<br />
of Alabama is now in progress.<br />
The Interstate Retail Coal Dealers' Association<br />
in session at Kansas City, Mo., during the fortnight<br />
elected these officers: T. Percy Bryan,<br />
Kansas City, president; L. E. Meyers, East St.<br />
Louis, 111., vice president; Sam T. Powers, Kansas<br />
City, secretary; John T. Wellington, Kansas<br />
City, treasurer. Executive committee—Kansas,<br />
M. C. Bailey, Burlington; O. M. Bottom, Great<br />
Bend; C. W. Welcome, Hiawatha, J. T. Nicolay,<br />
Abilene; J. R. Foster, Plainville. Missouri,<br />
Charles Howell, Springfield; J. C. Morrison, Cape<br />
The board of arbitration appointed to settle the Girardeau; F. J. Shoemaker, Maryville; Ed J.<br />
strike in Alberta, Can., has, so far, failed to bring Rupp, Moberly; W. H. Colbert, Marshall; A.<br />
the operators' and miners together. The board Hoerner, Independence. Oklahoma, J. H. Steven<br />
heard testimony, then presented a proposition for son, Chickasha; M. C. Nelson, Clinton. Iowa,<br />
settlement.' It took both operators and miners<br />
less than 24 hours to reject it. Then Chairman<br />
W. J. Collins, Essex. Nebraska, A. B. Cook,<br />
Omaha; S. S. Seeley, Lincoln.<br />
Gordon (Ralph Connor) made a report to the Minister<br />
of Labor at Ottawa and it is now up to the<br />
department to act, meanwhile the mines are idle<br />
and the price of coal is going up.<br />
John Williams, who operates a mine near Coshocton,<br />
Ohio, is preparing to open a retail yard<br />
in that city, through which a considerable part<br />
of his tonnage will be handled.<br />
Andrew Schmidt, a Pittsburgh tailor, claims<br />
to have invented a new method of utilising the<br />
coal dust from around the mines. He combines<br />
95 per cent, of culm with 5 per cent, of limestone<br />
and a secret formula of his own.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
KENTUCKY'S COAL PRODUCTION IN 1910<br />
__WAS LARGEST IN HISTORY OF THE<br />
STATE. , WW mt I _<br />
Prof. C. J. Norwood of Lexington, Ky.. chief<br />
inspector of mines of the state, has submitted his<br />
annual report to the state department for the calendar<br />
year of 1910. The report in part is as follows:<br />
For statistical purposes, the Kentucky coal fields<br />
are divided into three districts, namely: The<br />
Western, which includes all counties in the Western<br />
coal field; the Southeastern, which includes<br />
Bell, Harlan, Jackson, Knox, Laurel, Pulaski, Rockcastle,<br />
Wayne and Whitney counties, and the<br />
Northeastern, which at present includes all other<br />
counties in the Eastern coal field.<br />
The coal statistics reported by this office refer<br />
only to the commercial mines, which term included<br />
not only shipping mines but such of these that<br />
employ an average of more than five persons underground,<br />
as are of commercial importance locally.<br />
The number of the latter mines is quite small.<br />
The production of commercial coal for the calendar<br />
year, 1910, amounted to 14,720,011 short tons.<br />
This was by far the largest output known in the<br />
annals of mining in the state. Of the total<br />
amount, 76,180 tons were of cannel, produced by<br />
mines in Bell, Breathitt, Johnson and M<strong>org</strong>an<br />
counties.<br />
The production by districts was as follows:<br />
District. Tons.<br />
Western, 10 counties producing 8,428,752<br />
Southeastern, 6 counties producing 4,253,853<br />
Northeastern, 9 counties producing 2,034,406<br />
Total 14,720,011<br />
Compared with those of 1909, the figures show a<br />
gain of 4,423,866 tons, or very nearly 43 per cent.<br />
The gains by districts were as follows:<br />
Tons. Pet.<br />
Western, gain 2,250,591 51<br />
Southeastern, gain 911,723 27<br />
Northeastern, gain 661,552 48<br />
Total 4,423,866 43<br />
A large part of the increase in the Western district<br />
was due to strikes in Indiana and Illinois,<br />
which widened the northward market for Western<br />
Kentucky coal. The gains in the other districts<br />
were due chiefly to the increasing development of<br />
mining operations in the Eastern field.<br />
Compared with that of 1900, the output for 1910<br />
shows a gain of 9,699,336 tons, or an increase of<br />
over 193 per cent, in annual production within the<br />
10 years. The increase over 1905 was 6,670,363<br />
tons, or a gain of 83 per cent, in yearly output<br />
within the last five years.<br />
The advance made by the Northeastern district<br />
in the last five years is significant. In 1905 the<br />
production amounted to only 577,630 tons; in 1907<br />
it reached a million tons; and in 1910 it passed<br />
the two million mark. The prospect is that one<br />
company in that district will alone be putting out<br />
four million tons per annum at an early day.<br />
While it is very questionable whether the production<br />
for the year 1911 will equal that of 1910,<br />
developments under way in the Eastern coal field<br />
—not only in the Big Sandy and Kentucky river<br />
regions, but in the Upper Cumberland region (Bell,<br />
Knox and Harlan counties) as well—indicates that<br />
the output for 1912 will surpass it, should the<br />
Western district hold its own.<br />
Of the coal shipped from the Northeastern district.<br />
1,533 tons (from the Big Sandy region) were<br />
made into coke at Ashland. The total amount of<br />
coal converted into coke, therefore, was 98,066 tons.<br />
No better coals are sent to market from any<br />
mines than are produced in Kentucky, and yet,<br />
because of lack of manufacturing enterprises, the<br />
increase in the home consumption is relatively<br />
slow. Of the output for 1910, S,800.682 tons were<br />
reported as shipped to other states, and it is probable<br />
that the actual tonnage so shipped somewhat<br />
exceeded that amount.<br />
The rank of the 10 leading counties according<br />
to commercial output in 1910, was as follows:<br />
Muhlenberg, Hopkins, Bell, Whitney, Webster,<br />
Pike, Ohio, Knox, Union and Johnson. Muhlen<br />
berg has occupied first place since and including<br />
1908; up to that year Hopkins held the position<br />
continuously by a large margin, for more than 30<br />
years.<br />
The progress of mining in Muhlenberg during the<br />
last 10 years has been notable.<br />
In 1900 the county produced 409,581 tons; this<br />
grew to 1,044,402 tons in 1905, and to 2,849,690 in<br />
1910. Webster county, which held eighth place<br />
in 1909, advanced to fifth place in 1910. The production<br />
amounting to 106,177 tons in 1900, grew<br />
to 349,597 in 1905, and advanced to 1,017,411 tons<br />
in 1910. Pike county entered the commercial<br />
class in 1903. It produced only 46,730 tons in<br />
1904, and 103.362 tons in 1905.<br />
It took sixth place in 1910 and will probably<br />
take fourth place in 1911. Harlan county will<br />
probably become a producer of commercial coal in<br />
1911. and Letcher probably with Perry, may be<br />
expected to enter the commercial list in 1912.<br />
The total selling value of the commercial coal,<br />
at the mines, was $14,541,604, giving an average<br />
value of 98.79 cents a ton for the state. The<br />
average values, at mines, according to districts,<br />
were: For the Western, 90.28 cents a ton; for<br />
the Southeastern, $1.1184; and for the Northeastern<br />
$1.0670 a ton.
In the production of coke the state still lags.<br />
Although some ovens have been built in the Elkhorn<br />
field, the output of coke from that region is<br />
yet so small as to be almost negligible. The older<br />
ovens of the Southeastern district have, practically,<br />
remained idle, and new plants in Harlan<br />
county must await the completion of the Wasioto<br />
& Black Mountain railroad. Indeed, practically<br />
all the coke made within the state, from coal mined<br />
in Kentucky, is still made in the Western field,<br />
and very nearly all of that is the product of the<br />
Earlington ovens.<br />
The tonnage of commercial coal for 1910 was<br />
produced by 269 mining concerns. The maximum<br />
number of persons employed immediately at the<br />
mines was 25,760, of whom 20,742 were engaged<br />
underground. The average number was 21,162,<br />
of whom 17,059 were employed underground.<br />
Compared with those for 1909, the figures show<br />
an increase of 2,386 in the average number of employes<br />
and of 2,204 in the average number employed<br />
underground.<br />
The actual number of hours constituting a working<br />
day at the mines ranges from eight to nine<br />
and 10, depending upon locality. For the sake<br />
of uniformity in statistics, all days are reported<br />
as 10-hour units.<br />
The year 1910, in the number of fatal accidents,<br />
was the most disastrous in the history of coal<br />
mining in Kentucky. This was due to three explosions,<br />
as the result of which 50 persons lost<br />
their lives. The number of fatalities from all<br />
causes was 84, all but one of which occurred underground.<br />
Forty-five wives were made widows<br />
and 94 children rendered fatherless.<br />
These explosions emphasize the necessity for<br />
laws regulating the quantity of powder that may<br />
be carried into a mine each day, and the care of<br />
it, and for prohibiting shooting on the solid.<br />
When "solid shooting" is prohibited, not only will<br />
the probability of dust explosions be diminished,<br />
but deaths from fall of roof will decrease. The<br />
deaths by electric wires indicate the necessity for<br />
a law regulating electric installation in the mines.<br />
The referee in the case of the Mitchell Coal &<br />
Coke Co. against the Pennsylvania Railroad Co.<br />
for alleged illegal distrimination has filed in court<br />
at Philadelphia a report awarding the coal concern<br />
damages amounting to $241,541.70. The suit<br />
was instituted six years ago, and it was claimed<br />
that rebates, concessions and drawbacks had been<br />
allowed other coal companies in the Clearfield district<br />
from April 1, 1897, to May 1, 1901. Former<br />
Judge Theodore F. Jenkins, the referee, found that<br />
the plaintiff company was damaged in the sum of<br />
$80,513.90, and under the law was entitled to three<br />
times that amount.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
MERGER IN KENTUCKY COAL<br />
PROPERITIES IS COMPLETED.<br />
Consummation of the transaction, whereby the<br />
Continental Coal Corporation of Wyoming took<br />
over the properties of twelve big companies in<br />
Bell county, Ky., with assets valued at more than<br />
$6,000,000, has been effected. The terms by which<br />
the holdings of the various concerns were acquired<br />
has been announced. Of interest was the<br />
statement concerning the amount that will be<br />
paid over to the stockholders of the Straight<br />
Creek Coal & Coke Co.<br />
Tnis company, it was announced, in return for<br />
its holdings, accepted $600,000 in 6 per cent, first<br />
mortgage bonds, representing the par value of the<br />
stock, and $300,000 additional in cash and secured<br />
notes, making a total of $900,000. In addition<br />
to this the Continental people have assumed a<br />
bonded indebtedness of the Straight Creek Coal<br />
oc Coke Co. amounting to $225,000. The concern<br />
was capitalized at $600,000, and ten years ago the<br />
shares sold at from $18 to $25.<br />
The big deal was engineered by Peyton N.<br />
Ciarke, broker of Louisville. Ky., and Erie Martin,<br />
banker and capitalist of Chattanooga, Tenn.,<br />
who brought the various interests together.<br />
The Continental Coal Corporation of Wyoming<br />
was <strong>org</strong>anized by Messrs. Clarke and Martin with<br />
$3,000,000 common stock outstanding and $3,000,-<br />
000 of 6 per cent, thirty-year bonds in issue. The<br />
company now controls approximately 27,000 acres<br />
of coal land in Kentucky. The mines are on the<br />
line of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co.<br />
in the Cumberland Mountain range, about 19S<br />
miles from Louisville.<br />
ILLINOIS COKE OUTPUT FOR<br />
1910 SHOWS LARGE GAINS.<br />
In 1910 the coke output of Illinois, according to<br />
statistics compiled by the United States Geological<br />
Survey, was 1,514,504 tons, an increase of 237,548<br />
tons, or 18.6 per cent., from 1909 and more than<br />
four times the output for 1908. It exceeded that<br />
of Virginia by nearly 50,000 short tons, and Illinois<br />
became fourth in rank among the coke-producing<br />
states. Illinois has attained this prominence<br />
in the manufactuie of coke through the construction<br />
and operation of 200 Semet-Solvay byproduct<br />
ovens at South Chicago and of 280 Koppers<br />
regenerative ovens at Joliet. The value of<br />
the product increased from $5,361,510 in 1909 to<br />
$6,712,550 in 1910, a gain of 25.2 per cent. The<br />
average price per ton advanced from $4.20 to $4.43.<br />
Illinois' coke sells for more than that of Pennsylvania,<br />
West Virginia, or Alabama, owing to the<br />
fact that it is made from coal mined in West Virginia<br />
and to the first cost of the coal have been
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
added the transportation charges from the mines<br />
to Chicago or Joliet. The coke, however, is made<br />
at the point of consumption and does not have to<br />
bear any freight charges.<br />
The higher yield of coal in coke made in byproduct<br />
ovens is shown by the average yield of<br />
76.8 per cent, of West Virginia coal in coke at the<br />
Joliet and South Chicago ovens, whereas the average<br />
yield in the coke-making districts of West<br />
Virginia, where all but 120 of about 20,000 ovens<br />
are of the beehive type, was 01.1 per cent.<br />
ln addition to the production of coke at South<br />
Chicago and at Joliet a small quantity was made<br />
from Illinois coal in Belgium ovens at Equality,<br />
Gallatin county.<br />
The United States Steel Corporation will install<br />
its policy of a six-day week at the Monongahela<br />
blast furnace plant of the National Tube Co., Mc<br />
Keesport. By the new rule, every employe will<br />
be compelled to lay off one day each week. Some<br />
employes are condemning the order on account of<br />
the difference it will make in their salary.<br />
Notice has been given Secretary of State Ellingham<br />
of Indiana that the Pan-handle Consolidated<br />
Coal Co., the Central Coal & Mining Co. and the<br />
Terhune Coal & Mining Co., of Indiana, have quit<br />
business. The principal ownership of the companies<br />
was held by the same men at Pittsburgh.<br />
The number of idle cars reported June 21 was<br />
163,170, a decrease of 3,800 as compared with<br />
the record on June 7. It seems as if a definite<br />
course of reduction had now been entered upon<br />
and that a less number of idle cars would be reported<br />
at each fortnight interval.<br />
Deeds have been placed on record at Ebensburg,<br />
Pa., for a purchase by the Berwind-White Coal<br />
Mining Co.'s holding subsidiary, the Wilmore Coal<br />
Co., from Hon. J. C. Stineman, of South Fork. Pa.,<br />
of three tracts of coal in Adams township. Cambria<br />
county, Pa„ for $53,792.20.<br />
The Interstate Commerce Commission has announced<br />
that it considers $3 a car an excessive<br />
charge for reconsigning Ohio coal at Detroit,<br />
and the Lake Shore and six other roads were<br />
ordered to reduce the charge to $2 a car by<br />
September lst.<br />
Considerable excitement exists over the reported<br />
finding of a vein of coal, variously estimated from<br />
15 to 80 feet thick, two miles west of Coffeeville,<br />
Kan. The coal was found at a depth of 1,000<br />
feet by drillers for the Kansas Natural Gas Co.<br />
The property of the Chestnut Hill Sand &<br />
Coal Co., Moundsville, W. Va., was sold at auc<br />
tion recently for $17,000 to J. A. Striebich, agent<br />
for some of the stockholders. The sale was made<br />
because interest on the bonds were not paid.<br />
Mr. E. W. Marple, paymaster of the Lehigh<br />
& Wilkes-Barre Coal Co., died at Wilkes-Barre,<br />
Pa., July 8. He had been with the corporation<br />
since it was <strong>org</strong>anized in 1874. From 1881 to<br />
1S83 he was auditor in the New York offices.<br />
R. L. Crawford, of Pittsburgh, has hold 156<br />
acres of coal land to W. J. Kyle, of Waynesburg,<br />
Pa. The coal land is in Franklin township,<br />
Greene county, Pa., and the price was reported<br />
to be $215 an acre.<br />
With the revival of the coal trade in Westmore<br />
land county comes the report that the Yukon<br />
branch railroad will be extended from its present<br />
terminus in Sewickley township to the western<br />
part of the county.<br />
The Coil Coal Co., Paducah, Ky., has sunk a<br />
shaft 280 feet deep near that place and has<br />
tapped a seven foot, ten inch vein of coal. The<br />
company expects to be shipping coal by August<br />
15.<br />
The Pittsburgh Coal Co. board of directors has<br />
declared a dividend of 1^4 per cent, on the pre<br />
ferred stock of the company, payable July 25,<br />
to stockholders of record July 12.<br />
Stockholders of the Bessemer Coke Co. will<br />
meet August 10, for the purpose of voting on<br />
a proposition to increase the indebtedness of the<br />
company by $150,000.<br />
Mr. Leon Besson, of Dunkirk, Kans., on July 1<br />
succeeded Mr. Frank Gilday as state mine in<br />
spector of Kansas. Mr. Gilday had held the of<br />
fice for several years.<br />
The Standard Kanawha Coal Mining Co., Quick,<br />
W. Va., will develop 2,000 acres of coal at that<br />
place and plans a plant of 1,200 tons daily capacity.
Coal Production of Illinois By Companies.<br />
(CONTINUED FKOM PAGE 30)<br />
Independent Coal Co 21,229<br />
.1. J. Pryce & Son 21,164<br />
Tice Coal Co 20,500<br />
Grant Bros 19,947<br />
Olympic Coal Mining Co 19,800<br />
Streator Fuel Co 19,370<br />
Spoon River Coal Co 18,539<br />
Champion Coal Co 18,406<br />
Lancaster Landing Coal & Transportation<br />
Co 18,400<br />
Treasure Coal Co 18,272<br />
Mrs. E. Hakes 17,765<br />
Schmidtgall Coal Co 16,729<br />
Kuhn-Coolery Co 16,670<br />
Hickory Hill Coal Co 16,608<br />
Bailey Bros. Coal Co 16,220<br />
J. W. Mauch 16,000<br />
Bushong Bros 15,849<br />
Chicago & Carbondale Coal Co 15,478<br />
E. S. Lee 15,431<br />
Peacock Coal Co 15,248<br />
Tower Grove Coal Co 15,105<br />
Blue Mound Coal Co 15,041<br />
William Lattman 15,000<br />
Fulton County Coal Co 14,102<br />
Number Twelve Coal Co 13,864<br />
Colfax Cooperative Co 13,860<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Westerly 13,800<br />
Brady Coal Co 13,503<br />
Highland Coal Co 13,435<br />
Bulleck Bros 13,196<br />
Astoria Woodland Coal Co 13,182<br />
A. B. Cummings 13,047<br />
Binkley Miles Co 13,000<br />
John Olson 12,984<br />
Sharon Coal & Brick Co 12,943<br />
Streator Clay Manufacturing Co 12,750<br />
James Higbee 12,479<br />
Diamond Fuel Co 12,193<br />
Richland Coal Co 12,150<br />
W. H. Riddle 11,160<br />
F. P. Schmidt 10,830<br />
Coal Creek Mining Co 10,280<br />
German Coal Co 9,719<br />
Duquoin Coal Co 9,618<br />
Cumming Bros. & Co 9,600<br />
Fairbury Miners Cooperative Coal Co.. 9,501<br />
Spicer Coal Co 9,246<br />
J. S. MoMill 9,200<br />
Atlas Coal Co 9,155<br />
New Moon Mining Co 8,856<br />
Hibbard, Snidden & Co 8,700<br />
Phoenix Coal Co 8,557<br />
Mt. Pulaski Coal Co 8,487<br />
F. G. Watts<br />
Clark City-Wilmington Coal Co 8,435<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
8 > 485<br />
J. C. Boyle & Son 8,400<br />
Frances Fuel Co S.368<br />
Moline Coal Co S,366<br />
Stoehr & Schadt 8,140<br />
Eureka Coal Co 8,078<br />
Peter Becker 8,075<br />
W. C. Courtney 8,000<br />
Patrick Martin S.000<br />
Pendergast Bros 8,000<br />
J. R. Riley 8,000<br />
Volunteer Coal Co 7,75.3<br />
William J. Watkins 7,700<br />
J. B. Woods 7,700<br />
South Oakwood Coal Co 7,696<br />
W. B. Ballentine 7,642<br />
Lacon Coal Co 7,629<br />
Neil Baxter 7,600<br />
Fred Henry 7,300<br />
Bates Bros 7,290<br />
L. F. Brandt 7,200<br />
Harmony Coal Co 7,126<br />
Cooperative Coal Co 7,000<br />
Marion Marteness 7,000<br />
Gifford Price 7,000<br />
Reace & Taylor 7,000<br />
Kewanee Cooperative Fuel Co 6,949<br />
J. Sutton 6,860<br />
. Reib Coal Co 6,835<br />
Donahue & Jones 6,656<br />
Ritchey Coal Co 6,603<br />
Burney Coal Co 6,534<br />
Raymond Coal Co 6,520<br />
Olson Bros 6,500<br />
James Neave 6,400<br />
Finke Harris Coal Co 6,397<br />
G. Gubelhausen & Son 6,342<br />
Barr Coal Co 6,295<br />
Edward E. Evans 6,250<br />
Donahoo Coal Co 6,000<br />
Lebanon City Coal Co 6,000<br />
Pittsburgh-Big Muddy Coal Co 6,000<br />
William C. Schafer 6,000<br />
H. Vonach 6,000<br />
D. A. Jenkins 5,915<br />
Bert Kerr 5,850<br />
McManus-MeQuaney 5,732<br />
Wilson Coal Co 5,708<br />
Troy Cooperative Coal & Mining Co 5,600<br />
Lovington Coal Mining Co 5,520<br />
John Lerry 5,400<br />
Peoples Fuel Co 5,285<br />
O. W. Schumacher 5,200<br />
Wm. Pistor, Sr 5,183<br />
Rodell & Mitchell 5,025<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Beltz 5,000<br />
W. F. Crawford & Son 5,000<br />
Fairlie Bros 5,000<br />
L. S. Miller 5,000<br />
H. S. Phillips 5,000
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
J. Seivers 5,000<br />
Wm. Neil 4,913<br />
John T. Beatty 4,844<br />
Mohn Coal Co 4,800<br />
Geo. H. Haskins 4,771<br />
Glendale Coal & Mining Co 4,650<br />
Calhoun Brick & Clay Co 4,620<br />
Diamond Joe Coal Co 4,524<br />
Acme-Wilmington Coal Co 4,378<br />
Bawser-Truesdale 4.310<br />
Kincaid & Nuttall 4,200<br />
Thad. H. Milan 4,182<br />
John A. Young 4,067<br />
Third Vein Coal Co 4,000<br />
T. M. Weeks Coal Co 3.99S<br />
Matt Atkinson 3,869<br />
Hellers Coal Co 3,813<br />
Watson & Anderson 3.800<br />
James Thomas & Son 3,700<br />
Louis A. Schmidt 3,685<br />
:<strong>•</strong> ;rth Main Coal Co 3,652<br />
R. Todd & Son 3,600<br />
Galva Coal Co 3,440<br />
R. Taylor & Son 3.400<br />
Kipling, Foster & Stone 3,352<br />
Bushong & Walker 3,279<br />
B. F. Stretch 3,246<br />
D. Lomas 3,240<br />
R. Schramm & Son 3,216<br />
Jobs Ingram 3,200<br />
Streator Aqueduct Co 3,156<br />
J. W. Wright v 3,112<br />
J. McLaughlin 3,090<br />
Coronado Coal Mining Co 3,083<br />
E. S. Barlow 3,057<br />
Oscar Kimes 3,000<br />
H. J. Rohr 3,000<br />
Strait Coal Co 3,000<br />
Docherty Bros 2,980<br />
Limestone Coal Co 2,934<br />
Riverview Coal Co 2,929<br />
Lorenzo Balduch 2,920<br />
Arthur Jones 2,920<br />
Fair Oakes Coal Co 2,905<br />
J. O. Baldwin 2,900<br />
Edgemont Coal Co 2,820<br />
Glass & Morman 2,816<br />
Hodson & Ledwards 2,800<br />
Rockyrun Coal Co 2,800<br />
Emil Alhgren 2,750<br />
Henry Wonderlen 2,700<br />
Wood Coal Co 2,660<br />
J. W. Ervin 2,652<br />
Arthur Wainwright 2,618<br />
William Baum 2,600<br />
Simcox Bros 2,535<br />
Burns & Fleming 2,500<br />
M. Bushnell 2,500<br />
Highbee & Colwell 2,500<br />
Walter Robinson 2,500<br />
W. Bath 2,468<br />
W. P. Williams 2,464<br />
Spiilertown Coal & Coke Co 2,447<br />
R. G. Ellsworth 2,432<br />
Josh Anderson 2,400<br />
Fisher & Bennk 2,400<br />
Reese Taylor & Co 2,400<br />
Jeff Glenn 2,388<br />
Callear Bros 2,371<br />
Isam Dalton 2,354<br />
J. F. Schneider 2,307<br />
Essley Bros 2,270<br />
Axel E. Link 2,154<br />
Davenport Mining Co 2,106<br />
J. W. Bixby 2.104<br />
Crew Bros 2,100<br />
Charles Roseman 2,080<br />
Emil Kramer 2,051<br />
James Bell 2,000<br />
John Duncan 2,000<br />
S. M. Hodge & Son 2,000<br />
John Mallergren 1,950<br />
Jesse Savill 1,900<br />
Bader & Bader 1,875<br />
Philip Dietrich 1,810<br />
Jamison & Irwin 1,800<br />
Perry Myers 1,800<br />
James Yocum 1,800<br />
Crawford Bros 1,789<br />
Brandt & Walker 1,774<br />
Fauke & Gussman 1,760<br />
J. A. Peterson 1,760<br />
I. N. Beggs 1,748<br />
John Adams 1,737<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Hartman 1,720<br />
Masters' Bros 1,720<br />
W. J. McMillien 1,707<br />
J. Goodman 1,640<br />
Mack Poster 1,640<br />
Misbel & Wilson 1,618<br />
Brooker Bros 1,616<br />
John Anderson 1,600<br />
Bibry & Paul 1,60(1<br />
Dan Marguis 1,600<br />
J. F. Strode 1,600<br />
Cairus & Butts 1,600<br />
Aaron Teel 1,600<br />
Ben Thorn 1,600<br />
A. J. Gunnet 1,591<br />
John Wilson 1,577<br />
Jesse Hillier 1,520<br />
Claus Bengsten 1,500<br />
Charles Gladfelter 1,500<br />
Maloon & Gofinch 1,500<br />
William Mitchell 1,500<br />
iMilwood Coal Co 1,500<br />
M. C. Wilkinson 1,500<br />
E. W. Miller 1,499
Charley Adkison 1,440<br />
John O'Brien 1,440<br />
F. Tomkins 1,425<br />
Anderson & Savill 1,400<br />
John Mitchell 1,400<br />
Cunister & Davis 1,393<br />
N. E. Anderson 1,360<br />
Andrew Watson 1,360<br />
W. H. Robinson 1,344<br />
V. L. Church 1,344<br />
Big Mound Coal Co 1,300<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Kabel 1,300<br />
J. J. Harbaugh 1,296<br />
Joseph Williams 1,250<br />
McLaughlin Mining Co 1,245<br />
Glen H. Fisher 1.228<br />
C. L. Dewitt 1,203<br />
Bennett Bros 1.200<br />
Willis Clayton 1,200<br />
Max Davidson & Son 1,200<br />
Fussner Bros 1,200<br />
John Heather 1,200<br />
John Kinnamon 1,200<br />
E. R. Knickerbocker 1,200<br />
John Stalker 1,200<br />
David Roberts 1,200<br />
A. Wages 1,120<br />
J. M. Gray 1,100<br />
S. Taylor & Bros 1,100<br />
L. A. Woodbridge 1,100<br />
Lee Maleon 1,080<br />
Theo. Schueler 1,073<br />
Nick Engzlke 1,070<br />
Walter Wyne 1,050<br />
Hampton Coal Co 1.030<br />
B. 0. Cook 1,023<br />
C. E. Waddill 1,020<br />
James Hill 1,000<br />
W. A. Johnson 1,000<br />
F. R. Kennedy 1.000<br />
Frank Habbell 960<br />
James Kemerling '. . 960<br />
Albert Walberg 916<br />
E. Galladay 906<br />
William Brown 900<br />
Robinson & Stevens 900<br />
Staton & Blessing SS0<br />
Joseph Radlbeck 870<br />
Ray Tile Works 860<br />
Charles Norse 840<br />
Stone Bros 840<br />
William Wilkinson 815<br />
Joseph R. Thompson 801<br />
John Alderidge 8C0<br />
W. H. Backs 800<br />
E. Bishop 800<br />
Foraker & Miller 800<br />
W. E. Hornback 800<br />
H. H. Ingram 800<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
John MeGuire 800<br />
F. H. Moore 800<br />
Henry Viei 800<br />
Joe Wilson 800<br />
Peter Syddall 800<br />
L. Clarkson 791<br />
J. Gillett 770<br />
William Bottomly 70S<br />
J. W. Tyler 739<br />
Carle & Spillers 720<br />
Eli Clemson 720<br />
W. F. Johnson 720<br />
P. C. Nelson 720<br />
Delong Bros 716<br />
James A. Jones 704<br />
William Gumming 700<br />
S. C. McGovern 700<br />
B. B. Peterson 700<br />
W. A. Phillips 700<br />
Schotte & Withell 6S4<br />
Philip Jennings 680<br />
Manuel & Wallingford 680<br />
J. W. Niller 672<br />
M. A. Beers 650<br />
Fred Martin 650<br />
T. E. Wilson 640<br />
Ben & Josh Hemphill 636<br />
Kirkman & Ames 630<br />
John Grffith 62S<br />
R. J. Mitchell 627<br />
Samuel Thomas 618<br />
Lon Beyner 615<br />
Joseph Bunt 600<br />
John Curtis 600<br />
A. A. Eyman 600<br />
D. I. Foster 600<br />
Ernest Gray 600<br />
Thos. Jones & Son 600<br />
P. A. Lindsay 600<br />
G. Mimmens 600<br />
Samuel Parr 600<br />
Stout & Henning 598<br />
Harry Green 585<br />
A. S. Redfern 580<br />
Fox Bros 568<br />
Walton Armitage 560<br />
D. Caplinger 560<br />
H. J. Oldwaldt 560<br />
Ried & Brice 560<br />
Ernst Rink 560<br />
Wyman & Culbertson 548<br />
Berry Bros 530<br />
J. Finfrock 525<br />
Samuel Black 520<br />
Robert Gulley 520<br />
John McNeil 520<br />
Robert Scott 520<br />
J. B. Schimpf 520<br />
R. E. Zimmerman 520
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Meridith Bros 510<br />
Thomas McBride 502<br />
William Ackersan 500<br />
Buchanan Bros 500<br />
William Vicary 500<br />
176 Small mines producing less than 500<br />
tons each 38,754<br />
Total 4S,717,853<br />
NEW FIRE-DAMP DETECTOR.<br />
A new device for detecting fire damp in mines<br />
has just been invented by two young chemists,<br />
junior teachers in the Technical College in this<br />
city, writes Consul General John P. Bray, Sydney,<br />
Australia.<br />
The new detector is a simple and portable bit<br />
of apparatus, designed for the purpose of detecting<br />
and indicating the presence of fire damp<br />
and other dangerous gases in coal and other<br />
mines. Its warning is given either by a loudsounding<br />
alarm bell, or by the flashing into view<br />
of a red glow light. The makers of this simple<br />
contrivance have based their procedure upon<br />
Graham's law of the diffusion of gases, viz, "all<br />
gases tend to diffuse into one another at a definite<br />
rate, which varies in an inverse ratio to<br />
the square root of the density of the gases."<br />
Taking also Ansell's fire-damp detector as an<br />
additional starting point, the inventors have succeeded<br />
in procuring an efficient instrument which<br />
an inspector or miner may carry in his hand and<br />
test with ease and certainty the air in any heading<br />
or at any working face.<br />
The apparatus consists of merely a piece of<br />
glass tubing bent into U shape, with the lower<br />
curve flattened. One leg of the U has an ordinary<br />
"shell" funnel at its upper end, and the<br />
open mouth of this is covered by a thin disk<br />
of plaster of Paris, mixed thin, so that in drying<br />
it remains porous. The other leg is crowned<br />
by a small reservoir containing additional mercury,<br />
W'ith a little glass tap to allow the metal<br />
to be run into the bent tube below as and when<br />
required. Through each lower leg there is passed<br />
a fine platinum wire, that of the funnel-crowned<br />
one being about half an inch below the level of<br />
the other, and immersed in mercury, which fills<br />
the bend of the U up to this level. Each wire<br />
is connected to the poles of an ordinary battery<br />
cell, and thence effective connection is made with<br />
either alarm bell or colored light.<br />
What happens when' the detector is brought<br />
into the presence of an admixture of gas and air<br />
is simply this: The foreign gas permeates the<br />
plaster of Paris seal and depresses the mercury<br />
column below. This naturally causes the mer<br />
cury in the other leg of the U to rise and its<br />
rise brings it into contact with the platinum<br />
wire just above it. This slight contact is sufficient<br />
to complete the circuit, and set either bell<br />
or danger light to work. So sensitive is the apparatus<br />
that, as shown by tests during the recent<br />
exhibition, it can be adjusted to give warning<br />
of the presence of such a small proportion<br />
as 2 per cent., or even less, of an undesirable<br />
gas.<br />
JUNE ANTHRACITE SHIPMENT.<br />
The shipments of anthracite coal over the vari<br />
ous' roads for June, as compared with 1910, were:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
Philadelphia & Reading 1.135,749 911,713<br />
Lehigh Valley 1,214,852 1,002,193<br />
Central R. R. of N. J 876,579 716,548<br />
Delaware, Lacka. & Western 906,722 894,121<br />
Delaware & Hudson 604,055 605,120<br />
Pennsylvania 481,004 455,923<br />
Erie 783,083 574,109<br />
Ontario & Western 213,313 238,396<br />
Total 6,215,357 5,398,123<br />
The shipments by months for the year, as compared<br />
with 1910, were:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
January 5,904,117 5,306,618<br />
February 5,070.948 5,031,784<br />
March 5,996,894 5,174,166<br />
April 5,804,915 6,224,396<br />
May 6,317,352 5,679,661<br />
June 6,215,357 5,398,123<br />
July 4,202,059<br />
August 4,996,044<br />
September 4,967,516<br />
October 5,622,095<br />
November 6,071,746<br />
December 6,231,578<br />
Total 35,309.583 64.905,786<br />
Howard Neely has been appointed receiver for<br />
the Pitcairn Coal Co., of Pitcairn, on petition of<br />
Mrs. Annie Thomas, F. L. Miller, Robert D. Mc-<br />
Daniel, Mrs. Christina McDaniel and J. A. Wilson,<br />
stockholders. The receiver was ordered to<br />
wind up the business of the company at once,<br />
pay the creditors and distribute the balance to<br />
the stockholders. The receiver also was authorized<br />
to compel Anson E. Bonford, president of<br />
the company, to turn over the proceeds received<br />
from the unauthorized sale of certain lands belonging<br />
to the company.
Text of New Bituminous Mining Code of Pennsylvania<br />
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28)<br />
the map, claimed by the inspector to be inaccurate<br />
or imperfect, shall be found sufficiently accurate<br />
to serve the purpose for which it is intended,<br />
then the Commonwealth shall be liable for the<br />
expense incurred in making said survey and map,<br />
which expense shall be paid by the State Treasurer,<br />
upon warrant of the Auditor General, issued<br />
upon the presentation of voucher approved by the<br />
Chief of the Department of Mines.<br />
ARTICLE III.<br />
DUTIES OF MINE SUPERINTENDENT—MINE SUPPLIES.<br />
Section 1. It shall be the duty of every superintendent,<br />
on behalf and at the expense of the<br />
operator, to keep on hand at each mine, at all<br />
times, a sufficient quantity of all materials and<br />
supplies required to preserve the health and safety<br />
of the employes, as ordered by the mine foreman<br />
and required by this act. If for any reason, the<br />
superintendent cannot procure the necessary materials<br />
or supplies as aforesaid, he shall at once<br />
notify the mine foreman, whose duty it shall be<br />
to withdraw the men from the mine or portion<br />
of mine until such materials or supplies are<br />
received.<br />
The superintendent shall, at least once every<br />
week, read, examine carefully, and countersign<br />
all reports entered in the mine record book by<br />
the mine foreman, and if he finds, on such exam<br />
ination, that the law is being violated in any<br />
particular, he shall order the mine foreman to<br />
stop said violation forthwith and shall see that<br />
his order is complied with.<br />
Section 2. The superintendent shall not obstruct<br />
the mine foreman or other officials in the<br />
fulfillment of any of their duties as required by<br />
this act, but he shall direct that the mine foreman,<br />
and all the other employes under him, comply<br />
with the law in all its provisions, especially<br />
when his attention is called by the inspector to<br />
any violation of the law. At any mine where a<br />
superintendent is not employed the duties that<br />
are herein prescribed for the superintendent shall<br />
devolve upon the mine foreman in addition to his<br />
regular duties.<br />
Section 3. The superintendent of every mine<br />
shall provide a sufficient number of danger signals,<br />
upon request of the mine foreman, which<br />
the mine foreman, or the assistant mine foreman,<br />
shall distribute in the mine at places convenient<br />
for the use of the fire bosses in the fulfillment<br />
of their duties. Danger signals in all mines shall<br />
be uniform and of a design approved by the Chief<br />
of the Department of Mines. All danger signals<br />
shall be kept in good condition and no defective<br />
signal shall be allowed to remain in any mine.<br />
Section 4. The superintendent shall keep on<br />
hand, at the mine, a supply of the printed rules<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
and notices and record books required by this<br />
act, which shall be furnished through the inspector<br />
of the district on request of the superintendent,<br />
in writing. The superintendent shall see<br />
that said rules and notices and record books are<br />
delivered to the proper persons at the mine and<br />
that they are properly eared for, and he shall<br />
also see that the rules and notices are posted<br />
in conspicuous places at, or near the entrance to<br />
the mine and kept in such condition that they<br />
will always be legible.<br />
Section 5. The superintendent shall not permit<br />
the mining of coal within 50 feet of any abandoned<br />
mine containing a dangerous accumulation<br />
of water until said danger has been removed by<br />
driving a passageway to tap and drain off said<br />
water, as provided for in this act; Provided, that,<br />
the thickness of the barrier pillars shall be<br />
greater and shall be in proportion of one foot of<br />
pillar thickness to each one and one-quarter feet<br />
of water-head, if, in the judgment of the engineer<br />
of the property and that of the district inspector,<br />
it is necessary for the safety of the persons working<br />
in the mine.<br />
Section 6. The superintendent shall provide a<br />
safety catch, or other safety device, to be placed<br />
on the rear end of the rear car of full trips that<br />
are being hoisted up slopes, and he shall also<br />
provide suitable signals to be placed on the rear<br />
end of the rear car of all trips hauled in the mines<br />
by locomotives of any kind.<br />
Section 7. If the mine foreman, the assistant<br />
mine foreman, or the fire boss, neglects his duties<br />
or incapacitates himself by drunkenness, or is<br />
incapacitated by any other cause for the proper<br />
performance of his duties, and information thereof<br />
shall be brought to the knowledge of the superintendent,<br />
it shall be the duty of the superintendent<br />
to make a thorough investigation of the<br />
case, and if he finds evidence to sustain the<br />
charge, he shall inform the inspector, who shall<br />
inform the court of common pleas of the county,<br />
or a judge thereof, by petition, and said court,<br />
or judge when the court is not in session, shall<br />
issue a citation in the name of the Commonwealth<br />
to the said mine foreman, assistant mine foreman,<br />
or fire boss, to appear, at not less than five<br />
days' notice, upon a day fixed, before said court,<br />
or a judge thereof, at which time the.court shall<br />
proceed to inquire into, and investigate the allegations.<br />
If the court finds the allegations to be<br />
true, it shall notify the Department of Mines of<br />
such finding and instruct said Department to<br />
withdraw the certificate of said delinquent; Provided,<br />
however, that he shall have the right to<br />
appear before the Examining Board and be reexamined,<br />
and if he can satisfy the Board that he<br />
has reformed and passes a satisfactory examination,<br />
he shall be given another certificate of<br />
qualification. When the court orders the certifi-
48<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
cate of a mine foreman, an assistant mine foreman,<br />
or a fire boss, to be withdrawn, the inspector<br />
shall notify the operators of the district of<br />
the fact.<br />
Section 8. The operator, or the superintendent,<br />
of every mine shall, within 30 days thereafter,<br />
send to the inspector notices of the following<br />
occurrences:<br />
First—When a mine has been abandoned or the<br />
working thereof discontinued.<br />
Second—When any work has commenced for<br />
the purpose of opening a new mine.<br />
Third—When the working of a mine is resumed<br />
after an abandonment or a discontinuance, for a<br />
period exceeding two months.<br />
Fourth—When any change occurs in the name<br />
of a mine or in the name of the operator of a<br />
mine, under the provisions of this act.<br />
ARTICLE IV.<br />
MINE FOREMAN AM) HIS DUTIES.<br />
Section 1. In order to secure efficient management<br />
and proper ventilation of the mines, to<br />
promote the health and safety of the persons employed<br />
therein, and to protect and preserve the<br />
property connected therewith, the operator, or the<br />
superintendent, shall employ a competent and<br />
practical mine foreman for every mine where<br />
10 or more persons are employed. The mine<br />
foreman shall have full charge of all the inside<br />
workings and of the persons employed therein,<br />
in order that all the provisions of this act, so<br />
far as they relate to his duties, shall be complied<br />
with, and the regulations prescribed for each<br />
class of workmen under his charge carried out in<br />
the strictest manner possible. If the mine is<br />
generating explosive gas in quantities sufficient<br />
to be detected by an approved safety lamp, the<br />
mine foreman must possess a first grade mine<br />
foreman's certificate. If the mine is non-gaseous,<br />
the mine foreman must possess either a first<br />
grade mine foreman's certificate or a second grade<br />
mine foreman's certificate.<br />
When the mine workings become so extensive<br />
that the mine foreman is unable, personally, to<br />
carry out the requirements of this act pertaining<br />
to his duties, he shall have the right to employ<br />
a sufficient number of competent persons to act<br />
as his assistants, who shall act under his instructions<br />
in carrying out the provisions of this act.<br />
If the mine is generating explosive gas in quantities<br />
sufficient to be detected by an approved safety<br />
lamp, the mine foreman's assistant must possess<br />
first grade assistant mine foremen's certificates.<br />
In case of the necessary temporary absence of<br />
the mine foreman, he may deputize his work for<br />
the time being to his assistant, who shall perform<br />
all the duties of the mine foreman.<br />
Section 2. The mine foreman shall devote the<br />
whole of his time to his duties in the mine, when<br />
the mine is in operation, and shall keep a careful<br />
watch over the ventilating apparatus, the ventilation<br />
airways, traveling ways, timbering, and<br />
drainage, and shall see that all stoppings along<br />
airways are properly built, as provided for in<br />
section 5 of article 9 of this act.<br />
He shall also see that proper cut-throughs are<br />
made in the pillars of all rooms and of all entries<br />
in accordance with section 3 of article 9 of this<br />
act, and that they are closed, when necessary, so<br />
that the ventilating current can be conducted in<br />
sufficient quantity through the last cut-through<br />
to the face of each room and entry by means of<br />
check doors. He shall not permit any room, or<br />
entry, to be turned in advance of the ventilating<br />
current or in advance of the last cut-through in<br />
the entry, excepting room necks, which may, with<br />
the consent of the inspector, be turned by entrymen<br />
driving entries.<br />
Section 3. The mine foreman, or his assistant,<br />
shall, at least once every week, measure the air<br />
current at or near the main inlet and outlet<br />
airway and also in the last cut-through in the last<br />
room and in the entry, beyond the last room<br />
turned in each entry, and make a record of said<br />
measurements, as provided for in section 19 of<br />
this article. Said measurements shall be taken<br />
on days when the men are at work, and for making<br />
said measurements an anemometer shall be<br />
provided and kept in good condition by the superintendent<br />
of the mine.<br />
Section 4. In case of accident to a ventilating<br />
fan, or its machinery, whereby the ventilation of<br />
the mine would be seriously interrupted, the mine<br />
foremen shall order the men to withdraw immediately<br />
from the mine, and he shall not allow<br />
them to return to their work until the ventilation<br />
has been restored and the mine has been<br />
thoroughly examined by him or by an assistant<br />
mine foreman or fire boss and reported safe.<br />
Section 5. The mine foreman shall notify the<br />
superintendent, in writing, whenever, in his opinion,<br />
the mine is becoming dangerous through the<br />
lack of ample ventilation at the face of entries,<br />
rooms and other portions of the mine, caused by<br />
the undue length of entries and airways, or from<br />
any other cause resulting in the accumulation of<br />
gas or coal dust, or both, in various portions of<br />
the mine. The superintendent shall then notify<br />
the inspector of the report of the mine foreman,<br />
requesting him to come and make a personal examination,<br />
and, if he finds it is becoming dangerous,<br />
he shall at once direct the superintendent<br />
to proceed to have it put in a safe condition, and,<br />
if necessary, have an additional opening of ample<br />
dimensions sunk from the surface to the interior,<br />
which opening can be used as an outlet or inlet<br />
for the air, and also as an escapeway in case of<br />
necessity.<br />
In all mines generating explosive gas in quantities<br />
sufficient to be detected by an approved safety
lamp, the mine foreman shall see that, when the<br />
permanent station of the fire boss is located a<br />
mile oi more from the entrance to the mine, all<br />
abandoned, finished, or unfinished workings in<br />
the intervening distance between the permanent<br />
station and the entrance to the mine are completely<br />
shut off from the main intake or manway<br />
headings of the mine by stoppings of masonry,<br />
concrete, or some other incombustible material of<br />
sufficient thickness to keep the explosive or noxious<br />
gases from coming in contact with the intake<br />
air or with the persons employed therein.<br />
Section 6. The mine foreman shall direct and<br />
see that every working place is properly secured<br />
by props or timbers and shall see that no person<br />
is directed, or permitted, to work in an unsafe<br />
place, unless it be for the purpose' of making it<br />
safe. He shall also SI-I J that the workmen are<br />
provided with sufficient props, cap pieces, and<br />
timbers of suitable size, which shall be delivered<br />
at the working faces, or as near thereto as they<br />
can be conveyed in mine cars, when requested<br />
by the workmen, in accordance with section 7 of<br />
this article. He shall also see that props are cut<br />
square at both ends and as near as practicable<br />
to the proper length required or designated for<br />
the places where they are to be used.<br />
Section 7. Every workman in need of props,<br />
cap pieces, and timbers, shall notify the mine<br />
foreman or the asistant mine foreman (or any<br />
other person delegated by the mine foreman) of<br />
the fact at least one day in advance, giving the<br />
number, size, and length of props, cap pieces, and<br />
timbers required. In case of emergency the timber<br />
may be ordered immediately upon the discovery<br />
of danger. If for any reason, the necessary timbers<br />
cannot be supplied when required, the mine<br />
foreman or assistant mine foreman shall instruct<br />
the workmen to vacate the place until the timber<br />
needed is supplied.<br />
The place and manner of leaving the orders for<br />
props, cap pieces and timbers shall be designated<br />
and specified in the rules of the mine.<br />
Section 8. The mine foreman shall see that,<br />
on all animal and mechanical hauling roads, holes<br />
for shelter shall be cut into the strata not less<br />
than two and one-half feet deep and four feet<br />
wide and level with the road at least every 30<br />
yards and kept whitewashed and clear of obstruction,<br />
except in entries from which rooms are<br />
driven at regular intervals not exceeding 90 feet,<br />
provided, that the entrance to each room be kept<br />
clear of obstruction for a distance of three feet.<br />
On all main hauling roads, on which hauling is<br />
done by machinery, shelter holes shall be cut into<br />
the strata not less than two and one-half feet<br />
deep and at least four feet wide and level with<br />
the road and not more than 15 yards apart, and<br />
said shelter holes shall be kept whitewashed and<br />
clear of obstruction, except in entries from which<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
rooms are opened at regular intervals not exceeding<br />
45 feet; Provided, that the entrance to such<br />
rooms be kept clear of obstruction for a distance<br />
of three feet. All shelter holes shall be made on<br />
the same side of the entry. All entries driven<br />
after the passage of this act shall have a clear<br />
space of two and one-half feet from the side of<br />
the car to the rib, which shall be made and continued<br />
throughout on one side of the entry, if, in<br />
the judgment of the inspector, the condition of<br />
the roof will permit, and shall be kept clear of<br />
obstruction.<br />
No persons except officials or repairmen shall<br />
be permitted to travel on slopes, gravity, or incline<br />
planes, while the cars thereon are in motion.<br />
Section 9. The mine foreman shall direct that<br />
the coal is properly mined before it is blasted.<br />
"Properly mined" shall mean that the coal shall<br />
be undercut, center-cut, top-cut, or sheared, by<br />
pick or machine, and, in any case, the undercutting<br />
shall be as deep as the holes are laid. In<br />
mines generating explosive gas in quantities sufficient<br />
to be detected by an approved safety lamp,<br />
when the coal seam is five feet six inches or more<br />
in thickness, "properly mined" shall mean that,<br />
in all entries less than 10 feet wide, wherein the<br />
coal is undercut, it shall also be sheared on one<br />
side as deep as the undercutting before any holes<br />
are charged and fired, or the coal shall be blasted<br />
in sections by placing the first hole near the<br />
center of the coal seam. He shall also direct that<br />
the miner set sprags as often as necessary, at a<br />
distance not exceeding seven feet apart, under<br />
the breast of undermined or center-mined coal, for<br />
safety. The mine foreman shall direct at what<br />
hours blasting shall be done in the mine, and a<br />
notice of the time shall be posted at a conspicuous<br />
place at + he mine and a copy of the notice<br />
shall be kept on file at the mine office; Provided,<br />
however, that, in districts in which it has been<br />
the common practice to blast coal from the solid,<br />
said practice or method may be continued, notwithstanding<br />
anything to the contrary herein contained.<br />
In such portions of a dry and dusty mine<br />
where explosive gas is being generated in quantities<br />
sufficient to be detected by an approved safety<br />
lamp, the mine foreman shall direct and see that<br />
the rooms and entries are moistened by water,<br />
or other efficient means, as often as necessary to<br />
keep the dust in damp condition, and he shall<br />
direct and see that the dust is loaded and taken<br />
out of the mine as often as necessary.<br />
The mine foreman shall direct and see that, as<br />
the miners advance in their excavation, all dangerous<br />
and doubtful pieces of coal, slate, and<br />
rock, overhead, are taken down or at once carefully<br />
secured against falling on the workmen. Any<br />
workman who neglects to carry out, or disobeys,<br />
the instructions of the mine foreman or his as-
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
sistant in regard to securing his working place,<br />
shall be suspended or discharged by the mine<br />
foreman, and if such negligence or disobedience<br />
results in serious injury or loss of life to any<br />
person, the mine foreman shall give the name of<br />
said workman to the inspector for prosecution in<br />
accordance with section 2, article 26 of this act.<br />
Section 10. The mine foreman shall give prompt<br />
attention to the removal of all dangers reported<br />
to him by his assistants, the fire boss, or by any<br />
other person working in the mine, and in case it<br />
is impracticable to remove the danger at once, he<br />
shall notify every person, whose safety is menaced<br />
thereby, to remain away from the portion<br />
where the dangerous conditions exist. He, or his<br />
assistant, shall, once each week, travel and ex<br />
amine all the air courses and roads and all the<br />
openings that give access to old workings or falls<br />
and make a record of the condition of all places<br />
where danger has been found, with ink, in the<br />
book provided for that purpose.<br />
In all mines, the mines foreman shall employ<br />
a sufficient number of assistants to insure a visit<br />
to each working place, either by himself or by his<br />
assistants, once each day, while the employes are<br />
at work, and in addition thereto shall give special<br />
care, oversight, and attention to the men drawing<br />
pillars, particularly when falls are thereby being<br />
made. The mine foreman, or the assistant mine<br />
foreman under instructions from the mine foreman,<br />
shall direct that the holes for blasting be<br />
properly placed and shall designate the angle and<br />
depth of holes, which shall not be deeper than<br />
the undercutting, center-cutting, top-cutting, or<br />
shearing, and the maximum quantity of explosives<br />
required for each hole and the method of charging<br />
and tamping. Instructions shall be given<br />
the men by the mine foreman, assistant mine<br />
foreman, or mine boss, or other authorized person,<br />
as to when, where, and how, timber shall be<br />
placed, so as to avoid accidents from falls, and<br />
also, in a general way, how to mine coal with<br />
safety to themselves and others.<br />
At the end of each shift, each assistant mine<br />
foreman shall make a report, in a book provided<br />
for that purpose, giving the general condition as<br />
to safety of the working places visited by him<br />
and shall make a note of any unusual occurrence<br />
observed by him during the day. The mine foreman<br />
shall read carefully the daily report of each<br />
assistant mine foreman and shall sign the reports<br />
with ink not later than the day following.<br />
Section 11. The mini' foreman shall see that<br />
every mine generating explosive gas is kept free<br />
of standing gas in all working places and roadways.<br />
Any accumulation of explosive gas or nox<br />
ious gases in the worked-out, or abandoned, portions<br />
of any mine, shall be removed as soon as<br />
possible after its discovery, if it is practicable<br />
to remove it. No person who may be endangered<br />
by the presence of said explosive gas, or noxious<br />
gases, shall be allowed in that portion of the<br />
mine until said gases have been removed. The<br />
mine foreman shall direct and see that all dan<br />
gerous places and the entrance, or entrances, to<br />
worked-out and abandoned places in all mines are<br />
properly fenced off across the openings, so that<br />
no person can enter, and that danger signals are<br />
posted upon said fencing to warn persons of the<br />
existing danger.<br />
Section 12. In any mine where it has been<br />
found impracticable to remove explosive gas from<br />
the inaccessible top of a fall, it shall be the duty<br />
of the mine foreman to make this fact known at<br />
once, in writing, to the superintendent, who shall<br />
immediately report the same to the inspector,<br />
requesting him to make a prompt personal in<br />
vestigation. If the superintendent and the inspector<br />
are unable to devise means to have said explosive<br />
gas removed within a reasonable time, the<br />
inspector shall direct that a bore hole, or bore<br />
holes, not less than six inches in diameter, be<br />
drilled from the surface to a high point on said<br />
fall, in order to give the gas an opening to<br />
escape to the surface.<br />
Section 13. In every mine generating explosive<br />
gas in quantities sufficient to be detected by an<br />
approved safety lamp, where coal dust is being<br />
carried in the air currents in quantities indicating<br />
danger, the mine foreman shall see that no<br />
person is employed to work in the mine until<br />
he has given satisfactory proof that he can do<br />
the work allotted to him without endangering the<br />
lives of his co-employes, unless said person is put<br />
to work with an experienced miner, whose duty<br />
it shall be to instruct such inexperienced person<br />
how to safely and properly perform his work.<br />
Section 14. In such portions of a mine where<br />
explosive gas is being generated in quantities<br />
sufficient to be detected by an approved safety<br />
lamp, and in which locked safety lamps are used,<br />
the mine foreman shall employ a sufficient number<br />
of competent persons who are able to speak<br />
the English language to act as shot firers, whose<br />
duty shall be to charge, tamp, and fire all holes<br />
properly placed by the miners, and to refuse to<br />
charge any holes not properly placed. No holes<br />
shall be fired by any person other than a shot<br />
firer. They shall use none but incombustible material<br />
for tamping, which the mine foreman shall<br />
see is provided for them at convenient places<br />
inside the mine. Under no condition shall the<br />
shot firer use coal dust or any other combustible<br />
material for tamping. All such holes shall be<br />
fired by an electric apparatus and no person other<br />
than the shot firer shall connect the wires of, or<br />
operate, said apparatus. Each shot firer shall<br />
keep a record of, and report to the mine foreman,<br />
every hole that he has refused to charge, every<br />
blown-out shot, and every hole that has misfired.
It shall be the duty of shot firers and miners,<br />
who are permitted by this act to fire their own<br />
shots, to visit and examine the places where<br />
shots have been fired before leaving the mine to<br />
see that there is no fire or any other danger<br />
existing.<br />
In all mines in which coal is blasted from the<br />
solid, all holes shall be fired when all the workmen<br />
are out of the mine, except the shot firers<br />
and other persons delegated by the mine foreman<br />
to safeguard property.<br />
No shot firer, or any other person, shall fire<br />
a shot in any working place or in any mine, if<br />
his safety lamp can detect explosive gas at the<br />
roof. In gaseous, dusty mines, in which locked<br />
safety lamps are used, he shall fire no holes<br />
unless the entries and rooms, which are dry and<br />
dusty, are so thoroughly wetted as to prevent<br />
the existence of any dry dust for a distance of<br />
not less than 80 feet from the hole to be fired;<br />
Provided, however, that, in all mines wherein<br />
the coal is being blasted from the solid, the mine<br />
foreman shall direct and see that the provisions<br />
of this section are fully complied with.<br />
Section 15. When operations are temporarily<br />
suspended in a mine, the superintendent and the<br />
mine foreman shall see that danger signals are<br />
placed across the mine entrances, which signals<br />
shall be sufficient warning for persons not to<br />
enter the mine. If the circulation of air through<br />
the mine be stopped, each entrance to said mine<br />
shall be fenced off in such a manner as will ordinarily<br />
prevent persons from entering said mine,<br />
and a danger signal shall be displayed upon said<br />
fence at each entrance. The mine foreman shall<br />
see that all danger signals used in the mine are<br />
in good condition and if any become defective he<br />
shall notify the superintendent.<br />
Section 16. The mine foreman shall see that<br />
the water is drained out of the working places<br />
before the men enter and that the working places<br />
are kept as free from water as practicable during<br />
working hours.<br />
Section 17. In any working place that is being<br />
driven within supposedly dangerous proximity to<br />
an abandoned mine, or portion of an abandoned<br />
mine, suspected of containing explosive gas or<br />
that may contain a dangerous accumulation of<br />
water, the mine foreman shall see that at least<br />
two bore holes shall be maintained not less than<br />
12 feet in advance of the face, and, on each side<br />
of such working place, bore holes of the same<br />
depth shall be drilled diagonally not more than<br />
eight feet apart, and any place driven to tap<br />
water or gas shall not be more than eight feet<br />
wide. No water or gas from an abandoned mine,<br />
or portions of an abandoned mine, and no bore<br />
hole from the surface, shall be tapped until the<br />
employes, except those engaged at such work, are<br />
out of the mine, and such work shall be done<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
under the immediate instruction and direction of<br />
the mine foreman, with the use of locked safety<br />
lamps.<br />
Section IS. The mine foreman shall, each day,<br />
enter plainly and sign with ink, in a book provided<br />
for that purpose, a report of the condition<br />
of the mine, which report shall clearly state any<br />
danger that may have come under his observation<br />
during the day or any danger reported to<br />
him by his assistants or the fire bosses. The<br />
report shall also state whether or not there is a<br />
proper supply of material on hand for the safe<br />
working of the mine and whether or not the<br />
requirements of the law are complied with. He<br />
shall also, once each week, enter plainly with ink<br />
in said book, a true report of all air measurements<br />
required by this act, designating the place,<br />
the area of each cut-through and entry, separately<br />
the velocity of the air in each cut-through and<br />
entry, and the number of men employed in each<br />
separate split of air, with the date when measurements<br />
were taken. Said book shall at all<br />
times be kept in the mine office, at the mine, for<br />
examination by the inspector and by any person<br />
working in the mine, in the presence of the mine<br />
foreman.<br />
The mine foreman shall also, each day, read<br />
carefully, and countersign with ink, all reports<br />
entered in the record book of the fire bosses.<br />
Section 19. The mine foreman shall, once each<br />
week, on blank forms provided i yr that purpose,<br />
report to the inspector all fatal and serious accidents<br />
that have occurred in or about the mines,<br />
giving the age, nationality, and occupation of the<br />
injured persons, together with facts as to the<br />
families or dependents affected.<br />
Section 20. The mine foreman shall employ a<br />
sufficient number of fire bosses in order that each<br />
mine can be examined in accordance with the<br />
provisions of sections 1, 2 and 3 of article 5 of<br />
this act. The mine foreman, or the assistant mine<br />
foreman, shall see, as often as practicable, that<br />
the fire boss has left his mark in places examined<br />
or reported as examined.<br />
Section 21. The mine foreman shall direct and<br />
see that safety blocks, or some other device, are<br />
constructed for the purpose of preventing cars<br />
from falling into the shaft or slope or running<br />
away on slopes and incline planes and safety<br />
switches, drop logs, or other devices shall be used<br />
on all slopes and incline planes, and the mine<br />
foreman shall see that said safety blocks, safety<br />
switches or other devices are maintained in good<br />
working order.<br />
Section 22. It shall be the duty of the mine<br />
foreman to see that locked safety lamps are used<br />
when and where required by this act.<br />
The transportation of tools, in and out of the<br />
mine, shall be under the direction of the mine<br />
foreman or his assistant.
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Section 23. It shall be the duty of the mine<br />
foreman to report immediately all violations of<br />
this act to the inspector.<br />
Section 24. When assistant mine foremen are<br />
employed, their duty shall be to assist the mine<br />
foreman in complying with the provisions of<br />
this act, and, in the absence of the mine foreman,<br />
they shall perform the duties of the mine<br />
foreman and shall be liable to the same penalties<br />
as the mine foreman for any violation of this act.<br />
ARTICLE V.<br />
DUTIES OF FIRE BOSS.<br />
Section 1. In such portions of a mine wherein<br />
explosive gas has been generated within one<br />
year before the passage of this act, or shall be<br />
generated after the passage of this act in sufficient<br />
quantities to be detected by an approved<br />
safety lamp, the mine foreman shall employ a<br />
fire boss, or fire bosses, whose competency to<br />
act as such shall be evidenced by a certificate of<br />
qualification from the Department of Mines on<br />
the recommendation of the Examining Board, as<br />
provided for in section 6, article 24 of this act.<br />
It shall be the duty of the fire boss to examine<br />
carefully, before each shift enters the mine,<br />
every working place without exception, all places<br />
adjacent to live workings, every roadway and<br />
every unfenced road to abandoned workings and<br />
falls in the mine; but, before proceeding with<br />
the examination, he shall see that the air current<br />
is traveling in its proper course. In making<br />
the examination he shall use no light other<br />
than that enclosed in an approved safety lamp.<br />
'The examination shall begin within three hours<br />
prior to the appointed time for each shift to<br />
enter the mine. The fire boss shall examine for<br />
all dangers, in all portions of the mine under<br />
his charge, and, after each examination, he shall<br />
leave, at the face and side of every place examined,<br />
the date of the examination as evidence<br />
that he has performed his duty. He shall also<br />
examine the entrance, or entrances, to all workedout<br />
and abandoned portions adjacent to the roadways<br />
and working places under his charge, where<br />
explosive gas is likely to accumulate, and he<br />
shall place a danger signal across the entrance<br />
to every working place, and every other place,<br />
wheie explosive gas is discovered, or where immediate<br />
danger is found to exist from any other<br />
cause, and said signal shall be sufficient warning<br />
for persons not to enter. The meaning of<br />
all danger signals shall be explained to the non<br />
English speaking employes of the mine in their<br />
several languages by the mine formena, assistant<br />
mine foreman, or fire boss through an interpreter.<br />
Section 2. A suitable record book shall be<br />
kept at the mine office, on the surface, of every<br />
mine wherein fire bosses are employed, and im<br />
mediately after the examination of such mine,<br />
or any portion thereof by a fire boss whose duty<br />
it is to make such examination, he shall enter<br />
in said book, with ink, a record of such examination<br />
and sign same. This record shall show the<br />
time taken in making the examination, and, also,<br />
clearly state the nature and location of any danger<br />
that may have been discovered in any room<br />
or entry or other place in the mine, and if any<br />
danger or dangers have been discovered the fire<br />
bosses shall immediately report the location<br />
thereof to the mine foreman. No person shall<br />
enter the mine until the fire bosses return to the<br />
mine office on the surface or to a station located<br />
in the intake entry of the mine (where a<br />
record book as provided for in this section shall<br />
be kept and signed by the person making the examination)<br />
and report to the mine foreman or<br />
the assistant mine foreman, by telephone or<br />
otherwise, that the mine is in safe condition for<br />
the men to enter. When a station is located in<br />
any mine, it shall be the duty of the tire bosses<br />
to sign, also, the report entered in the record<br />
book in the mine office on the surface.<br />
The record books of the fire bosses shall, at all<br />
times during working hours, be accessible to the<br />
inspector and the employes of the mine.<br />
Section 3. A second examination by the same,<br />
or other fire bosses, shall be made, during working<br />
hours, of every working place where men are<br />
employed.<br />
Section 4. The mine foreman and the fire boss<br />
shall, at or near the main entrance to the mine,<br />
provide a permanent station with a proper danger<br />
signal, designated by suitable letters and<br />
colors placed thereon. In every mine generating<br />
explosive gas in quantities sufficient to be detected<br />
by an approved safety lamp, when the working<br />
portions are one mile or more from the entrance<br />
to the mine, or from the bottom of the shaft or<br />
slope, a permanent station of suitable dimensions<br />
may be erected by the mine foreman (provided<br />
the location is approved by the inspector) for the<br />
use of the fire bosses and in the said station a<br />
fire-proof vault of ample strength shall be erected<br />
of brick, stone, or concrete, in which the temporary<br />
record book of the fire bosses, as described<br />
in section 2 of this article, shall be kept. It shall<br />
not be lawful for any person except the mine foreman,<br />
and, in case of necessity, such other persons<br />
as may be designated by him, to pass beyond<br />
said permanent station and danger signal<br />
until the mine has been examined by a fire boss,<br />
as provided for in section 1 of this article, and<br />
the mine or certain portions thereof reported by<br />
him to be safe. The fire boss shall not allow any<br />
other person or persons to enter, or remain, in<br />
any portion of the mine through which a dangerous<br />
accumulation of gas is being passed in<br />
the ventilating current from any other part of
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 53<br />
the mine. He shall report at once any violation feet and the distance between the openings to<br />
of this article to the mine foreman.<br />
the surface of slopes shall not be less than 150<br />
Section 5. Any employe or other person, except feet, and the distance between drifts shall not<br />
those hereinbefore provided for, who passes by be less than 50 feet; Provided, that the distances<br />
any danger signal into the mine, or into any between said openings shall apply only to mines<br />
portion of the mine, or removes such danger opened after the passage of this act, and, pro<br />
signal before the mine has been examined and vided, further, that the distances specified may<br />
reported to be safe, or any employe or any other be less with the written consent of the inspector.<br />
person who passes by any danger signal placed The passageways between said two shafts shall,<br />
at the entrance to a working place, or any other at all times, be maintained in safe and available<br />
place in the mine, or removes such danger signal condition for the employes to travel therein, and<br />
without permission from the mine foreman, the the pillars in entries between said shafts shall<br />
assistant mine foreman, or the fire boss, shall be not be removed without the consent of the in<br />
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and it shall be spector, in writing, to the superintendent.<br />
the duty of the mine foreman having knowledge The foregoing requirements shall not apply to<br />
of said violation (whether obtained personally or the openings of a new mine, or to the openings<br />
otherwise) to notify the inspector at once in of a new entry of a mine that is being worked<br />
writing and the inspector shall forthwith enter for the purpose of making connection between<br />
proceedings against such persons, as provided for said two outlets, as long as not more than 20<br />
in section 2 of article 26 of this act.<br />
persons are employed, at any one time, in making<br />
Any mine foreman who fails to notify the in the connection or driving the second opening;<br />
spector forthwith of any violation of the provis nor shall said requirements apply to any mine in<br />
ions of this article that has been reported to him, which the second opening has been rendered un<br />
or has come under his personal observation, shall available by reason of the final robbing, or re<br />
be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.<br />
moving, of pillars, as long as not more than 20<br />
Section 6. Any fire boss who neglects to com persons are employed therein, at any one time.<br />
ply fully with the provisions of this article relat Section 2. The cage, or cages, or other safe<br />
ing to his duties, or who shall make a false report means of egress, shall be available at all times<br />
of the condition of any place in the portion of for the persons employed in any mine that has<br />
the mine allotted to him for examination, shall no second outlet available.<br />
be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be Section 3. There shall be around the side, at<br />
suspended by the mine foreman and his name the bottom of every hoisting shaft (and similarly<br />
shall be given to the inspector for prosecution. around the side of such shaft at any intermediate<br />
If he is found guilty, he shall return his certificate point where it intersects any entry), a passage<br />
of qualification as fire boss to the Department of way not less than five feet high and three feet<br />
Mines; Provided, however, that he may again he wide, in the clear, which passageway shall be<br />
an applicant for a certificate as fire boss at any either cut through the solid strata or constructed<br />
regular examination after the expiration of six of masonry, and shall be kept open at all times<br />
months, but if he is found guilty of a second so as to enable persons to pass around said shaft<br />
offense, he shall return his certificate to the De in going from one side thereof to the other.<br />
partment of Mines and cannot be an applicant Section 4. Every mine generating explosive gas<br />
for re-examination.<br />
in quantities sufficient to be detected by an ap<br />
Section 7. Nothing in this article shall prevent proved safety lamp, opened after the passage of<br />
a first grade mine foreman or a first grade assist this act, shall have at least four main entries,<br />
ant mine foreman from acting as tire boss, or a two of which shall lead from the main opening<br />
regularly employed fire boss from acting, in an and two from the second opening into the body<br />
emergency, as a first grade assistant mine fore of the mine; Provided, that, every new gaseous<br />
man.<br />
mine, where locked safety lamps are used ex<br />
ARTICLE VI.<br />
clusively, projected to open up a large acreage,<br />
SHAFTS. SLOPES, DRIFTS, OPENINGS AND OUTLETS. with main entries 5,000 feet or more in length,<br />
Section 1. It shall not be lawful for the oper shall have at least five main entries, two of<br />
ator, superintendent, or mine foreman of any which shall lead from the main opening and two<br />
mine, to employ any person to work therein un from the second opening into the body of the<br />
less there are at least two openings or outlets to mine, and the fifth (which may be connected with<br />
the surface from every seam of coal actually an opening to the surface or with the intake air<br />
being worked, and available from every entry way at or near the main intake opening) shall<br />
thereof, which openings, or outlets, shall have dis be used exclusively as a traveling way for the<br />
tinct means of ingress and egress available at all employes.<br />
times for the use of the employes. The distance Every non-gaseous mine, opened after the pass<br />
between two shafts shall not be less than 200 age of this act, shall have at least two main en-
54 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
tries, one of which shall lead from the main opening<br />
and one from the second opening into the<br />
body of the mine; Provided, that, in every new<br />
non-gaseous mine, projected to open up a large<br />
acreage, with main entries 5,000 feet or more in<br />
length, the operator shall either haul the employes<br />
into and out of the mine at the beginning<br />
and end of each shift, or provide at least three<br />
main entries, one of which shall lead from the<br />
main opening and one from the second opening<br />
into the body of the mine and one (which may<br />
be connected with an opening to the surface or<br />
with the intake airway at or near the main intake<br />
opening) shall be used exclusively as a<br />
traveling way for the employes.<br />
Should any mine opened as a non-gaseous mine<br />
become a gaseous mine, and in every gaseous mine<br />
opened prior to the passage of this act, where<br />
locked safety lamps are used exclusively, having<br />
less than five main entries that have reached<br />
5,000 feet or more in length, and are to be extended<br />
2,000 feet or more, the superintendent<br />
shall have a new opening of ample dimensions<br />
made from the surface, if the inspector of the<br />
district and two additional inspectors appointed<br />
by the Chief of the Department of Mines shall<br />
deem such additional opening necessary for the<br />
proper ventilation of the mines or the safety of<br />
the miners. The main entries and the traveling<br />
way shall be extended from this opening to the<br />
face of the workings. The operator may continue<br />
to work said mine or mines under the provisions<br />
and requirements of this act for a non-gaseous<br />
mine until, by due diligence, the operator can<br />
change conditions to meet the provisions and<br />
requirements of this paragraph.<br />
The intake and return entries shall be kept<br />
drained and free from refuse and obstructions<br />
of all kinds, so that persons may safely travel<br />
therein throughout their whole length and have<br />
a safe means of egress from workings in case of<br />
emergency. Said entries shall be separated by<br />
pillars of coal of sufficient strength and shall not<br />
be driven more than 200 feet beyond the last<br />
cut-through, except for exploratory purposes.<br />
When the main entry of a non-gaseous mine,<br />
or both main entries of a gaseous mine used for<br />
intake for air, are also used for mechanical<br />
haulage, a separate traveling way, leading into<br />
the body of the mine, shall be provided for the<br />
use of the employes in going to and from their<br />
work, or the employes shall be hauled into and<br />
out of the mine at the beginning and end of each<br />
shift.<br />
In all mines where the coal seam is less than<br />
three and one-half feet in height such traveling<br />
way shall be at least four and one-half feet in<br />
height; in all mines where the coal seam is four<br />
feet in height such traveling way shall be at<br />
least five feet in height, and the width shall not<br />
be less than six feet. All such traveling ways<br />
shall be well drained, kept free from refuse of<br />
all kinds, and free from smoke, noxious gases,<br />
and electric wires, unless said wires are so placed<br />
and protected as not to endanger life and are kept<br />
in safe condition.<br />
Section 5. In every slope, with workings on<br />
both sides, an overcast, or an undercast, not less<br />
than five feet wide and five feet high shall be<br />
provided as a passageway for the use of the<br />
employes to cross from one side of the slope to<br />
the other. Said overcast or undercut shall connect<br />
with available passageways leading to the<br />
workings on both sides of said slope. The intervening<br />
strata between the slope and the overcast,<br />
or undercast, shall be of sufficient strength,<br />
at all points, to insure safety to the employes;<br />
Provided, however, that, if it is impracticable to<br />
drive an overcast, or an undercast, in the solid,<br />
an overcast, or an undercast, if substantially built<br />
with masonry or other incombustible material,<br />
will be deemed sufficient.<br />
Section 6. In mines opened after the passage<br />
of this act, if the opening or outlet, other than<br />
the main opening, is a shaft not more than 100<br />
feet in depth and is used by employes for the<br />
purpose of ingress to or egress from the mine,<br />
it shall be kept available and in safe condition<br />
free from steam, dangerous gases and all obstructions,<br />
and shall be fitted with safe and convenient<br />
stairways, with steps of an average tread of 10<br />
inches and a rise of nine inches, not less than<br />
two feet in width, and not to exceed an angle of<br />
45 degrees, with landings not less than 24 inches<br />
in width and four feet in length at easy and<br />
convenient distances. These stairways shall be<br />
made safe by having hand rails of suitable material<br />
placed on one side, or on both sides, when<br />
requested by the inspector, and shall be inspected<br />
every 24 hours by a competent person employed<br />
for that purpose. Water that may come from<br />
the surface or from the strata in the shaft shall<br />
be conducted away so that it will not fall on the<br />
stairways or on persons while descending or<br />
ascending them.<br />
Section 7. After the passage of this act, when<br />
a mine is operated by a shaft more than 100<br />
feet in depth, the persons employed therein shall<br />
be lowered and hoisted by means of machinery<br />
unless the second opening is a drift or a slope.<br />
When the employes are lowered into, or hoisted<br />
from, the mine at the main shaft opening, the<br />
second opening, if a shaft, shall also be supplied<br />
with a stairway constructed in the manner hereinbefore<br />
designated in section 6 of this article,<br />
or with suitable machinery for safely lowering<br />
and hoisting persons in case of an emergency.<br />
Section 8. At any mine where one of the<br />
openings hereinbefore required is a slope and is<br />
used as a means of ingress and egress by the
THE COM. TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK & KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
56 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
employes and where the angle of descent of said<br />
slope exceeds 15 degrees and its length from the<br />
mouth of the opening exceeds 1,000 feet, the<br />
employes shall be lowered into and hoisted from<br />
the mine at the beginning and end of each shift,<br />
at a speed not to exceed six miles per hour, and<br />
at every such mine where the angle of descent<br />
of said slope averages from five to 15 degrees<br />
and where its length exceeds 3,000 feet, the em<br />
ployes shall be lowered into and hoisted from<br />
the mine at the beginning and end of each shift<br />
at a speed not to exceed six miles per hour;<br />
Provided, however, that, when a separate travel<br />
ing way is provided at any such slope, the owner<br />
or operator may, at his, their, or its option, be<br />
exempt from the requirements of this section, if<br />
the angle of said traveling way does not exceed<br />
20 degrees.<br />
(TO UK CONTINUED AUGUST 1ST)<br />
At a recent meeting of the directors of the<br />
Brazil Block Coal Co. at Chicago, the following<br />
officers were elected: President, H. H. Rhodes;<br />
vice president, J. A. Carcia; treasurer, J. E.<br />
Ford; secretary, L. W. Seneff; and assistant sec<br />
retary, J. H. McClelland. W. R. McGhee has<br />
been appointed general sales agent of the com<br />
pany, with office in the McCormick Building,<br />
Chicago.<br />
I YOU CAN'T i :<br />
C A N get you a large<br />
clean core of all strata un<br />
der your land to be ex<br />
amined in broad daylight.<br />
. No Guess Work. .<br />
iTheJ. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
' Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
: Contractors (or DIAMOND DRILLING, OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
FOB THE<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
~Z PUBLISHERS OF £<br />
\ The Coal Dealers' Blue Book I<br />
\ Contains a Complete List for the United States and £<br />
C Canada of all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
^ Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron ><br />
C Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coal and :<br />
z Coke in oar load lots, with capital and pay ratings. \<br />
\ 550 Monon BulldRo Dearborn St.. '^* """"- \<br />
? CHICAGO. PHILADELPHIA. \<br />
RECENT COAL TRADE PATENTS.<br />
The following recently granted patents of in<br />
terest to the coal trade, are reported expressly<br />
for THE COAL TKADE BULLETIN, by J. M. Nesbit,<br />
Patent Attorney, Park Building, Pittsburgh, Pa.,<br />
from whom printed copies may be procured for<br />
15 cents each:<br />
Process of preventing explosions of coal dust<br />
in coal mines, Mermann Kruskopf, Dortmund,<br />
Germany, 995,261.<br />
Automatic coal shaft basket, J. J. Nary, Harrisburg,<br />
111., 995,892.<br />
Safety appliance for mines, S. G. Bennett,<br />
Chesterfield, Eng., 996,049.<br />
Mine shaft lining, H. J. Wessinger, Duluth,<br />
Minn., 996,178.<br />
Miner's lamp, G. I. Rawson and L. B. Shultz,<br />
St. Louis, Mo., 996,675.<br />
Coke oven, G. E. Behr, Jr., Brooklyn, N. Y.,<br />
996,829.<br />
Tunneling Machine, G. A. Fowler, Denver,<br />
Colo., 996,842.<br />
Automatic mine door, James Taylor, Peoria,<br />
111., 996,949.<br />
Miner's acetylene lamp, James Taylor, Peoria,<br />
111., 996,950.<br />
HOW TO KEEP IN<br />
TOUCH WITH<br />
AFFAIRS.<br />
Mines of information on every subject are at I<br />
your disposal—Just say the word and we'll j<br />
drive an entry for you - - - - - - - - ;<br />
USE OUR<br />
PRESS CLIPPINGS.<br />
Ours is the only Clipping Bureau in the greatest s<br />
Industrial Center of the World. ><br />
We have two branches—<br />
A LOCAL SERVICE—AND—A GENERAL SERVICE.<br />
Both are splendid aids to busy men.<br />
Ask us for definite information<br />
and rates.<br />
The Central Press Bureau,<br />
906 & 908 WABASH BUILDING.<br />
T.l.phon. 2164 Court. PITTSBURGH, PA.
ALABAMA INSPECTORS' WARNING CARD.<br />
Chief Mine Inspector James Hillhouse, of Alabama,<br />
has originated the following warning card<br />
and had it posted in conspicuous places at the<br />
coal mines. It was so instrumental in diminishing<br />
accidents that the consuls and vice-consuls<br />
of Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy have adopted<br />
it for translation, publication, and distribution<br />
among miners of those nationalities in other<br />
states.<br />
WARNING!<br />
TO ALL MINE EMPLOYES.<br />
The subject of mine accidents is attracting a<br />
great deal of attention throughout this state.<br />
From the loss of life incurred thereby, the suffering<br />
cannot be measured. The desolation and<br />
want that follow the killed or crippled breadwinners<br />
call forth much sympathy. In some of<br />
these accidents the danger is unforeseen, but a<br />
large majority could be avoided if the necessary<br />
precautions are taken. This office suggests the<br />
following:<br />
That every coal mine worker familiarize himself<br />
with the mining laws which are posted at<br />
all coal mines.<br />
THE MINER.<br />
Don't f<strong>org</strong>et to sound the roof on entering your<br />
place to begin a day's work.<br />
Don't f<strong>org</strong>et to sound the roof after each blast.<br />
Don't use short fuse, "skinner backs."<br />
Don't use two different explosives in same hole.<br />
Don't use coal for tamping.<br />
Don't conclude the roof is safe in spite of<br />
drummy sound.<br />
Don't take lighted pipe or lamp to your powder<br />
box.<br />
Don't fire two holes at the same time.<br />
Don't bore your holes beyond the mining.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
Don't hurry in order to get out early.<br />
Don't risk your life to save labor.<br />
Don't f<strong>org</strong>et the miner is responsible for the<br />
safety of the laborer.<br />
THE LABORER.<br />
Don't go into working place until the miner<br />
has examined it and pronounced it safe.<br />
Don't fire blasts for the miner nor in his absence.<br />
Don't disregard the orders of the miner.<br />
Don't f<strong>org</strong>et to retreat to place of safety when<br />
blasting.<br />
DRIVERS.<br />
Don't ride between cars.<br />
Don't ride on side of cars.<br />
Don't run cars on grades until you know the<br />
road is clear below.<br />
Don't f<strong>org</strong>et to call driver boss' attention to<br />
bad truck.<br />
Don't take door boy away from his post to<br />
drive your mule.<br />
DOOR BOY.<br />
Don't leave your door.<br />
Don't allow your door to remain open longer<br />
than necessary.<br />
Don't play around or run after trip of cars.<br />
ALL EMPLOYES.<br />
Don't ride up and down the slope.<br />
Don't pass over danger signals.<br />
Don't roam through old workings.<br />
Don't travel the slope; take the manway.<br />
Don't smuggle dynamite in mines; and report<br />
any one you see doing it.<br />
THE MINE FOREMAN.<br />
See that every working place is free of gas<br />
before employe starts work.<br />
See that all apparatus affecting safety of employes<br />
is in good and safe condition.<br />
See that the above suggestions are enforced.<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
„ FAMOUj<br />
TV<br />
"ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
C O ^ A V<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
58<br />
FIRST SHIPMENT OF COAL TO PARAGUAY.<br />
The first shipment of coal ever made to Paraguay<br />
is now being delivered to the Paraguay Central<br />
railway at Asuncion, writes Consul Cornelius<br />
Ferris, Jr., of Asuncion. It consists of 3,000 tons'<br />
of good steaming coal from Cardiff, and is being<br />
delivered on board the cars of the raihvay at the<br />
wharf at $12.S3 Argentine gold per ton. (One peso<br />
in Argentine gold equals $0,965 in American gold).<br />
This price is greater than the railway company<br />
expected to pay.<br />
If good steaming coal can be delivered at $10<br />
to $10.50 per ton, Argentine gold, its use will be<br />
continued. The officials of the railway are not<br />
able to give the freight rate on the coal from Cardiff<br />
to Buenos Aires, where it was transshipped,<br />
but from Buenos Aires to Asuncion it was $3.08<br />
Argentine gold per ton.<br />
FOR SALE-<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909- IO.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
F. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A. bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes' up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey<br />
wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full particulars,<br />
analysis of coal, name, location and outfit<br />
of mine, etc.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, IVi tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VENEER & LIIMHER CO.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.
Lilley Coal & Coke Co., California, Pa.; capital,<br />
$200,000; incorporators, Thomas Lilley,<br />
Thomas Elliott, J. B. Nixon, Jacob Elliott of<br />
East Pike Run township, Washington county;<br />
John H. Moffit, Charleroi, and S. A. Scott, of<br />
MacDonald.<br />
Long Dale Coal Co., Prudence, W. Va.; capital,<br />
$250,000; incorporators, W. E. Deegans, John<br />
Faulkner, John B. Hofmeier, Glen Jean, W. Va.;<br />
C. W. Dillon, Fayetteville, W. Va., and E. S.<br />
Dupy, Parrai, W. Va.<br />
Smokeless Coal Co., Johnstown, Pa.; capital,<br />
$60,000; incorporators, James P. Thomas, W. R.<br />
Thomas, C. E. Thomas, Charles A. Owens, Josiah<br />
T. Evans and F. D. Baker, Johnstown.<br />
Buckingham Coal Mining Co., Clarion, Pa.;<br />
capital, $20,000; incorporators, Chas. Miller,<br />
Franklin, Pa.; John M. Curry, Clarion, Pa.; G.<br />
W. Megeath, Omaha, Nebraska.<br />
Victoria Coal Co., Norristown, Pa.; capital,<br />
$20,000; incorporators, C. H. Alderfer, Freas<br />
Styer, C. Henry Stinson, Joseph S. Rambo, J. T.<br />
Ebbert, all of Norristown.<br />
Coopers Creek Coal Co., Charleston, W. Va.;<br />
capital, $10,000; incorporators, S. A. Moore, E.<br />
M. Moore, of Phillip! and C. D. Strader, of Big<br />
Chimney, W. Va.<br />
W. P. Hubbs Coal Co., Toledo; capital, $30,000;<br />
incorporators, W. P. Hubbs, A. W. Stark, A. R.<br />
Heineman, Fred W. Haigh, David A. Martin.<br />
Black Diamond Products Co., Fairmont, W.<br />
Va.; capital, $100,000; incorporators, E. French,<br />
J. C. Thompson, and others of Fairmont.<br />
Standard Quemahoning Coal Co., Boswell, Pa.;<br />
capital, $100,000; incorporators, Justus Volk,<br />
Frank Fesse and F. D. Allen, Boswell.<br />
Illinois Valley Coal Co., Sparland, 111., capital,<br />
$50,000; incorporators, J. 1. Thompson, E. L.<br />
Buchanan, F. F. Specht, Laoon.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 59<br />
Mary Luck Coal Co., Prestonburg, Ky.<br />
tal, $20.(Mi0; incorporators, C. B. Auxier<br />
M. Spradin and B. 1'. Friend.<br />
capi-<br />
Alex.<br />
Bessemer Block Coal Co., Clay City, W. Va.;<br />
capital, $50,000; incorporators, M. T. Mogg, J. F<br />
Pits and E. F. Cooke.<br />
ITALIAN, AUSTRIAN AND SWISS<br />
COAL IMPORTS SHOW INCREASE.<br />
During 1910 there was imported by Italy 9,314,-<br />
224 tons of coal, as compared with 9,303,500 during<br />
the preceding year, an increase of 10,71S tons.<br />
The tonnage of coal imported by Austro-Hungary<br />
during 1910 fell somewhat short of the two<br />
preceding years, 9,864.462 tons having been imported<br />
last year against 10,842,264 during 1909 and<br />
9,995,415 in 1908. The exports of this country<br />
also showed a falling off as compared with the two<br />
preceding years. In 1910 622,899 tons were ex<br />
ported as against 633,253 tons in 1909, and 762,867<br />
tons in 1908.<br />
The coal imports of Switzerland also showed a<br />
decrease as compared with the two preceding years,<br />
1,700,924 tons having been imported last year as<br />
against 1,S77,S65 tons in 1909, and 2,059,S11 tons<br />
in 1908.<br />
The total imports of these three countries together<br />
amounts to 20,879,610 tons.<br />
Announcement has been made that at the recent<br />
examinations for the position of mine inspector<br />
in the various districts of Luzerne county,<br />
Pa., the following qualified by making a sufficiently<br />
high percentage: David J. Roderick,<br />
G. H. Price, David T. Davis, John J. Walsh,<br />
Hugh McDonald, Thomas J. Evans and William<br />
Jennings. The first six named constitute the<br />
present board of inspectors and will be retained.<br />
Mr. Jennings will be held as the extra man.<br />
He is at present superintendent of the Pittston<br />
collieries of the Erie Coal Co.<br />
J. H- SANFORD COAL COMPANY<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS<br />
HIGHEST GRADE PANHANDLE COAL<br />
ANALYSIS :<br />
Moisture i53 BEST FOR STEAM AND<br />
XSftJK* -------- SS DOMESTIC USES<br />
( Ash 6.17<br />
Sulphur - - - - I - " 0ffices. 1315 Park Building, PITTSBURGH.<br />
( B. T. U. per pound of Dry Coal, 13544.3 "'<br />
Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, Be„ phones> Grant 1822-1823-1824<br />
( Tas. Otis Handy, Chief Chemist.<br />
Illlllllf
60<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
GOAL TRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, AUGUST 1, 1911 Nc<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STRAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon alt matters<br />
relating to coal or coal production are invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDING, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
OPTIMISTS ARE IN THE MAJORITY IN THE COAL<br />
TRADE just now and seem to have the pessimists<br />
on the hip. The contentions of the optimists are<br />
borne out largely by figures of production and by case.<br />
shipments as shown by figures of rail and water<br />
carriers, with the net result that, all over the<br />
country, men prominent in the tiade are furbish<br />
ing up a smile with which to greet the return of<br />
more tonnage at distinctly higher prices. This<br />
latter phase of the situation is the one to bring<br />
forth the smile quickly and that it is not far off<br />
is established by the fact that reports of a 10-cent<br />
increase in price come from different sections of<br />
the country, where, heretofore, for several months<br />
at least, the prices have been hanging on the<br />
ragged edge of a slashing in order to keep mines at the anthracite convention when the president<br />
going.<br />
Taking a comprehensive glance at the trade as a<br />
whole the bituminous branch apparently is best<br />
off and has tne advantage over the anthracite and<br />
coke branches although the anthracite shipments<br />
in July exceeded those of the same months last<br />
year.<br />
The lake trade during the month just closed<br />
has made considerable progress and those ship<br />
pers who control their own docks or are affiliated<br />
with dock owning companies are sending coal for<br />
ward in goodly quantities, the reports from differ<br />
ent ports snowing that the total shipments for<br />
July exceeded those of the same period of 1910,<br />
a banner year in the trade. While coal is going<br />
forward in quantities, sufficiently large to keep<br />
lower lake docks active, the absorption of pro<br />
duction by consumers in the Northwest is said not<br />
to be keeping pace with receipts, and if this be<br />
the case, we can expect to hear, possibly in a<br />
short time, of congestions and vessels held await<br />
ing a chance to unload. However, the approach<br />
of cooler weather may cause a change and coal<br />
will go forward faster. The action of the Cana<br />
dian government which has decided to admit coal<br />
free of duty on account of the strike in Alberta,<br />
is likely to hasten the clearing of the upper lake<br />
docks earlier than otherwise, and to make tlie<br />
final rush a more prolonged one than usually is the<br />
The car situation is good, the latest report show<br />
ing a slight gain in idle cars, mostly coal carriers,<br />
thus giving assurance of a plentiful supply for a<br />
time at least.<br />
The labor situation is not nearly so satisfactory<br />
as it was a month ago. The Alberta strike is still<br />
on, there aie a number of petty stoppages re<br />
ported, which more than offset the settlement of<br />
differences elsewhere, and there is an undercur<br />
rent in the condition of affairs that bodes little<br />
good. This undercurrent bad its first expression<br />
urged tne men to present many demands to the<br />
employers.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district the condition of trade<br />
seems satisfactory to the majority of the opera<br />
tors, although there is some grumbling by some<br />
of the independent operators who have no affilia<br />
tions. Mines are working somewhat better and<br />
probably 70 per cent, of capacity is a safe esti<br />
mate of tonnage produced. River shipping mines<br />
are still up against a low river stage and the Pitts<br />
burgh harbor contains one of the largest consign<br />
ments of coal it has had for a long time. And
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
the prospect for a speedy iise in the rivers is<br />
poor. But line mines seem, to make up for this<br />
and more and longer trains on nearly all lines are<br />
the rule. The turn of the road apparently has<br />
been reached, and, in consequence, nearly every<br />
body is wearing a more cheerful look. With bet<br />
ter prospects in view producers are holding to<br />
market quotations, which are: Run-of-mine coal,<br />
$1.25 to $1.35; three-quarter coal, $1.35 to $1.45;<br />
inch and one-quarter coal, $1.45 to $1.55; slack,<br />
85 to 90 cents.<br />
Coke manufacturers now begin to see the<br />
speedy return of brisk demand and better prices.<br />
During the last week for which reports are avail<br />
able, production showed an increase of about 12,000<br />
tons, while the number of active ovens also in<br />
creased. There was a sharp demand for product<br />
and it resulted in some coke being sold at about<br />
10 cents per ton higher than had been paid for<br />
spot coke a few days previous. Reports of addi<br />
tional furnaces going into blast were made and<br />
this means increased consumption. A decidedly<br />
good sign is tue fact that no coke is being stocked<br />
and that the demand is sufficient to absorb all<br />
coke manufactured. Prices are quoted at $1.75<br />
to $1.85 for furnace coke and $2.00 to $2.25 for<br />
foundry coke.<br />
The anthracite coal trade is unchanged, though<br />
weather conditions have improved deliveries and,<br />
everything considered, the position is as good as<br />
was expected at a time when general conditions<br />
have settled down to midsummer routine. Con<br />
siderable restriction of production is going on.<br />
The Lehigh Valley Coal Co., which has been a<br />
heavy producer continuously for many months,<br />
worked but half time during the past fortnight.<br />
Other companies are also working but partial<br />
time. Notwithstanding this the output of coal<br />
was larger last month than in July of last year<br />
when but little more than 4,000,000 tons of coal<br />
were sent to market. The usual addition to the<br />
price of the different grades was made, effective<br />
this date and they are now within 10 cents of<br />
winter figures. The demands the miners may<br />
make next year are already attracting attention<br />
in the trade.<br />
* * *<br />
EX-PRESIDENT T. L. LEWIS of the Mine Workers'<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization sees breakers of mountain high pro<br />
portions ahead of the craft controlling the des<br />
tinies of his fellow workmen. His statement of<br />
conditions throughout the union mining fields,<br />
originally published in the Industrial Index, and<br />
reproduced in the current issue of THE COAL TRADE<br />
BULLETIN, shows that very choppy water has al<br />
ready been reached and that the <strong>org</strong>anization's<br />
administrative ship must veer from its present<br />
course or suffer the consequences.<br />
After pointing out the conditions in the South<br />
west, riddled with local strikes innumerable and<br />
its miners crying for work; in Illinois, where<br />
thousands are idle and the leaders are alleged to<br />
repudiate wage contracts; in Indiana, where weak<br />
leadership has stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble<br />
and brought about numerous contentions between<br />
operators and miners; in his home state, Ohio,<br />
where many useless lock-outs have tended to de<br />
moralize the mining industry; the unsatisfactory<br />
outcome of the ill-advised Irwin field strike; open<br />
rebellion in the Western and Central Pennsylvania<br />
ranks, and general turmoil in evidence in other<br />
sections, Mr. Lewis puts the issue squarely in<br />
these words: "Can it be possible that the United<br />
Mine Workers, as an <strong>org</strong>anization, is in danger of<br />
destruction?"<br />
Nor does Mr. Lewis supply these facts without<br />
attributing a cause. The conditions were brought<br />
about by repudiation of contracts or the failure to<br />
respect and enforce the terms of wage contracts<br />
mutually agreed to and the violation of the law,<br />
he broadly asserts.<br />
Twenty-eight millions dollars increase in wages<br />
in nine years looks good enough to stop all "monkeying"<br />
with the instrument by which the increase<br />
was secured.<br />
* * *<br />
It's a wonder President McAneny of the anthracite<br />
miners didn't advise them to ask for the<br />
deeds for the property when ne was at it.<br />
* * *<br />
Begins to look as if the United Mine Workers<br />
are diiving their entries mighty close to the<br />
boundary lines.<br />
* * *<br />
Senator Watson wants free coal, and he's making<br />
a strenuous fight to get what he wants.<br />
* * *<br />
That Alberta strike seems to be "putting a<br />
crimp" into the "Canuck" arbitration law.<br />
* * *<br />
The family furnace is ready for its annual overhauling
DEMANDS OF DISTRICT No. 1, ANTHRACITE<br />
MINERS FORMULATED A T WILKES-<br />
BARRE CONVENTION.<br />
At the annual convention of District No. 1 (anthracite<br />
field). United Mine Workers of America,<br />
which opened at Wilkes-Barre, Monday, July 17,<br />
the report of the resolutions committee relative<br />
to demands to be made upon the operators for the<br />
next agreement was adopted without a dissenting<br />
vote. The demands call for the eight-hour day,<br />
full recognition of the union, uniform wage scale,<br />
better methods of settling grievances than now<br />
obtains, pay by weight instead of by measure for<br />
coal mined, and a substantial increase in the wage<br />
rate, the specific amount to be decided by the tridistrict<br />
convention. There was also a resolution<br />
endorsed providing for insertion in the demands,<br />
recognition of checkweighmen and check docking<br />
bosses, as representatives of the men.<br />
The report of the tellers showed John T. Dempsey,<br />
of Scranton, Pa., as president-elect. He was<br />
unopposed for the office, President Benjamin Mc-<br />
Enaney, the incumbent during the past year, deciding<br />
not to be a candidate. Dempsey's term of<br />
office will begin April 1. All the other officers,<br />
with the exception of Secretary-Treasurer John<br />
Mack, of Kingston, Pa., are hold-overs. Peter<br />
Dinoski, defeated candidate for vice president,<br />
notified the convention that it was his intention<br />
to protest the election. Dinoski contended that<br />
several locals who were allowed to vote were not<br />
entitled to the privilege owing to delinquency.<br />
The tellers' report showed that he received 1,880%<br />
votes for the office as against 2,947 for Adam<br />
Ryscavage of Plymouth, who was declared the successful<br />
candidate. The board members elected<br />
were as follows: First district, Stephen Reap,<br />
Olyphant; Second district, Michael H. Healey,<br />
Scranton; Third district, Daniel McCue, Pittston;<br />
Fourth district, Peter O'Donnell, Wilkes-Barre.<br />
Martin Battle of Carbondale, Thomas Toole of<br />
Minooka, and Richard Roberts of Scranton were<br />
elected auditors.<br />
President McEnaney in his annual address commented<br />
on conditions among the miners in the<br />
region and suggested what should be demanded of<br />
the operators. He declared that the awards of the<br />
Anthracite Strike Commission have outlived their<br />
usefulness and have not been what the miners<br />
wanted.<br />
"We are in the last year of our present contract<br />
which will expire April 1, 1912," he said,<br />
"which date will mark the close of the ninth year<br />
that the awards of the Anthracite Coal Strike<br />
Commission have been in effect, with no material<br />
changes.<br />
"While the awards may have served many good<br />
purposes at the time they were made and resulted<br />
in many beneficial reforms in the coal mining in<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
dustry as well as higher wages for the mine workers,<br />
nevertheless they were not what the mine<br />
workers wanted then, they are not what we want<br />
now, they have in a great measure outlived their<br />
usefulness and they were never intended as a<br />
perpetual contract, but rather as a basis from<br />
which a common understanding might be reached<br />
from time to time. In my opinion the time has<br />
now come when it is imperative that improvements<br />
be made and many of the obsolete methods for<br />
adjusting differences contained in the awards obliterated,<br />
and more modern ones adopted.<br />
"It is unfair to expect the United Mine Workers'<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization to be any longer held responsible for<br />
the maintenance of peace in the anthracite region,<br />
unless it is dealt with as a party to future contracts,<br />
and conceded the authority it should have<br />
to enforce the observance of contracts when once<br />
made.<br />
"During the nine years just passed not a single<br />
concession of any consequence has been granted<br />
the mine workers, nor have our wages been increased,<br />
notwithstanding the fact that cost of living<br />
has increased more than double the advance in<br />
wages granted by the award of the coal strike commission<br />
in 1903.<br />
"At the expiration of two contract periods during<br />
this time, namely 1906 and 1909. we have been<br />
asked by the operators to accept a renewal of the<br />
award, the operators refusing absolutely to concede<br />
anything in addition thereto without a fight.<br />
"In a spirit of public welfare the mine workers<br />
on those two occasions rather than plunge the region<br />
into another industrial conflict because of the<br />
obstinacy of the operators and their mad desire<br />
for profits, at the expense of every other interest<br />
in the state, decided to accept the ultimatum ot<br />
the operators and renew for another period of<br />
three years the awards of the coal strike commission.<br />
"Now, firmly believing that we have done our<br />
full duty in the interest of public welfare at a<br />
sacrifice of our just demands, and that we have<br />
acted our part during all these years as public<br />
spirited citizens having the welfare of the community<br />
at heart; we now declare that it is our<br />
turn. We are entitled to a substantial increase<br />
in wages next year and we sincerely trust that the<br />
operators in the same spirit of justice and fair<br />
dealing both to the mine workers and to the general<br />
public will recognize the wisdom of granting<br />
it without endangering the industrial peace of the<br />
region."<br />
While the leaders agreed with the men that<br />
their demands should be made and advocate a<br />
strike if the operators show no disposition to<br />
recognize them, it was impressed on them that in<br />
order to gain concessions, the union would have<br />
to be strengthened considerable from a member-
'24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
ship standpoint. There aie now some 80,000 mine<br />
workers in the Wyoming-Lackawanna regions<br />
while only about one-tenth that number are mem<br />
bers of the union. In fact, Secretary Dempsey's<br />
report showed that the average monthly member<br />
ship for the year was less than 5,800.<br />
THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY<br />
SHOWS ACTIVITY I N FEDERAL CON<br />
SERVATION WORK.<br />
The midsummer work of the United States Geological<br />
Survey shows no lessening in conservation<br />
activities. During the month of June the land-<br />
classification board of the Survey appraised 174,910<br />
acres as coal land in the Western States, placing<br />
a valuation thereon of $3,239,369. At the minimum<br />
price under which these lands could have<br />
been sold before the present regulations were in<br />
force, this same area would have brought only $1,-<br />
932,179. During June the Survey also classified<br />
1,415,415 acres as non-coal land and transmitted<br />
the findings to the General Land Office so that the<br />
land might be restored to the public domain.<br />
These classifications were based ou the field examinations<br />
of the Survey geologists.<br />
There have now been classified under the present<br />
administration, in 40-acre tracts, 16,873,370 acres<br />
as coal land, with the valuation of $711,992,537.<br />
The valuation of these same lands at the minimum<br />
prices would have been $266,652,431, the difference<br />
in favor of the government under the present pol<br />
icy being therefore $445,340,106. During the same<br />
period 39,251,844 acres have been classified as noncoal<br />
land and restored to the public domain. In<br />
June three new withdrawals of supposed coal land<br />
were made in North Dakota and Wyoming, embracing<br />
714,923 acres, and four restorations were<br />
made in Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming, aggregating<br />
1,847,264 acres.<br />
In connection with the classification of oil land.<br />
the Secretary of the Interior withdrew in June<br />
170,333 acres in Wyoming, making a total of 3.<br />
970,429 acres of oil land now standing withdrawn<br />
and awaiting needed legislation in tbe interests of<br />
the conservation of the nation's extensive petroleum<br />
deposits.<br />
Suit for $2,500,000 damages for alleged conspir<br />
acy and fraud in acquiring 2,415 acres in the<br />
Trinidad coal fields in southern Colorado, was<br />
filed in the federal court late July 20 against the<br />
American Smelting & Refining Co. In order that<br />
innocent purchasers of the land might not suffer,<br />
the action was brought in law for damages, and<br />
not in equity to set aside the patents. The suit<br />
is the culmination of several years' investigation<br />
by special land agents.<br />
OVER TWENTY-EIGHT MILLIONS MORE PAY<br />
RECEIVED BY THE ANTHRACITE MINE<br />
WORKERS UNDER SLIDING SCALE.<br />
A computation has been made showing what the<br />
anthracite mine workers have received as a result<br />
of the sliding scale established by the Strike Com<br />
mission which President Roosevelt appointed in<br />
19H2. The sum is $28,293,442. This is in addition<br />
to the general 10 per cent, wage increase which<br />
the commission granted. It is due to the automatic<br />
advance in the pay of labor from every rise<br />
above $4.50 a ton in the tidewater price of coal.<br />
The commission, after granting the flat 10 per<br />
cent, increase, decreed that, for every five-cent rise<br />
in the price of coal above $4.50, the wages of the<br />
mine workers should be further increased by 1<br />
per cent. For example, if the average price is<br />
$4.80 in September the men get a 6 per cent, increase<br />
for that month. The advance is applied<br />
to the pay of all classes of employes. The marketable<br />
output of anthracite since the sliding scale<br />
was established has amounted to 544,104,670 tons.<br />
The average increase from the operation of the<br />
scale has been 5.2 cents a ton, making a total of<br />
$28,293,442.<br />
IDLE RAILWAY CARS.<br />
The Bulletin of the American Railway Associa<br />
tion states that on June 21 the net surplus of idle<br />
cars on the lines of the United States and Canada<br />
stood at 163,1711, compared with 166,970 two weeks<br />
before. The difference is 3,800, or about 2.2 per<br />
cent. Tbe number of idle cars, or gross surplus,<br />
was 165,934 compared with 169,1106, while the shortage<br />
increased from 2,036 to 2,764. There were<br />
decided shortages on lines operating in the Vir<br />
ginias and Carolinas, and also on Canadian roads.<br />
In the two weeks ended June 21 the surplus of<br />
coal cars decreased from 73,462 to 72,885, while<br />
the box car surplus increased from 2,251 to 53,208.<br />
Both flat and miscellaneous cars showed substan<br />
tial decreases.<br />
Winter wheat is beginning to move from the<br />
southwest, and before very long there will be a<br />
decided change in the idle car situation, which has<br />
showed little variation during the spring months.<br />
The surplus is about 40.000 ahead of last year.<br />
A minor portion of this difference is due to the re<br />
ceipt of new cars from the makers.<br />
Freight tariffs making advances on bituminous<br />
coal and coal briquettes filed by the Cleveland,<br />
Cincinnati. Chicago & St. Louis railway and con<br />
necting carriers have been suspended by the Interstate<br />
Commerce Commission until November 16<br />
next.
PITTSBURGH COAL COMPANY PLANS<br />
MERGER OF RIVER COAL CORPORATION.<br />
A plan for the merger of the Monongahela River<br />
Consolidated Coal & Coke Co. by the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co. was made public July 20, the proposition<br />
being made first to Mr. John B. Finley, one of the<br />
largest stockholders of the River Coal corporation,<br />
by Chairman M. H. Taylor of the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co. The details of the plan do not differ<br />
materially from the earlier rumors.<br />
The Pittsburgh Coal Co. has for some time<br />
owned at least 300,000 of the 400,000 shares of<br />
common stock of the River corporation and 50,000<br />
of the 200,000 shares of its preferred stock, giving<br />
it control. It now proposes to secure all the stock<br />
outstanding of the River corporation by offering<br />
in exchange one share of common stock of the<br />
Pittsburgh Coal Co. for two shares of the preferred<br />
stock of the River Coal Co. For 25 shares<br />
of the River Coal preferred stock, a new debenture<br />
5 per cent, bond of the Pittsburgh Coal Co.<br />
will be exchanged. These bonds are of $500 and<br />
$1.li00 denomination, dated July 1. 1911. They<br />
are to mature in 20 years, the issue to not exceed<br />
$6,350,000 and to provide for enforcement of bondholders'<br />
rights in case of default of interest for<br />
one year. Arrangements have been made for fractional<br />
amounts of stock, through issuance of scrip,<br />
to be redeemed in bonds at par when sufficient<br />
scrip is held to entitle the holder to a bond. In<br />
order to avail themselves of the privilege of exchange,<br />
holders of odd lots of River Coal preferred<br />
must either buy enough to make their holdings<br />
readily exchangeable or else sell a portion. This<br />
stock is held to a large extent in small holdings.<br />
as it was regarded favorably as an investment.<br />
The proposition is open for approval by stockholders<br />
until October 1 and stock will be deposited<br />
with the Union Trust Co. of Pittsburgh until that<br />
date. It is provided that holders of 90 per cent.<br />
of River stock must accept the proposition to put<br />
the merger in force, and if this percentage of<br />
stock is not deposited by October 1, the Trust Co.<br />
will return the stock already deposited in return<br />
for the negotiable receipts to be issued at the time<br />
of deposit.<br />
The stockholders who have approved the merger<br />
plan and who recommend it to other holders are<br />
Messrs. J. B. Finley, D. Leet Wilson, Ge<strong>org</strong>e W.<br />
Theiss, Henry Buhl, Jr., R. H. Boggs, Charles G.<br />
Mcllvain, J. Murray Clark, J. J. Fisher, Robert<br />
Wardop, Harrison Nesbit and Charles E. Willock.<br />
It was generally considered that the required<br />
amount of stock would be deposited and the deal<br />
ratified by River stockholders.<br />
It is believed that the important industrial effect<br />
of the merger will be to withdraw the energies of<br />
the River Co. from the river-carrying trade and<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 25<br />
place its big production in competition in the more<br />
profitable markets reached by rail, in which the<br />
Pittsburgh company is now a very powerful factor.<br />
The river trade has long been an expensive one to<br />
the River company. Serious losses have been<br />
sustained by storms and accidents peculiar to the<br />
trade and which would be eliminated by entrance<br />
to the rail markets. Competition with Southern<br />
coal fields, nearer the lower river markets, which<br />
are able to undersell the River company's fuel, has<br />
proved trying to the company and made the Southern<br />
markets less profitable, even without losses by<br />
accidents, than in the earlier years of the company's<br />
existence. Its property investment in<br />
steamers, barges and other expensive equipment<br />
is necessarily heavy and for this reason withdrawal<br />
from the river trade will be gradual, but<br />
it is believed that in course of time this will be<br />
one important effect of the merger of the two largest<br />
bituminous coal companies in the country.<br />
SENATOR WATSON WANTS FREE COAL.<br />
Senalor C. W. Watson of West Virginia has<br />
made an effort to have bituminous coal placed on<br />
the free list in the pending tariff measure known<br />
as the Farmers Free List bill. Soon after he was<br />
elected to the Senate he expressed his belief that<br />
coal should be free of duty and that if a reciprocal<br />
agreement could be made between this country<br />
and Canada by which coal from either country<br />
would be admitted into the other free of duty,<br />
the coal industry of the United States and especially<br />
that of the southern part of tbe state of West<br />
Virginia would be greatly benefited.<br />
Following tbat statement. Senator Watson<br />
offered an amendment to the reciprocity bill providing<br />
ior the admission of coal from Canada free<br />
of duty whenever Canada admits American coal<br />
into that country free of duty. Being unable to<br />
get an amendment to the Canadian reciprocity bill<br />
which passed the Senate July 22 he will make<br />
every endeavor to have the amendment adopted<br />
when the Free List bill comes up for consideration<br />
and amendment.<br />
In the pending amendment to the Free List bill,<br />
Senator Watson has gone considerably farther than<br />
he had done in either of his previous amendments.<br />
The amendment to the Free List which<br />
he will ask to have adopted provides that all bitu<br />
minous coal shall be added to the list of articles<br />
enumerated in the Free List bill which are to be<br />
admitted to the United States free of duty. This<br />
means the placing of all coal from whatever country<br />
on the free list and the abolition of all duty on<br />
soft coal. The amendment provides, however, that<br />
coal from Canada shall be admitted to this country<br />
free of duty only when Canada shall admit<br />
American coal free of duty.
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
WESTMORELAND STRIKE CALLED OFF.<br />
The International executive board of the United<br />
Mine Workers having advised the calling off of<br />
the strike in the Westmoreland county. Pa. (or,<br />
as it is more generally known, the Irwin) field,<br />
that had been a dead bird for more than a year,<br />
Frank Feehan in making excuses sent out the following<br />
circular:<br />
We desire to officially notify you that the strike<br />
of the Irwin field miners, which was inaugurated<br />
March S, 1910, has been called off.<br />
During the past several months there has been<br />
a serious industrial depression and great numbers<br />
of our members in the various districts and states<br />
have been out of employment. At a meeting of<br />
the international executive board held the week<br />
commencing June 26 they found that the revenue<br />
that was being received by the international <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
was insufficient to continue paying relief<br />
to the large number of miners and their families<br />
involved in the strike.<br />
This industrial depression and the unscrupulous<br />
methods practiced by the coal operators, the vicious<br />
laws of the state of Pennsylvania, which have<br />
been used to the serious disadvantage of the strikers,<br />
coupled with the union-wrecking agencies<br />
and the traitorous conduct of men who have done<br />
all in their power to break this strike and destroy<br />
the hopes of the miners and their families who had<br />
engaged in this long and bitter struggle, have been<br />
the principal obstacles in the way of meeting with<br />
success.<br />
This industrial conflict in Westmoreland county<br />
between the mine workers and the coal corporations<br />
will go down in history as the greatest battle<br />
ever waged for human rights and industrial freedom.<br />
At the request of the international executive<br />
board a convention of the striking mine workers<br />
was held in Greensburg, Pa., July 3. which was<br />
attended by 74 delegates representing every mining<br />
locality in that portion of our district affected<br />
by the strike, and when the question of calling off<br />
the strike was voted on 47 voted in the affirmative<br />
and 17 voted in the negative. The delegates<br />
adopted a resolution of thanks and appreciation to<br />
the officers of the international and district <strong>org</strong>anizations,<br />
the general membership of our union,<br />
the members of other craft <strong>org</strong>anizations, the generous<br />
public and others for the substantial financial<br />
and moral assistance given them in their<br />
struggle.<br />
The heroes of this industrial war again returned<br />
to work without securing at this time the prices<br />
and working conditions which they so greatly deserved,<br />
and although every one interested in the<br />
outcome of this strike is greatly disappointed we<br />
have no reason to feel discouraged. This battle<br />
which has been waged for 15 months will in the<br />
near future bring the desired results. The great<br />
sacrifices required have not been made in vain.<br />
These miners have demonstrated their ability to<br />
fight, and unless improved conditions of employment<br />
are conceded them voluntarily when they return<br />
to work the fight will be renewed with greater<br />
vigor until they are given their rights and justice.<br />
The miners and their families who were engaged<br />
in this strike have commanded the admiration<br />
of every liberty-loving citizen for the courage<br />
they displayed and the great sacrifices they have<br />
made in this long, bitter conflict.<br />
Those in our own ranks who refused to cooperate<br />
with the strikers by giving what assistance<br />
they could to the coal barons by misrepresenting<br />
the strike in the public press, securing workingmen<br />
to take the strikers' places and discouraging<br />
union men from paying their assessment to aid<br />
them in their struggle, have betrayed their class,<br />
and it is to be regretted this kind of men represent<br />
themselves as union men. This struggle has<br />
compelled these traitors to expose themselves, and<br />
their ability to injure our <strong>org</strong>anization in strikes<br />
that may take place in the future is greatly minimized.<br />
The international <strong>org</strong>anization has a well defined<br />
plan for the future of the <strong>org</strong>anization in<br />
that portion of our district and will properly protect<br />
the striking miners and theor families until<br />
they secure employment.<br />
In marked contrast to this verbose excuse was<br />
the circular sent out b.v Robert Gibbons and his<br />
associate district officers, who puts the blame<br />
where it belongs and calls a "spade" a "spade."<br />
It reads:<br />
Pittsburgh, July 5, 1911.<br />
To the Officers and Members of District No. 5,<br />
U. M. W. of A.<br />
Greetings: —<br />
The miners throughout the Irwin-Greensburg<br />
fields to-day held local meetings at which in every<br />
case a vote was taken to call off the strike which<br />
has lasted for sixteen months. This was compul<br />
sory for these poor, misguided brothers, as the<br />
International Executive Board in session at Indianapolis<br />
headquarters last week voted to discontinue<br />
paying strike benefits to them and directed<br />
Francis Feehan to call their leaders and arrange<br />
to have the strike terminated without any<br />
recognition or concession whatever.<br />
A meeting of these leaders was held in Greensburg<br />
last Monday. International Board Members<br />
A. R. Watkins of Ohio, Ge<strong>org</strong>e Dagger of Western<br />
Pennsylvania and Thomas Haggerty of Central<br />
Pennsylvania had been delegated to represent the<br />
International LTnion.<br />
Feehan admitted privately last spring that this<br />
(Continued on Page 36.)
No. 1, 4.7 miles, Bellevue, Pa., Davis Island dam.<br />
In operation.<br />
No. 2, 9 miles, Glenfield, Pa., Neville Island dam.<br />
In operation.<br />
No. 3, 10.8 miles, Glen Osborne, Pa., near Sewickley.<br />
In operation.<br />
No. 4, 18.5 miles, Legionville, Pa. In operation.<br />
No. 5, 23.8 miles, Freedom, Pa. In operation.<br />
No. 6, 28.7 miles, Merrill, Pa., Beaver dam. In<br />
operation.<br />
No. 7, 37 miles, Midland, Pa. Under contract to<br />
T. A. Gillespie Co., Pittsburgh, Pa. Twenty per<br />
cent, completed.<br />
No. 8, 46 miles, Wellsville, O. In operation.<br />
No. 9, 55.6 miles, New Cumberland, W. Va. Under<br />
contract with National Contract Co., Evansville,<br />
Ind. Thirty-five per cent, completed.<br />
No. 10, 63.4 miles, Steubenville, O. Plans prepared<br />
but construction not begun. Funds' available<br />
only sufficient to purchase land and put up<br />
some buildings.<br />
No. 11, 76.3 miles, Wellsburg, W. Va. In operation.<br />
No. 12, 87 miles, Wheeling, W. Va. Under contract<br />
to Pneumatic Caisson Co., New York. One<br />
per cent, completed.<br />
No. 13, 95.8 miles, McMechen, W. Va. In operation.<br />
No. 14, 114 miles, Woodland, W. Va. Contract<br />
awarded May 10, 1911, to the Missouri Valley<br />
Bridge & Iron Co., Leavenworth, Kan., for $862,091.<br />
No. 15, 129 miles, two miles below New Martinsville,<br />
W. Va. Contract awarded June 5, 1911, to<br />
the Dravo Contracting Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., for<br />
$742,451.<br />
No. 16, 146.4 miles, 8V> miles' below Sistersville,<br />
W. Va., near New Matamoras, Ohio. Funds not<br />
yet available.<br />
No. 17, 167.4 miles, two miles below Waverley,<br />
W. Va. No funds yet available for construction.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
STATEMENT OF THE OHIO RIVER IMPROVE No. 18, 179.4 miles, Constitution, O., Marietta<br />
MENTS SHOWS ELEVEN DAMS NOW IN Harbor, eight miles below Marietta, 0. In opera<br />
OPERATION.<br />
tion.<br />
No. 19, 191.4, Little Hocking, 0., Parkersburg<br />
In connection with the recent trip of the Rivers harbor, eight miles below Parkersburg, W. Va.<br />
and Harbors Committee of the national House of Pass completed in 1909-10. Balance of contract<br />
Representatives from Oil City, Pa., to Cairo, 111., let to Pneumatic Caisson Co., New York.<br />
with a view to obtaining first hand information No. 20, 201.4 miles, Belleville, W. Va. Contract<br />
of the waterway needs of Pittsburgh and vicinity. awarded May 17, 1911, to Sheridan Kirk Construc<br />
it is interesting to note the progress made by the tion Co., Cincinnati, O., for $653,825.<br />
government in developing the much hoped for No. 21, 213.7 miles'. Buffington Island, five miles<br />
nine-foot stage of water from the Steel City to above Ravenswood, W. Va. No funds available<br />
Cairo, where the Ohio river joins the Mississippi. for construction.<br />
THE COAX TRADE BULLETIN prints below official No. 22, 220 miles, two miles below Ravenswood,<br />
data showing the status of this work taken from W. Va. No funds available for construction.<br />
the records of U. S. Engineer H. C. Newcomer. No. 23, 229.6 miles, 1% miles above Millwood,<br />
The list below shows official number of dams, W. Va. No funds available for construction.<br />
distances from Pittsburgh, nearest railroad station No. 24, 241.5 miles, one mile below Racine, O.<br />
or town to site and status of work:<br />
No funds available for construction.<br />
No. 25, 260 miles, four miles below Point Pleasant,<br />
W. Va. No funds available for construction.<br />
No. 26, 274 miles, Hogsett, W. Va. Built by<br />
government—will be finished during 1911.<br />
No. 27, 288.4 miles, Crown City, Ohio. No funds<br />
available for construction.<br />
No. 28, 309 miles, two miles below Huntington,<br />
W. Va. Work to be started by government during<br />
1911.<br />
No. 29, 320 miles, two miles below Ashland, Ky.<br />
Contract awarded March 21, 1911, to Bates &<br />
Rogers Construction Co., Chicago, 111., for $631,-<br />
440.86.<br />
No. 30, 338.9 miles, six miles below Greenup, Ky.;<br />
No. 31, 358.3 miles', five miles below Portsmouth,<br />
O.; No. 32, 383.7 miles, three miles below Concord,<br />
Ky.; No. 33, 400.4 miles, four miles above<br />
Maysville, Ky.; No. 34, 431 miles, Chilo, O. Sites<br />
determined but contracts not let.<br />
No. 35, 449.7 miles, four miles above New Richmond,<br />
O.; No. 36, 460 miles, California, 0., six miles<br />
above Cincinnati, O. Preliminary surveys only.<br />
No. 37, 481.3 miles, Saylers Park, O., 12 miles<br />
below Cincinnati, O., Cincinnati harbor. In operation.<br />
No. 38, 401.3 miles, Rising Sun, Ind.; No. 39,<br />
529.6 miles, three miles above Vevay, Ind. Site<br />
determined but contract not let.<br />
No. 40, 552.7 miles, Madison, Ind. Preliminar}<br />
survey only.<br />
No. 41. 604 miles, Louisville Canal, to be enlarged.<br />
Contract to be placed during 1911.<br />
No. 42, 623 miles, West Point. Ky.; No. 43, 652<br />
miles, two miles below Amsterdam, Ind. Sites<br />
determined but contracts not let.<br />
No. 44, 660.2 miles, two miles below Leavenworth,<br />
Ind. Preliminary survey only.<br />
No. 45, 699.7 miles, five miles below Cloversport,<br />
Ky.; No. 46, 749 miles, Owensboro, Ky.; No. 47,
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
771.3 miles, two miles below Newbury, Ind. Sites<br />
determined but contracts not let.<br />
No. 48, 804.1 miles, 10 miles below Henderson,<br />
Ky., near Tobacco Patch. Contract to be let during<br />
1911.<br />
No. 49, 830.5 miles, one mile above Uniontown,<br />
Ky.; No. 50, 839.6 miles, one mile above Caseyville,<br />
Ky.; No. 51, 876.9 miles, Elizabethtown, 111.;<br />
No. 52, 912.4 miles, eight miles above Paducah,<br />
Ky., near Smithland, Ky. Sites determined but<br />
contracts not let.<br />
No. 53, 947.3 miles, 10 miles above Mound City,<br />
111.; No. 54, 962 miles, three miles above Cairo,<br />
111. Preliminary surveys only.<br />
According to the Light List of the Fourteenth<br />
Lighthouse District corrected to October 1, 1906,<br />
measured according to channel, the distance from<br />
Pittsburgh to larger cities is as follows: Wheeling,<br />
W. Va., 90 miles; Parkersburg, W. Va., 183.5<br />
miles; Point Pleasant, W. Va., 263.5 miles; Huntington,<br />
W. Va., 306.5 miles; Portsmouth, W. Va.,<br />
353.5 miles; Cincinnati, O., 466.5 miles; Louisville,<br />
Ky., 598 miles; Evansville, Ind., 783 miles; Paducah,<br />
Ky., 920 miles; Cairo, 111., 965 miles.<br />
CORONOR'S JURY PLACES NO RESPONSI<br />
BILITY FOR SYKESVILLE MINE DISASTER.<br />
The coroner's jury investigating the accident at<br />
Cascade Coal & Coke Co.'s shaft, Sykesville, Pa.,<br />
July 15, in which 21 miners lost their lives, in its<br />
verdict stated that "the victims came to their<br />
death from burns and asphyxiation as a result of<br />
an explosion of gas and from the evidence submitted,<br />
we are unable to place any responsibility."<br />
The jury heard a mass of evidence from fire bosses<br />
and inspectors and the fact was brought out that<br />
gas had been detected from time to time but<br />
not in dangerous quantities.<br />
The official report of the inspectors narrated the<br />
condition of the mine following the explosion, and<br />
the following conclusions arrived at:<br />
First—That the gas having accumulated in dangerous<br />
quantities in the third right and parallel<br />
entries, we are of opinion that a door on the<br />
eighth left, used in conducting or directing ventilation<br />
into said third right was left open.<br />
Second—That the gas ignited by the flame of an<br />
open lamp or the flame of a blast fired in the coal<br />
at the face of the parallel entry to said third<br />
right.<br />
Owing to the fact that there was a considerable<br />
quantity of explosive gas generating in the advance<br />
workings on eighth and ninth left entries<br />
rendering the mine unsafe, we recommend in order<br />
to prevent the possibility of a recurrence of another<br />
such accident, the following:<br />
First—That all stoppings between inlet and re<br />
turn always be constructed of concrete, brick or<br />
stone.<br />
Second—That permissible explosive that has<br />
passed the test of the Government Testing stations<br />
be exclusively used hereafter for blasting purposes.<br />
Third—That all shot holes be tamped with incombustible<br />
material and all shots fired by electric<br />
batteries in the hands of competent shot firers.<br />
Fourth—That electric wire where installed be<br />
kept on intake airways where locked safety lamps<br />
are used.<br />
Fifth—That all workings at face of south main<br />
headings and all workings to left of south mains<br />
be worked exclusively with locked safety lamps.<br />
Respectfully yours,<br />
C. P. BYRNE,<br />
Inspector of Twelfth Bituminous District.<br />
ELIAS PHILLIPS,<br />
Inspector of Fourth Bituminous District.<br />
JOSEPH KNAPPER,<br />
Inspector of Eighth Bituminous District.<br />
THOS. D. WILLIAMS,<br />
Inspector of Sixth Bituminous District.<br />
CHAS. P. MCGREGOR,<br />
Inspector of Nineteenth Bituminous District.<br />
Dated July 20, 1911.<br />
MINERS' OFFICIALS JAILED.<br />
Edward Doyle and William Crawford, officers of<br />
the United Mine Workers, and 12 other miners,<br />
were sentenced by Judge Whitford July 15 for<br />
violating the injunction restraining the strikers<br />
of the northern Colorado coal field from picketing.<br />
Sentence of one year imprisonment for Doyle and<br />
Crawford and fines for the others were imposed<br />
and all were committed to jail pending payment<br />
of the fines. In sentencing the men, the court<br />
took opportunity to denounce the union, declaring<br />
that the miners had maligned as well as attempted<br />
to intimidate him. The miners committed to<br />
jail have announced that they will not pay their<br />
fines.<br />
The tonnage of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. for the<br />
six months ended June 30 was approximately 6,-<br />
000,000 tons, a decrease of about 550,000 tons, or<br />
7% per cent., from the corresponding period of<br />
last year. This is a better showing than recent<br />
reports of coal trade conditions have indicated.<br />
Shipments so far in July make a better comparison<br />
with July, 1910, than May and June did with<br />
the corresponding months of last year.<br />
The Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics reports<br />
that the only coal field in the state where blasting<br />
from the solid is still practiced is the Sangamon<br />
county district. Elsewhere this method has been<br />
abandoned as wasteful and dangerous.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
SMOKE PREVENTION IN PITTSBURGH<br />
Pittsburgh's coal consumers are wrestling with<br />
the proposed smoke prevention ordinance which<br />
is up for discussion before city councils. Several<br />
public hearings have been held by the councilmanic<br />
committee on health and sanitation at<br />
which all parties affected by its provisions were<br />
given a chance to air their views. In addition,<br />
practical tests showing what is possible in the<br />
way of eliminating smoke are being provided by<br />
the United States Bureau of Mines at the Arsenal<br />
Testing Station. Experts connected with the<br />
government bureau not only contend that the proposed<br />
measure is reasonable in every detail but<br />
tnat the requirements might even be more drastic<br />
without working hardship on the coal burners.<br />
The ordinance, which was drawn up by City<br />
Solicitor Charles' A. O'Brien, with the aid of experts<br />
on the subject, permits the emission of dense<br />
black or gray smoke for eight minutes of each<br />
hour. During the first hour in which fire is being<br />
kindled under the cold boiler or furnace, the limit<br />
is 30 minutes for dense smoke.<br />
At the public hearing of the councilmanic committee<br />
held Friday, July 14, all interested parties<br />
were in attendance and discussed the possibilities<br />
and requirements of the ordinance pro and con.<br />
Mr. Herbert M. Wilson, chief engineer in charge<br />
of the Arsenal Testing station, asserted positively<br />
that a<br />
LIMIT OF FOUR MINUTES<br />
per hour for black smoke gives sufficient leeway,<br />
supplementing this with the claim that a cold<br />
boiler could be fired without producing black<br />
smoke for a longer period than five minutes. He<br />
suggested that an educational campaign be inaugurated<br />
in which firemen could be instructed in<br />
their duties.<br />
Mr. Wilson stated that results in entire accord<br />
with his claims were being obtained daily at the<br />
Arsenal station and to prove his assertions invited<br />
both sides of the controversy to attend a<br />
test there Monday, July 17. At this time, with<br />
the use of ordinary low grade slack coal from the<br />
Pittsburgh seam, 50 pounds pressure was registered<br />
on the steam gauge in about one hour. The<br />
boiler, of 250 horsepower capacity, was equipped<br />
with a chain grate stoker of the ordinary design.<br />
Black smoke was not produced for a single instant<br />
during the test. The density as measured by the<br />
standard of a Ringlemann smoke scale never advanced<br />
beyond No. 2 and averaged only a little<br />
over No. 1.<br />
A test of similar nature, with hand stoking, will<br />
be held at the Arsenal station August 1. Mr.<br />
Wilson claims that results almost equally as satisfactory<br />
can be secured with this method of firing.<br />
The ordinance, which is proving the bone of<br />
contention, is appended below:<br />
AN ORDINANCE.<br />
Providing for the regulation of the production<br />
or emission of smoke within the corporate limits<br />
of the city of Pittsburgh, and prescribing penalties<br />
for violation of the provisions hereof.<br />
Section No. 1. Be it ordained and enacted by<br />
the city of Pittsburgh, and Council assembled,<br />
and it is hereby ordained and enacted by the authority<br />
of the same, that no steam boiler, furnace<br />
or other furnace shall be constructed within the<br />
corporate limits of the city of Pittsburgh until<br />
the owner, agent or lessee shall first make written<br />
application at the office of the Chief Smoke<br />
Inspector for a certificate for that purpose, and<br />
shall furnish a written statement and drawings of<br />
the style and dimensions of such boiler or furnace,<br />
and height and size of stack or chimney,<br />
and the method or device for preventing the emission<br />
of dense black or dense grey smoke therefrom<br />
for more than eight (8) minutes in any one<br />
hour, and the Chief Smoke Inspector's approval<br />
has been obtained: Provided, however, that no<br />
discrimination shall be exercised for or against<br />
any method which will and does now prevent the<br />
emission of dense black or dense grey smoke, except<br />
for eight (8) minutes in any one hour.<br />
Section No. 2. Every boiler furnace or other<br />
furnace used within the corporate limits of the<br />
city of Pittsburgh, in which bituminous coal is<br />
burned as fuel, shall be so constructed or altered<br />
as to prevent the production and emission of dense<br />
black or grey smoke therefrom, except for eight<br />
(8) minutes in any one hour; and no person or<br />
persons, associations or corporations being the<br />
owner or lessee, or having control of any such<br />
steam boiler or other furnace shall use or allow<br />
the use of any steam boiler or other furnace which<br />
shall not be so constructed, or if already constructed<br />
at the time of the passage of this ordinance,<br />
which shall not be so altered, or the<br />
METHOD OF STOKING<br />
De so regulated as to prevent the emission of dense<br />
black or dense grey smoke for more than eight (8)<br />
minutes in any one hour.<br />
Section No. 3. The issuance and delivery by<br />
the smoke inspector of any permit or certificate<br />
for the construction or reconstruction, or any<br />
permit for the alteration or repair of any plant<br />
or chimney connected with the plant, shall not be<br />
held to exempt any person or corporation to whom<br />
any such permit has been issued or delivered, or<br />
who is in possession of any such permit, from<br />
prosecution on account of the emission or issu-
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
ance of dense black or dense grey smoke caused<br />
or permitted by any such person or corporation, in<br />
violation of the terms of this ordinance.<br />
Section No. 4. It shall be the duty of deputy<br />
smoke inspectors personally to inspect all chimneys,<br />
steam generating plants, and all other furnace<br />
apparatus in use, and to make written reports<br />
of the same to the Chief Smoke Inspector,<br />
who shall keep a permanent record of all essential<br />
facts relating thereto. The Chief Smoke Inspector<br />
or his deputies shall have authority to inspect and<br />
supervise all boilers or furnaces within the corporate<br />
limits of the city of Pittsburgh and upon<br />
the waters adjacent thereto, where such are within<br />
the jurisdiction of the provisions' of this ordinance,<br />
and shall further have authority to examine<br />
and supervise the igniting, stoking, feeding<br />
and attending to such boiler or other furnace fires,<br />
and for that purpose, he or his duly appointed<br />
assistants, shall also have authority to enter any<br />
steam boiler or engine room, or any building from<br />
which dense black or<br />
DENSE GREY SMOKE<br />
is being emitted and during the preceding twentyfour<br />
(24) hours has been emitted; and any person<br />
or persons hindering or obstructing them in the<br />
performance of such duty shall be guilty of a violation<br />
of this ordinance.<br />
Section No. 5. If the escape of smoke is the<br />
dense black or dense grey smoke which is prohibited<br />
within the meaning of this ordinance, the<br />
Chief Smoke Inspector shall make complaint to<br />
the persons so offending, defining the offense. In<br />
event that the cause thereof is unskillful stoking,<br />
he shall make immediate complaint to the Director<br />
of the Department of Public Health against any<br />
and all such persons violating this ordinance. In<br />
event that said offense is owing to the faulty construction<br />
of the furnace, size or height of stack<br />
connections, or other engineering details relating<br />
to the boiler or other furnace construction or connection,<br />
he shall make statement of the cause of<br />
such offense and report to the owners or operators<br />
as to the necessary changes, alterations or additions<br />
to be made; and in such case such time for<br />
such alterations or repairs in no instance shall<br />
exceed four (4) months. In the event that it<br />
should appear from the inspection of the Chief<br />
Smoke Inspector that no change or alteration of<br />
the furnace, furnace connections, stack or appurtenances<br />
thereto would eradicate said offense, and<br />
that said offense is owing to a plant being worked<br />
to excess of its normal capacity, or for other <strong>org</strong>anic<br />
reason cannot be converted by such changes<br />
into a plant whicn is not an offender within the<br />
meaning of this ordinance, then he shall report<br />
to the owners or operators as above mentioned<br />
the conditions' of such plant and the required<br />
changes or additions necessary therein, so that it<br />
may not be operated as an offender. Not more<br />
than six (6) months shall be allowed in which to<br />
complete such changes. Notices as above shall<br />
be in writing, and at the expiration of the time<br />
allowance, the Chief Smoke Inspector shall investigate<br />
and make report to the Director of the<br />
Department of Public Health as to the<br />
CONDITION OF THE PLANT.<br />
who, in the event it is maintained as an offender<br />
against the provisions of this ordinance, may cause<br />
suit to be entered, as provided by law, against any<br />
and all persons in charge who are violating this<br />
ordinance.<br />
Section 6. All accidents to furnaces or smoke<br />
preventing devices in use shall be reported immediately<br />
to the Chief Smoke Inspector, giving the<br />
nature of the accident and the time required to<br />
repair the same. Failure to make such report<br />
shall constitute a violation of this ordinance.<br />
Section 7. During the first hour in which a new<br />
fire is being kindled in or under a cold boiler or<br />
other furnace, thirty (30) minutes of dense black<br />
or dense grey smoke issuing from the stack or<br />
chimney thereof will not be a violation of this ordinance;<br />
but during each succeeding hour that such<br />
boiler or other furnace is in service, more than<br />
eight (8) minutes of dense black or dense grey<br />
smoke issuing from the chimney or stack thereof<br />
in any one hour shall be and the same is a violation<br />
of this ordinance.<br />
Section 8. As an official chart to be used by<br />
smoke inspectors for determining the density of<br />
smoke in the city of Pittsburgh, "Ringlemann's"<br />
Smoke Scale, as supplied by the United States<br />
Geological Survey, shall be used.<br />
Section 9. The owner or owners, the offenders,<br />
managers or agents of any corporation owning,<br />
LEASING OR OCCUPYING,<br />
and any person operating or having charge or controlling<br />
any furnace, boiler, heating or power or<br />
manufacturing plant, any locomotive, portable engine,<br />
or boiler, street roller, motor vehicle selfpropelled<br />
on a public street, steamboat, stationary<br />
engine or boiler, or any building or structure of<br />
any description from which dense grey smoke is<br />
emitted, excepting for a total of eight (8) minutes<br />
in any one hour, shall be deemed guilty of<br />
violating the provisions of this ordinance, and<br />
upon conviction thereof before any alderman or<br />
police magistrate he or they or any other person<br />
being convicted of violating any of the provisions<br />
of this ordinance before any alderman or police<br />
magistrate shall be fined not less than ten ($10.00)<br />
dollars, nor more than one hundred ($100.00) dollars,<br />
and in default of the payment of said fine<br />
and costs shall be committed to the Allegheny<br />
County Workhouse for a period not exceeding<br />
thirty (30) days for each offense, and each day in
which such smoke shall be emitted shall constitute<br />
a separate and distinct offense.<br />
Section 10. That any ordinance or part of ordinance<br />
conflicting with the provisions of this ordinance<br />
be and the same is hereby repealed, so far<br />
as the same affects this ordinance.<br />
Ordained and enacted into a law in Council,<br />
this day of A. D., 1911.<br />
LAKE COAL MOVEMENTS FOR 1911<br />
WILL ESTABLISH NEW RECORD.<br />
Reports issued by the superintendent of the<br />
American and Canadian canals at Sault Ste. Marie<br />
indicate that the coal movement for 1911 will exceed<br />
all former figures. During the first three<br />
months of navigation, April, May and June, 4,209,-<br />
2ba tons of coal, including both hard and soft,<br />
were moved, as against 3,992,712 tons in the same<br />
period of 1910, an increase of 216,573 tons. The<br />
increase is exclusively in soft coal as the movement<br />
of hard coal is slightly behind that of 1910.<br />
The total movement of coal through the canals<br />
for the navigation season of 1910 was: Hard<br />
coal, 1,658,844 tons, and soft coal, 11,854,383 tons,<br />
as compared with 1,412,387 tons of hard coal and<br />
8,527,639 tons of soft coal in 1909.<br />
If the present gain continues the coal trade of<br />
the great lakes will show a sensible increase over<br />
that of 1910, because it must be borne in mind<br />
that a very considerable movement goes through<br />
the Straits of Mackinac, which must be added to<br />
that passing through the canals at Sault Ste.<br />
Marie to arrive at the total coal commerce of the<br />
lakes. The total coal movement on the great<br />
lakes for 1910 was 22,838,700 tons and from present<br />
indication it will pass the 25,000,000 mark during<br />
1911.<br />
The coal movement tabulated for the present<br />
year is as follows:<br />
Soft Coal. 1910. 1911.<br />
Tons. Tons.<br />
April 360,337 286,468<br />
May 1.218,897 1,505,856<br />
June 1,770,805 1,896,958<br />
Total 3,350,039 3,689,282<br />
Hard Coal. 1910. 1911.<br />
Tons. Tons.<br />
April <strong>•</strong> 179,596 52,932<br />
May 287,446 213,879<br />
June 175,628 253,178<br />
Total 642,670 520,000<br />
It will be noted that the coal movement during<br />
April, 1910, was greater than that of April, 1911,<br />
but this is accounted for by the fact that navigation<br />
opened earlier in April, 1910, and very few<br />
ships were moving in April of the present year.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
PERSONAL l:i<br />
Mr. A. de Gennes, for a number of years general<br />
representative of the Sullivan Machinery Co. at<br />
Paris, France, has retired from business. The<br />
company has appointed as his successor, Mr. Hart<br />
O. Berg, whose address is 30 Rue des Champs<br />
Elysees, Paris, and who will be in charge of the<br />
business in France under the general direction of<br />
the European branch office at London, 814 Salisbury<br />
House, Mr. H. T. Walsh, manager. Sullivan<br />
diamond drills, rock drills, hammer drills, air<br />
compressors, and their parts, will lie carried in<br />
stock at Paris as heretofore.<br />
Mr. James H. Price of Pittsburgh has been engaged<br />
to assume the position of manager for the<br />
Washington Coal & Coke Co. in place of Mr. J. H.<br />
Wurtz, who died over a year ago. The new manager<br />
will take charge about August 1 and will<br />
move his family to Dawson. He will also be associated<br />
with the Dawson and Perryopolis banks.<br />
Mr. Price was formerly district manager for the<br />
American Steel & Wire Co. in Pennsylvania and<br />
has more recently up to the present time been<br />
associated with the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Co.<br />
At the summer meeting of the Appalachian Engineering<br />
Association, composed of prominent civil<br />
and mining engineers, coal operators and superintendents<br />
of the Appalachian coal field, Mr. Baird<br />
Halberstadt, F. G. S., Pottsville, Pa., was made<br />
an honorary member of the association, "in recognition<br />
of his high standing in his profession, his<br />
valuable researches in and contributions to<br />
science."<br />
Mr. Joseph Black Campbell, treasurer of the<br />
Duncan-Spangler Coal Co., was married at Philadelphia<br />
recently and is now enjoying a month's<br />
vacation trip in the northern part of New York,<br />
visiting Lake Ge<strong>org</strong>e and Lake Champlain, as well<br />
as Montreal and other outlying points.<br />
Mr. WTIliam E. Tissue, of Bellevernon, Pa., river<br />
shipper for the Monongahela River Consolidated<br />
Coal & Coke Co.. has accepted a similar position<br />
with the New River Co., at MacDonald, W. Va.<br />
A deal was closed July 15 in which Mr. H. L.<br />
Duniap, of Waynesburg, Pa., became the owner<br />
of 100 acres of coal land in Center township,<br />
Washington county, for which he paid $175 per<br />
acre. The deal was made by Mr. F. W. Meighen,<br />
of Waynesburg. The coal under the James<br />
Church farm was purchased from Messrs. D. L.<br />
Headley, A. J. Dye and F. W. Meighen, all of<br />
Waynesburg. Messrs. Headley, Dye and Meighen<br />
purchased the coal one year ago from Messrs.<br />
Harry Taylor and Charles Shirk at $140 per acre.
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
WEST VIRGINIA COAL FIELDS TO HAVE<br />
NEW OUTLET FOR LAKE TRADE.<br />
A deal is now pending for the purchase of the<br />
Coal & Coke railroad by the Pittsburgh & Lake<br />
Erie railroad which if consummated will give that<br />
section of the West Virginia coal fields a direct<br />
connection with the Great Lakes, via Pittsburgh,<br />
and the Eastern markets, via the Western Maryland<br />
at Connellsville. Col. J. M. Schoonmaker,<br />
vice president of the P. & L. E., accompanied by<br />
a party of eastern railroad officials, made a tour<br />
of inspection of the Coal & Coke line July 20.<br />
The visit was doubly significant owing to the fact<br />
that the Lake Erie is interested in the Buckhannon<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
j METHODS ADOPTED BY THE WEST VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF MINES<br />
TO LESSEN THE NUMBER OF FATALITIES IN THE STATE*<br />
) By Charles Connor, Charleston. W. Va 1<br />
West Virginia, since coming to the front as a<br />
coal mining state, has had an unenviable reputation<br />
on account of the inadequate precautionary<br />
measures which have been thrown around the miners<br />
to protect their health and lives. The number<br />
of lives that have been lost during the past<br />
years has been appalling to the whole world.<br />
In the early stage of the coal development cf<br />
the state, those engaged in the operation of mines,<br />
did not fully realize the importance of the character<br />
of the dangers that were to be associated<br />
with the mining business, and consequently their<br />
did not fully realize the importance or the character,<br />
due in a large measure to the fact that the<br />
coal was easy of access and required no great expenditure<br />
in mechanical appliances, or ability in<br />
mining methods. As a result of this, people entered<br />
into the development of the coal resources<br />
of the state with a limited knowledge, either as<br />
to the requirements of the economical production<br />
of coal, or the dangers that are to be overcome,<br />
to give adequate protection to the lives and health<br />
of the persons employed in the mines. To these<br />
two causes, in a large measure, can be attributed<br />
a large percentage of accidents, both fatal and nonfatal,<br />
that have occurred in the state.<br />
As the mining industry increased in magnitude<br />
and the number of fatalities kept pace with the<br />
growth, it became evident to the general public<br />
that some protection should be afforded to safeguard<br />
the health and lives of persons engaged in<br />
the mines.<br />
This duty fell upon the state and an inspection<br />
system was inaugurated with a view to the enforcement<br />
of rules and regulations which were<br />
formulated for the purpose of securing a greater<br />
degree of safety to life and limb in the state.<br />
The mining law and system of inspection, however,<br />
at the time was like the<br />
SYSTEM OF MINING<br />
operations in the state—of a crude and rudimentary<br />
character—and to a large extent was dominated<br />
over by political influence, and because of<br />
this fact, it failed to accomplish the good that it<br />
was intended to accomplish. Mine inspectors,<br />
who were appointed to enforce the law, were<br />
bound by political affiliations and obligations that<br />
hampered and impeded them in the discharge of<br />
their duties.<br />
After some years of experimenting along these<br />
lines it was round that not much better security<br />
to life and health was obtained. It was then found<br />
»paper read before the Annual Meeting of the Coal Mine<br />
Inspectors Institute of the United States. Chicago. June. 1910.<br />
necessary, in order to keep pace with the increased<br />
development, and the greater dangers that were<br />
encountered in the mines by the more extensive<br />
application of modern methods, along with the<br />
large number of disasters that had occurred with<br />
the resulting loss of life, to change the system of<br />
inspection and its mode of application and divorce<br />
it irom all political domination, and bring the<br />
standard of efficiency of the inspecting force up<br />
to such a degree as would guarantee that its personnel'<br />
were men of ability, experience and perfectly<br />
competent to cope with any or all of the<br />
various phases of danger that might arise from<br />
any cause whatever.<br />
To secure this standard of efficiency it was<br />
deemed necessary to hold examinations at which<br />
candidates for the office of mine inspectors would<br />
qualify and show, by reason of their experience,<br />
technical knowledge and mining ability, that they<br />
could be given a certificate certifying that they<br />
had the requisite qualifications to discharge the<br />
duties of an inspector efficiently, and give assurance,<br />
that by reason of these qualifications, that<br />
the health and lives of persons engaged in the<br />
mines would be protected.<br />
This has been done and a re<strong>org</strong>anization of the<br />
Mine Department has been effected, which has resulted<br />
in securing a higher<br />
STANDARD OF EFFICIENCY.<br />
It has also been freed from political influence with<br />
the resulting good which has been accomplished<br />
in the state, especially during the past year.<br />
West Virginia has had a number of explosions<br />
in the past, far more than it should have had if<br />
the necessary precautions had been exercised to<br />
prevent them.<br />
In all of the explosions of any magnitude, which<br />
have occurred in recent years, the cause has been<br />
attributed to the ignition of coal dust, caused by<br />
the promiscuous use of high flaming powder, or<br />
being ignited by a gas explosion.<br />
By referring to accompanying table A, one can<br />
see the number of lives that have been sacrificed<br />
by explosions during five years In the state.<br />
The explosions at the Lick Branch mine in December.<br />
1908, and January, 1909, were the last resulting<br />
from these errors, and since that time not<br />
a man has been killed either from a gas or dust<br />
explosion in the state.<br />
To prevent gas explosions from occurring the essential<br />
requisite is the introduction of abundant<br />
ventilation into the mine along with exercising<br />
proper vigilance in its distribution to dilute, carry
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
off and render harmless, as well as preventing the<br />
accumulation of the explosive gases.<br />
The prevention of dust explosions' was not found<br />
so easy a task, for wherever it is present in any<br />
quantity, great care must be exercised to prevent<br />
the projection of any flame into it, either from a<br />
blown-out shot with black powder or a small gas<br />
explosion.<br />
There have been in the state men in charge of<br />
mines who did not believe that coal dust was explosive,<br />
or that the permissible explosives in use<br />
were more safe to be fired in the<br />
PRESENCE OF COAL<br />
dust than the high flaming black powder which<br />
was in use; nor did they see the necessity of regulating<br />
the use of black powder so that the least<br />
danger would result from it.<br />
There is a law in the state which says that all<br />
accumulations of dust must be prevented as far as<br />
<strong>•</strong>d<br />
c<br />
W ©<br />
u tr><br />
si<br />
1905<br />
1906<br />
1907<br />
1908<br />
1909<br />
to<br />
present<br />
time<br />
ui<br />
C<br />
nearly all of the mines of the state that are considered<br />
gaseous or dusty and the rules enforced<br />
compelling the miners to cut and shoot their coal<br />
properly. The results have shown that they have<br />
become more efficient and skillful miners, who<br />
turn out a better grade of coal for their employers,<br />
that nets them greater earnings in return along<br />
with promoting a greater degree of safety within<br />
the mines.<br />
For some years West Virginia has been the only<br />
coal mining state of importance in which there<br />
were no certified foremen. Section 15 of our<br />
mine law reads: "In order to better secure the<br />
proper ventilation of every mine and promote the<br />
health and safety of persons employed therein the<br />
operator or agent shall employ a competent and<br />
practical inside overseer, to be called mine foreman,<br />
who shall be a citizen of the state and an<br />
experienced coal miner, or any person having five<br />
years experience in a coal mine."<br />
While this law does not say that mine foremen<br />
shall be certified, the Department of Mines has inaugurated<br />
a system of examining mine foremen<br />
and fire bosses, and if found competent they are<br />
granted a certificate.<br />
In holding those examinations and granting certificates<br />
to those who are considered competent<br />
there is enough law on our statute books to warrant<br />
doing what has been done, and examinations<br />
have been held throughout the state during the<br />
past year.<br />
Having an incompetent mine foreman or fire<br />
boss employed in a mine is considered a most dangerous<br />
practice. The Department of Mines has a<br />
right, under the law, to see that dangerous practices<br />
are not tolerated and they have taken this<br />
means of determining whether or not a man is<br />
competent for the position.<br />
The examinations which were held have been<br />
taken by all the mine<br />
FOREMEN AND FIRE BOSSES<br />
in the state and the operators are showing a desire<br />
to employ only those who can successfully pass the<br />
examination as mine foreman and fire boss.<br />
The holding of those examinations has also set<br />
up a great educational movement within the state,<br />
and as education is one of the greatest preventatives<br />
of mine accidents', the good that this alone<br />
will do is easily foreseen.<br />
The inspectors of our state have been much benefited<br />
by meetings that are held every three months<br />
with the governor of the state and the chief of the<br />
Department of Mines for the purpose of going over<br />
with them any trouble which they may be encountering<br />
in the discharge of their official duties;<br />
it also enables each to know what the other is<br />
doing to bring about the results which each is<br />
seeking to obtain—greater safety in the mines of<br />
the state.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
With the knowledge the chief of the Department<br />
of Mines has of the mines that are considered the<br />
most dangerous he has concentrated the action of<br />
the department on those mines, with frequent inspections<br />
by two or more members, during the<br />
time of year when it most expects danger. It is<br />
safe to say that the mines that are considered dangerous,<br />
either from gas or dust, have been inspected<br />
at least four or five times during the past<br />
cold season.<br />
The inspectors of the state have, by a conscientious<br />
and efficient discharge of duties, done much<br />
to bring about a greater degree of safety within<br />
the mines of the state, and from the fact that no<br />
serious accidents have occurred for some time past,<br />
and from the confidence that has been inspired,<br />
we have received the hearty support of the people<br />
of the state in accomplishing what we have with<br />
laws that were thought to be inadequate to bring<br />
about the desired results.<br />
The mining people of the state are banded together<br />
to promote the mining industry in the<br />
safest manner possible.<br />
We have a healthy growing Coal Mining Institute,<br />
whose object is to advance the coal mining<br />
industry, to encourage education in practical and<br />
scientific mining and to promote study and research<br />
into mining problems.<br />
On the whole there has been a great awakening<br />
in West Virginia during the past year, and the<br />
people who are engaged in mining are striving<br />
hard to make it both the safest and most productive<br />
coal mining state in the Union.<br />
NEW YORKER TAKES TRIP ABROAD<br />
IN INTEREST OF AMERICAN COAL.<br />
Mr. John C. Martin of New York City sailed<br />
Wednesday, July 19. on the Lusitania for Europe<br />
and Asia where he intends making a study of the<br />
industries of these countries with a view to developing<br />
interest in American coal. Mr. Martin is<br />
of the opinion that the day Is not far distant<br />
when the fuel product of this country will be disposed<br />
of in immense quantities to the countries<br />
which are now supplied from England, Belgium,<br />
Russia and Japan. The price of the Cardiff and<br />
Belgium coal and the cost of importing the Russian<br />
and Japanese product is rapidly creeping up<br />
and it is predicted that this will give American<br />
operators an opportunity to bid for the foreign<br />
trade. Mr. Martin went direct to London from<br />
New York and from there will go to Belgium and<br />
thence to Marseilles. He will travel in Europe<br />
principally via automobile. After traversing the<br />
Mediterranean coast he will proceed to Japan for<br />
the purpose of studying the methods used in mining<br />
coal in the islands of that country. He will<br />
be absent from America from four to six months.
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Supplement No. 2 containing descriptions of important<br />
additions and improvements to the various<br />
O-B materials listed in Railway catalogue No. S,<br />
Mine Catalogue No. 9. Catenary Catalogue No. 20<br />
and O-B Hi-Tension Insulator Catalogue No. 10<br />
has just been distributed by the Ohio Brass Co.,<br />
Mansfield, Ohio. The line of mine materials<br />
manufactured by the O-B Company has been especially<br />
strengthened by improvements and additions.<br />
The new Modoc Trolley Clamp, Form 1,<br />
is described for the first time. This clamp is<br />
especially designed for supporting trolley wires<br />
in mines. It is possible to attach it to a trolley<br />
wire just tight enough to hold the wire in position<br />
until it has been stretched. The clamp can then,<br />
by one operation, be permanently tightened upon<br />
the trolley wire and the hanger, thus eliminating<br />
loose joints between the clamp and hand hanger<br />
which it is often impossible to do with other styles<br />
of clamps.<br />
The Carnegie Steel Co., Pittsburgh, is distributing<br />
its new pamphlet entitled "Steel Derricks and<br />
Drilling Rigs" which is just off the press. Three<br />
types of derrick are described—the Woodworth<br />
Standard, the Woodworth Oklahoma and the Yorke<br />
Standard—all of which have their respective advantages.<br />
These derricks are all alike in the<br />
use of structural steel angles for the legs, in the<br />
arrangement of crown blocks and the make-up of<br />
ladders. The design differs in the forms of bracing<br />
and bolting at joints. The steel used in construction<br />
of these derricks and drilling rigs is<br />
that employed generally in bridge and building<br />
construction to manufacturers' standard specifications<br />
and the loads are figured on a factor of safety<br />
of four used in structural steel work generally.<br />
All the stresses are taken care of within the structure<br />
itself and no guy lines or other extraneous<br />
means of support are necessary.<br />
In the June issue of the "Engineering Review"<br />
mention was made of a fan 32 feet high handling<br />
20,000,000 cubic feet per hour as being one<br />
of the largest fans ever built. But there is a<br />
"Sirocco" fan only 13 feet 5 inches in diameter<br />
which delivered on test 36,000,000 cubic feet per<br />
hour—nearly double the capacity and less than<br />
half the size. This "Sirocco" fan ventilates the<br />
pit "Clydach Vale" of the Cambrian Collieries,<br />
Ltd., Glam<strong>org</strong>anshire, South Wales.<br />
Bulletin No. 135 issued by the American Blower<br />
Co., Detroit, Mich., described the "Ventura" Disc<br />
Ventilating fans, their latest development in<br />
curved blade disc fan design and construction.<br />
This fan delivers large volumes of air with a<br />
power consumption much below that ordinarily<br />
required. The well known "A.B.C." fans for exhausting,<br />
conveying and ventilating are also<br />
treated in a brochure recently published by the<br />
manufacturers.<br />
The Sullivan Machinery Co., Chicago, has issued<br />
an interesting brochure on pneumatic hammer<br />
drills for quarrying, stone dressing and mining<br />
purposes. All these tools are of the type in<br />
which the cutting bit remains against the surface<br />
which is being worked on, and is driven by rapid<br />
blows on the shank from an independent hammer<br />
or piston.<br />
Westmoreland Strike Called Off.<br />
(Continued from Page 26.)<br />
strike was lost. Mother Jones told the International<br />
Board at Indianapolis that it had been a<br />
lost cause since last summer. But Feehan continued<br />
it despite his own conviction that he could<br />
not win, so that he could draw on our National<br />
Union for funds to support the army of his followers<br />
in the field. The result has been the loss of<br />
eighteen lives and the useless and wanton expenditure<br />
of a million dollars of the miners' money,<br />
besides large donations from many of our people<br />
and others in sympathy.<br />
Feehan kept this strike going so that in last<br />
December he could count the votes of the strikers<br />
to continue himself in office. His entire administration<br />
has been a repetition of wild, useless and<br />
lost strikes, including the loss of the Mercer-<br />
Butler field. John P. White and the present<br />
national administration are alike culpable in this<br />
pitiable failure. It adds to their record of letting<br />
the Nova Scotia men go back to work at a 10 per<br />
cent, reduction and the Tuscarawas strikers to re<br />
turn at the operators' terms.<br />
Fraternally yours,<br />
(Signed) ROBERT R. GIBBONS. President.<br />
ABE KEPHART. Vice-President.<br />
ANDREW PU.SKAR. Secretary-Treas.<br />
The Milwaukee-Western Fuel Co., Milwaukee.<br />
Wis., has awarded contracts to the Heyl-Patterson<br />
Co. of Pittsburgh which will give Milwaukee harbor<br />
one of the most modern coal unloading docks<br />
on the Great Lakes. The contract calls for equipment<br />
to cost $500,000 and the old hoisting apparatus<br />
at the foot of Washington street will be torn<br />
down to make way for the new structure. The<br />
dock will be 900 feet long with two 400-feet cranes<br />
running the entire length. The hoists will operate<br />
five-ton grab buckets, and will have a capacity of<br />
300 tons an hour.
PRESIDENT WHITE OF MINERS ADDRESSES<br />
THE COAL RETAILERS CONVENTION.<br />
At the annual convention of the Northwestern<br />
Retail Coal Dealers' Association at Minneapolis<br />
July 10, 11, 12, President John P. White of the<br />
United Mine Workers of America, delivered an<br />
address. Among other things, he said:<br />
"Scarcely half of the men employed in mining<br />
coal are working, while the other half are roaming<br />
over the eountry in search of work. This is<br />
indeed a sad state of affairs and merits the attention<br />
of every person whose pride of country and<br />
love of humanity have not been destroyed by selfish<br />
desires. In dealing with problems of social<br />
progress in all tnat the term implies, we should<br />
confine ourselves to the immediate and future needs<br />
of the people. Destitution in a country noted<br />
for its vast resources is indicative of a defective<br />
social system. The unemployed problem arises<br />
directly from the gradual industrial evolution.<br />
This process continues incessantly, and consequently<br />
the number of idle workers is increasing.<br />
Now, to solve this complex problem, our attention<br />
should be diverted from the question of supplying<br />
foreign markets, and devoted to supplying the<br />
immediate needs of the people at home. It is<br />
indeed a sad commentary upon society that we<br />
are shipping food and raiment to the extent of<br />
millions of dollars in value to foreign countries'<br />
when poverty and starvation exist in our midst.<br />
"The problem of production has been solved. If<br />
we can produce for foreign markets, there is no<br />
reason why we should not be able to satisfy our<br />
own wants. And we are. But the necessities<br />
are not equitably distributed. The laborer does<br />
not receive a just reward for his toil. Therefore,<br />
in the final analysis, we find that it is the unequal<br />
distribution that is the primary cause of<br />
idleness, poverty and the social unrest. That is<br />
the real problem—the only one. In the face of<br />
this chaotic state of affairs, and the clamor for<br />
relief, is it any wonder that reflective men in public<br />
life are urging the adoption of expedients,<br />
some of which have been pronounced impracticable.<br />
"The miners' <strong>org</strong>anization, composed of nearly<br />
350,000 men, has proven of inestimable value, to<br />
its membership. It has had to contend at times<br />
against great odds to maintain its standing, and<br />
has engaged in strike and strife throughout the<br />
years of its existence; it has' extended its power<br />
and influence to such an extent that coal mining<br />
in the United States could not be conducted without<br />
reckoning with this institution. It has shortened<br />
the hours of labor; increased the wages; improved<br />
the conditions of the workers and has influenced<br />
legislation for the safeguarding of human<br />
life, and has maintained an uncompromising stand<br />
against the employment of child labor in the mines.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
Through its success and growth, it has minimized<br />
industrial disputes by instituting and arranging<br />
the joint wage contract now governing nearly all<br />
of the leading coal producing states of our country.<br />
"The benefits derived from this joint method of<br />
arranging wage contracts have not only been helpful<br />
to the miner but to the operator as well. There<br />
is more stability in the mining industry by reason<br />
of this joint bargaining, and while at times problems<br />
confront both that seem insurmountable, yet<br />
the miners' <strong>org</strong>anization has persevered and<br />
adopted such policies from time to time as would<br />
best conserve their interests."<br />
# RETAIL TRADE NOTES, »<br />
The sixteenth annual convention of the Illinois<br />
and Wisconsin Retail Coal Dealers' Association<br />
was held at Milwaukee commencing Thursday,<br />
June 20, and continuing for the balance of the<br />
week. The register at the Plankinton Hotel,<br />
where headquarters were maintained, showed 300<br />
in attendance. The opening sessions were taken<br />
up with addresses of welcome and reports of officers.<br />
Secretary Frank E. Lukens' report showed<br />
that the association had 1,042 regular and 65 associate<br />
members, a total of 1,107, showing a net<br />
gain of 64 over the previous year. Friday's sessions<br />
were devoted to round table discussions.<br />
Milwaukee shippers provided an automobile trip<br />
to Whitefish Bay, where a whitefish dinner was<br />
the feature.<br />
The Delaware & Hudson Co. is about to erect a<br />
retail distributing plant at Schenectady, N. Y.,<br />
similar to those maintained by the D. & H. and<br />
other producing interests in certain eastern cities.<br />
It is announced that Edward B. Ashton, the well<br />
known Saratoga coal man, will probably be placed<br />
in charge of the Schenectady pocket.<br />
The dealers at Danbury, Conn., have evidently<br />
decided that it does not pay to take low-priced<br />
public contracts. This year only one of them bid<br />
on the contract to supply fuel to the schools of<br />
that city, and he named a price 68 cents a ton<br />
higher than was paid last year. At that, he only<br />
asked $6.75 for anthracite.<br />
The dealers of Paducah, Ky., have decided to do<br />
business on a cash basis and it is stated that they<br />
have all entered into a hard and fast agreement<br />
not to extend credit to any one.<br />
The Gardiner Coal & Supply Co. has embarked<br />
in business at Gardiner, Me., having made a considerable<br />
preliminary outlay in fitting up a dock,<br />
building a storage plant, etc.
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
fl CONSTRUCTION and DEVELOPMENT<br />
A deal in coal lands has been consummated at<br />
Pineville, Ky., by which the Pioneer Coal Co., composed<br />
of Louisville parties, purchased the Edgewood<br />
Coal Co.'s property, situated on the right<br />
fork of Straight Creek, consisting of 5,000 acres of<br />
coal lands. The company also secured the leases<br />
of the East Tennessee Coal Co., which had already<br />
begun opening mines and had driven four entries.<br />
The Louisville & Nashville built a railroad to this<br />
property last year and the new owners expect to<br />
be in full operation by October 1. The Louisville<br />
people who are behind the deal are J. B. Speed,<br />
F. M. Sackett, R. P. Barnard, W. S. Speed, M. M.<br />
Bardwell and C. S. Neil.<br />
The Interstate Commerce Commission, through<br />
a special examiner, will begin an investigation of<br />
coal rates in southern Utah. Independent coal<br />
companies have asked the commission to establish<br />
joint and through rates and to fix new routings<br />
whereby "prohibitive freight charges" and "discriminatory<br />
operations" may be abolished. Twenty-six<br />
railroads are made defendants. The action<br />
is brought by the Consolidated Fuel Co. and the<br />
Castle Valley Coal Co., who urge that railroad rates<br />
be fixed from their mines and not from intermediate<br />
shipping points.<br />
Indictments were returned July 26 by the Mineral<br />
county (W. Va.) grand jury after a session<br />
of two days spent in an investigation of the Elk<br />
Garden mine horror, on April 24, when an explosion<br />
at Ott mine, No. 20, cost the lives of 23 miners,<br />
against the Davis Coal & Coke Co. and Mine<br />
Foreman John Kinney. The evidence showed<br />
there was an accumulation of coal dust and gas<br />
and lack of proper and lawful mining facilities<br />
and that the fans had not been in operation from<br />
Friday night until Monday morning, the day of the<br />
catastrophe.<br />
Plans for the $65,000 building, which will be<br />
erected upon the campus of the State School of<br />
Mines and Metallurgy at Rolla, Mo., were discussed<br />
at a meeting of the executive committee of the<br />
Board of Curators at the Marquette Hotel, St. Louis,<br />
recently. The building will contain quarters for<br />
the school's library, an auditorium seating 800 persons,<br />
and administrative offices. T. J. Wornall<br />
of Liberty, Mo., is chairman of the committee and<br />
the other members are: P. E. Burton of Joplin,<br />
Mo., and Doctor S. L. Bayslinger of Rolla.<br />
an output of 762 tons per man.<br />
With the revival of the coal trade in Westmoreland<br />
county. Pa., comes the report that the Yukon<br />
branch railroad will be extended from its present<br />
terminus in Sewickley township to the western<br />
part of the county. The line now terminates at<br />
Wyano, a mining town, and begins at Hunker.<br />
The proposed extension would take the road<br />
through Yukon, Waltz's Mills and terminate at<br />
Mendon.<br />
The Lehigh Valley Coal Co., which has in course<br />
of erection a mammoth concrete breaker, between<br />
Buck Mountain and Vulcan, near Mahanoy City,<br />
Pa., is now engaged in the erection of dwellings in<br />
close proximity to the breaker. It is said that<br />
the company intends to erect homes for at least 50<br />
families, included in which will be the colliery<br />
officials.<br />
At the request of prospectors in the southern<br />
Illinois coal fields, officials of the Burlington road<br />
are planning the construction of a spur to West<br />
Frankfort, Franklin county, 111. Several new<br />
mine properties are being developed there. The<br />
Chicago & Eastern Illinois railroad has long controlled<br />
the traffic in that section.<br />
Engineers of the H. C. Frick Coke Co. are making<br />
surveys of a portion of the coal land recently<br />
acquired from the Monongahela River Consolidated<br />
Coal & Coke Co., near Charleroi, Pa., and it is reported<br />
the block of coal is to be developed.<br />
The Western Maryland railway has decided to<br />
build one additional pier at its Port Covington<br />
terminal. The pier will probably be one for gen<br />
eral freight, and will be followed with the construction<br />
of another for coal.<br />
The Davis Coal & Coke Co. has sunk two more<br />
shafts between Thomas and Williams, W. Va. The<br />
company will also erect a number of new dwelling<br />
houses at these points for employes.<br />
The Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co. announces<br />
that it will build a $100,000 coal washer<br />
in the vicinity of its No. 13 mines.<br />
MONTANA'S RECORD COAL OUTPUT.<br />
Montana broke all her former records of coal<br />
production in 1910, according to the United States<br />
Geological Survey. The coal mined amounted to<br />
2,920,970 short tons, with a spot value of $5,329,-<br />
322. The increase in the total value of the coal<br />
produced during the year was less marked than the<br />
tonnage increase, the average price for the year<br />
having been lower than in 1909; nevertheless the<br />
total value was the greatest in the history of coal<br />
mining in the state. The coal mines gave employment<br />
during the year to 3,817 men, indicating<br />
The Crucible Coal Co. of Pittsburgh has notified<br />
the state department of Pennsylvania that it will<br />
issue $1,000,000 in bonds.
CONGRESSIONAL RIVERS AND HARBORS<br />
COMMITTEE MAKE IMPORTANT IN<br />
SPECTION TRIP.<br />
Members of the Rivers and Harbors Committee<br />
of the national House of Representatives, headed<br />
by Congressman Stephen M. Sparkman, of Florida,<br />
chairman, paid a visit to the Pittsburgh industrial<br />
region during the fortnight which is expected<br />
to have much weight in securing improved<br />
waterways and the nine-foot stage on the Ohio<br />
river from the Steel City to Cairo, 111.<br />
The party traveled from Washington, D. C, to<br />
Oil City, Pa., where they were met by the Pittsburgh<br />
contingent, composed of prominent representatives<br />
of the community's civic and industrial<br />
interests. Proceeding to Pittsburgh by rail, the<br />
visitors were entertained several days viewing the<br />
sights of the foremost manufacturing city in the<br />
country. Owing to low water, the party went<br />
to Wheeling, W. Va., from Pittsburgh via railroad,<br />
and embarked on the Kanawha, a boat<br />
specially fitted up for the occasion, for the trip<br />
down the Ohio river to Cairo, 111.<br />
Other projects which were Drought to the attention<br />
of the Congressional committee were the proposed<br />
Lake Erie and Pittsburgh ship canal, for<br />
which the counties lying in the upper Ohio valley<br />
and in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia<br />
propose to supply the money provided Congress<br />
will direct the government engineers to<br />
supervise the work, and the construction of immense<br />
reservoirs along the headwaters of the<br />
Allegheny river for flood prevention purposes and<br />
for retaining flood waters in order to supply a<br />
uniform transportation stage at times of extreme<br />
drought.<br />
All these projects are of vital interest to the<br />
coal trade in several respects. Better waterways<br />
mean greater business activities and increased<br />
fuel demands. The competitive feature between<br />
rail and waterways is also important as lower<br />
transportation rates invariably result.<br />
WESTERN STATES SHOW ADVANCE<br />
IN COAL OUTPUT IN 1910.<br />
The statistics of production of coal in the states<br />
of the Rocky Mountain region in 1910, according<br />
to Mr. Edward W. Parker, of the United States<br />
Geological Survey, show that the year was, for<br />
that region, one of unusual prosperity for the coal<br />
operators. It is "an ill wind that blows no good,"<br />
and the closing down of most of the mines in the<br />
Mississippi Valley States by the six months' strike<br />
of 1910 created a strong demand on the coal mines<br />
of Colorado. Montana, New Mexico and Wyoming.<br />
Even Utah, more remote than the other states,<br />
made substantial gains in production. Lignite<br />
production fell off a little in North Dakota, and<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
Idaho's always small optput was somewhat smaller,<br />
but these coals do not enter the same fields of use<br />
fulness as those from the other states, and moreover<br />
the decreases were insignificant. The principal<br />
demands for the Rocky Mountain coals came<br />
from the railroads running between Mississippi<br />
Valley points and the Rocky Mountains, the usual<br />
railroad fuel from the mines of Illinois, Kansas,<br />
Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma having been<br />
cut off by the strike. There was also a good domestic<br />
demand for Rocky Mountain coals throughout<br />
the year.<br />
In 1910 the seven states comprised in the Rocky<br />
Mountain region produced 28,857,413 short tons<br />
of coal, valued at $43,776,715, compared with 25,-<br />
158,612 tons, valued at $37,265,957, in 1909. The<br />
increase in 1910 was 3,698,801 short tons, or 14.7<br />
per cent., in quantity, and $6,510,758. or 17.47 per<br />
cent., in value. The largest increase in tonnage<br />
was made by Colorado, though all the other states,<br />
except Utah, that showed increases outclassed<br />
Colorado in the percentage of increase. Colorado's<br />
production increased from 10,716,936 to 11,973,736<br />
short tons, or 11.73 per cent. In the Geological<br />
Survey's preliminary review of the coal trade in<br />
1910, published January 3, 1911, it was stated that<br />
Colorado's iiroduction would approximate 12,000,-<br />
000 short tons. The value of the product increased<br />
$2,730,922, or 19.1 per cent.<br />
Montana's coal production increased from 2,553,-<br />
940 short tons, valued at $5,036,942, to 2,920,970<br />
tons, valued at $5,329,322, the gains being therefore<br />
14.37 per cent, in quantity and 5.8 per cent.<br />
in value.<br />
New Mexico's' output increased 25.25 per cent.<br />
in quantity and 34.74 per cent, in value, from 2,-<br />
801,128 tons, valued at $3,619,744, to 3.508,321 tons,<br />
valued at $4,877,151.<br />
Utah's production in 1910 was 2,517,S09 short<br />
tons, valued at $4,224,556, against 2,266,899 tons.<br />
valued at $3,751,810, in 1909, an increase of 11.07<br />
per cent, in quantity and of 12.6 per cent, in value.<br />
Wyoming increased her production from 6,393,-<br />
109 tons, valued at $9,896,848, to 7,533,088 tons,<br />
valued at $11,706.1S7, gaining 17.83 per cent, in<br />
quantity and 18.28 per cent, in value. Colorado<br />
and Wyoming together made up nearly two-thirds<br />
of the total increase.<br />
There were 34,652 men employed in the Rocky<br />
Mountain coal mines in 1910, and the average time<br />
made was 245 days.<br />
Prof. R. W. Brock, director of the Canadian Geological<br />
Survey, reports that the mining operations<br />
at Frank, Alberta, have weakened the surface formation<br />
of a mountain which overhangs the town<br />
and that further excavation of the coal deposits<br />
may lead to a disastrous landslide.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
IS THE MINERS' ORGANIZATION TOTTERING?<br />
By T. L. Lewis, in "Industrial Index." Columbus. Ohio.<br />
The United Mine Workers of America is known<br />
to be, numerically, the greatest labor union in the<br />
world. It has made great progress in advancing<br />
the cause of the mine workers of the country.<br />
Wages have been increased from time to time,<br />
with the working hours being reduced, and the<br />
conditions of employment have been very much<br />
improved.<br />
The miners' <strong>org</strong>anization has been a power that<br />
has commanded the respect, if not the good-will,<br />
of some of the bitterest enemies of the labor movement.<br />
The United Mine Workers has attracted<br />
the attention and received encouragement from<br />
many of the most intelligent and eminent men<br />
representing the legislative, executive and judicial<br />
branches of the United States government. While<br />
the <strong>org</strong>anization adhered to its principles as outlined<br />
in the international constitution, it steadily<br />
defended the interests and promoted the welfare of<br />
the wage-earners in the mining industry.<br />
Every mine worker of the country should consider<br />
it a duty, as well as an honor, to be an active<br />
member of the United Mine Workers and defend<br />
its principles. Every mine worker of the country<br />
has been the beneficiary of the splendid work of<br />
the <strong>org</strong>anization. With its splendid record of<br />
work well done in the interest of humanity and<br />
the mining industry, why should it be permitted<br />
to be torn asunder by internal strife and dissension?<br />
There is something wrong, and it is the<br />
duty of every mine worker to investigate for himself<br />
the cause of the terrible condition that exists<br />
in so many of the mining districts.<br />
It would not be so much a "monumental blunder"<br />
as it would be<br />
CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE<br />
to permit the United Mine Workers to go to wreck<br />
on the rocks of stupidity, repudiation of contracts,<br />
violation of law and an insane desire to retain<br />
official position in the <strong>org</strong>anization. Stupidity is<br />
an evidence of a lack of understanding of the<br />
awful crisis through which the United Mine Workers<br />
is now passing. The question that every man<br />
should ask himself is, "Will we as an <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
survive the storm?" The other question we<br />
should ask ourselves is, "What am I doing to save<br />
the old craft and steer her into a harbor of<br />
safety?" We must not wait for someone else to<br />
do the work that each of us should be doing.<br />
Can it be possible that the United Mine Workers,<br />
as an <strong>org</strong>anization, is in danger of destruction?<br />
What are the conditions in the different mining<br />
districts? In the Southwest district poor work<br />
and local strikes in violation of existing contracts.<br />
In District 13, Iowa, an attempt to prevent colored<br />
men from joining the miners' union. In Illinois<br />
many thousands of miners idle and a disposition<br />
of the leaders to repudiate wage contracts. In<br />
Indiana many miners on strike on account of<br />
weakness of leadership. In Ohio, poor work,<br />
many useless local strikes and the unsatisfactory<br />
settlement of the Tuscarawas district strike. In<br />
Western Pennsylvania, the open rebellion of the<br />
miners against the methods of the former district<br />
president, who insists on retaining an office. In<br />
the Irwin district, the acknowledgment of those in<br />
charge that there was really no strike in that section.<br />
In Central Pennsylvania, the attempt of the<br />
district officers to disfranchise the members and<br />
establish a paternal institution. Inactivity in the<br />
anthracite region and the absence of <strong>org</strong>anizers in<br />
the non-union mining districts. This briefly is<br />
the condition, and what is the cause?<br />
Repudiation of contracts or the failure to respect<br />
and enforce the terms of wage contracts mutually<br />
agreed to, and the violation of the laws, are the<br />
causes of the most of the trouble within the ranks<br />
of the miners' <strong>org</strong>anization. When miners' and<br />
operators' representatives enter into contract relations<br />
and the<br />
TERMS OF SUCH CONTRACTS<br />
are ignored or repudiated, there can be but one<br />
sequel: the refusal of those interested to negotiate<br />
any contracts. The miners of Kansas and<br />
the Southwest are now paying the penalty for the<br />
stupidity of their district president in the Osage<br />
controversy. The miners of Illinois and Indiana<br />
are paying the penalty of the unwise methods<br />
pursued by their leaders during the past few years.<br />
Ohio miners have lost many valuable conditions of<br />
employment because they have permitted themselves<br />
to be deceived. Western Pennsylvania miners<br />
are suffering because the international officers<br />
are supporting a repudiated district officer and<br />
Central Pennsylvania miners are suffering because<br />
the international constitution has been ignored<br />
and set aside by the district officers and this action<br />
endorsed by the international officers.<br />
This rather peculiar condition within our ranks<br />
is due to the desire of a few men to retain official<br />
position regardless of the tremendous cost it may<br />
mean to the miners of the country next year. It<br />
is not alone the annoyance to the operators whose<br />
mines are closed in violation of contract and the<br />
loss to the miners who believe in respecting the<br />
laws of the <strong>org</strong>anization that causes us the greatest<br />
harm. Think of the impression being left in the<br />
minds of the operators in the non-union mining<br />
districts. As an <strong>org</strong>anization we are judged hy<br />
what we do and not by what we claim we will do.
We appeal to the sympathy and respect of other<br />
people in proportion to our efforts to enforce and<br />
carry into effect our declarations.<br />
What we first need, as members, is a thorough<br />
KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAWS<br />
of the United Mine Workers and the terms of the<br />
wage contracts under which the mines are operated<br />
and we are employed. When we have this<br />
knowledge, we should be firm in our position that<br />
contracts should be complied with by both operator<br />
and employe. We ought to be able to demonstrate<br />
our ability to avoid a suspension of the<br />
operation of the mines to settle a dispute. We<br />
should insist on our official representatives doing<br />
their duty promptly and fearlessly. If we commit<br />
an error or a wrong, we ought to compliment<br />
our officers for showing us we had done wrong.<br />
We should just as quickly tell them in a plain and<br />
intelligent manner.<br />
Remember our contracts expire next year. As a<br />
contracting party we will be largely judged by our<br />
conduct at the present time. What will be the<br />
price of our indifference? Who can tell the outcome<br />
next year unless there is a prompt reuniting<br />
of our forces, coupled with a determination that<br />
the laws of the union must be respected by officers<br />
and members and that contracts can be complied<br />
with and strikes eliminated if we but do our duty.<br />
Mine workers of the country, it is time you investigate<br />
your surroundings and the cause. Prepare<br />
for the future and rescue the <strong>org</strong>anization from the<br />
control of demagogues and make it a real business<br />
institution.<br />
The Mansfield mine of the Pittsburgh Coal Co.<br />
at Glendale, near Carnegie, Pa., was forced to<br />
close for several days on account of serious trouble<br />
which broke out July 24 between the rival forces<br />
of Robert R. Gibbons and Francis Feehan, claimants<br />
of the District No. 5 presidency. A riot<br />
occurred on that day when foreign speaking supporters<br />
of Feehan attempted to prevent miners<br />
who were friendly to the Gibbons wing from going<br />
to work. All the agitators of the trouble were<br />
arrested and jailed and it is believed that no further<br />
outbreak will occur.<br />
The situation in Eastern British Columbia and<br />
Southern Alberta, where about 6,000 coal miners<br />
have been on strike since April 1, is unchanged<br />
and the men are apparently determined to "stand<br />
pat" on their higher wage demands. A conference<br />
was held July 25 between representatives of<br />
the contending forces and the boards of trade of<br />
the sections affected but it failed to accomplish<br />
any results leading toward a settlement. The<br />
business representatives approved the majority<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
report of the arbitration board, which was repudiated<br />
by the union, but the miners still refused<br />
to compromise. To relieve the situation, the<br />
Dominion government, it is said, will remove duty<br />
on coal from the United States for a period of six<br />
months. The Canadian Pacific Railway will also<br />
be asked to grant special reduced rates on coal<br />
from Vancouver Island mines. The strike has<br />
completely demoralized business in the strike zone<br />
and a serious fuel famine in the Northwest is<br />
imminent.<br />
Dispatches from London state that the miners<br />
of the Northumberland coal district have finished<br />
their ballot on the question of a strike to end the<br />
three-shift system. The vote was two-thirds in<br />
favor of the strike, which was the requisite majority.<br />
As a result of this vote the Miners' Federation<br />
will be asked to call a conference to discuss<br />
the question of a national stoppage of work<br />
at the coal mines.<br />
Ben Davis, president of district No. 17, U. M.<br />
W. of A., resigned his office effective July 15,<br />
being succeeded by Luke Lanham, former vice<br />
president of the district. Mr. Davis, in a state^<br />
ment issued at the time of his resignation, claimed<br />
that he could not do justice to the office in view<br />
of the unjust attacks made upon him and that his<br />
action was taken for the purpose of promoting harmony<br />
in the ranks.<br />
As a, result of demands from Illinois miners to<br />
know why a large number of votes cast in the<br />
state were not counted in the national election of<br />
the United Mine Workers of America held December<br />
13, 1910, a recount of the votes was held last<br />
week at the Indianapolis headquarters. It is<br />
stated that the personnel of the national officers<br />
will not be changed by this action.<br />
By an agreement reached at Terre Haute, July<br />
25, 1,000 miners on strike at the Wabash mines<br />
in Vigo and Green counties for several weeks will<br />
return to work. The final settlement of the dispute<br />
which arose over the distribution of "places"<br />
will be left to President John P. White of the<br />
Mine Workers and President H. M. Taylor of the<br />
Illinois Operators' Association.<br />
At a conference of the three district presidents<br />
of the U. M. W. of A. held at Wilkes-Barre July<br />
24 it was decided not to issue a call for the tridistrict<br />
convention until President John P. White<br />
could be present. This will probably be the latter<br />
part of October or early in November.<br />
A strike at Arnold No. 1 mine of the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co. near Fayette City, Pa., resulting over the<br />
election of a checkweighman, tied up those workings<br />
for several days. It was finally settled June<br />
19.
42<br />
JUNE LAKE LEVELS.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
The United States Lake Survey reports the stages<br />
of the Great Lakes for the month of June, 1911,<br />
as follows:<br />
Feet above tide-<br />
Lakes, water. New York.<br />
Superior 601.34<br />
Michigan-Huron 579.98<br />
Erie 571.90<br />
Ontario 245.66<br />
Lake Superior is 0.44 foot higher than last<br />
month, 0.56 foot lower than a year ago, 1.20 feet<br />
below the average stage of June of the last 10<br />
years, 2.09 feet below the high stage of June, 1876,<br />
and 0.10 foot above the low stage of June, 1879.<br />
It will probably rise 0.2 foot during July.<br />
Lakes Michigan-Huron are 0.28 foot higher than<br />
last month, 0.57 foot lower than a year ago, 1.12<br />
feet below the average stage of June of the last<br />
10 years, 3.62 feet below the high stage of June,<br />
1886, and 0.08 foot above the low stage of June,<br />
1896. They will probably rise 0.1 foot during July.<br />
Lake Erie is 0.03 foot higher than last month,<br />
0.71 foot lower than a year ago, 0.96 foot below<br />
the average stage of June of the last 10 years, 2.62<br />
feet below the high stage of June, 1876, and 0.33<br />
foot above the low stage of June, 1905. It will<br />
probably remain about stationary during July.<br />
Lake Ontario is 0.06 foot higher than last month,<br />
0.80 foot lower than a year ago. 1.18 feet lower<br />
than the average stage of June of the last 10<br />
years, 2.97 feet below the high stage of June, 1870,<br />
and 0.77 foot above the low stage of June, 1895.<br />
It will probably remain about stationary during<br />
July.<br />
The examinations, which were held for mine<br />
foremen and other responsible positions about the<br />
mines, by the state mining department, have resulted<br />
in the following being granted certificgates:<br />
First class mine foremen—J. W. Curd, L. S. Mellown,<br />
A. R. Houston, C. A. Love, V. B. Millwee,<br />
R. F. Dickinson, W. A. Wathley, John Galimore,<br />
G. C. Whatley, Milton H. Fies, Earl Moore, Henry<br />
Henderson, John W. Davis, Timothy Vandiver, W.<br />
M. Lacey, J. J. Beaver, R. S. Wildsmith, J. A. Delozier.<br />
J. D. Vernon, J. P. Warnick, J. F. Brown,<br />
J. P. Codey, J. C. Laird, W. P. Crane. Ge<strong>org</strong>e W.<br />
Piper, James Holmes, W. J. Harrison, Reuben<br />
Fancher, John E. Liddell, A. J. Price, James<br />
Isaacs, Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. Postell, Robert Hayes, J. A.<br />
Fox. and Hemy Watkins. Second class mine<br />
foremen—L. A. Lightfoot of Drifton. Ala.; J. A.<br />
Edmonds of Lynn; W. T. Hinz of Blocton; D. A.<br />
Stocks, J. T. Cook, W. W. Dearson, William B.<br />
Sims. Fire boss—T. Docherty. V. Bieletz, D. J.<br />
Evans, D. Rose. J. L. Bryson, E. J. Pitts. Alfred<br />
Lloyd, Timothy Griffith. John Carlin, J. T. Rose,<br />
James Kerr, Clyde C. Scott, W. H. Broadhead,<br />
Tom Lawrence, A. B. Hull, R. M. Barmett, F. J.<br />
Rivers, G. H. Ross, R. H. Wood, W. Lewis, Jake<br />
Fletcher, J. S. Kelly, Hugh Guthrie, James Waugh,<br />
E. Reed, Henry Gray, Ge<strong>org</strong>e Cook, Tom Carnes,<br />
William Docherty, J. B. Carlin, G. T. Main, James<br />
Grat, Tom Fancher, R. B. Harrison, H. C. Wood,<br />
M. F. Bell, Robert Davidson, J. T. Coshatt, Henry<br />
Ellis, Tom Clark, B. Moshner, Sumpter Allen, A.<br />
D. Cranse. Patrick Campbell, A. H. Reed, C. Moore,<br />
P. P. Green, J. J. Craig.<br />
Mr. Charles Lanier, the banker, who has been<br />
away for three months motoring in Europe, returned<br />
July 19 on the steamship Olympic. Mr.<br />
I>anier said that he found prosperity general, especially<br />
in France and Belgium. "In Belgium,"<br />
he said, "I found their system of mining coal to<br />
be the best in the world. They pile up the coal<br />
in large quantities outside and use it from the<br />
bottom of the pile so that there is never any<br />
great rush in getting coal from the shafts to the<br />
cars. The coal mining system in Belgium is the<br />
cleanest I ever saw."<br />
Mr. W. G. Simpson, of Bellaire, O., receiver of<br />
the J. W. Gorrell Coal Co., operating a mine at<br />
Big Run, a few miles south of Wheeling, W. Va„<br />
sold the property July 20 for $154,000. The<br />
Mound City Coal Co. of Moundsville bought the<br />
property and equipment for $150,000, while the<br />
personal property went to Mr. J. W. Gorrell for<br />
$4,000. Tiie property contains about 1,000 acres<br />
of coal, and was appraised at $133,873. The<br />
Mound City Coal Co. is controlled by Pittsburgh<br />
capital.<br />
In order that miners in every section of the<br />
Pennsylvania bituminous coal region may be made<br />
familiar with the provisions of the "soft coal code"<br />
passed by the recent legislature, 10.000 copies of<br />
the act will be printed, divided among nine different<br />
languages. The greater number will be printed<br />
in English. The others will be in Slavonian,<br />
Russian, Polish, Hungarian, German, Lithunian,<br />
Swedish and Italian.<br />
The Iowa Board of Control contracted for 96,000<br />
tons of coal last week for the use of state institutions.<br />
The bulk of the business went to Iowa<br />
concerns, although Illinois producers will furnish<br />
some of the tonnage.<br />
The Bessemer Coke Co. has let to Tony Colando,<br />
of Latrobe, the contract to build 200 rectangular<br />
or "push" coke ovens at Masontown, Pa., the total<br />
amount involved being $45,000.<br />
The Birch Coal & Coke Co., of Sutton, W. Va.,<br />
and of which Mr. John D. Sutton is president, has<br />
increased its authorized capital from $100,000 to<br />
$200,000.
ORE SHIPMENTS DURING JUNE.<br />
Iron ore shipments during June were 4,826,505<br />
gross tons as against 7,316,592 gross tons for June,<br />
1910, a decrease of 2,490,087 gross tons. The<br />
movement to July 1 of the present year was 8,842.-<br />
908 gross tons as against 14,918,258 gross tons for<br />
the corresponding period last year, a decrease of<br />
6,075,350 tons. It will of course not be difficult<br />
to overtake this lead if conditions of trade improve.<br />
Conditions are improving slowly, as<br />
noted by the fact that the June movement was 1,-<br />
141,686 tons greater than the May movement,<br />
when 3,684,819 tons were moved. Following are<br />
the ore shipments by ports:<br />
Port. June, 191U. June, 1911.<br />
Escanaba 767,618 538,168<br />
Marquette 533,358 314,807<br />
Ashland 708,24S 394,555<br />
Superior 1,321,877 1,635,651<br />
Duluth 2,567,077 1,102,979<br />
Two Harbors 1,418,414 840,345<br />
Total 7,316,592 4,826,505<br />
1911 decrease 2,490,087<br />
To July 1, To July 1,<br />
Port. 1910. 1911.<br />
Escanaba 1,739,735 1,067,708<br />
Marquette 1,150,244 533,738<br />
Ashland . .'. 1,515,555 662,412<br />
Superior 2,632,835 2,951,490<br />
Duluth 5,097,262 2,050,134<br />
Two Harbors 2,782,627 1,577,426<br />
Total 14.918,258 8,842,908<br />
1911 decrease 6,075,350<br />
KOKOAL'S NEW OFFICERS.<br />
At the recent annual powwow of the Order Ko-<br />
Koal, in Minneapolis, the following eleven imperial<br />
sentries were chosen:<br />
Imperial Modoc, Arthur M. Hull, Chicago; Imperial<br />
Baron, Daniel Howard, Clarksburg. Va.;<br />
Imperial Baronel, E. E. Springer, Spokane, Wash.;<br />
Imperial Baronet, Arch Coleman, Minneapolis;<br />
Imperial Pictor, Charles E. Lester, Philadelphia;<br />
Imperial Mazuma, John Craig, Assumption, 111.;<br />
Imperial Gazook, C. K. Skull, Philadelphia; Imperial<br />
Pit Boss, J. S. Van Epps, Cleveland, O.;<br />
Imperial Acolyte, A. L. Snow, Omaha; Imperial<br />
Swatta, W. H. Terrell, Chattanooga, Tenn.; Imperial<br />
Spotta, Homer H. Allen, Erie, Pa.<br />
The report of Imperial Pictor Charles E. Lester<br />
showed that 221 new members were received during<br />
the year and that 18 deaths occurred. The<br />
balance on hand after all bills had been paid was<br />
$350.97. The location of the next powwow city<br />
was left to the sentries.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
Mr. Francis M. Osborne, of Cleveland, O., died<br />
at 6 o'clock July 15, in St. Vincent's Hospital, Toledo,<br />
O., after he had collapsed on a Lake Shore<br />
train. Mr. Osborne dropped unconscious in a<br />
Pullman drawing room at 11.30 o'clock P. M.,<br />
July 14, three-quarters of an hour after he had<br />
left Cleveland with his wife. He did not recover<br />
consciousness and a physician and ambulance met<br />
the train at Toledo. He was hurried to the hospital<br />
from the train. His death was caused by a<br />
cerebral hemorrhage. Mrs. Osborne was on her<br />
way west to visit her sister, Mrs. R. G. Miller,<br />
whose home is at 1940 East Eighty-second street,<br />
Colorado Springs, Col., and her husband was to<br />
have taken her as far as Chicago. After he collapsed<br />
his wife called aid and accompanied him<br />
to the hospital, where she remained until he died.<br />
In addition to his widow he is survived by two<br />
daughters, Mildred and Dorothy, now touring in<br />
France. He was born at Girard, Trumbull county,<br />
Ohio, March 12, 1855, and was a first cousin of<br />
President William McKinley. The mothers of Osborne<br />
and McKinley were sisters, members of the<br />
Allison family. As a boy Mr. Osborne worked<br />
around the steel mills at Girard and in a coal mine<br />
at Palmyra, O., going to Cleveland as a bookkeeper<br />
in the late seventies. He branched out into the<br />
coal business for himself, first by operating a<br />
small mine at Palmyra. Gradually the interests<br />
of Mr. Osborne spread out. In the nineties he<br />
had begun to rank with the larger operators and in<br />
1898, at a time when he was operating the West<br />
Newton (Pa.) mines, he was instrumental in forming<br />
the Pittsburgh Coal Co. He was first president<br />
of that company and served two years, until<br />
he resigned to form the $1,500,000 Youghiogheny<br />
& Ohio Coal Co., of which he was president. Six<br />
years ago Mr. Osborne was one of the founders of<br />
the Pittsburgh Vein Operators' Association, of<br />
which he was president until he resigned six<br />
months ago. At the time of his death Mr. Osborne<br />
was president of 12 corporations and director in<br />
nearly as many more. He was at the head of the<br />
Youghiogheny & Ohio Co., the Beaver Dam Coal<br />
Co.. the Big Vein Coal Co., the E. N. Boggs Coal<br />
Co., the Gilchrist Transportation Co., the Globe<br />
Steamship Co., the Lake Shore Transit Co., the<br />
Lisbon Coal Co., the Lorain Steamship Co. and the<br />
Trumbull & Mahoning Water Co.<br />
Capt. Alfred M. Ogle, Sr., a prominent Indiana<br />
coal operator, and president of the Vandalia Coal<br />
Co.. one of the largest in the state, died at Indianapolis,<br />
Ind., July 22, after an illness of about two<br />
months. Mr. Ogle was a graduate of West Point<br />
Military Academy and had seen service in the regular<br />
army. He was engaged in the coal business
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
for over 25 years, <strong>org</strong>anizing the Island Coal Co.<br />
in 1884. Mr. Ogle was president of that company<br />
until 1905, when he retired to accept the<br />
presidency of the Vandalia Coal Co. Mr. Ogle<br />
is survived by six sons, the oldest, Alfred M., Jr.,<br />
being vice president of the Monon Coal Co., with<br />
headquarters at Terre Haute, Ind.<br />
William W. White, son of the founder of the<br />
coal firm of John R. White & Son, Providence, R.<br />
I., died in that city July 19 at the age of 70. He<br />
had been identified with the local trade for almost<br />
50 years.<br />
New Central Coal Co., New York City; capital,<br />
$1,000,000; incorporators, Frank W. Cumminsky<br />
and Alexander Campbell, of Brooklyn; William<br />
Fairlie, Newark, N. J.; Duncan Sinclair, Fairmont,<br />
and Malcolm Baxter, New York.<br />
Crown Coal & Coke Co., Logan, W. Va., to develop<br />
coal lands and manufacture coke; capital, $50,000;<br />
incorporators, John Lax, Fred Raybould, Plummer<br />
Lax, Eliza Lax and Maud Raybould, all of Nelsonville,<br />
Ohio.<br />
Coopers Creek Coal Co., Charleston, W. Va.;<br />
capital, $10,000; incorporators, S. A. Moore, C. F.<br />
Teter and E. M. Moore, of Philippi, W. Va.; and<br />
Grant Copenhaver and O. D. Strader, of Big Chimney,<br />
W. Va.<br />
The Murray & Hemlock Coal Co., Murray City.<br />
O.; capital, $20,000; incorporators, Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. Van<br />
Sickle, Ge<strong>org</strong>e H. Brooker, Fred Sanborn, Charles<br />
Seidenfeld and Louis N. Seidenfeld.<br />
Clear Fork Coal & Land Co., Beckley, W. Va.;<br />
capital, $50,000; incorporators, W. H. File, I. E.<br />
Stansbury, F. W. File, M. R. Dougherty and Ashton<br />
File, all of Beckley, W. Va.<br />
Victoria Coal Co., Norristown, Pa.; capital, $20,-<br />
000; incorporators, C. H. Aldorfer, Freas Styer,<br />
C. Henry Stenson, Joseph S. Ramba, and J. F.<br />
Ebert, all of Norristown, Pa.<br />
Raridan & East Brady Coal Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.;<br />
capital, $5,000; incorporators, J. H. Thompson and<br />
James C. Gray, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Ray Rose,<br />
Sewickley, Pa.<br />
Star Pressed Fuel Manufacturing Co., Arizona;<br />
capital, $300,0110; certified in Indiana for $10,000;<br />
to manufacture coal briquettes; Robert M. Engle,<br />
president.<br />
Mr. William M. Smith, aged 61 years, vice president<br />
and general manager of the Commercial Coal<br />
Electric. Coal & Mining Co., McAlester, Okla.;<br />
Mining Co., and one of the best known coal men<br />
capital, $10(1,000; incorporators, J. E. LeBosquet,<br />
Henry LeBosquet and \\~. H. H. Clayton, Jr., all of<br />
in Cambria county. Pa., died very suddenly July<br />
20 at his home at Ebensburg, Pa. Paralysis was<br />
McAlester.<br />
the immediate cause of his death. Mr. Smith American Timber & Coal Co., Cincinnati; capi<br />
was for many years connected with the Mitchell tal, $1,000,000; incorporators, E. C. Buck, Thomas<br />
Coal & Coke Co. He was a recognized authority M. Stewart, and Ge<strong>org</strong>e H. Black, all of Cincinnati.<br />
on Cambria county coal lands.<br />
North Somerville Coal Co., Somerville and Medford,<br />
Mass.; capital, $5,000; incorporators, John<br />
Hinds, Edward F. Welch, Michael E. Hussey.<br />
Deep Fourth Vein Coal Co., West Terre Haute,<br />
Ind.; capital, $10,000; producers; directors, John<br />
R. Connelly, J. W. Manson and R. J. Smith.<br />
Higgins-Martin Coal Co., Terre Haute, Ind.;<br />
Mrs. Stineman, wife of ex-Senator J. C. Stinecapital,<br />
$20,000; producers; directors, J. J. Higman,<br />
and mother of Mr. W. I. Stineman, of South gins, O. H. Martin and G. W. Higgins.<br />
Fork, Pa., died suddenly at her home recently. Sorento Colliery Co., Chicago, 111.; capital, $2,-<br />
The interment was at South Fork.<br />
500; coal and fuel; incorporators, W. R. Tapper,<br />
T. J. Hudson and Ge<strong>org</strong>e Erickson.<br />
The Warrick County Coal Co., Evansville, Ind.;<br />
capital, $10,000; directors, Henry Korff, Sr., Walter<br />
Korff and others.<br />
Millie Bell Coal Co., Monticello, Ky.; capital, $7,-<br />
500; incorporators, Rex G. Carpenter, F. L. Baker<br />
and John A. Veach.<br />
Rock Run Coal Co., Coshocton, O.; capital, $15,-<br />
000; incorporators, J. A. Hanlon and others.<br />
The Pittsburgh & Western Coal Co., of Akron,<br />
O., changes its name to the Acorn Coal Co.<br />
Mine rescue carcue car No. 7 of the U. S. Bureau<br />
of Mines carrying a number of experts is on a<br />
tour through the Western Pennsylvania region.<br />
Demonstrations and instructions in first aid and<br />
rescue work are being given to the miners. The<br />
car is being followed by an expert first aid man<br />
who is visiting the towns in which the car stopped<br />
for the purpose of <strong>org</strong>anizing and training men in<br />
this work. The schedule called for the trip to<br />
extend from July 19 to August 1. The following<br />
towns were visited: Smithton, West Newton, Whitsett,<br />
McDonald and Carnegie.<br />
J. Blair Kennerly of Philadelphia aas purchased<br />
1,790 of the 2,000 shares of the Valley Coal & Stone<br />
Co., Johnstown, Pa., and has completely re<strong>org</strong>anized<br />
the company. The mines of the company last<br />
year produced 179,789 tons of coal.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
TEXT OF NEW BITUMINOUS MINING CODE OF PENNSYLVANIA<br />
PASSED BY THE LEGISLATIVE SESSION OF 1911.<br />
(CONTINUED FROM ISSUE OF JULY 15)<br />
ARTICLE VII.<br />
SINKING OF SHAFTS.<br />
Section 1. The operator, superintendent, or<br />
contractor, shall erect over every shaft that is<br />
being sunk, or shall hereafter be sunk, a safe and<br />
substantial structure, to sustain sheaves or pulleys,<br />
ropes and loads at a height of not less<br />
than 20 feet above the tipping place and the top<br />
of such shaft and landing platform shall be ar<br />
ranged in such a manner that no material can<br />
fall into the shaft while the bucket is being<br />
emptied. The said structure shall be erected as<br />
soon as substantial foundation is obtained and<br />
in no case shall a shaft be sunk to a depth of<br />
more than 50 feet without such structure.<br />
Section 2. If provisions are made to land the<br />
bucket on a truck, the said truck and platform<br />
shall be so constructed that material cannot fall<br />
into the shaft.<br />
Section 3. Rock and coal from shafts that are<br />
being sunk shall not be raised except in a<br />
bucket or on a cage, and said bucket or cage<br />
must be connected with the rope by a safety<br />
hook clevis or other safe attachment. The rope<br />
shall be fastened to the side of the drum and<br />
not less than three coils of rope shah always remain<br />
on the drum. If said shafts are 100 feet<br />
or more in depth, they shall be provided with<br />
guides and guide attachments applied in such a<br />
manner as to prevent the bucket from swinging<br />
while being lowered or hoisted, and said guides<br />
and guide attachments shall be maintained at a<br />
distance of not more than 75 fet from the bottom<br />
of the shaft.<br />
Section 4. It shall be the duty of the person<br />
in charge of shaft-sinking for the contractor or<br />
company to see that the sides of all shafts are<br />
properly secured for safety and that no loose rock<br />
or material is allowed to remain on any timber<br />
on top, or on any timber in the shaft after each<br />
blast. Where explosive gas is encountered, the<br />
person in charge shall see that the shaft is examined<br />
before each shift and before the men descend<br />
after each blast, and, also that the place is safe.<br />
In sinking shafts, all blasts must be exploded by<br />
electric battery. Provision must also be made for<br />
the proper ventilation of shafts while being sunk.<br />
Section 5. An efficient brake shall be attached<br />
to every drum of an engine used for sinking<br />
shafts and all machinery, ropes, and chains connected<br />
therewith shall be examined once every<br />
12 hours.<br />
Section 6. Not more than four persons shall<br />
be lowered or hoisted in or on a bucket in any<br />
shaft at one time and no person shall ride on a<br />
loaded bucket.<br />
ARTICLE VIII.<br />
SIGNALING APPARATUS, SAFETY CATCHES, HOISTING<br />
MACHINERY, ROPES. BOILERS AND CONNECTIONS.<br />
Secton 1. The operator, or the superintendent,<br />
shall provide, and hereafter maintain, in good<br />
condition, from the toil to the bottom of every<br />
shaft or slope where persons or material are<br />
lowered or hoisted, a telephone or metal tube of<br />
proper diameter suitably adapted to the free passage<br />
of sound through which conversation may be<br />
held and understood between persons at the top<br />
and the bottom of said shaft or slope, and he<br />
shall also provide means of signaling from the<br />
top to the bottom and from the bottom to the<br />
top of said shaft or slope. The same provisions<br />
shall apply to inside planes, whereon coal is<br />
lowered and persons have to travel, when required<br />
by the inspector. In all gaseous mines<br />
telephone connections shall be made from the<br />
surface to the main section of the mine. All<br />
signaling apparatus and telephone connections<br />
shall be kept in good condition and shall be always<br />
available for service.<br />
The operator, or the superintendent, shall provide<br />
every cage, used for lowering or hoisting<br />
persons, with hand rails at sides or overhead<br />
and with chain bar or gate at ends, and with a<br />
sufficient covering overhead to protect persons<br />
thereon, and shall also provide, for each said<br />
cage, efficient safety catches, which shall be tested<br />
once every two months, and a record of each test<br />
shall be sent to the inspector and to the superintendent<br />
and also recorded, with ink, in a book<br />
kept at the mine office for that purpose. The<br />
ropes shall be securely attached to the sides of<br />
the drum of every machine that is used for lowering<br />
and hoisting persons or material into and<br />
out of the mine and the flanges shall have a<br />
clearance of not less than four inches when the<br />
whole of the rope is wound on the drum, and<br />
adequate brakes shall be attached to the drum<br />
so that the speed thereof can be controlled when<br />
men are being lowered or hoisted. An efficient<br />
indicator, that shall show the position of the<br />
cages in the shaft, shall be attached to the<br />
hoisting apparatus and an efficient safety device<br />
that will prevent overwinding shall be attached<br />
to every engine used for lowering and hoisting<br />
persons.<br />
All shafts shall be provided with safety gates<br />
controlled by the cage at the top and intermediate<br />
landings, said gates to be approved by the<br />
inspector.
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Section 2. The main coupling chain attached<br />
to the socket of the wire rope of every shaft<br />
shall be made of the best quality of iron and<br />
shall be tested by weights or otherwise to the<br />
satisfaction of the inspector, the manner of testing<br />
and the result obtained to be entered in a<br />
book, with ink, with the day and date of the<br />
inspection; and bridle chains of the same quality<br />
of iron shall be attached to the main hoisting<br />
rope three feet above the socket, from the top<br />
cross-piece of the cage, so that no single chain<br />
shall be used for lowering or hoisting persons<br />
into or out of the mine.<br />
Section 3. In shafts where coal is hoisted and<br />
employes lowered into or hoisted from the mine,<br />
the ropes, links, and chains shall be of ample<br />
strength, with a factor of safety of not less than<br />
five to one of the maximum load. In shafts used<br />
exclusively for lowering or hoisting employes and<br />
material, the factor of safety of ropes, links, and<br />
chains shall not be less than 10 to one of the<br />
maximum load. All such ropes, links, and chains<br />
shall be carefully examined at least once every<br />
24 hours by a competent person, delegated for<br />
that purpose by the superintendent, and any defect<br />
therein found by which life and limb may<br />
be endangered shall be reported at once, in writing,<br />
to the superintendent, who shall immediately<br />
proceed to remedy the defect, and until that is<br />
accomplished he shall prohibit any person from<br />
being lowered into, or hoisted from, the mine<br />
by the defective apparatus. The person making<br />
said examination shall keep a daily record of<br />
each inspection, in ink, in a book kept at the<br />
mine office for that purpose, and he shall send a<br />
copy thereof each day to the superintendent.<br />
Section 4. All machinery in and about the<br />
mines, from which any accident would be liable<br />
to occur, shall be properly fenced off by suitable<br />
guard railing.<br />
Section 5. No greater number of persons shall<br />
be lowered or hoisted at any one time than may<br />
be permitted by the inspector, and notice of the<br />
number so allowed to be lowered or hoisted at<br />
any one time shall be kept posted by the operator,<br />
or the superintendent, in conspicuous places<br />
at the top and the bottom of the shaft. The<br />
aforesaid notice shall be signed by the inspector.<br />
The speed of the cage, when lowering or hoisting<br />
persons, shall not exceed 900 feet a minute.<br />
Section 6. All boilers, used for generating<br />
steam in and about the mines, shall be kept in<br />
good condition and the superintendent shall have<br />
them examined and inspected by a duly qualified<br />
person once every six months and the report of<br />
said inspection shall be posted at the mine office.<br />
Section 7. Each boiler shall be provided with<br />
a safety valve of sufficient area for the steam to<br />
escape and with weights or springs properly<br />
adjusted.<br />
Section 8. No boiler used for generating steam<br />
shall be placed, or allowed to remain, inside of<br />
any mine without the consent of the inspector,<br />
which shall be given, in writing, to the superintendent,<br />
and if the inspector allows said boiler<br />
to be placed inside the mine it shall be enclosed<br />
in a fire-proof building within 50 feet of the<br />
bottom of an upcast shaft, which shaft shall not<br />
be less than 35 square feet in area.<br />
Section 9. Every boiler house shall be provided<br />
with a sufficient number of steam gauges,<br />
which shall be properly connected with the boilers,<br />
to indicate the pressure of steam to the firemen,<br />
outside foreman, or superintendent, and<br />
another steam gauge shall be attached to the<br />
main steam pipe in the engine house, so that<br />
the hoisting engineer can readily examine it.<br />
ARTICLE IX.<br />
VENTILATION.<br />
Section 1. The operator, or the superintendent,<br />
of every mine shall provide and maintain ample<br />
means of ventilation to furnish a constant and adequate<br />
supply of pure air for the employes. In a<br />
non-gaseous mine the minimum quantity of air<br />
shall not be less than 150 cubic feet per minute for<br />
each person employed. In a mine wherein explosive<br />
gas is being generated in such quantities<br />
that it can be detected by an approved safety lamp,<br />
the minimum quantity of air shall not be less than<br />
200 cubic feet per minute for each person employed<br />
therein, and as much more in either case<br />
as one or more of the inspectors may deem requisite.<br />
The return air from each split, where from<br />
70 to 90 persons are employed, shall be conducted<br />
by an overcast, or an undercast. into the return<br />
airway, which shall lead to the main outlet.<br />
The ventilation shall be conducted through the<br />
main entries, cross entries, and to the working<br />
faces of all working places in the mine, in sufficient<br />
quantities to dilute, carry off, and render<br />
harmless, the smoke and the noxious and dangerous<br />
gases generated therein to such an extent that<br />
all working places and traveling roads shall be in<br />
a safe and healthy condition for the persons working<br />
and traveling therein.<br />
No permanent door shall be erected or allowed to<br />
remain in the main entry in any mine, unless its<br />
removal shall be deemed impracticable by the inspector.<br />
Section 2. Where five, or more, persons are employed<br />
at any one time in a mine, it shall be the<br />
duty of the oiierator, or the superintendent, to<br />
provide ample ventilation in accordance with section<br />
1 of this article: Provided, that, it shall not<br />
be lawful to use a furnace for ventilating any mine<br />
wherein explosive gas is being generated.<br />
Six months after the passage of this act, not<br />
more than 70 persons shall be permitted to work<br />
in the same continuous air current, unless, in the
judgment of the inspector of the district, it is<br />
impracticable to comply with this requirement, in<br />
which case a larger number, not exceeding 90 persons,<br />
may be permitted to work therein.<br />
Section 3. The mine foreman shall see that<br />
proper cut-throughs are made in all the room pillars,<br />
at such distances apart as, in the judgment<br />
of the inspector, may be deemed requisite, not<br />
more than 35. nor less than 16, yards each for the<br />
purpose of ventilation.<br />
Section 4. The quantity of air passing a given<br />
point shall be ascertained by an anemometer, the<br />
measurements to be taken by the mine foreman<br />
once every week, at, or near, the main inlet and<br />
outlet airway in the mine, and, also, at the last<br />
cut-through in the last room and in the entry<br />
beyond the last room turned. Said measurements<br />
shall be taken on days when the men are at work.<br />
Section 5. In all mines, all new stoppings in<br />
cut-throughs between the main intake and return<br />
airways shall be substantially built of masonry,<br />
concrete, or other incornbustible material, and<br />
shall be of ample strength; and in mines generating<br />
explosive gas all new stoppings and renewals<br />
of old stoppings in cross entries shall be built of<br />
masonry, concrete, or other incombustible material.<br />
Stoppings in cross entries in non-gaseous mines<br />
may be built of timber. All stoppings shall be<br />
kept in good condition so as to keep the air up<br />
to the working faces. Temporary stoppings shall<br />
be erected in cut-throughs in rooms to conduct the<br />
ventilation to the face of each room and such<br />
stoppings may be constructed of timber or brattice<br />
cloth.<br />
Section 6. Every ventilating fan at non-gaseous<br />
mines shall be kept in operation continuously, day<br />
and night, unless operations are definitely sus-<br />
\ " pended, except when written permission is given<br />
.--:---:<strong>•</strong><strong>•</strong> by the inspector to stop it. The said permission,<br />
or a copy thereof, shall be posted by the mine<br />
foreman in a conspicuous place at the entrance,<br />
or entrances, to the mine and shall state the particular<br />
hours the fan may be stopped. The inspector<br />
shall have tbe power to withdraw', or modify,<br />
such permission at any time and in any manner<br />
he may deem best. In all cases, however, the<br />
fan shall be started two hours before the time to<br />
begin work. Every ventilating fan at gaseous<br />
mines shall be kept in operation continuously,<br />
day and night, unless operations are definitely suspended:<br />
Provided, that, should it at any time<br />
become necessary to stop the fan at any mine<br />
(gaseous or non-gaseous) on account of accident<br />
to part of the machinery connected therewith, or<br />
by reason of any other unavoidable cause, it shall<br />
then be the duty of the mine foreman, or the<br />
assistant mine foreman, in charge, after first<br />
having provided for the safety of the persons em<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
ployed in the mine, to order said fan stopped for<br />
necessary repairs.<br />
Every ventilating fan shall be provided with a<br />
recording instrument by which the number of<br />
revolutions, or the effective ventilating pressure,<br />
of the fan shall be registered and the registration<br />
for each day, with the date thereof, shall be kept<br />
in the office at the mine, for future reference, for<br />
one year.<br />
No main or principal ventilating fan shall be<br />
placed inside of any mine. No auxiliary fan, unless<br />
driven by electricity or compressed air, shall<br />
be placed in any mine. If the fan be electrically<br />
driven, the motor shall be placed in the intake<br />
airway.<br />
Every ventilating furnace in a mine shall be<br />
properly attended to and operated by a competent<br />
person employed by the mine foreman for that<br />
purpose for two hours before the appointed time<br />
to begin work, and constantly thereafter during<br />
working hours.<br />
Section 7. In every mine, all new air bridges,<br />
overcasts, or undercasts, shall be substantially<br />
built of masonry, concrete, or other incombustible<br />
material of ample strength, or shall be driven<br />
through the solid strata. It shall be the duty of<br />
the mine foreman to see that these bridges are<br />
properly built and are of ample strength.<br />
Section 8. In every mine, the doors used for<br />
guiding and directing the ventilation shall be so<br />
hung and adjusted that they will close of themselves,<br />
or shall be supplied with springs ir pulleys<br />
so that they cannot remain open. All principal<br />
doors shall be so placed that, when one door<br />
is open, another which has the same effect upon<br />
the same current, shall be closed and remain<br />
closed to prevent any stoppage of the air current.<br />
An attendant shall be employed at each principal<br />
door (that is the door that controls the main air<br />
current in the entries) through which cars are<br />
hauled for the purpose of opening and closing it<br />
for the employes and cars to pass in and out from<br />
the workings, unless a self-acting door approved<br />
by the inspector is used. A hole for shelter shall<br />
De provided at each door to protect the attendant<br />
from danger from cars while performing his duties.<br />
Persons employed for this purpose shall remain at<br />
the doors at all times during working hours: Provided,<br />
that, the same attendant may attend two<br />
doors, if his absence from the first door does not<br />
endanger the safety of the employes. At every<br />
door, on any incline plane, or road whereon haulage<br />
is .done by machinery, an attendant shall always<br />
be on duty during working hours and at<br />
every door on said plane, or road, an extra door<br />
shall be provided for use in case of necessity.<br />
Wherever a principal door is placed, an extra door<br />
shall also be provided to be used in case of necessity.
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Section 9. No product of petroleum or alcohol<br />
or any compound, that, in the opinion of the inspector,<br />
will contaminate the air to such an extent<br />
as to be injurious to the health of the miner,<br />
shall be used as motive power in any mine.<br />
Section 10. If any person shall construct, or<br />
cause to be constructed, or used, or permit to be<br />
used, from and after the date of the passage of<br />
this act, any sewer, or other method of drainage,<br />
from any building, or dwelling house, for the<br />
carrying of sewage offal, refuse, or other offensive<br />
matter into any operating mine, or any entry way,<br />
passage, or room in any mine (such entry way,<br />
passage or room being used for ventilating or<br />
drainage purposes or for a traveling way), such<br />
person shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and,<br />
upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to a<br />
fine not exceeding $1,000 and undergo an imprisonment<br />
not exceeding one year, either or both at the<br />
discretion of the court.<br />
ARTICLE X.<br />
LOCKED SAFETY LAMPS AND OPEN LIGHTS; DEFINING<br />
WHEN EITHER, OR BOTn, CAN BE USED.<br />
Section 1. The use of open lights is prohibited<br />
,n any entry, airway, traveling way, room, or any<br />
other working place, where explosive gas is being<br />
generated in such quantity as can be detected by<br />
an approved safety lamp; also, in pillar workings<br />
where a sudden inflow of explosive gas is likely<br />
to be encountered, and all such places' shall be<br />
worked exclusively with locked safety lamps. The<br />
use of open lights is also prohibited in all working<br />
places, roadways, or other portions of the<br />
mine, through which explosive gas might be carried<br />
in the air current in quantities indicating<br />
danger: Provided, however, that, if the inspector<br />
is of the opinion that any mine, or any portion of<br />
any mine, should be operated by the use of locked<br />
safety lamps exclusively, he shall have the right to<br />
petition the Chief of the Department of Mines in<br />
writing, setting forth such opinion and his reasons<br />
therefor. Whereupon, the said Chief shall,<br />
forthwith, instruct two or more other inspectors<br />
to accompany the inspector of the district to make<br />
a further thorough examination into the matter<br />
in dispute and of all workings of said mine,<br />
whether in active operation or not. The said<br />
committee of inspectors' shall, within seven days<br />
of their appointment, make a report, in writing,<br />
to the Chief of the Department of Mines and to<br />
the superintendent, general manager, operator, or<br />
owner of said mine, giving the conclusions arrived<br />
at, with their reasons therefor; and the decision<br />
of said committee shall be final and conclusive,<br />
unless the superintendent, general manager,<br />
operator, or owner shall, within seven days<br />
of the receipt thereof, appeal from such decision<br />
to the court of quarter sessions of the county in<br />
which the mine is located. Whereupon, the court,<br />
or a judge of said court in chambers, shall forthwith<br />
appoint four practical, reputable, and competent<br />
persons, two of whom shall be recommended<br />
by the superintendent, general manager, operator,<br />
or owner, and the other two by the Chief of the<br />
Department of Mines, and the four persons thus<br />
recommended shall name a fifth person, who also<br />
must be practical, reputable, and equally competent,<br />
and the five persons so named, none of whom<br />
shall be in the employ of the operator, operating<br />
company, or any of its officers, or of the State Department<br />
of Mines, shall constitute a commission<br />
to investigate and report on the matter in dispute:<br />
Provided, however, in case any or all of said four<br />
persons' are not recommended by a writing filed in<br />
said court within seven days after the appeal is<br />
filed, that, then the said court shall fill the vacancy,<br />
or vacancies, by the appointment of a practical,<br />
reputable, and competent person, or persons,<br />
and, in case the four persons thus chosen<br />
shall not agree, in writing, upon the fifth person<br />
of this commission within five days after they<br />
nave received notice of their appointment, then<br />
the said court shall appoint the said fifth person<br />
on this commission. The duty of said commission<br />
of five persons shall be, under the instruction<br />
of the court, to forthwith examine said mine, or<br />
a portion thereof, and report under oath, within<br />
10 days after their appointment, the facts' as they<br />
exist and the conditions pertaining thereto, and,<br />
based upon such conditions and facts, the decision<br />
of a majority on the matter in dispute and<br />
their report and decision shall be final and conclusive,<br />
unless exceptions thereto shall be filed by<br />
tne superintendent, general manager, operator or<br />
owner, or the Chief of the Department of Mines,<br />
within seven days of the filing of said commission's<br />
report. If exceptions are filed the court<br />
shall at once hear, and, upon testimony taken<br />
thereon, determine them and enter a decree in<br />
accordance with such determination: Provided,<br />
that, the superintendent, general manager, operator,<br />
owner or Chief of the Department of Mines<br />
shall thereafter have the right to have the record<br />
and proceedings removed to the supreme court for<br />
review by appeal or writ of error.<br />
Section 2. If said court of quarter sessions sustains<br />
the decision of the committee of inspectors<br />
and said court's decree is not appealed from, or,<br />
if, on appeal, the supreme court finally sustains<br />
the decision of the inspectors, then the appellant<br />
from said decision of the committee of inspectors<br />
shall pay all costs of such proceedings, but, if the<br />
said court of quarter sessions or the supreme<br />
court, shall not sustain the decision of the committee<br />
of inspectors, then all costs shall be paid<br />
by the Commonwealth: Provided, however, that,<br />
any and all appeals from any decision made by<br />
the committee of inspectors, or made by the com-
mittee appointed by the court of quarter sessions,<br />
shall work as a supersedeas to such decision during<br />
the pendency of such appeal, either to the<br />
court of quarter sessions or to the supreme court.<br />
Section 3. The use of open lights is strictly prohibited<br />
in the return air current of any portion of<br />
a mine that is ventilated by the same continuous<br />
air current that ventilates any other portion of<br />
said mine in which locked safety lamps are used.<br />
The provisions of this section shall not apply to<br />
any mine wherein explosive gas is generated only<br />
at the face of active entries.<br />
Section 4. If, at any time, one portion of a<br />
mine is worked by the use of locked safety lamps,<br />
while another portion is worked by the use of<br />
open lights, the return air from the gaseous portion<br />
shall be conducted directly into a return airway<br />
leading to the fan or to the outlet: Provided,<br />
that, when a portion of a mine is worked by the<br />
use of locked safety lamps and other portions are<br />
worked by the use of open lights, it shall be the<br />
duty of the mine foreman to provide a suitable<br />
danger station, with an attendant on duty at all<br />
times during working hours, day and night, whose<br />
duty it shall be to see that the employes from the<br />
open light portion are not allowed to enter the<br />
locked safety lamp portion unless they are provided<br />
with locked safety lamps by said attendant.<br />
Section 5. The employes of a gaseous mine, or<br />
any portion thereof, are strictly prohibited from<br />
traveling into or out of the mine in tne return air<br />
current, if explosive gas can be detected by an<br />
approved safety lamp in said air current.<br />
Section 6. When safety lamps are used, the position<br />
of the lamp station for lighting or relighting<br />
shall not he in the return air current.<br />
Section 7. Nothing in this article shall interfere<br />
with the discretionary powers of inspectors,<br />
as provided for in article 20.<br />
Section 8. Whenever safety lamps are used in<br />
a mine by fire bosses, or other persons, they shall<br />
be so constructed that they may be safely carried<br />
against the air current ordinarily prevailing in<br />
that portion of the mine in which the lamps' are<br />
being used.<br />
Section 9. All safety lamps used for examining<br />
mines, or for working therein, shall be the property<br />
of the operator and shall be in the care of<br />
the mine foreman, assistant mine foreman, fire<br />
boss, or some other competent person, or persons,<br />
appointed by the mine foreman, whose duty it<br />
shall be to clean, fill, trim, examine, light, and<br />
deliver them, locked and in a safe condition, to the<br />
men when entering the mine, and to receive the<br />
lamps' from the men when returning from work,<br />
for which services a charge, not exceeding the<br />
actual cost of labor and material, may be made by<br />
the operator. At any mine wherein explosive<br />
gas was generated within one year before the<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
passage of this act, in sufficient quantities to be<br />
detected by an approved safety lamp, a sufficient<br />
number of safety lamps, not less than one-fourth<br />
of the number of safety lamps in use, shall be<br />
kept in a convenient place and in good condition<br />
for use in case of emergency. It shall be the<br />
duty of every person who knows that his safety<br />
lamp is injured or defective, to return it immediately<br />
and report such fact to the person authorized<br />
to receive and care for said lamp, who shall<br />
report the matter to the mine foreman, assistant<br />
mine foreman, or fire boss, as soon as practicable.<br />
ARTICLE XI.<br />
SPECIAL RULES FOR THE INSTALLATION OF ELECTRICITY.<br />
The following rules shall be observed, as far as<br />
is reasonably practicable, in the mines:<br />
DEFINITIONS.<br />
Potential—The terms "Potential" and "Voltage"<br />
are synonymous and mean electrical pressure.<br />
Difference of Potential—The expression "Difference<br />
of Potential" means the difference of electrical<br />
pressure existing between any two points of<br />
an electrical system or between any point of such<br />
a system and the earth as determined by a volt<br />
meter.<br />
Potential of a Circuit—The potential or voltage<br />
of a circuit machine or any piece of electrical apparatus<br />
is the potential normally existing between<br />
the conductors of such circuit or the terminals<br />
of such machine or apparatus.<br />
(a) Where the conditions of the supply of electricity<br />
are such that the difference in potential between<br />
any points of the circuit cannot exceed 300<br />
volts' the supply shall be deemed a low voltage<br />
supply.<br />
(b) Where the conditions of the supply of electricity<br />
are such that the difference of the potential<br />
between any two points in the circuit may at any<br />
time exceed 300 volts, but cannot exceed 650 volts,<br />
the supply shall be deemed a medium voltage supply.<br />
(c) Where the conditions of the supply of electricity<br />
are such that the difference of potential between<br />
any two points in the circuit may at any<br />
time exceed 650 volts the supply shall be deemed<br />
a high voltage supply.<br />
Grounding—Grounding any part of an electric<br />
system shall consist in so connecting such part to<br />
the earth that there shall be no difference of potential<br />
between them.<br />
Explosion or Flame Proof—Explosion or flame<br />
proof casings, or enclosures, are those which, w.hen<br />
completely filled with a mixture of methane and<br />
air, and the same exploded, are capable of either<br />
entirely confining the products of such explosion<br />
within the casing or of so discharging them from<br />
the casing that they cannot ignite a mixture of<br />
methane and air combined in proportions most<br />
sensitive to ignition and entirely surrounding the
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
points of discharge and in most intimate proximity<br />
therewith.<br />
Underground Station—An underground station<br />
is herein considered as any place where electrical<br />
machinery is permanently installed.<br />
Section 1.—General Capacity, Installation, et<br />
cetera.<br />
1. All electrical apparatus and conductors shall<br />
be sufficient in size and power for the work they<br />
may be called upon to do, and, as hereinafter prescribed,<br />
efficiently covered or safeguarded and so<br />
installed, worked, and maintained as to reduce<br />
danger from accidental shock or fire to the minimum,<br />
and shall be of such construction and so<br />
worked that the rise in temperature caused by<br />
ordinary working will not injure the insulating<br />
materials.<br />
2. For work underground, when supplied wdth<br />
current at a voltage higher than medium voltage,<br />
no transformer shall have a normal capacity of<br />
less than five kilowatts, nor shall a motor have a<br />
normal capacity of less than 15 brake horse power.<br />
Grounding—<br />
3. All metallic coverings, armoring of cables,<br />
other than trailing cables, and, where installed<br />
underground, the frames and bed plates of generators,<br />
transformers, and motors, other than low<br />
voltage portable motors, shall be efficiently<br />
grounded as shall also the neutral wire of threewire<br />
continuous current systems.<br />
Voltage Restrictions—<br />
4. Motors of coal cutting and other portable<br />
machines and of electric locomotives shall not be<br />
used at a voltage higher than medium voltage.<br />
5. No higher voltage than medium voltage shall<br />
be used underground except for transmission, or<br />
for application to transformers, or other apparatus,<br />
in which the whole of the high voltage circuit<br />
is stationary.<br />
6. In gaseous mines, high voltage transmission<br />
cables shall be installed in the intake airways<br />
only, and high voltage motors and transformers<br />
shall be installed only in suitable chambers ventilated<br />
by the intake air which has not passed<br />
through or by a gaseous district.<br />
7. All high voltage machines, apparatus', and<br />
lines shall be so marked as to clearly indicate that<br />
they are dangerous, by the use of the word, "Danger,"<br />
placed at frequent intervals.<br />
Ground Detectors—<br />
S. All underground systems of distribution that<br />
are completely insulated from earth shall be equipped<br />
with properly installed ground detectors of<br />
suitable design.<br />
The condition of such system as indicated by the<br />
ground detector shall be noted each day by the per<br />
son in charge of the underground wiring, or by<br />
another competent person, who shall immediately<br />
report to him the occurrence of a ground.<br />
Switchboards—<br />
9. Main and distribution switch and fuse boards<br />
shall be made of incombustible insulating material,<br />
such as marble or slate, free from metallic<br />
veins and be fixed in as dry a situation as practicable.<br />
Precaution Against Shock—<br />
10. Gloves, or mats of rubber, or other suitable<br />
insulating material, shall be provided and used by<br />
persons so engaged, when repairs are made to the<br />
live parts of any electrical apparatus or when the<br />
live parts' of electrical apparatus have to be handled<br />
for the purpose of adjustment.<br />
Electrician—<br />
11. At every mine where electricity is used below<br />
ground for power, there shall be employed a<br />
competent mine electrician, who shall have full<br />
charge of the electrical apparatus in the mine, but<br />
shall be subject to the authority of the mine foreman.<br />
12. Any person who shall wilfully damage, or<br />
without authority alter, or make connections, to<br />
any portion of a mine electrical system shall be<br />
guilty of a misdemeanor.<br />
Restoration from Shock—<br />
13. Instructions shall be posted in every generating,<br />
transforming, and motor room, and at<br />
entrance to the mine, containing directions as to<br />
the restoration of persons suffering from electric<br />
snock and all employes working in connection with<br />
electrical apparatus shall be familiar with, and<br />
know how to carry out these instructions.<br />
Plan of Electrical System—<br />
14. A plan shall be kept at the mine showing<br />
the location of all stationary electrical apparatus<br />
in connection with the mine electrical system, including<br />
permanent cables, conductors, lights,<br />
switches, and trolley lines. The plan shall be of<br />
sufficient size to show clearly the position of such<br />
apparatus and the scale shall not be less than 200<br />
feet per inch. There shall be stated, on the plan,<br />
the capacity, in horse power, of each motor, and,<br />
in kilowatts, of each generator or transformer and<br />
the nature of its duty. Such plans shall be corrected<br />
as often as may be necessary to keep them<br />
up to date, at intervals not exceeding six months.<br />
Report of Defective Equipment—<br />
15. In the event of a breakdown or of damage<br />
or injury to any portion of the electrical equipment<br />
in a mine, or of overheating, or of the appearance<br />
of sparks or arcs outside of enclosing casings',<br />
or in the event of any portion of the equipment,<br />
not a part of the electrical circuit, becoming alive.<br />
every such occurrence shall be promptly reported<br />
to the person in charge of electrical equipment.<br />
Section 2.—Underground Stations and Transformer<br />
Rooms.<br />
Switchboards—<strong>•</strong><br />
16. All switches, circuit breakers, rheostats',
fuses, and instruments, used in connection with<br />
underground motor-generators, rotary converters,<br />
high voltage motors, transformers, and low and<br />
medium voltage motors of more than 50 horse<br />
power capacity, shall be installed upon a suitable<br />
switchboard. Similar equipment for low and medium<br />
voltage motors of 50 horse power and less,<br />
may be separately installed if mounted upon insulating<br />
bases of slate or equivalent insulating material.<br />
17. In underground stations where switchboards<br />
are installed, there shall be a passageway in front<br />
of the switchboard not less than three feet in<br />
width, and, if there are any high voltage connec<br />
tions at the back of the switchboard, any passageway<br />
behind the switchboard shall not be less than<br />
three feet clear.<br />
18. The space at the back of the switchboards<br />
shall be properly floored, accessible from each end,<br />
and, in the case of high voltage switchboards, shall<br />
be kept locked up, but the lock shall allow of the<br />
door being opened from the inside without the use<br />
of a key. The floor at the back of high voltage<br />
boards shall be incombustible.<br />
19. Where the supply is at a voltage exceeding<br />
the limits of medium voltage, there shall be no<br />
live metal work on the front of the main switchboard<br />
within seven feet of the floor, or platform,<br />
and ihe space provided under rule 17 of this section<br />
shall not be less than four feet in the clear.<br />
Insulating floors, or mats, shall be provided for<br />
medium voltage boards where live metal work is<br />
on the front.<br />
Protection of Circuits Leading Underground—<br />
20. In every completely insulated feeder circuit<br />
in excess of 25 kilowatts capacity leading underground<br />
and operating at a potential not exceeding<br />
the limits of medium voltage, there shall be<br />
provided above ground a switch on each pole and<br />
an automatic overload circuit breaker on at least<br />
one pole, in the case of direct current circuits, and<br />
on at least two poles of polyphase alternating current<br />
circuits. In case of ground return direct<br />
current circuits, a switch and circuit breaker<br />
shall be installed in the undergrounded side of the<br />
circuit, but may be omitted from the return side.<br />
Fuses may be substituted for circuit breakers in<br />
circuits transmitting 25 kilowatts or less. Each<br />
circuit leading underground shall be provided with<br />
a suitable ammeter.<br />
21. Every alternating current feeder circuit<br />
leading underground and operating at a potential<br />
exceeding the limits of medium voltage, shall be<br />
provided above ground with an oil break switch<br />
on each pole; such switch, or switches, to be<br />
equipped with an automatic overload trip. Each<br />
such circuit shall also be provided with a suitable<br />
ammeter.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
Transformer Rooms—<br />
22. Transformer rooms shall be of fire-proof<br />
construction.<br />
23. Where the potential of circuits entering or<br />
leaving a transformer exceeds the limits of medium<br />
voltage, they shall be protected by an oil<br />
break switch on each pole; each such switch or<br />
switches to be equipped with an automatic overload<br />
trip.<br />
24. Where the potential of circuits entering or<br />
leaving a transformer does not exceed the limits<br />
of medium voltage, they shall be protected by a<br />
switch and an automatic circuit breaker on each<br />
pole, except that fuses may be substituted foi the<br />
circuit breakers in the case of lightning circuits<br />
and in the case of power circuits transmitting 25<br />
kilowatts or less.<br />
25. All transformers shall be provided with<br />
suitable ammeter in either the primary or secondary<br />
circuits.<br />
Protection of Machine Terminals—<br />
26. All terminals on machines over medium<br />
voltage underground shall be protected with insulating<br />
covers or with metal covers connected to<br />
earth.<br />
Unauthorized Persons—<br />
27. No person, other than one authorized by the<br />
mine foreman, shall enter a station or transformer<br />
room or interfere with the working of any apparatus<br />
connected therewith.<br />
Fire Buckets—<br />
28. Fire buckets filled with clean dry sand shall<br />
be kept in electrical stations and transformer<br />
rooms ready for immediate use in extinguishing<br />
fires.<br />
Section 3.—Transmission Circuits and Conductors.<br />
Power and Light Circuits—<br />
29. All high pressure wires used inside of the<br />
mines shall be in the form of insulated, lead-covered,<br />
or armored, conductors, subject to insulation<br />
tests and with carrying capacity according to the<br />
rules of the National Board of Fire Underwriters.<br />
Medium or low pressure conductors may be<br />
bare, except in gaseous portions of mines no bare<br />
conductors shall be used in rooms or beyond the<br />
last cut-through in intake entries.<br />
30. All underground cables and wires, other<br />
than trailing cables, unless provided with grounded<br />
metallic covering, shall be supported by means of<br />
efficient insulators. The conductor connecting<br />
lamp to the power supply shall, in all cases, be insulated.<br />
Main Circuits—<br />
31. Every main circuit, coming from generating<br />
or transformer stations, shall there be provided<br />
with switches, fuses, and circuit breakers, as described<br />
in section 2, rules 20 and 21 and rules 23<br />
to 25, inclusive.
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
32. If tlie transmission lines of low or medium<br />
voltage from the generating station are overhead,<br />
there shall be lightning arresters installed in connection<br />
therewith at the generating station. If<br />
the distance from the generating station to the<br />
point where the lines enter the mine is more than<br />
500 feet an additional arrester shall be installed at<br />
this point, and, in no case, shall the arresters be<br />
more than 1,000 feet apart.<br />
33. In any gaseous mine or gaseous portions<br />
of a mine, the electrical supply shall be brought<br />
underground only through such portions of the<br />
mine as are ventilated by the intake air.<br />
Branch Circuits—<br />
34. Every branch circuit shall be provided, at<br />
the point where it leaves the main circuit, with a<br />
switch of not less than 100 ampere capacity on<br />
each pole.<br />
Size of Conductors—<br />
35. The size of all conductors shall be determined,<br />
with regard to the maximum amount of<br />
current which they are to carry, by reference to<br />
the table provided by the National Board of Fire<br />
Underwriters, which shows maximum current carrying<br />
capacities of copper conductors.<br />
Grounded Circuits—<br />
36. One side of grounded circuits shall be very<br />
efficiently insulated from earth.<br />
Overhead Circuits above Ground—<br />
37. Overhead bare wires above ground shall be<br />
supported upon insulators which shall be adequate<br />
in quality, size, and design for voltage transmitted.<br />
Underground Trolley—<br />
38. In underground roads, the trolley wires<br />
shall be installed as far to one side of the passageway<br />
as is practicable and securely supported upon<br />
hangers efficiently insulated and placed at such intervals<br />
that the sag between points of support shall<br />
not exceed three inches. The sag between points<br />
of support can exceed three inches if the height<br />
of the trolley wire above the rail is five feet or<br />
more and does not touch the roof when the trolley<br />
passes under.<br />
39. All other wires, except telephone, shot firing,<br />
and signal wires, shall be on the same side<br />
of the road as the trolley wire.<br />
40. At all landings and partings, where men are<br />
required to regularly work or pass under trolley<br />
or other bare power wires which are placed less<br />
than six and one-half feet above top rail, a suitable<br />
protection shall be provided. This protection<br />
may consist of channeling the roof, placing boards<br />
along tne wire which shall extend below it, or the<br />
use of other approved devices that afford protection.<br />
41. All branch trolley lines shall be fitted with<br />
an automatic trolley switch, or section insulator<br />
and line switch, or some other device that will<br />
allow the current to be shut off from such branch<br />
headings.<br />
42. It is recommended that, where air or water<br />
pipes parallel the grounded return of power circuits,<br />
the return be securely bonded to such pipes<br />
at frequent intervals to eliminate the possibility<br />
of a difference of potential between rails and pipes<br />
and to prevent electrolysis of the pipes. The rail<br />
return shall be of sufficient capacity for the current<br />
used, independent of the capacity of the pipes.<br />
On main haulage roads both rails shall be bonded<br />
and cross bonds shall be placed at points' not to<br />
exceed 200 feet apart.<br />
Lightning Circuits—<br />
43. Where wires for electric incandescent lamps<br />
are connected to the trolley the lug of the trolley<br />
hanger, to which connection is made, shall be<br />
drilled to receive the lighting wire and provided<br />
with a set screw for securing same in place. Lighting<br />
wires shall not be wrapped or tied about the<br />
stems or studs of trolley hangers. The ground<br />
conection for lighting wires, taken off the trolley<br />
circuit, must be made to the track circuit.<br />
44. Wires for all lighting circuits shall be covered<br />
with an insulation adequate for the voltage<br />
of the circuit and strung on porcelain or glass insulators,<br />
unless they are encased in pipes or other<br />
metallic covering. If separate uncased wires are<br />
used, they shall be kept at least three inches apart,<br />
except where they enter the fittings. If metallic<br />
casings are used they shall be grounded efficiently.<br />
Joints in Conductors—<br />
45. All joints in conductors shall be mechanically<br />
and electrically efficient, and, wherever it is<br />
possible to do so, they shall be soldered. Wherever<br />
the conductors cannot be soldered together,<br />
suitable screw clamps, or connectors, shall be used.<br />
All points in insulated wire shall, after the joint<br />
is complete, be reinsulated to at least the same<br />
extent as the remainder of the wire.<br />
Insulation and Covering—<br />
46. All high voltage conductors inside of the<br />
mines shall be in the form of insulated, leadcovered,<br />
or armored cables, subject to approved<br />
insulation tests and having carrying capacities in<br />
accordance with rule 35, section 3.<br />
47. Where lead-covered or armored cable is<br />
used, the lead or armor shall be electrically continuous<br />
throughout and shall be efficiently<br />
grounded.<br />
Cables Entering Fittings—<br />
48. The exposed ends' of cables, where they enter<br />
fittings of any description, shall he so protected<br />
and finished off that moisture cannot enter<br />
the cabie or the insulating material, if of an oily<br />
or viscous nature, leak.<br />
49. Where unarmored cables or wires pass<br />
through metal frames or into boxes or motor casings,<br />
the holes shall be substantially bushed with
insulating bushings, and, where necessary, with<br />
gastignt bushings which cannot readily become<br />
displaced.<br />
Joints in Cables—<br />
50. Where cables, other than signal cables, are<br />
joined, suitable junction boxes shall be used or<br />
the joints shall be soldered and the insulation armoring<br />
or lead covering replaced in at least as<br />
good condition as it was originally.<br />
Power Wires and Cables in Shafts—<br />
51. All power wires and cables in hoisting<br />
shafts or manway compartments shall be highly<br />
insulated and substantially fixed in position.<br />
Shaft cables, whose conductors or covering are<br />
not capable of sustaining their own weight, shall<br />
be supported at intervals not to exceed 25 feet by<br />
suitable grips, which cannot cause abrasion of the<br />
covering or insulation, but shall so support the<br />
cable that no grip shall carry more than the weight<br />
of the cable between any two successive grips.<br />
Where the cables are not completely boxed in and<br />
protected from falling material, space shall be left<br />
between them and the side of the shaft that they<br />
may yield and so lessen a blow given by falling<br />
material.<br />
Cables in Haulage Roads—<br />
52. Where the cables or feed wires, other than<br />
trolley wires, in main haulage roads cannot be<br />
kept at least 12 inches from any part of the mine<br />
car or locomotive, they shall be specially protected<br />
by proper guards.<br />
53. Cables and wires, unless provided with metallic<br />
coverings, shall not be fixed to walls or timbers<br />
by means of uninsulated fastenings.<br />
Protection During Blasting, Et Cetera—<br />
54. When main or other roads are being repaired<br />
or blasting is being carried on, suitable<br />
temporary protection from damage shall be given<br />
the cables.<br />
Trailing Cables—<br />
55. Trailing cables for portable machines shall<br />
be specially flexible, heavily insulated, and protected<br />
with extra stout braiding hose pipes or<br />
other equally effective covering.<br />
56. Each trailing cable in use shall be daily<br />
examined by the machine operator for abrasions<br />
and other defects, and he shall also be required to<br />
carefully observe the trailing cable while in use<br />
and shall at once report any defect to the person<br />
in charge of electrical equipment.<br />
57. In the event of the trailing cable in service<br />
breaking down, or becoming damaged in any way,<br />
or of its inflicting a shock upon any person, it<br />
shall be at once put out of service. The faulty<br />
cable shall not again be used until it has been repaired<br />
and tested by a properly authorized person.<br />
58. The trailing cable shall be divided at the<br />
motor, but only for such length as is necessary for<br />
making connection to the motor, and the cable,<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 63<br />
with its outer covering complete, shall be securely<br />
clamped to the motor frame in such a manner as<br />
to protect the cable from injury and to prevent any<br />
mechanical strain being borne by the single ends<br />
that make electrical connection to the motor.<br />
59. In gaseous portions of mines a fixed terminal<br />
box shall be provided at the points where<br />
trailing cables are attached at the power supply.<br />
This terminal box shall be flame-proof and shall<br />
contain a switch and fuse on each pole of the circuit.<br />
The switch shall be so arranged that it can<br />
only be operated from without the box when the<br />
latter is completely closed, and the switch shall<br />
also be so constructed that the trailing cables cannot<br />
be attached or removed when the switch is<br />
closed.<br />
Section 4.—Switches, Fuses' and Circuit Breakers.<br />
Operation and Capacity—<strong>•</strong><br />
60. Fuses and automatic circuit breakers shall<br />
be so constructed as effectually to interrupt the<br />
current on short circuit or when the current<br />
through them exceeds a predetermined value.<br />
Open type fuses shall be provided with terminals.<br />
Circuit breakers shall be adjustable to trip at<br />
from 50 per centum to 150 per centum of their<br />
normal rated capacity, and provided with an indicator<br />
which shall show at what current the circuit<br />
breaker is set to trip.<br />
61. Fuses shall be stamped or marked, or shall<br />
have a label attached, indicating the maximum<br />
current which they are intended to carry- Fuses<br />
shall only be adjusted or replaced by a competent<br />
person authorized by the mine foreman.<br />
Feeder Circuit-Breakers—<br />
62. Circuit breakers, used to protect feeder circuits,<br />
shall be set to trip when the current exceeds<br />
by more than 50 per centum the current<br />
carrying capacity of the feeder. In ease the<br />
feeder is subjected to over-loads sufficient to trip<br />
the circuit breaker, but of short duration, the circuit<br />
breaker may be equipped with a device which<br />
will prevent its acting unless the overload persists<br />
for a longer period than 10 seconds.<br />
Feeder Fuses—<br />
63. Fuses used to protect feeders' shall have a<br />
less current rating than the feeder.<br />
Bases—<strong>•</strong><br />
64. All switches, circuit breakers, and fuses<br />
shall have incombustible bases.<br />
Switches—<br />
65. All points, at which a circuit, other than a<br />
signal circuit, has to be made or broken, shall be<br />
provided with proper switches. The use of hooks<br />
or other makeshifts is prohibited, except that connection<br />
for gathering locomotives or locomotives<br />
and machines used in driving headings or rooms<br />
may be made to the trolley by means of suitable<br />
hooks; switches shall be so installed that they cannot<br />
be closed by gravity. In any gaseous por-
64 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
tion of a mine switches, circuit-breakers, or fuses,<br />
shall not be of the open type, but must be inclosed<br />
in explosion proof casings or break under oil.<br />
Section 5.—Motors.<br />
Stationary Motors—<br />
66. Every stationary motor underground, together<br />
with its starting resistance, shall be protected<br />
by a fuse on each pole or circuit breaking<br />
device, on at least one pole for direct current, and<br />
two poles for alternating current motors, and by<br />
switches arranged to entirely cut off the power<br />
from the motor. The above devices shall be installed<br />
in a convenient position near the motor<br />
and every stationary underground motor of 100<br />
brake horse power, or over, shall be provided with<br />
a suitable meter to indicate the load on the machine.<br />
Motors' in Gaseous Mines—<br />
67. In any gaseous portion of a mine all motors,<br />
unless placed in such rooms as are separately<br />
ventilated with intake air, shall have all<br />
their current carrying parts, also their starters,<br />
terminals, and connections, completely enclosed<br />
in explosion-proof enclosures' made of non-inflammable<br />
material. These enclosures shall not be<br />
opened, except by an authorized person, and then<br />
only when the power is switched off. The power<br />
shall not be switched on while the enclosures are<br />
open.<br />
Underground Stationary Motors in Non-Gaseous<br />
Mines—<br />
68. Motors used for operating fans in nongaseous<br />
mines, where they are so situated that<br />
they are not under constant supervision of a competent<br />
man, shall be totally enclosed (not necessarily<br />
explosion-proof), unless placed in a chamber<br />
or passageway completely lined with incombustible<br />
material and the chamber or passageway<br />
itself free from combustible material.<br />
Detection of Gas—<br />
69. In working places where gas is likely to be<br />
encountered, a safety lamp, or other suitable apparatus<br />
for the detection of fire damp, shall be<br />
provided for use with each machine when working,<br />
and, should any indication of fire damp appear<br />
on the flame of the safety lamp, or other apparatus<br />
used for the detection of fire damp, the person<br />
in charge shall immediately stop the machine, cut<br />
off the current at the nearest switch, and report<br />
the matter to the mine foreman.<br />
Enclosed Motors—<br />
70. All enclosed motors used underground shall<br />
he opened and thoroughly inspected by the person<br />
in charge of electrical equipment, or his assistant,<br />
at least once a week, and, where necessary.<br />
shall then be cleaned and repaired. Enclosed<br />
switches shall be opened and inspected at least<br />
once a month.<br />
Electric Coal-Cutting Machines—<br />
71. No man shall be placed in charge of a coalcutting<br />
machine in any gaseous portion of a mine<br />
who is not a competent person, capable of determining<br />
the safety of the roof and sides of the<br />
working place and detecting the presence of explosive<br />
gas.<br />
72. In any gaseous portion of a mine a coalcutting<br />
machine shall not be brought within the<br />
least break-through next the working face until the<br />
machine man shall have made an inspection for<br />
gas, in the place where the machine is to work,<br />
unless such examination is then made by some<br />
other competent person, authorized or appointed<br />
for that purpose by the mine foreman. If any<br />
explosive gas is found in the place, the machine<br />
shall not be taken in.<br />
73. No coal-cutting machine shall be continued<br />
in operation in a gaseous portion of a mine for a<br />
longer period than half an hour without an examination,<br />
as above described, being made for gas,<br />
and, if gas is found, the current shall at once be<br />
switched off the machine and the trailing cable<br />
shall forthwith be disconnected from the power<br />
supply.<br />
74. The person finding gas shall at once report<br />
the fact to the fire boss or mine foreman and the<br />
machine shall not again be started in such place<br />
until the fire boss, or a person duly authorized by<br />
the mine foreman, has examined it and pronounced<br />
it safe.<br />
75. The person in charge of a coal-cutter, or<br />
drilling machine, shall not leave the machine while<br />
it is working and shall, before leaving the working<br />
place, see that the current is cut off from the<br />
trailing cables.<br />
76. In any gaseous portion of a mine, if any<br />
electric sparking or arc be produced outside a<br />
coal-cutting, or other portable motor, or by the<br />
cables or rails, the machine shall be stopped and<br />
not be worked again until the defect is repaired,<br />
and the occurrence shall be reported to an official<br />
of the mine.<br />
Section 6.—Electric Locomotives.<br />
Trolley Sysiem—<br />
77. Electric haulage by locomotives operated<br />
from a trolley wire is not permissible in any<br />
gaseous portions of mines, except upon the intake<br />
air, fresh from the outside.<br />
78. In no case shall the potential used in the<br />
trolley system be higher than medium voltage.<br />
Storage Battery System—<br />
79. Storage battery locomotives shall be used<br />
in gaseous mines only when the boxes containing<br />
the cells and all electrical parts are enclosed in<br />
flame and explosion-proof casings. (For regulations<br />
covering the installation of the trolley wire,<br />
see section 3, rules 38 to 42, inclusive.<br />
(Continued on Page 56.)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK & KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
QAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
56 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Text of New Bituminous Mining Code of Pennsylvania<br />
(Continued from Page 54.)<br />
Section 7.—Electric Lighting.<br />
Arc Lamps—<br />
SO. Arc lamps shall not lie used in gaseous<br />
mines except under conditions where trolley loco<br />
motives are allowable.<br />
81. If arc lamps are used underground, in coal<br />
mines, they shall be of the enclosed arc type and<br />
shall not be used in situations where there is<br />
likely to lie danger from the presence of coal dust.<br />
Incandescent Lamps—<br />
82. In all mines the sockets of fixed incandes<br />
cent lamps shall lie of the so-called "weather proof"<br />
type, the exterior of which shall be entirely non-<br />
metallic. Flexible lamp cord connections are pro<br />
hibited, except for portable lamps, as covered by<br />
rule 85.<br />
S3. In any gaseous portions of a mine, except<br />
where ventilated by fresh intake air, incandescent<br />
lamps shall be protected by gastight fittings of<br />
strong glass, except that lamps of 220 volts or<br />
higher and of not more than eight candle power<br />
and without tips need not lie so protected.<br />
S4. Incandescent lamps shall be so placed that<br />
they cannot come in contact with combustible ma<br />
terial.<br />
85. Portable incandescent lamps, otlier than<br />
battery lamps, shall not be used except in connec<br />
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| The J. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
\ Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
! Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
i Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING. OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
FOR THE<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
PUBLISHERS OF<br />
\ The Coal Dealers' Blue Book<br />
\ Contains a Complete List for the L) nited States and<br />
C Canada of all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
^ Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron<br />
£ Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coal and<br />
-' Coke in oar load lots, with capital and pay ratings.<br />
-<strong>•</strong> „-.. » ,.J, Roon ?.« „ .. ... 1438 SO. PENN SQUARE,<br />
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CHICAGO. PHILADELPHIA.<br />
tion with the repair and inspection of machines<br />
and equipment, and then only in non-gaseous<br />
portions of mines. When so used they shall be<br />
protected by a heavy wire cage, completely en<br />
closing both lamp and socket, and shall be pro<br />
vided witn a handle to which both cage and socket<br />
are firmly attached and through which the lead-in<br />
wires are carried.<br />
86. Electric lamps shall be replaced by a com<br />
petent person only, and, in gaseous portions of a<br />
mine, only after an examination for gas has been<br />
made with a safety lamp.<br />
For other regulations regarding electric light<br />
ing circuits see section 3. rules 43 to 45, inclusive.<br />
Section 8.—Shot Firing by Electricity.<br />
Shot Firing Circuits—<br />
87. Electricity from any grounded circuit shall<br />
not be used for firing shots.<br />
SS. When shot-firing cables or wires are used<br />
in the vicinity of power or lighting conductors,<br />
special precaution shall be taken to prevent the<br />
shot-firing cables or wires from coming in contact<br />
with the light, power or any other circuits.<br />
Shot Firers—<br />
89. Only competent persons, who have the neces<br />
sary training and skill and who have been prop<br />
erly instructed in the work and duly authorized<br />
by the mine foreman, shall be allowed to fire shots<br />
electrically in any mine.<br />
HOW TO KEEP IN<br />
TOUCH WITH<br />
AFFAIRS.<br />
) Mines of information on every subject are at j<br />
t your disposal—Just say the word and we'll )<br />
drive an entry for you<br />
USE OUR<br />
PRESS CLIPPINGS.<br />
Ours is the only Clipping Bureau in the greatest<br />
Industrial Center of the World.<br />
We have two branches—<br />
A LOCAL SERVICE—AND—A GENERAL SERVICE.<br />
Both are splendid aids to busy men.<br />
Ask us for definite information<br />
and rates.<br />
The Central Press Bureau,<br />
90S & 908 WABASH BUILDING.<br />
T.l.phont 2164 Court. PITTSBURGH, PA.
Electric Detonators—<br />
90. All electric detonators, aud leads thereto,<br />
shall he suitable for the conditions under which<br />
the blasting is carried on and shall he of a type<br />
approved by the Testing Station of the Federal<br />
Bureau of Mines. Detonators shall be kept in a<br />
dry place and never stored with any other explosive.<br />
Portable Firing Machines and Batteries—<br />
91. Portable shot firing machines, sometimes<br />
called generators, shall be enclosed in a tightly<br />
constructed case when employed in any portion of<br />
the mine. All contacts, when made or broken,<br />
shall be within the case, except that the bindingposts<br />
for making connections to the firing leads<br />
may be outside.<br />
92. Primary or secondary batteries used for<br />
shot firing shall be provided with a suitable case<br />
covered by rule 91. The batteries shall be constructed<br />
so that if the wires of a detonator or<br />
leads should accidentally, or otherwise, come in<br />
contact with the binding posts, no current will be<br />
discharged. They shall be provided with a detachable<br />
handle, plug, or key, without which the current<br />
cannot be closed, or provided with one or<br />
more safety contact buttons, which are well countersunk<br />
or protected by a non-conducting housing.<br />
The plugs, handles, or keys, shall be detached<br />
when not actually in use for firing a shot and shall<br />
not, under any circumstances, pass from the personal<br />
custody of the person commissioned to fire<br />
the shots while on duty.<br />
93. All portable devices for generating, or supplying,<br />
electricity for shot filing, when in a mine,<br />
shall be in charge of the person commissioned to<br />
fire the shots.<br />
94. No firing machine or battery shall be connected<br />
to the shot firing leads until all other steps<br />
preparatory to the firing of a shot have been com<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
pleted and all persons have moved to a place of<br />
safety, and no person other than the shot firer<br />
shall make such connection.<br />
Disconnecting of Leads—<br />
95. Immediately after the firing of a shot the<br />
firing leads shall be disconnected from the supply,<br />
or source, of electricity, and no person shall approach<br />
a shot which has failed to explode until<br />
the firing leads have been so disconnected by the<br />
shot firer from the device, and an interval of five<br />
minutes has elapsed since the last attempt to fire<br />
the shot.<br />
Tests of Generators 1 and Batteries—<br />
96. Frequent tests shall be made of all devices<br />
covered ny rule 93 to insure that their capacity has<br />
not been decreased by use or accident.<br />
Special Systems—<br />
97. The use of special electrical shot firing systems<br />
or equipment not covered by the foregoing,<br />
shall receive the approval of the Testing Station<br />
of the Federal Bureau of Mines.<br />
Section 9.—Electric Signaling.<br />
Precautions—<br />
98. All proper precautions shall be taken to<br />
prevent electric signal and telephone wires from<br />
coming into contact with other electric conductors,<br />
whether insulated or not.<br />
Character of Equipment—<br />
99. Bells, wires, insulators, contact-makers, and<br />
other apparatus, used in connection with electric<br />
signaling underground, shall be of suitable design,<br />
of substantial and reliable construction, and<br />
erected in such a manner as to reduce the liability<br />
of failures or false signals to a minimum.<br />
Maximum Potential—<br />
100. fn any gaseous portion of a mine the potential<br />
used for signal purposes shall not exceed<br />
L'4 volts and bare wires shall not be used for signal<br />
circuits except in haulage roads. <strong>•</strong><br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
„ FAMOUj<br />
TT ww »<br />
"ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
C O ^ A V<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Telephones—<br />
101. It is recommended that telephonic communication<br />
be established between the outside of<br />
the mine and the principal points of operation underground.<br />
Section 10.—Electric Relighting of Safety Lamps.<br />
102. If in any place or portion of a mine in<br />
which safety lamps are used, they are relighted<br />
underground by electricity, the mine foreman shall<br />
select a suitable station or stations not being in<br />
the return airway and where there is not likely to<br />
be any accumulation of inflammable gas and no<br />
electric relighting apparatus shall he used in any<br />
other place. All electrical relighting apparatus<br />
shal be securely locked and shall not be available<br />
for use except by persons authorized by the mine<br />
foreman to relight safety lamps, and such persons<br />
shall examine all safety lamps brought for relighting<br />
before they are reissued.<br />
(TO V.E CONTINUED IX ISSUE OF AUGUST 15)<br />
The Keystone Smokeless Coal Co. of Beaver,<br />
Pa., has been incorporated with a capital stock of<br />
$15,000 to operate 1,500 acres of developed coal<br />
property at Castleman, Somerset county. The<br />
mine is situated advantageously on the Baltimore<br />
& Ohio railroad, and further, has a four to sixfoot<br />
vein of high class fire clay underlying the<br />
coal seam. The company will produce and market<br />
this in conjunction with mining the coal. The<br />
incorporators are: Messrs. Edward J. Allison,<br />
David A. Nelson, Ira W. Logan, Thomas Donahoe<br />
and F. O. Brandt. Officers of the company are:<br />
Mr. Thomas Donahoe, president; Mr. David A.<br />
Nelson, treasurer, and Mr. F. O. Brandt, secretary.<br />
An office has been opened in the Oliver building,<br />
Pittsburgh.<br />
The report of Deputy Customs Collector William<br />
Honecker shows that during June, 9S boats entered<br />
the port at Lorain, O., carrying 423.000 tons of<br />
ore and 107 boats cleared, carrying 520,000 tons of<br />
coal. Coal shipments showed an increase, 20,000<br />
being shipped to foreign ports. The coal business<br />
at this port is equal to that of a year ago.<br />
A record for the first 20 days in July showed<br />
200,000 tons of coal loaded.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey<br />
wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full particulars,<br />
analysis of coal, name, location and outfit<br />
of mine, ete.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, IY tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VENEER & LUMBER Co.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
FOR SALE-<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909-10.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
F. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 59<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
J. II- SANFORD COAL COMPANY<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS<br />
HIGHEST GRADE PANHANDLE COAL<br />
ANALYSIS :<br />
Moisture . . . . . 153 BEST FOR STEAM AND<br />
Volatile Matter - - - - 35.96 . _ _ „ „<br />
Fixed Carbon - - - - 56.34 DOMESTIC USES<br />
Ash . . . . . . 6.17<br />
Sulphur - - - - - 1.79<br />
B. T. U. per pound of Dry Coal, 13544.3 ° fficeS : ' 3 ' 5 Park BM & PITTSBURGH.<br />
Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, Bell phQneS) QrMt 1822_1823_1824<br />
Jas. Otis Handy, Chief Chemist.<br />
WESTMORELAND COAL CO.<br />
PRINCIPAL OFFICE,<br />
224 South Third Street, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
COLLIERY OWNERS, MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF<br />
THE STANDARD<br />
WESTMORELAND COAL<br />
MINES LOCATED IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA.<br />
This Coal is unexcelled for gas-making, both in illuminating and for producer work.<br />
For brick and terra cotta manufacture, locomotive use, steam threshers, high-pressure<br />
steaming, and in all places where a strong and pure fuel is required, it has no equal.
60 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
(6~ ^<br />
G. C. WEITZELL. President. Columbus. O. G. Z. HOSACK. V. Pres.. Pittsburgh. Pa.<br />
H. R. BEESON. Secy and Treas.. Columbus. O. H. S. MERVIN. Auditor. Columbus. O.<br />
INCORPORATED 1886.<br />
(Heal (Eompang<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF<br />
GENUINE<br />
HOCKING VALLEY COAL<br />
MINES<br />
FROM THE HEART OF THE HOCKING DISTRICT.<br />
POWELL'S RUN, CAWTHORNE, MURRAY CITY, GREENDALE.<br />
SHIPPING DOCKS<br />
GENERAL OFFICES<br />
EQUATOR. KITTANNING, NEW MONARCH.<br />
ALL UPPER AND LOWER LAKE PORTS.<br />
50 E. Broad St., COLUMBUS, OHIO.<br />
BRANCH OFFICES<br />
CHICAGO DETROIT<br />
yq 9>
GOALJRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, AUGUST 15, 1911 No. 6<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY.<br />
A. E. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STRAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matters<br />
relating to coal or coal production are invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDING, PITTSBUBOH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
PROSPECTS LOOK ISKTTER THAN- THEY HAVE FOR<br />
MONTHS in the coal trade, and the reports from<br />
all sections of the country indicate that mine own<br />
ers and operators are beginning to see more and<br />
more of the silver lining to the cloud that has<br />
been hovering over the trade. Actual improve<br />
ments in conditions are not so great as to cause<br />
excitement, but rather have been of a conservative<br />
nature, with a little gain noted here and an<br />
other there, all tending to make things look<br />
brighter for the industry. The report for the<br />
first half of the year, just recently made public<br />
by the government bureaus, shows that the trade<br />
must make a more decided improvement if the<br />
figures for 1910 are to be equaled when tonnage<br />
reports ior the year become due. That the trade<br />
hopes the remaining four months of the year may<br />
partially recoup the decreased tonnage of the first<br />
half year goes without saying.<br />
The reported putting into blast of additional<br />
iron furnaces is looked upon as one of the par<br />
ticularly good features of the industrial situation,<br />
as it means additional fuel requirements, and, con<br />
sequently, more activity in the bituminous and<br />
coke branches of the trade. In addition to the<br />
furnaces going into blast, reports of mills increas<br />
ing their running time and of starting up after<br />
an idleness add to the industrial outlook, and are<br />
bound to reflect favorably on the coal trade.<br />
The lake trade is going forward steadily and<br />
shipments are increasing each week, with the out<br />
look for a decided boom in the near future one<br />
of the favorable phases. Product is going for<br />
ward in larger quantities from upper lake docks.<br />
The failure to settle the strike in the Canadian<br />
Northwest has helped matters, as some consider<br />
able tonnage has been contracted for by the larger<br />
consumers in that section and this coal is now<br />
being shipped to destination.<br />
Labor conditions throughout the country have<br />
improved during the past fortnight, as the local<br />
strikes in the Indiana fields have been settled<br />
satisfactorily, the differences between the rival<br />
factions of Mine Workers in the Central Pennsyl<br />
vania field have been settled and troubles in the<br />
Southwest are disposed of. This leaves the Colo<br />
rado and Canadian stoppages the only ones of im<br />
portance, although petty little strikes arise in<br />
different sections almost daily, to be settled as<br />
quickly as they start.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district mines are going stead<br />
ily at approximately 75 per cent, of capacity, with<br />
a brighter future in view. The announcement<br />
that the Carnegie Steel Co. will put all its fur<br />
naces in blast has had a heartening effect on the<br />
trade, even if it has not resulted in immediate<br />
increases in tonnage. River shippers are still<br />
in the throes of a low water period with coal accu<br />
mulating in the harbors each day until now there<br />
is probably a larger amount loaded and awaiting<br />
shipment than has been the case for more than a<br />
year. The district has profited by the contracting<br />
for coal by Canadian consumers whose former<br />
source of supply is cut off by labor troubles, and<br />
this tonnage is commencing to go forward. With<br />
these conditions existing the tone of the trade is<br />
firmer and producers are less inclined to make<br />
any sacrifice to obtain trade. Prices, in conse-
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
quence, are firm and quotations are: Run-of-mine<br />
coal, $1.25 to $1.35; three-quarter coal, $1.35 to<br />
$1.45; inch and one-quarter coal, $1.45 to $1.55;<br />
slack. 75 to 85 cents.<br />
Coke production is once more on the upgrade,<br />
and it is probable that, when the figures are<br />
available, ihe production for the week ending<br />
August 12 will show a total of over three hundred<br />
thousand tons for the first time in three months.<br />
The largest furnace interest has ordered a large<br />
number of ovens in blast, the announcement fol<br />
lowing close on that of furnaces becoming active,<br />
and this is looked upon as indicating the long<br />
looked for activity in the trade. With the favor<br />
able outlook the manufacturers have put a little<br />
more backbone in their prices and the bargain<br />
hunter isn't meeting with much success. Prices<br />
are held at $1.75 to $1.85 for furnace coke and<br />
$2.00 to $2.25 for foundry coke.<br />
The anthracite trade is going along in the even<br />
tenor of its way, apparently, and is getting out<br />
large tonnages, the figures for July being record<br />
breaking ones, while the present month advance<br />
reports show it to be holding its own, when com<br />
pared with other years. There are reports of<br />
collieries closing but these do not seem to have<br />
much effect on the total output as other mines ap<br />
parently make up the difference. Prices are still<br />
at final summer figures.<br />
* * *<br />
STRAIGHT TO THE POIXT IS THE ANSWER, as<br />
amended, filed by the Lehigh Valley Railroad Co.<br />
in the suit by the government to compel it to<br />
divorce itself from the Lehigh Valley Coal Co.<br />
The answer admits that the railroad owns coal<br />
company stock, but emphatically denies that its<br />
officers dictate the action of the coal company<br />
officials. It also says it will continue to haul<br />
the product of the coal company because no law<br />
has been violated. Evidently the company intends<br />
to make a decided stand and make the present<br />
case the final one in the effort of government to<br />
establish a "trust" and then "bust" it.<br />
LOSING ITS IDENTITY doesn't look good to the<br />
Western Federation of Miners, evidently, judging<br />
from the vote on merging with the United Mine<br />
Workers. Neither does the recall feature insofar<br />
as it applies to its own officers.<br />
THE VAUNTED SUPERIORITY OF FOREIGN COALS was<br />
given a setback within a short time, due to the<br />
record made by the battleship Delaware, this na<br />
tion's representative at the naval pageant attend<br />
ing the coronation of King Ge<strong>org</strong>e V of England.<br />
Taking on a cargo of coal before she left home<br />
ports the big battleship went lo England, remained<br />
for the ceremonies and returned with enough coal<br />
in her bunkers to steam a long distance. The<br />
coal made a splendid record for evaporating water,<br />
thus keeping up the necessary steam pressure at<br />
a low consumption. English naval officers and<br />
others expressed surprise that no coal would be<br />
needed for the return voyage and were still fur<br />
ther surprised at the efficiency of the fuel carried<br />
by the Delaware.<br />
Nine coal men out of ten caught with a paper<br />
in their hands these days aren't hunting trade<br />
news. Not on your life! It's a case of hunting<br />
the score.<br />
The crickets and katydids are abroad. Also<br />
the wind is blowing over the oats stubble. That<br />
spells "fall" and increased sales, Mr. Coal Man.<br />
* * *<br />
The Delaware steamed right over, turned around<br />
and steamed right back again. And she didn't<br />
need anything but American coal to do it on.<br />
The Lehigh Valley says it will haul coal after<br />
"trust busting" goes into the "gob." That pre<br />
diction looks good.<br />
* * *<br />
Noticed lately, Mr. Operator, the inquiries for<br />
coal from abroad? Rather a wide market to cap<br />
ture, so get busy.<br />
* * *<br />
More miners' fences have been fixed up. There<br />
are still some that are badly wrecked.<br />
* * *<br />
Idle cars again show a decrease. It's a sign<br />
that has "horseshoes" on it.<br />
E. M. Williams, a dealer of Frankfort, Ky., has<br />
filed 63 suits against the Louisville & Nashville<br />
railroad to recover payment for coal lost in transit.
PITTSBURGH MINERS REFER THEIR FIGHT<br />
TO INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE BOARD.<br />
Through action taken at a three-day conference<br />
of the Gibbons and Feehan forces of District No. 5,<br />
U. M. W. of A., held in Pittsburgh commencing<br />
August 10, an agreement was reached looking to<br />
a final settlement of the bitter factional fight in<br />
the district which has been in progress for about<br />
one year. International President John P. White,<br />
realizing the necessity of establishing complete<br />
harmony in the miners' ranks in view of the coming<br />
wage scale conferences with the operators,<br />
called for the joint meeting between the so-called<br />
regulars and insurgents. International Vice President<br />
Frank J. Hayes and President Patrick Gilday<br />
and International Board Member Thomas Haggerty<br />
of District No. 2 were also present.<br />
Under the text of the agreement, all questions<br />
in dispute will be referred to the International<br />
Executive Board for settlement. That body will<br />
convene in Pittsburgh August 24 at 10 o'clock A.<br />
M. for the purpose of reviewing the evidence presented<br />
by both sides. According to the agreement,<br />
any decision reached will be final and binding.<br />
The complete agreement, signed by Gibbons,<br />
Feehan and the members of the two district executive<br />
boards, as well as by Messrs. White. Hayes<br />
and Haggerty, is given below:<br />
We, the undersigned parties to this agreement,<br />
beg leave to state that we fully realize the necessity<br />
of peace and unity within our ranks, and the<br />
urgent need of a common understanding, if the<br />
rights of our fellow mine workers are to be fully<br />
protected, and, believing that the disputes that are<br />
now dividing the membership in this district<br />
should be given an early hearing in the courts of<br />
our own making, in order that justice might be<br />
secured and our <strong>org</strong>anization preserved, we hereby<br />
agree to the following terms:<br />
First—We agree to refer all questions in dispute<br />
to the international executive board, whose decision<br />
shall be final and binding.<br />
Second—It is understood and agreed that the international<br />
executive board will be notified to meet<br />
in Pittsburgh on Thursday, August 24, at 10 A. M.,<br />
at the Labor Temple, for the special purpose of<br />
determining all points at issue between both parties<br />
to this controversy.<br />
Third—All charges to be preferred against any<br />
official or officials on either side to be presented<br />
to the board in writing.<br />
Fourth—In view of the fact that the international<br />
executive board is called upon to decide this<br />
controversy, it is understood and agreed that both<br />
sides to this dispute devote their efforts to a restoration<br />
of peace and tranquility in the district pending<br />
a final decision by the international executive<br />
board.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
Fifth—We, the undersigned, request the international<br />
executive board to decide the merits of the<br />
controversy in question on an aye and nay vote,<br />
and be it further agreed that the bill in equity now<br />
in court be withdrawn.<br />
We, the undersigned, agree to the above proposition.<br />
Signed this 13th day of August. 1911, by the<br />
executive boards representing both factions to this<br />
controversy and official representatives of the international<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
Robert R. Gibbons, Abe Kephart, Andrew Puskar,<br />
William P. Friday, James Brown, E. D. Reed,<br />
Thomas Sheehan. James Sabin, Fred Sample, Otto<br />
Slater. Francis Feehan. Van Bittner, Tim Donovan,<br />
F. P. Hanaway, William McKay, James Charlton,<br />
John O'Leary, William Hargest, Sidney Davis,<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Dagger, John P. White, Frank J. Hays,<br />
Thomas Haggerty.<br />
CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANY'S MARY<br />
LAND COAL MAKES GOOD RECORD.<br />
The United States new battleship Delaware,<br />
which attended the recent coronation ceremonies<br />
in England, made a new record from the point of<br />
coal consumption. The Delaware went to England<br />
and returned without taking on coal on the<br />
other side, and had enough coal left in her bunkers<br />
when she got back to take her 1,500 miles farther.<br />
On the recent trip of the Delaware, which was<br />
sent by the government to England to represent<br />
this country at the coronation, the coal supplied<br />
was Big Vein. Cumberland, Ge<strong>org</strong>e's Creek, mined<br />
by the Consolidation Coal Co., in Maryland, and<br />
loaded by this company on the battleship in New<br />
York harbor. The Delaware left New York on<br />
June 4 with 2,412 tons of coal and 282 tons of<br />
fuel oil. She arrived at Tor Bay, England, June<br />
16, and at Spithead June 19. She left Spithead<br />
June 28 and arrived at Boston July 9. She had<br />
over 600 tons of coal in her bunkers when she<br />
reached Boston, or an ample supply to take her<br />
to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.<br />
The collier Neptune recently took 13,000 tons<br />
cargo and 2,200 tons bunker coal from the Consolidation<br />
Coal Co., at Curtis Bay Piers, Baltimore.<br />
The Neptune is the newest and largest<br />
collier in the navy service. The cargo taken on<br />
at Baltimore will be used by the Atlantic fleet,<br />
distribution to be made following the Neptune's<br />
trials on the course off Rockland, Maine. The<br />
loading of 15,000 tons of coal on the Neptune in<br />
one day, breaks the record for dumping coal at the<br />
Baltimore piers.
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
MINERS' CONTROVERSY IN CENTRAL<br />
PENNSYLVANIA ADJUSTED.<br />
At a conference held at Altoona, Pa., August 2,<br />
attended by International President John P. White<br />
of the United Mine Workers of America, the long<br />
prolonged controversy between the officers of Dis<br />
trict No. 2 and the insurgent sub-district No. 3<br />
was amicably adjusted.<br />
The following agreement was signed by the con<br />
tending parties:<br />
First—That the <strong>org</strong>anization known as Sub-District<br />
No. 3 will be abolished from this date and all<br />
officers in the said sub-district now holding official<br />
position shall relinquish their offices on and after<br />
the above date.<br />
Second—That all local unions in dispute shall<br />
commence to pay all taxes from July 1, 1911, and<br />
comply with the national and district constitutions<br />
in all their provisions.<br />
Third—That all members of the local unions in<br />
dispute will be placed in good standing from July<br />
1, 1911. in accordance with the provisions of the<br />
district constitution. (Left to the decision of the<br />
national president).<br />
Fourth—In the settlement of the back debts in<br />
dispute this matter shall be left entirely in the<br />
hands of the international executive board and<br />
their decision upon the amount of money to be<br />
paid to the district <strong>org</strong>anization by the local unions<br />
snail be final, and upon payment of the amount of<br />
money so designated to the district <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
it shall be considered a complete cancellation of<br />
all back debts.<br />
Fifth—That all motions or resolutions on the<br />
minute books of any of the local unions in dis<br />
pute debarring any of the district representatives<br />
from admittance or from speaking in the said<br />
local unions shall be canceled immediately, and<br />
that the district <strong>org</strong>anization shall have full<br />
power to audit all hooks and documents belonging<br />
to said local unions at any time they may deem<br />
necessary, in accordance with the provisions of the<br />
district constitution in conjunction with the national<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization. And the following proposi<br />
tion is further presented: that if any of the said<br />
local unions in dispute desire nt any time, after<br />
the settlement of this dispute has been completed.<br />
to audit the books of tiie district, the district's<br />
books are open for the period covered during the<br />
entire centralization period, the time covered by<br />
this dispute, providing that the representatives<br />
from the local unions shall pay all expenses incurred<br />
and that they are accompanied by some<br />
representative of the national <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
Sixtli—It is also agreed that the district execu<br />
tive board will cancel the resolution suspending<br />
certain members of these local unions for a period<br />
of five years as soon as the terms of this agree<br />
ment have been complied with.<br />
Seventh—In reference to the question raised<br />
about taxes on the Portage Branch the entire mat<br />
ter to be left in the hands of the international<br />
officers for adjustment.<br />
President White's ruling on clause three was that<br />
all members of the local unions in dispute shall be<br />
placed in good standing and be entitled to all<br />
rights and privileges accorded members under the<br />
district constitution.<br />
VIRGINIA BREAKS RECORD BY OUTPUT<br />
OF 6,507,997 TONS DURING 1910.<br />
Virginia's coal production is steadily increasing.<br />
The total output of the state in 1910 was 6.507,997<br />
short tons, with a spot value of $5,S77,486, accord<br />
ing to Edward W. Parker, coal statistician of the<br />
United States Geological Survey.<br />
Virginia established two new records in the<br />
statistics of her coal production in 1910; first, in<br />
quantity of coal produced, and second, in the<br />
amount and percentage of increase over the pre<br />
ceding year. The production in 1909. 4,752,217<br />
short tons, had exceeded all previous records, but<br />
this was beaten in 1910 by the unprecedented in<br />
crease of 1,755,780 tons, nearly 37 per cent. The<br />
value increased $1,626,430. or 38 per cent., from<br />
$4,251,056 to $5,S77.4S6. Although little if any<br />
of the Virginia product was shipped to the West<br />
to make up the deficiency caused by the pro<br />
longed strike in the mines of the Missis<br />
sippi Valley States, the shortage in those states<br />
was the indirect cause of the remarkable increase<br />
in Virginia's tonnage. The strike in the Middle-<br />
West naturally created an unusual demand upon<br />
the coal mines of West Virginia, and a large part<br />
of the production of that state, customarily sent<br />
to the seaboard, was diverted to the temporarily<br />
more profitable markets in the West. This de<br />
mand in turn gave opportunity for a larger out<br />
let to the seaboard for Virginia coals, an oppor<br />
tunity of which the Virginia coal men were not<br />
slow to take advantage.<br />
Virginia stands well up among the states in the<br />
quantity of coal produced for each man employed.<br />
In 1910 tlie number of men employed was 7.264.<br />
who worked an average of 241 days. The average<br />
production per man was 896 tons for the year,<br />
and 3.72 tons for each day. Both of these aver<br />
ages are better than those shown in the majority<br />
ot the coal producing states. Most of the miners<br />
in the state work 10 hours a day. Of the 7,264<br />
men employed in 1910, 5,710 worked 10 hours and<br />
1,(121 worked 9 hours. Only one mine was re<br />
ported as working S hours.
GOVERNMENT ENTERS SUIT AGAINST SIX<br />
RAILROADS AND THREE COAL COM<br />
PANIES.<br />
Suit was filed by the United States government<br />
in the Federal Circuit Court at Columbus, O.. on<br />
August 4 against six railroad companies and three<br />
coal mining concerns charging a combination in<br />
restraint of trade and asking that the combination<br />
be enjoined from continuing business.<br />
The defendant companies are: Lake Shore &<br />
Michigan Southern railroad. Chesapeake & Ohio<br />
railroad, Hocking Valley railroad, Toledo & Ohio<br />
Central railroad. Kanawha & Michigan railroad,<br />
Zanesville & Western railroad, Sunday Creek Co..<br />
Continental Coal Co., Kanawha & Hocking Coal &<br />
Coke Co.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
The government's petition alleges that the com<br />
bination thus formed affects four coal mining<br />
fields; namely, the Pittsburgh, the West Virginia,<br />
the Kanawha Valley and the Hocking Valley.<br />
It is alleged that the six railroads are affiliated<br />
and that the three coal companies also are affiliated,<br />
not only among themselves, but with the<br />
railroad companies.<br />
The Hocking Valley, the Toledo & Ohio Central,<br />
the Kanawha & Michigan and the Zanesville &<br />
Western until recently were under control of the<br />
"Trunk Line Syndicate."<br />
The Sunday Creek Co. is a holding company,<br />
controlling the Continental Coal Co. and other<br />
companies owning properties in Virginia, West<br />
Virginia and Ohio.<br />
The government's purpose is to prevent the<br />
change of ownership agreed on last year, when<br />
the Trunk Line Syndicate turned over the four<br />
railroads and their affiliated coal companies to<br />
the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern and the<br />
Chesapeake & Ohio, the latter taking charge of<br />
the Hocking Valley, which is the principal of the<br />
four roads.<br />
LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD<br />
DENIES VIOLATING THE LAW.<br />
Formal answer was made August 9 by the Lehigh<br />
Valley Railroad Co. to the amended bill of<br />
complaint of the United States government, which<br />
seeks to enjoin the railroad from conducting the<br />
business and transporting the shipments of the<br />
Lehigh Valley Coal Co.<br />
While denying that the officers and directors of<br />
the coal company are identical with those of the<br />
railroad company, it is admitted, in the answer,<br />
that the railroad company owns the entire capital<br />
stock of the coal company, and is able to determine<br />
the selection of its officers.<br />
25<br />
It is asserted, however, that the railroad makes<br />
no effort to elect or appoint officers and employes<br />
of the coal company. Such officers and employes,<br />
it. is declared, do not hold their offices subject to<br />
the control or dictation of the railroad company.<br />
It is averred that separate offices are maintained<br />
by the two companies, and it is denied that the<br />
officers, directors and committeemen of the coal<br />
company "act. in reality for. or on behalf of. or<br />
under the direction of the railroad company."<br />
Denial is also entered to the allegation that the<br />
railroad exercises a supervision over the coal<br />
mined. In conclusion, it is asserted that the railroad<br />
will continue its transportation of coal on the<br />
ground that no law is being violated by such<br />
action.<br />
IDLE CARS SHOW BIG DECREASE.<br />
The fortnightly bulletin of the American Railway<br />
Association states that on August 2 the net<br />
surplus of idle cars on the railroads of the United<br />
States and Canada stood at 128,091 compared with<br />
149,072 two weeks before. The difference is 20.-<br />
981, or 14 per cent. The number of idle cars or<br />
the gross surplus was 130,136 compared with 150.-<br />
433. while the shortage increased from 1,361 to<br />
2,(145. In the two weeks ended August 2 the surplus<br />
of coal cars decreased from 62.6S9 to 47.SS2,<br />
while the box car surplus decreased from 46,675<br />
to 43,004. Both flat and miscellaneous cars<br />
showed some reductions in surpluses.<br />
In this latest report a material decrease in the<br />
car surplus of the country was to be expected.<br />
The time is here for a continuous procession of<br />
decreases for the next two months at least; that is,<br />
if precedent be a competent guide. By far the<br />
largest activity must have been on the lines operating<br />
in the Middle Atlantic States, where the surplus<br />
of idle cars fell off about 100 per cent, compared<br />
with two weeks ago. A heavy demand for<br />
coal cars characterized traffic, movements in that<br />
section of the country. Traffic features were similar<br />
in the Middle West, although the reduction in<br />
the surplus was not nearly as large. This improvement<br />
in these two very important sections<br />
nas been evident for a month. In the Virginias<br />
and tlie Carolinas a substantial decrease in the<br />
car surplus was evidenced. Canadian lines had<br />
tlie lowest number of cars on hand since the middle<br />
of last January.<br />
Mr. C. A. Reynolds, a civil engineer in the employ<br />
of the Boomer Coal & Coke Co., was drowned<br />
in the Kanawha river near Boomer, W. Va., Aug.<br />
7, while in bathing with several companions. Mr.<br />
Reynolds was 25 years of age and has been in the<br />
employ of the Boomer Coal & Coke Co. for tlie past<br />
year. His home was in Orange, Va.
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
BIG ATTENDANCE EXPECTED AT THE MINE<br />
SAFETY DEMONSTRATION IN PITTS<br />
BURGH, OCTOBER 26 AND 27.<br />
Thirty thousand miners are expieted to attend<br />
the Mine Safety demonstration to lie held in Pitts<br />
burgh, October 26 and 27 under the auspices of<br />
the Federal Bureau of Mines, the American Red<br />
Cross, the Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association<br />
and the United Mine Workers of America.<br />
President Taft will make an address and will<br />
present, souvenir prizes to the miners taking part<br />
in the first-aid-to-the-iujured and rescue work exhibitions.<br />
Waiter L. Fisher, Secretary of the<br />
Interior, Governor Tener of Pennsylvania, and Dr.<br />
Joseph A. Holmes, director of the Bureau of<br />
Mines also will be present. The general arrangements<br />
for the demonstration are in charge of H.<br />
M. Wilson, engineer-in-charge of the Bureau of<br />
Mines.<br />
The demonstration, the purpose of which is to<br />
teach greater safety in mining, will begin the<br />
morning of October 26, at the experiment station<br />
of the Bureau of Mines, Fortieth and Butler<br />
streets. The first day will be devoted to the<br />
interests of the mine operators, mine owners, mining<br />
engineers and superintendents of mines.<br />
There will be an explosion of coal dust in tlie<br />
experiment gallery and tests of mine safety lamps<br />
in gas. The dangers of electric sparks in gas and<br />
coal dust will also be shown in one of the galleries.<br />
A class of miners will be trained in the use of<br />
the oxygen helmet which permits breathing in<br />
poisonous gases for a period of two hours.<br />
In the afternoon, the operators, engineers and<br />
superintendents will witness an actual mine ex<br />
plosion in the experimental mine of the Bureau<br />
at Bruceton, Pa., 12 miles from Pittsburgh. Coal<br />
dust will be allowed to accumulate in the mine<br />
and black powdfr, the use of which is strongly<br />
urged against, by the bureau, in mines where there<br />
are dangerous conditions, will be used. In other<br />
words, the bureau's experts will carry out in this<br />
mine all the bad practices which they believe lead<br />
to explosions.<br />
October 27, the demonstration will take place on<br />
Forbes field, in the presence of the President and<br />
other distinguished visitors. A temporary steel<br />
gallery will lie erected on tlie playing field and the<br />
cause of the recent great explosions in coal mines<br />
will lie dramatically shown in an explosion of coal<br />
dust. Immediately following the explosion, members<br />
of one of the rescue corps of the bureau, in<br />
their oxygen helmets, will rush into the smokefilled<br />
gallery and go through the work of rescue.<br />
Supposed victims of the explosion will be brought<br />
forth and given first-aid-to-the-injured.<br />
Expert rescue teams from the principal coal<br />
mines of the country will give friendly exhibitions<br />
and then the miners will pass in review of the<br />
President. The parade of the miners will con<br />
tinue downtown to the river front where a special<br />
pier has been assigned them to witness the marine<br />
parade in honor of the centenary of the beginning<br />
of steam navigation on the Ohio river. The miners'<br />
demonstration will conclude at noon and the<br />
remainder of the day will be taken up with the<br />
river centennial.<br />
JULY ANTHRACITE SHIPMENT.<br />
The shipments of anthracite coal for the month<br />
of July by companies as compared with those of<br />
July. 1910, were:<br />
Companies. 1911. 1910.<br />
Philadelphia & Reading 825,309 673,703<br />
Lehigh Valley S54.391 759,426<br />
Jersey Central 545,158 565,050<br />
Delaware, Lacka. & Western 776,013 672,844<br />
Delaware & Hudson 483,217 396,334<br />
Pennsylvania 40S.291 309,601<br />
Erie 720,221 567,339<br />
N. Y., Ontario & Western.. 191,465 227,262<br />
Total 4,804,065 4,202,059<br />
The shipments by months for the year, as com<br />
pared with 1910, were:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
January 5,904,117 5,306,618<br />
February 5,070,948 5,031,784<br />
March 5,996,894 5,174,166<br />
April 5,804,915 6,224,396<br />
May 6,317.352 5,679,661<br />
June 6.215,357 5.398,123<br />
July 4,8(14,065 4,202,059<br />
August 4,996,044<br />
September 4,967,516<br />
October 5,622,095<br />
November 6,071,746<br />
December 6,231,578<br />
Total 40,113.648 64,905,786<br />
Enoch L. Filer, one of the best known coal<br />
operators in the Butler-Mercer field, is dead in his<br />
late home. Greenville, Pa. He was the son of<br />
Enoch Filer, of Sharon, a pioneer coal operator,<br />
and was born 50 years ago. He was twice married,<br />
his second wife being Mary Crawford, of<br />
Grove City. Mr. Filer was a member of St.<br />
Clement's Episcopal Church and of the Elks. The<br />
following children, with his widow, survive: Mrs.<br />
Maud Aspery, of Cleveland; Mrs. L. R. Stone, of<br />
Lrreenville, and Carl, Paul, Enoch and Mary, of<br />
Greenville.
SIX MONTHS COAL TRADE SHOWS A<br />
DECREASE OVER PREVIOUS YEAR.<br />
A considerable increase in the anthracite coal<br />
tonnage, a slight decrease in the bituminous coal<br />
tonnage and a heavy decline in the coke tonnage<br />
of the leading eastern railroads during the first<br />
six months of the present year are shown by the<br />
June figures of internal commerce, recently made<br />
public by the Bureau of Statistics of the Department<br />
of Commerce and Labor. Inasmuch as<br />
bituminous coal is used primarily for industrial<br />
purposes, while coke is consumed chiefly by smelting<br />
furnaces, the figures would seem to indicate<br />
that the present depression in the iron trade is<br />
shared to a much smaller extent by other coalusing<br />
industries.<br />
The six months' shipments of bituminous coal<br />
by eight leading eastern coal roads for the first<br />
half of the present year aggregated 55,489,425 short<br />
tons, compared with 57.475,998 short tons for the<br />
same period in 1910 and 46,673,084 short tons for<br />
1909. The larger roads, such as the Pennsylvania<br />
Lines East of Pittsburgh, the Baltimore &<br />
Ohio, the New York Central and the Pittsburgh<br />
& Lake Erie, show slightly smaller totals than a<br />
year ago, while the tonnage figures of the Buffalo,<br />
Rochester & Pittsburgh and the Norfolk & Western<br />
show a larger volume of coal traffic than in 1910.<br />
The shipments of bituminous coal by water at<br />
the five leading Atlantic ports for the six months<br />
of the present year are stated as 13,012,896 long<br />
tons, compared with 12,497,812 long tons for the<br />
corresponding period of the past year. The domestic<br />
lake shipments of soft coal for the same<br />
period, 5,008,S53 short tons, show the largest relative<br />
decline from the corresponding figures of 5,-<br />
913,177 short tons. Coastwise receipts of soft coal<br />
at Boston for the six months of the present year,<br />
1,983,176 long tons, compare favorably with the<br />
corresponding 1910 figures of 1,934,140 long tons,<br />
while coal receipts at St. Louis show a decline<br />
from 3,921,551 short tons for the first half of 1910<br />
to 3,404,765 short tons for the six months of the<br />
present year.<br />
The quantities of soft coal moved by river for<br />
the six months of the present year show a large<br />
increase over the quantities thus moved in 1910.<br />
In particular, the coal traffic on the Monongahela<br />
river is given as 5,107,962 short tons for the six<br />
months of the present year, compared with 4,936,-<br />
464 short tons for the first six months in 1910.<br />
The quantities of soft coal passing Davis Island<br />
dam during the first half of the present year are<br />
stated as 1,880,990 short tons, compared with 1,-<br />
377,685 short tons in 1910. The amount of coal<br />
carried by way of the Louisville and Portland<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
canal and falls of the Ohio river during the present<br />
year was 968,262 short tons, compared with 828,-<br />
641 short tons in 1910.<br />
The foreign demand for soft coal during tlie<br />
first half of the present year shows a considerable<br />
increase, as may be seen from the domestic exports<br />
of this article, which grew from 4,522,812<br />
long tons in 1910 to 5,577,672 long tons for the<br />
first six months of the present year. The quantities<br />
of coal used for bunkering vessels in the<br />
foreign trade at all ports of the country show an<br />
increase from 3,235,350 long tons in 1910 to 3,276,-<br />
171 long tons for the first half of the present year.<br />
The quantities of bunker coal furnished to vessels<br />
in the foreign trade at the port of New York alone<br />
were 1,939,740 long tons for the first six months<br />
of the present year, compared with 1,915,282 long<br />
tons supplied during the first half of the past year.<br />
The coke traffic during the first half of the present<br />
year shows a more unfavorable development.<br />
owing to the slackened demand in the iron and<br />
steel trades. Thus the estimated production of<br />
the Connellsville region shows a decline of almost<br />
30 per cent, from 11,289,569 short tons for the<br />
first 26 weeks in 1910 to 8,026,923 short tons for the<br />
same period of the present year. The coke traffic<br />
of eight leading eastern railroads shows about<br />
the same relative decline from 15,019,444 short<br />
tons in 1910 to 11,010,019 short tons in 1911. The<br />
iron ore shipments from upper lake ports show<br />
the largest decline, the 1911 figures. 8,675,624 long<br />
tons, falling over 40 per cent, short of the corresponding<br />
1910 figures. The pig iron output for<br />
the first half of the present year is stated as 11,-<br />
471,054 long tons, or about 22 per cent, less than<br />
the corresponding total in 1910, the Chicago district<br />
showing the largest curtailment of production.<br />
MINE RUN LAW STILL IN FORCE<br />
SAYS ILLINOIS ATTORNEY GENERAL.<br />
Attorney General William H. Stead of Illinois<br />
was asked to give an opinion as to whether the<br />
Illinois mine-run law had been repealed and his<br />
written opinion in the matter is as follows:<br />
Hon. David Ross, Secretary Commissioner of Labor,<br />
Springfield, 111.:<br />
Dear Sir—In your letter of the 6th inst. you<br />
refer to an act entitled. "An Act to revise the laws<br />
in relation to coal mines and subjects relating<br />
thereto, and providing for the health and safety of<br />
persons employed therein," approved June 6, 1911,<br />
in force July 1, 1911, and submit for my opinion<br />
the question as to whether "An Act to provide for<br />
the payment of coal miners for all coal mined by
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
them, and providing additional duties for mine inspectors."<br />
approved June 3, 1897, was in force<br />
July 1, 1911.<br />
In reply thereto, I would state that on April 5,<br />
1906, I rendered you an opinion to the effect that<br />
the act of 1899, entitled "An Act to revise the laws<br />
in relation to coal mines and subjects relating<br />
thereto, and providing for the health and safety<br />
of persons employed therein," did not repeal, either<br />
expressly or by implication, the said act of June 3,<br />
1897. After referring to the act of June 3, 1897, I<br />
stated that said act "has reference solely to the<br />
manner in which miners shall be paid for their<br />
sei vices. The provisions of the revision act of<br />
1899 are not repugnant to. nor in conflict with,<br />
said last named act of 1897, and 1 am of the opinion<br />
that the same is not repealed by implication,<br />
but is still in force."<br />
Under a re-examination of the matter I am still<br />
of the opinion that the act of 1899 did not repeal<br />
by implication the said act of June 3, 1S97.<br />
I further am of the opinion for the reasons given<br />
in my letter of April 5, 1906, that the revision of<br />
the mining act, approved June 6, 1911, did not repeal<br />
the said act of June 3, 1S97, either expressly<br />
or by implication. In other words, in my opinion,<br />
the said act of June 3, 1897, is still in force.<br />
Very respectfully,<br />
WM. H. STEAD. Attorney General.<br />
ASSIGN TERRITORY TO<br />
ELEVEN IMPERIAL SENTRIES.<br />
To further the activities of the Order Ko-Koal<br />
the coming year in the various sections the Imperial<br />
Modoc has assigned various territories to<br />
come under the jurisdiction of the members of the<br />
Imperial Eleven Sentries as follows:<br />
Arthur H. Hull, Imperial Modoc, Chicago, 111..<br />
to have supervision over Northern Illinois, Southern<br />
Wisconsin. Kentucky, Missouri. Oklahoma,<br />
Texas, Ge<strong>org</strong>ia and other unassigned territory.<br />
Daniel Howard, Imperial Baron, Clarksburg, W.<br />
Va., over West Virginia, Virginia, North and<br />
South Carolina.<br />
E. E. Springer, Imperial Baronel, Spokane,<br />
Wash., over Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho<br />
and Western Canada.<br />
Arch Coleman, Imperial Baronet, Minneapolis.<br />
Minn., over Minnesota. Northern Wisconsin, North<br />
and South Dakota.<br />
Charles E. Lester, Imperial Pictor, New York<br />
City, over Eastern New York and New England.<br />
John H. Craig, Imperial Mazumer, Assumption,<br />
111., over Southern Illinois and Eastern Iowa.<br />
Charles K. Scull, Imperial Gazook, Philadelphia,<br />
Pa., over Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware,<br />
Maryland and District of Columbia.<br />
John S. Van Epps, Imperial Pit Boss, Cleveland,<br />
Ohio, over Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.<br />
A. L. Snow, Imperial Acolyte, Omaha, Neb., over<br />
Nebraska, Easiern Iowa, Kansas and Wyoming.<br />
Homer H. Allen, Imperial Spotta, Erie, Pa..<br />
over Western Pennsylvania, Western New York<br />
and Ontario.<br />
Under this arrangement each member of the<br />
Imperial Eleven Sentries has specific territory and<br />
he has the definite honor of being the highest<br />
Ko-Koal officer in that section and is the active<br />
head of all Ko-Koal affairs. Under his jurisdiction<br />
come the local Breakers which are established<br />
in the larger cities, the Skouts who have charge<br />
in prescribed districts and the Sachems who are<br />
the Ko-Koal leaders in towns or cities where local<br />
Breakers have not been formally established.<br />
The new Imperial Sentries have already taken<br />
hold with enthusiasm and it is expected that the<br />
full complement of Skouts and Sachems to complete<br />
the <strong>org</strong>anization for the coming year will be<br />
announced during the coining month.<br />
The present Imperial Sentries have also decided<br />
to make an earnest recommendation to the next<br />
annual pow wow advising that a precedent be<br />
established of honoring with an election to the<br />
imperial Board those Skouts and Sachems who<br />
do good work in promoting the Ko-Koal principles<br />
in their respective territories. In other<br />
words, it is the general idea that where there are<br />
only eleven of the highest positions of honor out<br />
of a total membership of between four and five<br />
thousand, that preference should be given to those<br />
who have taken the most active interest in helping<br />
to build up the fundamental square deal doctrine<br />
of "Come On and Lift."<br />
The Grand Trunk railway has raised most of its<br />
anthracite coal rates, effective September 1. About<br />
two-thirds of the principal points are affected by<br />
the increase. To partially offset this raise, there<br />
are lower rates on bituminous coal to about 20<br />
stations, but the reductions are of very small account.<br />
Previous to this the road has classified<br />
its coal rates in one tariff, but now there are separate<br />
tariffs for hard and soft coal, and also one<br />
for coke.<br />
The Department of Mines of West Virginia will<br />
hold an examination for mine foremen and fire<br />
bosses at Clarksburg, W. Va., August 17 and in<br />
Wheeling August 23 and 24. L. D. Vaughn, district<br />
mine inspector, will be in charge.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
LOSS OF LIFE IN COAL MINES COMPARED WITH OTHER<br />
HAZARDOUS OCCUPATIONS*<br />
By Jesse K. Johnston, General Superintendent Charleroi Coal Works.<br />
The American workingman can and does better<br />
work in any given time than any other workingman<br />
in any country in the world, and this fact<br />
has been proven by the Westinghouse Electric Co.<br />
becoming dissatisfied with the slow work of the<br />
British workingmen during the erection of their<br />
British plant and importing American bricklayers<br />
in order that the work might be rapidly accomplished.<br />
When work was started on the great<br />
Assouan dam on the River Nile, contracts were<br />
asked from all over thhe world for structural iron<br />
work and the contract was awarded to the American<br />
contractors because they agreed to furnish<br />
material and perform their work quicker than any<br />
contractors from any other part of the world.<br />
The employes inside of American coal mines are<br />
producing almost double the coal of the employes<br />
of the mines in any European country, man<br />
for man and hour for hour, and are also earning<br />
more money. In Great Britain in 1909 the number<br />
of tons produced per inside employe was 322<br />
tons, in Pennsylvania bituminous mines 893 tons.<br />
This speaks well not only for the introduction of<br />
modern mining machinery, but the energy and<br />
activity of our miners. The average for two<br />
years 1908-1909 shows that for 1,000.000 tons of<br />
coal produced in Great Britain 4.71 lives were lost;<br />
and for every 1,000,000 tons produced in<br />
THE BITUMINOUS MINES<br />
of Pennsylvania 4.13 lives were lost, a result somewhat<br />
favorable to Pennsylvania.<br />
It is not the purpose of this paper to burden its<br />
hearers with a mass of statistics, which are always<br />
uninteresting at best, but to draw some conclusions<br />
and comparisons with other hazardous occupations<br />
and see if the fatal and non-fatal accidents<br />
have causes and reasons similar to those of the<br />
coal industry, and find out if there is any remedy<br />
for their prevention.<br />
The coal operators of Pennsylvania have been<br />
the subject of much unjust criticism indulged in<br />
by the people at a distance, and by a portion of<br />
the public press, on account of mine disasters and<br />
the great loss of life inside of the mines. In a<br />
recent issue of Pearson's Magazine there appeared<br />
an article on the danger of electricity in the mines<br />
of Southwestern Pennsylvania, and charged the<br />
officials of the mines with the deliberate murder of<br />
the miners. The writer of this article not only<br />
insulted every coal operator, superintendent, mine<br />
foreman and fire boss, but he allowed prejudice<br />
"Paper read before the Mid-Summer Meeting of the Coal<br />
Mining Institute. Data Compiled From Pennsylvania State<br />
Mine Reports, Interstate Commerce Commission. State Factory<br />
Inspector Reports.<br />
to outweigh analysis, and fancy to outstrip facts,<br />
and in answer to this article, it might be well<br />
to quote from the actual reports furnished by the<br />
mine inspectors to the chief of the Department<br />
of Mines for a period of thirty-three (33) years.<br />
Inside. Percentage.<br />
by falls of coal, slate and roof 59.38<br />
By mine cars 14.09<br />
By explosions of gas and dust 16.33<br />
By explosions of powder and dynamite.... 1.03<br />
By explosions of blasts 1.2S<br />
By falling into shafts and slopes 1.55<br />
By mules .25<br />
Suffocation by gas .49<br />
By machinery .64<br />
By electricity 1.73<br />
Miscellaneous causes 3.23<br />
100.00<br />
Electricity as a cause of accidents, while small<br />
in percentage, has slowly increased. In 1892<br />
nothing; in 1909, 4.63 per cent.; in 1910. 0.3 per<br />
cent.<br />
It is a much easier task to fight a raging fire in<br />
a coal mine with tongue or pen at a distance,<br />
than to<br />
BRAVE THE DANGERS<br />
of poisonous gases and perform the actual work at<br />
close quarters. There is no comparison between<br />
a fire in the 24th story of a skyscraper and fire<br />
down in a shaft mine 1,000 feet below the surface.<br />
There is also a vast difference between discipline<br />
in an army, where disobedience brings the<br />
severest penalty, and discipline in a coal mine,<br />
where the breaking of the law sometimes results<br />
in the discharge and prosecution of the evil doer<br />
only to receive protection from the labor <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
to which he belongs. The best thoughts of<br />
most officials in the bituminous mine industry are<br />
being given to the invention and adoption of<br />
safety appliances and other means that will insure<br />
greater safety to the thousands of persons<br />
employed in the coal mines, and it is hoped that<br />
the loss of life, deplorable as it is, will, through<br />
their efforts, show a decrease for the future.<br />
The three great subjects of history. War. Famine,<br />
and Pestilence, meet on common ground with<br />
the killed, maimed and shattered beings resulting<br />
from the operation of the American railroads.<br />
It is estimated that fifty millions of dollars is<br />
the price that must be paid for the safety of persons<br />
traveling or working on railways. In spite<br />
of all the block signal systems, air-brakes, self
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
couplers, standardization of cars, and other safety<br />
regulations, one trainman is wounded in eight<br />
every year. Taking the period 1900 to 1909—<br />
95,864 persons were killed and 823,615 wounded.<br />
The<br />
LOSS IS FAR GREATER<br />
in the aggregate killed and wounded than in all<br />
battles of all wars fought by the English speaking<br />
people on the continent since the discovery of<br />
America by Columbus.<br />
To be more explicit, take the killed and wounded<br />
in all the battles of the French and Indian War,<br />
Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War,<br />
all Indian wars. War of Rebellion, Spanish-<br />
American War, they amount to less than<br />
the killed and wounded in the last ten<br />
years by the American railroads, and then you<br />
have a wounded loss of 259,000 by the railroads<br />
not included in this estimate.<br />
By making an examination we find that the<br />
causes for deaths and accidents are due to the<br />
breaking of train orders by conductors and engineers,<br />
causing collisions, that nearly one-third of<br />
the total number of passengers killed resulted<br />
from jumping off or on trains, and that in the<br />
year 1909, 4,944 persons were killed and 5,759<br />
injured while trespassing at the time of the accident.<br />
During the years 190S-1909, the total loss<br />
of life in all the mines of the United States<br />
amounted to 4.862—less than the number killed<br />
while trespassing alone during the year 1909.<br />
We have other causes such as coupling and uncoupling,<br />
derailments, parting of trains, overhead<br />
obstructions. It is gratifying to know that<br />
the year 1909 shows some improvement, due<br />
to the raising of the quality of the personnel of<br />
the men, and a better understanding between the<br />
railroad officials and the regulations of the Interstate<br />
Commerce Commission. Comparisons of<br />
the returns of the passengers injured during the<br />
year with the previous year will show a decrease of<br />
1,500, and of the employes killed and wounded,<br />
will show.<br />
A VERY MATERIAL DECREASE.<br />
It is very gratifying to know that the principal<br />
railway lines are insisting that their operating<br />
forces shall be strictly temperate, and during the<br />
year 1908, four railroads—Pennsylvania, Burlington,<br />
Northwestern and Santa Fe—went through<br />
the twelve months without a passenger being<br />
killed. Quite a number of things contributed to<br />
the safe carrying of the hundred million passengers<br />
who traveled over these lines: automatic<br />
block signals, safety devices on cars, and other<br />
appliances, but as much as or more patent than<br />
any of these was the superior discipline and efficiency<br />
of the operating forces, due to the temperate<br />
habits of the employes. Along these lines the<br />
bituminous coal operators can take some lessons,<br />
in view of the fact that we have 26 coal companies<br />
with yearly productions varying from 2,730,355<br />
tons down to 291,927 tons, who have operated their<br />
mines for 10 years, without a fatal accident. This<br />
is indeed a remarkable record, and shows a high<br />
personnel of the superintendents and foremen, who<br />
for their skill and care, deserve the highest praise<br />
for this record. It certainly strikes me that we,<br />
who are not in this honored list, should take an<br />
inventory of the habits of our superintendents,<br />
mine foremen and fire bosses and see if they measure<br />
up to the best of standards.<br />
The safest place in the world is claimed to be<br />
on a first-class vessel at sea. Some years ago statistics<br />
were compiled tending to prove that in proportion<br />
to numbers carried there were less casualties<br />
at sea than on land. About the same time<br />
the Massachusetts authorities published figures<br />
covering a year, showing that there were<br />
MORE FATAL STREET ACCIDENTS<br />
in the city of Boston alone than on all the railroads<br />
of the state combined, thus easing the minds<br />
of those who were inclined to believe they were<br />
taking their lives in their hands when they set<br />
out on a journey by rail. It has long been a<br />
subject of remark that a sailor never considers<br />
himself out of danger until he finds himself safely<br />
aboard ship far out at sea. But the ordinary<br />
"landlubber" imagines that he is in peril when<br />
the shores disappear in the distance.<br />
In the Gloucester fisheries, a most hazardous occupation,<br />
we find since 1830 to date, the total lives<br />
lost amount to 5,372. Gloucester has at present<br />
4,500 to 6,000 fishermen employed, and during the<br />
last 10 years that death rate has been materially<br />
decreased, only 21 lives lost in 1910, due in great<br />
measure to the advance and more seaworthy type<br />
of vessels in general use and a better grade of<br />
seamen.<br />
In the iron and steel mills, shops, machine<br />
shops, we find the loss of life due to reckless<br />
manipulation of cranes and hoists, the hasty and<br />
faulty hooking of heavy weights, the slipping of<br />
furnaces, overturning of ladles filled with molten<br />
metal, the speeding of engines and cars without<br />
lights, bell or flagman through the yards of large<br />
establishments thronged with busy workmen, the<br />
ordering of employes to work on rotten scaffoldings,<br />
the employment of foreigners ignorant of<br />
our language and habits in dangerous occupations<br />
without words of caution and without proper oversight,<br />
are crimes against humanity that call for<br />
drastic legislation. Ninety per cent, of the accidents<br />
occur in and about<br />
ROLLING MILLS AND BLAST FURNACES,<br />
and 75 per cent, of the employes are foreign born.<br />
It would seem in view of all that has been done
to safeguard employes, that the accidents should<br />
be fewer each year; however, if men will place<br />
ladders upon overhead shafting and climb them to<br />
oil machinery in motion, if they will crawl between<br />
the upper and lower parts of a swiftly moving<br />
belt, if they will jump on and off elevators in<br />
motion, if they will brush their fingers against<br />
revolving machines, if they will persist in removing<br />
safety devices, then accidents will not materially<br />
lessen in number.<br />
With all the legislation that has been enacted.<br />
there conies the report from the Internal Revenue<br />
Bureau that the last year has been marked by the<br />
greatest consumption of liquors ever known in<br />
this country. For many years we have been<br />
gathering to ourselves a vast foreign population.<br />
For the last half decade, our annual immigration<br />
has averaged three-quarters of a million at the<br />
port of New York alone, and Pennsylvania gets 26<br />
per cent, of this foreign immigration. The big<br />
army of new comers has brought with it the drinking<br />
customs of the Old World and it will not be<br />
until the second generation that they can be<br />
hopefully converted to a modern scientific temperance<br />
view<br />
One of the great drawbacks to a general improvement<br />
of the coal industry has been the low<br />
selling price of coal. For a period of 10 years,<br />
from 1900 to 1910, there has been an increase in<br />
miners' wages in the Pittsburgh district of 55<br />
per cent., while the selling price for the same<br />
period has only advanced about 9 per cent. With<br />
the production of<br />
SOFT COAL INCREASING<br />
at the rate of more than 40,000,000 tons a year,<br />
it is safe to say that within a short time the coal<br />
carrying roads' capacity will be taxed to the utmost<br />
and that coal will not be a drug in the future.<br />
This problem is based on the fact that many railroads<br />
are close to their carrying capacity, while<br />
a larger number of other roads are retrenching<br />
rather than increasing their capacity for future<br />
traffic.<br />
The chief obstacles that confront the operator<br />
are the indifference and carelessness of some of the<br />
officials in direct charge of the mines, and a passive<br />
resistance to safety devices which has been<br />
clearly demonstrated by practical and scientific<br />
facts. On the other hand, the miners frequently<br />
violate the laws, because they have become accustomed<br />
to the dangers that surround them and are<br />
consequently indifferent to the results that may<br />
follow their failure to exercise care and discretion.<br />
They make cartridges while lights are<br />
burning on their caps, thaw dynamite on a shovel<br />
over a lamp, work under overhanging slate in<br />
imminent danger of being crushed or maimed and<br />
continue to load cars before setting the necessary<br />
props and timbers. They are injured by not<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
taking proper precautions for setting brakes<br />
and sprags on cars and by being caught<br />
between pillars and ribs where there is not<br />
clearance for moving cars and locomotives.<br />
The very large percentage of the employes<br />
in coal mines who are foreigners, unfamiliar<br />
with the English language, unable to read<br />
the rules of the mines, and frequently unable to<br />
comprehend the instructions and advice given<br />
them, are a constant menace to life, especially in<br />
gaseous mines. In this state, where mine management<br />
has reached a<br />
HIGH DEGREE OF PERFCTION,<br />
where state supervision is constant and capable,<br />
where equipment is generally the best and modern,<br />
one would naturally expect the number of casualties<br />
correspondingly, but unfortunately, this has<br />
not been the case. The conditions that tend to<br />
safety are generally nullified by carelessness, incompetency<br />
and the chance taker, and no great<br />
improvement can be hoped for until the foreign<br />
element are educated sufficiently to work more intelligently<br />
with more regard for their physical<br />
welfare, not only for themselves, but for their<br />
fellow workmen.<br />
In the last 33 years in Pennsylvania, 73 per cent.<br />
of the loss of lives in coal mines have been due to<br />
carelessness on the part of miners, while 27 per<br />
cent, have been due to negligence of the operators.<br />
Surely there is something wrong somewhere in<br />
a civilization that presents such a spectacle to<br />
the eyes of tatesmen, humanitarians and philosophers,<br />
and whatever the wrong, its remedy has<br />
not been found in legislation, enacted or suggested.<br />
The real remedy doubtless lies in a reconstruction<br />
of the present economic methods, a reconstruction<br />
that will re<strong>org</strong>anize and abide by the prinples<br />
promulgated by the sermon on the Mount<br />
for the guidance of all generations, and an improvement<br />
of the living conditions, and a general<br />
IMPROVEMENT BROUGHT ABOUT<br />
by educational methods. Just think how long<br />
the world has stood still and then recall that practically<br />
everything we have learned within a hundred<br />
years. We have really just begun to solve<br />
the mysterious questions, relative to mine disasters,<br />
and what we know now is just an atom<br />
of what there is to know. The most wonderful<br />
changes are coming, changes that will bring about<br />
more safety, more economy, more profit, better<br />
social conditions to the employe, and a better understanding<br />
between capital and labor. The operators<br />
of Pennsylvania can carry out every section<br />
of the drastic Roderick mine law passed by the<br />
last legislature, they can introduce every safety<br />
appliance known inside of their mines, but after<br />
all, the safety of the mine depends more on the
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
intelligent effort of every official and miner inside<br />
of the mine, and this means education.<br />
If the railroads in this country, employing 1,-<br />
500,000 people, by raising the quality of the men,<br />
can see hope for a reduction of the fatal accidents,<br />
there is certainly hope for a betterment in the<br />
mining industry. With proposed pension funds,<br />
with the great work of investigation in the Department<br />
of Mines, withh the mining schools and<br />
institutes, the Y. M. C. A. work, we are bound to<br />
improve the quality of our men. break down prejudices<br />
and bigotry, and the eventual result will<br />
be reduction of the fatal accidents in the mine industry.<br />
BY-PRODUCT COKE SHOWS BIG INCREASE<br />
AND HUGE SAVING OF MATERIALS.<br />
For many years the valuable material constituting<br />
the by-products in the manufacture of coke<br />
was absolutely wasted; even to-day there is great<br />
extravagance in coke making, through the continued<br />
use by the majority of manufacturers of<br />
the old beehive type of coke oven, rather than<br />
the by-product oven. The United States is far<br />
behind Germany and other foreign countries in<br />
adopting the economies resulting from the coking<br />
of coal in by-product ovens. In what is known<br />
as the beehive oven, so called because of its similarity<br />
in shape to the conventional beehive, the<br />
coal is only partly consumed, or, to speak more<br />
properly, the volatile combustible constituents, the<br />
gas. tar and ammonia—everything except the<br />
fixed carbon, which is left behind as coke—is<br />
wasted. In the by-product ovens these are recovered<br />
and used. In Germany little or no coke<br />
is now made except in retort or by-product ovens.<br />
Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of these<br />
valuable by-products have been wasted by American<br />
coke producers, but it is gratifying to note<br />
that the improved by-product oven is replacing the<br />
wasteful beehive with considerable rapidity.<br />
The first ovens of the by-product type in the<br />
United States were built in 1893 at Syracuse, N.<br />
Y. From this one plant there has been an increase<br />
to 4,078 by-product ovens in 1910, all but<br />
27 of which were in active operation. This is an<br />
increase of 164 over the number in operation in<br />
1909 and 399 more than were in operation in 1908.<br />
During 1909 and 1910, according to E. W. Parker,<br />
of the United States Geological Survey, there<br />
was more activity in the construction of by-product<br />
recovery coking plants than at any time since 1903.<br />
At the close of 109 there were 649 by-product ovens<br />
in course of construction, with 300 more contracted<br />
for. Of the 649 ovens started in 1909, there<br />
were 99 completed and put in blast in 1910. Work<br />
on the 300 ovens contracted for in 1909 was begun<br />
in 1910.<br />
The production of coke in by-product ovens in<br />
1910 amounted to 7,138,734 short tons, against 6,-<br />
254,644 tons in 1909 and 4,201.226 tons in 1908.<br />
The increase in 1910 over 1909 was 14.13 per cent.,<br />
whereas the total production of beehive coke increased<br />
from 33,060,421 short tons to 34,570,076, a<br />
gain of 1,509,655 tons, or only 4.57 per cent. The<br />
coke made in by-product ovens in 1910 was 17.12<br />
per cent, of the total production.<br />
The efficiency of by-product ovens is shown by<br />
the fact that while the beehive ovens in 1910 produced<br />
34,570,076 short tons of coke in a consumption<br />
of 53,559,285 short tons of coal, or 64.54 per<br />
cent., the retort ovens in the same year produced<br />
7,138,734 short tons of coke on a consumption of<br />
9,529,042 short tons of coal, or 74.9 per cent.<br />
The figures compiled 'by the Geological Survey<br />
show that the average cost of the coal consumed<br />
in the by-product ovens in 1910 was $2.18 a ton,<br />
against $1.01 a ton for that used in the beehive<br />
ovens, but the difference in these values is due to<br />
the fact that in beehive practice the transportation<br />
charges are borne by the coke, and as retort oven<br />
plants are located at a distance from the mines,<br />
the freight item is charged to the value of the<br />
coal used in them. If. however, the expense of<br />
transportation on beehive coke from the ovens to<br />
the points of consumption is added to the value<br />
of the coke it will probably be found that the cost<br />
of the beehive coke at the furnace has exceeded<br />
that of the by-product oven coke.<br />
The total value of the by-products obtained from<br />
the manufacture of coke in retort ovens in 1910<br />
was $8,479,557, or a little more than one-third of<br />
the value of the coke produced—$24,793,016. In<br />
1909 the value of the by-products amounted to<br />
$8,073,948, and in 1908 to $7,382,299. The byproducts<br />
recovered in 1910 consisted of 27,692,858<br />
cubic feet of surplus gas. valued at $3,017,908;<br />
66,303,214 gallons of tar, valued at $1,599,453; 70,-<br />
247,543 pounds of ammonium sulphate, or its<br />
equivalent, valued at $1,841,062; 20,229,421 pounds<br />
of anhydrous ammonia, valued at $1,725,266, and<br />
4,654,282 gallons of ammonia liquor, valued at $295,-<br />
868. In addition to these, there is a quantity of<br />
light and secondary oil and small quantities of<br />
coke breeze recovered, with an estimated value of<br />
$400,000. The value of the recoverable but wasted<br />
contents of the coal made into coke in beehive<br />
ovens would, at the prices obtained in 1910, have<br />
been between $35,000,000 and $40,000,000.<br />
If all of the coke made in the United States were<br />
produced in retort ovens, says Mr. Parker, probably<br />
not more than half of the number of ovens<br />
would be required, say, for 1910, 45.000 ovens.<br />
These would yield in gas, over and above that required<br />
for the regeneration of the ovens, without<br />
by-product recovery, approximately a million horsepower<br />
per hour for every day in the year.
USE AND CARE OF MINE-RESCUE<br />
BREATHING APPARATUS.<br />
With the rapid development of mine rescue work<br />
in the United States in the last two years and the<br />
increasing use of the mine-breathing apparatus<br />
there has come to the Federal Bureau of Mines a<br />
demand for information concerning this apparatus<br />
and how it should be properly used. In response<br />
the Bureau of Mines has issued Miners' Circular<br />
No. 4. on "The Use and Care of Mine-Rescue<br />
Breathing Apparatus," by James W. Paul, who has<br />
general charge of the rescue work. Mr. Paul<br />
makes the statement that the use of such apparatus<br />
for rescue work in mines is no longer an experiment,<br />
but has become an important factor in<br />
lessening loss of life and property from fires and<br />
explosions.<br />
The circular describes the various types of apparatus<br />
used by the bureau and gives careful in<br />
struction as to the care this apparatus should receive<br />
when not in use. Then the author passes<br />
upon the qualifications of rescue men at the mines.<br />
Mr. Paul says: "Mine men 22 to 45 years old, in<br />
good physical condition who are temperate in<br />
the'r habits and naturally calm and deliberate are<br />
best suited for mine rescue work. Before a man<br />
undergoes training in the use of breathing apparatus<br />
he should be examined by a physician to<br />
ascertain his physical condition, especially the<br />
action of his heart and lungs and any defects of<br />
the nose or throat. Unless a man has a physician's<br />
certificate stating that his physical condition<br />
is good, he should not be permitted to take<br />
rescue training nor to attempt rescue work in a<br />
mine.<br />
"A rescue party should have not less than five,<br />
and better not less than six members. Only such<br />
persons should be allowed to join the party as<br />
have already been trained in the use of the apparatus<br />
and are equipped with rescue apparatus<br />
in good order and have agreed to follow the directions<br />
of the leader, who must have full charge.<br />
While working in unbreathable gases within a<br />
mine the men should keep close to one another and<br />
not separate under any condition.<br />
"To be efficient and successful a party must<br />
take every precaution for its own safety. If one<br />
person in a party faints or receives an injury he<br />
becomes a burden instead of a help, for the entire<br />
party must at once conduit him to the surface or<br />
to fresh air. One or two stretchers should always<br />
be at hand.<br />
"A relief station or base of operations should be<br />
established at the end of the good air and a relief<br />
crew with knapsacks should be stationed there<br />
ready to put on their apparatus and start at a mo<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
ment's notice. A patrol of all brattices and doors<br />
leading up to the relief station should be maintained<br />
to protect the relief crew from harm.<br />
"At each large mine there should be at least<br />
four crews, two outside and two inside crews, each<br />
of six men. including a captain and a lieutenant,<br />
and these crews should have practice once a week.<br />
"While working in dense smoke the members<br />
of a crew should hold a rope which leads to fresh<br />
air.<br />
"In case of total failure of an apparatus to suplily<br />
breathable air, the wearer of the apparatus<br />
can throw away all parts but the oxygen cylinder,<br />
and breathe from the cylinder through his mouth<br />
while endeavoring to reach fresh air with the rest<br />
of the crew.<br />
"Apparatus for giving oxygen to one who has<br />
been overcome with gases is an essential part of<br />
the equipment of a rescue party.<br />
"A telephone helmet is a convenience for shaft<br />
work, and its presence lends much confidence to a<br />
rescue party. Electric lamps, safety lamps, gasanalysis<br />
apparatus, thermometers, a pocket compass,<br />
and a map of the mine are necessary parts<br />
of the equipment.<br />
"At each training station a record should be<br />
kept showing the work done by the men and the<br />
difficulties encountered. A record of each apparatus<br />
should be kept also. If an apparatus<br />
fails to give proper service it should be subjected<br />
to the regular tests unless some injury is seen by<br />
inspection.<br />
"The United States Bureau of Mines has established<br />
a regular course of training in the use of<br />
mine-rescue breathing apparatus. This training<br />
is designed to give miners or other persons connected<br />
with mining a knowledge of breathing apparatus<br />
in general, and a confident familiarity<br />
with those types of apparatus that are most apt<br />
to be used in this country.<br />
"The purpose of the Bureau of Mines in establishing<br />
this system of training is to facilitate investigative<br />
work within mines in which disasters<br />
have occurred, and to make mine owners and miners<br />
acquainted with the value of breathing apparatus<br />
for rescue operations after mine disasters.<br />
It is hoped that, as a result of this work by the<br />
Federal Government in the near future, men familiar<br />
with such apparatus will be scattered<br />
ihroughout the coal mining centers of the country,<br />
and be available on short notice to assist in<br />
rescue operations. After a disaster, valuable time<br />
is often lost in training men at the mine before<br />
rescue parties can be <strong>org</strong>anized. Furthermore,<br />
a man cannot work efficiently unless he has thorough<br />
confidence in the apparatus. To give a
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
man this confidence, the course of training has<br />
been planned in such a way that he must do work<br />
in poisonous or unbreathable gases for periods<br />
of one and two hours at a time."<br />
BRITISH PATENT-FUEL INDUSTRY.<br />
The manufacture of coal briquets, or "patent<br />
fuel." has been thoroughly established at Swansea<br />
for many years, reports Consul C. Ludlow Livingston<br />
of Swansea, Wales, and this industry is<br />
closely connected with the trade of the port.<br />
There are more patent-fuel works in Swansea than<br />
in any other industrial center of the United Kingdom.<br />
There are six modern works there which<br />
involve a capital of $750,000, whose combined annual<br />
output, or "make," averages about 650,000<br />
tons, although their capacity is easily double that<br />
quantity. Practically the whole output is exported.<br />
The best customers are the European and<br />
South American railways. Large quantities are<br />
shipped regularly to Algeria, Egypt, Mexico, South<br />
America, and the West Indies.<br />
The table below shows the quantity of coal used<br />
in the manufacture of briquets in England, Ireland,<br />
Scotland, and Wales in 1909: also the tons<br />
of briquets manufactured therefrom and the value<br />
of the same:<br />
Tons of Briquets Produced.<br />
Counties. Coal. Tons. Value.<br />
England:<br />
Derby, Devon, Essex,<br />
and Hants 9,731 10.645 $36,197<br />
Lancaster 1,562 1,695 4,126<br />
Monmouth and Gloucester<br />
127,2S5 139,685 457,047<br />
Nottingham. Somerset,<br />
and Stafford. 14,898 16.577 48.757<br />
York 8,890 9,293 21,943<br />
Wales:<br />
Glam<strong>org</strong>an 1.189,268 1,270.235 3,948,590<br />
Scotland:<br />
Aberdeen, Ayr, and<br />
Lanark 39,124 42,620 144,885<br />
Ireland:<br />
Antrim, Cork, Down,<br />
and Dublin 19,392 20,895 100,313<br />
Total 1,410.150 1,511,645 4,761,85S<br />
Total in 1908 1,471,448 1,604,649 5,721,310<br />
The coal comprises 1,307.391 long tons of steam<br />
coal, 91,495 tons of household coal, 8,890 tons of<br />
coking coal, and 2.374 tons of various kinds mixed.<br />
The values given indicate in each instance the<br />
price at which the briquets were sold at the place<br />
where they were manufactured.<br />
WEST VIRGINIA'S COKE OUTPUT.<br />
In the quantity of coke produced West Virginia<br />
has for several years held second place among the<br />
states but is outranked by Alabama in the value<br />
of the product, according to Edward W. Parker,<br />
of the United States Geological Survey. The reason<br />
for this lies in the fact that the output of<br />
Alabama has in the iron manufacturing center of<br />
Birmingham and vicinity a local consumptive market,<br />
whereas practically all of the West Virginia<br />
coke is shipped to furnaces outside of the state.<br />
In reaching for these markets not only does the<br />
coke of West Virginia have to meet in competition<br />
the product from other states, but each district<br />
in the state becomes a rival with the other West<br />
Virginia districts and the result is exhibited in<br />
the statistics of production and value. Alabama<br />
ranks third in output of coke, her production in<br />
1910 being smaller than that of West Virginia by<br />
more than 550,000 tons, but the value of Alabama's<br />
product exceeded that of West Virginia by over<br />
$1,800,000. The quantity of coke produced in<br />
West Virginia in 1910 was 3,803,S81 short tons.<br />
valued at $7,355,233. Alabama's production was<br />
3,249,027 short tons, valued at $9,165,821. In quality<br />
the West Virginia coke is better than that of<br />
Alabama, but the average price of Alabama coke<br />
in 1910 was $2.82 a ton and that of West Virginia<br />
coke was $1.93.<br />
Next to Pennsylvania West Virginia possesses<br />
larger supplies of coking and other high grade<br />
coals than any other state in the Union, but so<br />
long as both the coal and the coke continue to be<br />
shipped out of the state, West Virginia will not<br />
attain the posiuon she should occupy as a manufacturing<br />
state, nor will the miners of coal and<br />
makers of coke receive a just return for these<br />
products. At the present time, ranking second<br />
as a producer of coal and coke, West Virginia<br />
stands thirty-fourth in the value of her manufactured<br />
products. The principal beneficiaries of<br />
tne coal mining and coke making industries in<br />
the state are the transportation companies.<br />
In most of the coke producing states the output<br />
in 1910 exceeded that of 1909. West Virginia<br />
was one of the exceptions, with a decrease of 140,-<br />
067 short tons, or 3.55 per cent. The value decreased<br />
$170,689, or 2.27 per cent. The numher<br />
of establishments was reduced from 138 in 1909<br />
to 135 in 1910, and the number of coke ovens from<br />
20,283 to 19.912, and the number of idle ovens increased<br />
from 2,274 to 2,590. The abandoned<br />
plants and mos- of the idle ovens were in the<br />
Upper Monongahela district. Witn the exception<br />
of 120 Semet-Solvay ovens at Benwood, all the<br />
ovens in the state are of the beehive type and no<br />
attempt is made to utilize the heat generated in<br />
the process.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM RECENT MINE DISASTERS"<br />
By John Verner. Chariton. Iowa.<br />
While each mine disaster teaches a valuable<br />
lesson peculiar to itself, it may prove a seriou.9<br />
mistake to form general and final conclusions<br />
from apparently good evidence of any one disaster<br />
and then to apply these conclusions to prescribe<br />
remedies for the future prevention of calamities of<br />
a similar nature; and the possibility of wrong conclusions<br />
based upon an investigation limited to one<br />
particular case, and the necessity and advantage of<br />
a comparative study of mine disasters of a similar<br />
kind so that the combined lessons of all may<br />
be used to bring into harmony apparently discrepant<br />
results, can be readily established, as the<br />
following will show.<br />
Looking over the report of one of the recent explosions,<br />
I found that it ceased on reaching an<br />
extended wet area in the mine, and it was assumed<br />
that the presence of moisture was the reason<br />
why it stopped in that particular place. Turning<br />
to the report of another explosion it was<br />
shown that the application of moisture and the<br />
damp condition of the dust neither prevented the<br />
occurrence of the explosion nor stopped it after<br />
it had started. Again, looking up another report<br />
I found that the explosion ceased to advance<br />
in the presence of an abundant supply of dry coal<br />
dust. The Elk Garden explosion may be taken<br />
as an example of the first case. As an example<br />
of the second case, I will quote from Miners' Circular<br />
3, recently issued by the Bureau of Mines:<br />
"In a recent mine disaster in this country, the<br />
explosion traveled 1,500 feet along a slope that<br />
had been washed down with hose just before the<br />
explosion and even had a wet floor after the explosion.<br />
The<br />
EXPLOSION BURST FORTH<br />
from the slope mouth in a great flame and deposited<br />
much coked dust on the timbers of the<br />
trestle." To present an occurrence covering the<br />
third case I will give the essential part of the<br />
report of the mine inspector of New Mexico relating<br />
to an explosion that occurred in the Weaver<br />
mine on March 6, 1910: "At the place where<br />
the blown-out shot initiated the explosion, apart<br />
from the combustion of the crushed coal and dust<br />
from the blown-out shot, all conditions were such<br />
as to prevent or retard a dust explosion. The<br />
explosion traveled outward to the parting on No.<br />
3M> seam, about 500 feet distance. About 15<br />
feet inside of the parting a driver was severely<br />
burned, and the two mules he was driving were so<br />
badly burned as to cause their death. Indications<br />
of the explosion were trivial beyond this<br />
<strong>•</strong>Paper read at the meeting of the Mine Inspectors of<br />
America, Charleston. W. Va.. June 13-16. 1911.<br />
point, although conditions were far more favorable<br />
for a violent dust explosion than in the locality<br />
where the explosive condition was maintained.<br />
Where the explosion ceased, at the parting where<br />
empty mine cars are delivered from the surface<br />
and loaded cars put on the rope to be transported<br />
to the surface, the roadways were covered with<br />
coal dust and were quite dry. The area was<br />
large, air comparatively fresh, and conditions<br />
favorable to the extension of the explosion, but<br />
it ceased at this point."<br />
Now. if the first case is considered by itself, it<br />
may permit the conclusion that the presence of<br />
moisture stops an explosion, if the second case<br />
is taken as the sole criterion for basing judgment,<br />
there is very strong evidence that the presence<br />
of moisture does not stop an explosion, while the<br />
consideration of the third case alone might bring<br />
the conclusion that the presence of<br />
DRY COAL DUST<br />
is not a dangerous factor. But when the matter<br />
is investigated on a broader scope and a careful<br />
comparison of all conditions surrounding recent<br />
explosions is made, it appears that the larger lesson<br />
so presented shows fairly conclusively that<br />
the presence of dry dust is a dangerous factor,<br />
although not the dominating factor in determining<br />
either an explosion's extent or the degree of<br />
destructiveness produced by it, and the lesson<br />
further justifies the definite conclusion that the<br />
moistening of the coal dust as a preventive of<br />
explosions is of uncertain value of itself and unreliable<br />
to produce the expected results. It is<br />
granted that, other conditions being identical, a<br />
sprinkled, sprayed or otherwise moistened mine<br />
may be considered less dangerous than a dry and<br />
dusty mine, but the margin of possible safety is<br />
too narrow and too uncertain to justify the claim,<br />
in view of the proofs to the contrary, that a mine<br />
can be rendered immune from explosions under<br />
any conditions by the application of moisture.<br />
I said at the beginning that it may prove a<br />
serious mistake to attempt to prescribe remedies<br />
for the prevention of explosions suggested by conclusions<br />
based upon narrow and superficial investigation<br />
of the subject, and the possible injurious<br />
consequences of such a mistake become all the<br />
more threatening when men with good intentions<br />
but evidently knowing little of the principles governing<br />
explosions, and therefore incompetent to<br />
give good advice, can prevail on the members of<br />
a state legislature to make mandatory by law the<br />
use of an alleged remedy that cannot possibly pro-
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
vide even a small proportion of the safety for the<br />
mine workers which the proposers and<br />
MAKERS OF THE LAW<br />
expected to secure. For instance, in Indiana the<br />
law provides that roadways and entries (rooms,<br />
crosscuts, etc., apparently exempt) in any mine<br />
shall be regularly and thoroughly sprinkled when<br />
they are so dry that the air becomes charged with<br />
dust. The law also permits the use of six pounds<br />
of blasting powder to the shot as a presumably<br />
safe charge. A dust explosion occurred in a<br />
mine in Indiana, causing loss of life. Suit was<br />
brought against the company and the Supreme<br />
Court of that state found that "the failure to<br />
sprinkle may be charged as the proximate and<br />
direct cause of the explosion." I have no fault<br />
to find with the decision under the circumstances,<br />
but it shows the futility and possible injustice of<br />
an extremely faulty law that, in a manner, compels<br />
the court to fix the cause of an explosion according<br />
to its letter rather than according to the<br />
true facts in the case. Such a law should be<br />
repealed at the earliest opportunity, for it is really<br />
a legal obstruction to safety and its possibilities<br />
for future harm are great. From the nature of<br />
the experiments recently made in England and<br />
France to discover a reliable preventive of dust<br />
explosions, it appears that the use of water is not<br />
considered adequate or satisfactory in those countries.<br />
The men engaged in making these experiments<br />
are evidently of the opinion that the use<br />
of stone dust in dry mines can subdue an explosion<br />
more effectively and quickly than the application<br />
of water, but even should the superior effectiveness<br />
of stone dust be established beyond a<br />
doubt, the present Indiana law would prevent the<br />
coal operators of that state from using this proved<br />
safeguard and thus providing an increased<br />
MEASURE OF PROTECTION<br />
for the men in the mines, because the effectiveness<br />
of the stone dust would be destroyed by the compulsory<br />
use of water.<br />
There is no law for compulsory watering of<br />
mines in Belgium, yet the Belgian mines with<br />
their great depth, their dryness and the presence<br />
of gas show a remarkable and pleasing record of<br />
freedom from explosions. There should be hesitation<br />
about hastily enacting laws in the mining<br />
states of this country for the compulsory application<br />
of water because it is not only of doubtful<br />
value but it carries with it a promise of safety<br />
that may not be redeemed when the test comes.<br />
Case after case could be cited to prove this and<br />
it is only hindering the final solution of the explosion<br />
problem to present excuses why the application<br />
of water failed to produce the desired effects<br />
in this or that explosion, instead of fairly facing<br />
the fact that they were not prevented by the<br />
method in use, although the method as employed,<br />
for instance in the slope mentioned in Miners'<br />
Circular 3 of the Bureau of Mines and in the<br />
Banner mine in Alabama, was as near perfect as<br />
man could be reasonably expected to make it.<br />
The value of the lesson of a mine disaster to<br />
be of practical use as a guide for devising means<br />
of prevention of a possible occurrence of similar<br />
nature does not depend on painting the calamity<br />
in vivid colors or in giving in harrowing detail<br />
all the suffering and horrors caused by it, or in<br />
heaping blame, deserved or otherwise, on state<br />
and mine officials, but rather upon a careful, fair<br />
and full inquiry by competent men, including<br />
miners, into all the<br />
CAUSES OF THE DISASTER<br />
and upon a well considered presentation of the influence<br />
of each. After the Cherry fire nearly all<br />
these things were done, but there was evidently<br />
one mistake made that, in my judgment, impaired<br />
the future value of the disaster's lesson materially.<br />
While the presence of the torch with its burning<br />
drops of oil falling on the hay was given a prominent<br />
place as the main cause of the fire and was<br />
denounced as a great menace and blunder, although<br />
the use of such torches at shaft bottoms<br />
was fairly general in the mines of this country,<br />
the fact that the great draft playing on the incipient<br />
blaze was really the most powerful and determining<br />
cause in this great disaster was almost<br />
entirely ignored. Had this feature of the Cherry<br />
lesson, showing the influence of a great draft passing<br />
through the shafts and entries as through a<br />
large blowpipe, forcing the rapid development of a<br />
small initial flame and producing the most intense<br />
concentration of heat, been given the prominence<br />
and emphasis it deserved, so that its import<br />
could have been correctly appreciated and<br />
understood by mine managers and mine employes,<br />
it is probable that, had the knowledge so gained<br />
been put to proper use in the Delagua and Pancoast<br />
mines, the great loss of life in them would<br />
not have occurred. Miners and men in charge<br />
of mines generally see only the beneficial effects<br />
of a strong air current sweeping" through the underground<br />
passages and workings and they do not<br />
realize, as they should, that while ordinarily a<br />
large air volume is highly desirable aud necessary<br />
as a health and safety promoting agency, in conjunction<br />
with even a<br />
VERY INSIGNIFICANT BLAZE,<br />
it becomes the most potential force in the destruction<br />
of life.<br />
The Delagua mine fire, that first killed 33 men<br />
by smoke and then caused a dust explosion killing<br />
46 more, was evidently started by a piece of<br />
smouldering lamp cotton or by burning tobacco<br />
thrown away by one of a number of drivers who<br />
had been eating their dinner in the return end<br />
of a crosscut closed by an unused door. A large
volume of air was passing along the intake and<br />
its pressure on the door was considerable with<br />
the result that jets of air were driven with great<br />
force through the cracks under and around the<br />
door from the intake into the return and the<br />
smouldering fire. Under the forceful impinging<br />
of the air the fire gained rapidly and as soon as<br />
it had partially destroyed the door the air was<br />
short-circuited, tne crosscut and vicinity became<br />
a roaring furnace, the air rushing into it with<br />
such great force as to violently stir up the coal<br />
dust and carry it to the fire in such quantities as<br />
to cause the subsequent explosion. This disaster<br />
would not have occurred if the driver, who passed<br />
the crosscut after the men had left it and who<br />
noticed some smoke there, had stopped and put<br />
out the yet insignificant fire. No doubt, this<br />
driver had read or heard all about the sensational<br />
features of the Cherry calamity, but this reprenensible<br />
and culpable neglect to investigate and<br />
promptly extinguish the fire showed that he knew<br />
nothing of the instructive features of the Cherry<br />
lesson. It is possibly unjust to condemn this<br />
man too severely and a large share of the moral<br />
responsibility for the accident must lie assumed<br />
Dy the mine management, if it can be shown that<br />
the management, with a<br />
GREAT LESSON BEFORE IT,<br />
neglected to profit by it and failed to make such<br />
preventive plans and arrangements as the lesson<br />
may suggest.<br />
The fire in the Price-Pancoast colliery started<br />
in an underground engine room while the engineer<br />
was temporarily absent, and its exact cause has<br />
not been established. A brisk air current was<br />
passing through the engine room. The management<br />
of the mine evidently recognized the possible<br />
danger from fire, for pipe lines were laid to<br />
different parts of the workings to provide a ready<br />
water supply in case of need and a tap was placed<br />
in the engine room. The arrangement, however,<br />
while commendable in a general way, proved not<br />
as effective for checking the fire as it should have<br />
been. A tap with hose attached located at the<br />
center or at the return end of a mine stable where<br />
the air flow is always in the same direction, with<br />
the air entering at one end and going out at the<br />
other, would be useless in fighting a fire that had<br />
started near the intake of the stable, and so it was<br />
a mistake to locate the tap in the interior of the<br />
engine room in the Pancoast mine where it could<br />
not be reached, when most needed, on account of<br />
fire and smoke. The logical location for the tap,<br />
if intended for available fire protection of the<br />
engine room, would have been at its intake opening<br />
near the sheave wheel. From the report I<br />
have regarding the fire it appears that in this<br />
case, as in the Cherry and Delagua cases, the combustible<br />
material present and burned was only a<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
factor of secondary importance and that the most<br />
powerful and dangerous factor in spreading the<br />
fire so quickly was the strong draft passing<br />
through the engine room. The danger of this<br />
draft could have been greatly decreased by the<br />
ERECTION' OF A DOOR<br />
in the cross heading (the air outlet), connecting<br />
the engine room with the turn out. The engineer,<br />
whenever required to leave the room for a<br />
few minutes, could then have closed this door and<br />
there would have been no excessive draft available<br />
to start a dangerous conflagration during his short<br />
absence and, if on his return he found tlie engine<br />
room on fire, the tap at its entrance would have<br />
provided a ready water supply for instant and<br />
effective use.<br />
The recent legislation in Illinois and Pennsylvania<br />
covering the fire proofing of shaft bottoms,<br />
underground stables, engine rooms, etc., is commendable,<br />
but at best it can only affect very small<br />
parts of any mine, parts, too, that by reason of<br />
location and through the advantage of having<br />
almost constant supervision, already have a<br />
greater measure of protection against fire than the<br />
less frequented interior mine workings and passages.<br />
The use of more or less timber and wood<br />
in mines cannot practically be dispensed with and<br />
an air current of high velocity must often traverse<br />
some parts of the mine in order to render<br />
other parts healthful and safe, and under such<br />
conditions there will still be danger which specificlegislation<br />
like the above cannot be depended on<br />
to remove. Coal mines, the natural storage<br />
places of a vast fuel supply, cannot be made fire<br />
proof, but that does not mean, notwithstanding the<br />
occurrence of three disastrous mine fires in less<br />
than two years, that they are fire traps, for I<br />
believe I am justified in saying that there is less<br />
danger to life from fire in the ordinary mine,<br />
having fair care, than in many factory buildings<br />
The most impressive and valuable feature of the<br />
combined lesson of the three mine fires is the<br />
fact brought out that forethought, preparedness<br />
and timely action on the part of man constitute<br />
the best and most reliable safeguard against the<br />
occurrence of disastrous mine fires in the future,<br />
and the lesson also shows plainly the necessity<br />
and advantage of instruction and training for the<br />
mine worker to make him a dependable factor,<br />
and to accomplish this I suggest the enactment<br />
of a general law that, in addition to requiring<br />
the providing of certain safeguards of known<br />
merit, will direct that mandatory frequent instruction<br />
be given the mine employes regarding the<br />
causes of mine fires, their danger, their prevention,<br />
the manner of dealing with them promptly<br />
and effectively, and the arrangements for the notification<br />
and withdrawal of the mine workers in<br />
case of danger.
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
PROGRAM OF ANNUAL SESSION OF<br />
THE AMERICAN MINING CONGRESS.<br />
The program of the American Mining Congress,<br />
which will be in session at Chicago on September<br />
26, 27, 28 and 29, has been announced as follows:<br />
TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER 26.<br />
10 A. M.—Welcome address by Charles S. Deneen,<br />
Governor of Illinois.<br />
Welcome address by Mayor Carter H. Harrison,<br />
of Chicago.<br />
Response on the part of governors of three or<br />
hve big mining states.<br />
2 P. M.—Discussion of various phases of workmen's<br />
compensation, participated in by Judge E.<br />
H. Gary, Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. Perkins, Senator Sutherland<br />
and John Mitchell.<br />
S P. M.—Discussion of various phases of the<br />
coal situation.<br />
A pictorial presentation of the coal problem by<br />
Dr. Joseph A. Holmes.<br />
Economics of the soft coal industary by Lawrence<br />
Johnson, John Mitchell and Senator Cummins.<br />
WEDNESDAY, 27TII.<br />
10 A. M.—A continuation of the discussion of<br />
the coal situation.<br />
Addresses by John P. White, president of the<br />
U. M. W.; Frederick A. Delano, president of the<br />
Wabash Railroad; Mr. Kirby. president of the<br />
Kirby Manufacturing Co., of Dayton, Ohio, and<br />
president of the National Manufacturers' Association,<br />
and by Carl Scholz, vice president of the<br />
Consolidated Indiana Coal Co.<br />
2 P. M.—A discussion of the public land situation<br />
and the mining industry.<br />
8 P. M.—Discussion of the Alaskan mining situation<br />
and its influence.<br />
THURSDAY, 28TH.<br />
10 A. M.—Addresses by the Minister of Mines of<br />
Mexico, by the Minister of Mines of Canada, by<br />
Walter L. Fisher and President Taft.<br />
2 P. M.—Report of the committee on resolutions<br />
and other business of the congress.<br />
8 P. M.—Address of the president of the American<br />
Mining Congress.<br />
Discussion of the relation of the congress to the<br />
mining industry by Hon. Dr. Foster, chairman<br />
of the committee on mines and mining, and by<br />
other members of the same committee.<br />
FRIDAY, 29TH.<br />
9:30 A. M.— A trip to the niills of the United<br />
States Steel Corporation at Gary, Ind.<br />
SHAFT SINKING WAS RAPID.<br />
Remarkably rapid shaft-sinking in hard rock was<br />
achieved last month in the shaft work just east<br />
of the Hudson River crossing of the new Catskill<br />
Aqueduct for New York City, says the Engineering<br />
News of April 15. The Dravo Contracting Co.<br />
is doing the work; Walter Steenburgh was the superintendent<br />
in immediate charge. The shaft is<br />
in a difficult location on the west slope of Breakneck<br />
Mountain near Storm King station of the<br />
New York Central, on the east bank of the Hudson<br />
river. It will be the east uptake of the tunnel<br />
which is to be the river crossing of the aqueduct.<br />
The diameter of the waterway of the shaft (inside<br />
of lining) will be 14 feet; the excavation averages<br />
about 16 feet 2 inches diamtere. On March 8<br />
the shaft had reached a depth of 272 feet, and had<br />
been lined to a depth of 251 feet. The month<br />
beginning at this point showed the record-breaking<br />
advance of 183 feet, or about 6-';i feet per working<br />
day (27 working days). The schedule of<br />
working was continuous, three 8-hour shifts each<br />
day except Sundays. One shift drilled a round,<br />
and the other two shot and mucked it. The material<br />
penetrated was a hard, granitic gneiss, which<br />
required no timbering; the shaft was dry and was<br />
clear of all obstruction. The spoil was handled<br />
in buckets running free without guides, by an airdriven<br />
hoist. The figure of 183 feet is the best<br />
made on the aqueduct. A depth of 177 feet in a<br />
month was made at shaft 1 of the Moodna siphon,<br />
under the same contractor; this was in Hudson<br />
river shale.<br />
The Nellie Coal Co., Butler, Pa., owned by H. K.<br />
Wick of Youngstown, 0., is receiving estimates on<br />
the new colliery to be erected at Argentine, to replace<br />
the one burned May 24. The company will<br />
equip the colliery at a cost of $15,000 to $20,000.<br />
Gasoline motors will be used, with a capacity of<br />
lifting seven tons.<br />
The board of directors of the Consolidation Coal<br />
Co., Baltimore, Md., recently met and declared a<br />
quarterly dividend of 1% per cent, on its capital<br />
stock, and one of 1% per cent, on the subscription<br />
receipts for stock carrying dividends declared<br />
after January 31, 1911. Checks are being mailed<br />
stockholders.<br />
Pump boat No. 78, belonging to the Monongahela<br />
River Consolidated Coal & Coke.Co. and moored<br />
in the Pittsburgh harbor, burneaAugust 4, causing<br />
a loss of $5,000.<br />
The coal wharf and storage plant of the Connell<br />
Anthracite Coal Co. at Montreal, Can., were partially<br />
destroyed by fire a few days ago.
An agreement has been reached in Indiana<br />
whereby the Vigo and Greene county miners who<br />
had been on strike returned to work pending the<br />
final settlement of their grievances at the hands<br />
of President White of the U. M. W. and President<br />
Taylor of the Illinois Coal Operators' Association,<br />
who were appointed to act as arbiters. The miners<br />
returned to work August 10, as the result of a<br />
settlement of the disputes made by International<br />
President John P. White of the United Mine Workers<br />
of America and President H. N. Taylor of the<br />
Illinois coal mine operators, who were selected to<br />
act as arbitrators.<br />
By a vote of 200 to 95 the Western Federation<br />
of Miners, in session at Butte, Mont., defeated a<br />
resolution favoring the surrender of the charter of<br />
the Western Federation, and, as a whole, going<br />
into the United Mine Workers' <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
President Mover declared that a vote for that resolution<br />
would be a vote to disband the federation.<br />
The convention adopted the initiative, referendum<br />
and recall for their executive board by a large majority<br />
vote. This action will go to a referendum<br />
vote of the membership. The recall may be instituted<br />
by Ui per cent, of the entire membership,<br />
from at least 10 local unions.<br />
According to a report of the miners council of<br />
District No. 18 to which all the coal miners on<br />
strike in Eastern British Columbia and Southern<br />
Alberta belong, the vote taken recently shows that<br />
the miners are adverse to accepting the majority<br />
report of the conciliation board for a settlement ot<br />
the strike, 90 per cent, of them voting to continue<br />
the strike.<br />
Michael O'Brien, mine foreman of the Cincinnati<br />
mine of the Monongahela River Consolidated<br />
Coal & Coke Co., has been arrested on a charge of<br />
violating the mining law of Pennsylvania, by permitting<br />
men to enter the mine before the fire<br />
bosses had made an examination and declared the<br />
mine safe.<br />
President White of the IT. M. W. was in the<br />
Southwest recently and succeeded in patching up<br />
the differences which have kept a number of<br />
mines in Arkansas and Oklahoma idle for a long<br />
time. Arrangements are now under way for early<br />
resumption of work at the plants affected.<br />
Miners in the employ of Jos. E. Thropp in the<br />
Broad Top field are out on strike because of an<br />
alleged wage reduction. Two mines are closed<br />
and a third has but a partial force working.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
For their work during the month of July, 1911,<br />
the mine workers in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania<br />
receive an increase of 3 per cent, on the<br />
rate of wages fixed by the Anthracite Strike Commission<br />
of 1902.<br />
Frank Feehan has been arrested on a charge of<br />
inciting to riot and has been held under $1,000<br />
bail to await a hearing before a justice of the<br />
peace at Carnegie. Pa.<br />
!<br />
INDUSTRIAL NOTES<br />
The Goodman Manufacturing Co. of Chicago<br />
has recently arranged, through its Pittsburgh<br />
office, with .Mr. James R. Cameron to represent<br />
its well known line of electrical coal mining<br />
machines and locomotives in Northern West Virginia.<br />
Mr. Cameron's headquarters will be at<br />
Fairmont. W. Va. Mr. Cameron is a brother of<br />
Mr. John R. Cameron, long associated in the coal<br />
mining industry, and is thoroughly versed in the<br />
application of electrical machinery for coal mining<br />
purposes, and this, with his acquaintance<br />
among the operators in that section, will make<br />
his services a valuable asset of the sales department<br />
of the Goodman Company and will also enable<br />
him to be of assistance to the operators in<br />
this section with whom he conies in contact.<br />
The Ingersoll-Rand Co., of New York, was one<br />
of the exhibitors in the machine tools and machinery<br />
section of the American exhibit at the<br />
Brussels. Belgium, exposition of 1901, and the report<br />
of the U. S. government commissioner shows<br />
that the company was one of those on whom a<br />
grand prix certificate was bestowed.<br />
Technical paper No. 3, Bureau of Mines, just<br />
issued, is on "Specifications for the Purchase of<br />
Fuel Oil for the Government, with Directions for<br />
Sampling Oil and Natural Gas," and is prepared<br />
by Irving C. Allen.<br />
A big vein of coal was unearthed on the property<br />
of the Wootten Land & Fuel Co. at Trinidad,<br />
Col., August 9. This concern is owned almost<br />
entirely by J. Pierpont M<strong>org</strong>an of New York. The<br />
coal vein is reported to outcrop for a distance of a<br />
mile toward the hills, where it runs so deep under<br />
cover that further proof is impracticable. The<br />
opening of the coal measure will be less than 200<br />
feet from the tipple of the Turner mine, and all<br />
facilities of the modern coal mine can be brought<br />
to bear. Expert coal men say the discovery will<br />
yield millions to the owner.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
PROGRAM FOR CONVENTION OF NATIONAL<br />
COMMISSARY MANAGERS' ASSOCIATION.<br />
The following is the program for the convention<br />
of the National Commissary Managers' Association<br />
at St. Ixmis, Mo., August 21-24:<br />
MONDAY. AUGUST 21.<br />
3:00 P. M.—Preliminary meeting of the Advisory<br />
Board.<br />
TUESDAY, AUGUST 22.<br />
10:00 A. M.—Registration of those in attendance.<br />
Call to Order: President B. M. Lebby.<br />
Address of Welcome: Mayor Frederick H. Kreisniann,<br />
St. Louis.<br />
Response: Albert Evans, Champion Lumber Co.,<br />
Orvisburg, Miss.<br />
Address of Welcome on behalf of St. Louis Merchants:<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. Simmons, Simmons Hardware<br />
Co., St. Louis.<br />
Response: E. L. Harley, Fourche River Lumber<br />
Co.. Bigelow, Ark.<br />
Annual Reports of President and Secretary.<br />
Appointment of Auditing, Constitution and By-<br />
Laws, Nominating and Resolutions Committees.<br />
11:00 A. M.—"Work of the Association"— S. A.<br />
Clemons. American Lumberman, Chicago.<br />
General Discussion of the Address.<br />
12:30 P. M.—Adjournment for Luncheon.<br />
2:00 P. M.—"Relations of Industrial Companies<br />
to their Commissary Stores"—Speaker to be announced<br />
later.<br />
3:00 P. M.—"The Commissary Manager of<br />
Twenty Years Ago"—R. H. Bond, McCormick &<br />
Co., Baltimore, Md.<br />
"Wooden Boxes Against Substitute Packages"—<br />
Charles E. Brower, National Classification Committee,<br />
Mempiiis. Tenn.<br />
"Freedom in Buying"—Harry C. Wood, Roberts,<br />
Johnson & Rand Shoe Co., St. Louis.<br />
7:30 P. M.—Banquet at Southern Hotel (Ladies<br />
and Gentlemen), followed by visit to Made-in-St.<br />
Louis Show at Coliseum.<br />
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23.<br />
10:00 A. M— "Good Morning"—S. M. Wilson.<br />
Oldest Commissary Manager in the World, Inverness,<br />
Fla.<br />
"Problems I Have Met"—Led by Six Commissary<br />
Managers, followed by Experience Meeting.<br />
Stereopticon Talk: "The Modern Commissary<br />
and Its Management"—T. H. Bourland, Graysonia-<br />
Nashville Lumber Co., Nashville, Ark.<br />
12:30 P. M.—Adjournment for Luncheon.<br />
2:00 P. M.—"Parcels Post"—Captain Robert E.<br />
Lee, Auto Review, St. Louis.<br />
Question Box and General Discussion.<br />
"Publicity"—I. H. Sawyer, Brown Shoe Co., St.<br />
Louis.<br />
"The Mission of the Traveling Man"—A. C. Benners.<br />
Birmingham, Ala.<br />
"Soda Water in the Commissary Store"—R. R.<br />
Shuman, Liquid Carbonic Co., Chicago.<br />
"Use of Cash Registers in Commissary Stores"—<br />
R. H. Grant, National Cash Register Co., Dayton, 0.<br />
4:30 P. M.—Ladies' Reception, by Ladies' Committee<br />
of St. Louis, followed by automobile ride to<br />
University City.<br />
8:00 P. M— Theater Party (Ladies and Gentlemen<br />
).<br />
THURSDAY, AUGUST 24.<br />
10:00 A. M.—General Discussion and Question<br />
Box, led by active Commissary Managers (names<br />
to be announced later) on following subjects:<br />
How to sell more goods.<br />
How can our members make greater profits for<br />
their respective Commissaries?<br />
Comparisons of Credit and Cash Systems.<br />
Arrangement of goods and display of stock.<br />
New schemes to move goods.<br />
New lines that sell quickly and yield good profits.<br />
Advantages of frequent inventories.<br />
Cost of doing business.<br />
Benefits to be derived from <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
Opportunities for the Association in 1912.<br />
Disposing of old stock at a profit.<br />
Mail order competition.<br />
Salesmanship and advertising.<br />
12:30 P. M.—Adjournment for Luncheon.<br />
2:00 P. M.—Reports of Committees.<br />
New Business.<br />
Election of Officers.<br />
Selection of time and place of 1912 Convention.<br />
Adjournment.<br />
PITTSBURGERS ORGANIZE COAL COMPANY.<br />
For the purpose of dealing in coal, timber, oil<br />
and gas lands and mining coal, manufacturing coke<br />
and lumber, a charter has been issued by the Secretary<br />
of State to the Mifflin Coal Co. of West Virginia.<br />
The authorized capital is $100,000, all of<br />
which has been subscribed and $10,000 paid.<br />
The incorporators are William I. Berryman, Samuel<br />
A. Taylor, Charles F. Taylor. J. M. Taylor and<br />
James W. Hamilton, all of Pittsburgh.<br />
Latrobe has been designated as the headquarters<br />
for the Second Bituminous district of Pennsylvania,<br />
by Chief James H. Roderick of the State<br />
Department of Mines and in accordance with orders<br />
issued by him, Chauncey B. Ross, the inspector<br />
for the Second district, will remove to Latrobe<br />
from Greensburg, where he has been located for<br />
years.
HOCKING VALLEY RAILROAD TO<br />
BUILD $500,000 DOCK AT TOLEDO.<br />
A new concrete dock costing approximately $500,-<br />
000 and to occupy much of the river front at To<br />
ledo will be started this fall. Information to this<br />
effect was given out during the fortnight by a rep<br />
resentative of the Hocking Valley railway.<br />
An application has been made to the war depart<br />
ment at Washington for establishing the dock<br />
lines, and plans for the structure are now at the<br />
headquarters of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad,<br />
which owns the Hocking Valley.<br />
The representative of the Hocking Valley says<br />
that the new docks will be complete in time for<br />
the opening of the 1912 navigation season. Be<br />
sides constructing the dock the company will build<br />
a network of tracks for the transportation of lake<br />
coal from the mines of West Virginia and Ohio<br />
and the handling of ore from the Lake Superior<br />
regions.<br />
It is expected that when the new docks have<br />
been completed a deal will be entered into whereby<br />
the Pennsylvania railroad will take over the Hooking<br />
Valley's interest in the docks on the west side<br />
of the river. The contemplated improvement is<br />
of vast importance to Toledo, as it will mean the<br />
expansion of the coal shipping business of the port<br />
and the line will bid for an increased ore tonnage.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
WILL DEVELOP TRACT OF COAL.<br />
A coal deal was consummated b.v Holmes A.<br />
Davis, of Brownsville. Pa., August 12. when the<br />
W. H. Warner Coal Co., of Cleveland, purchaser]<br />
200 acres of coal on the Levi Stephens farm, near<br />
Fayette City, Pa., for $360,000. It is the intention<br />
of the purchasing company to erect at once a modern<br />
coal plant at a cost of $100,000. At the rate<br />
of purchase the coal brought $1,900 an acre, which<br />
is believed to be the highest price ever paid in the<br />
district.<br />
The construction of the plant will be begun at<br />
once. It will be necessary for the Pittsburgh &<br />
I^ake Erie railroad to build a mile and a quarter of<br />
siding to reach the new works, which will he on<br />
Little Redstone creek. The new cut-off to be<br />
built between the Monongahela and Youghiogheny<br />
valleys by the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie to connect<br />
with the Western Maryland in Connellsville will<br />
not come within this distance of the new works.<br />
The additional tracks necessary will cost about<br />
$40,000. The plant will employ about 400 men<br />
and will have a daily output of 1,500 tons. None<br />
of the coal will be coked at the new works. Tbe<br />
output will be shipped to Cleveland and other Ohio<br />
cities.<br />
The West Virginia Pocahontas Coal Sales Co.,<br />
Mr. W. A. Lathrop. president, has moved its general<br />
offices from Bluefield, W. Va., to Norfolk, Va.<br />
MOVEMENT OF COAL AND COKE OVER VARIOUS RAILROADS, RIVERS, AND CANALS<br />
FOR FIVE MONTHS AND MAY, 1910 AND 1911.<br />
RAILROADS.<br />
Baltimore and Ohio*<br />
Buffalo. Rochester and Pittsburgh<br />
Buffalo and Susquehanna<br />
Chesapeake and Ohiot<br />
Huntingdon and Broadtop Mountain* ....<br />
New York Central and Hudson River <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong> -<br />
Norfolk and Western*<br />
Pennsylvania (east of Pittsburg and Erie)* <strong>•</strong><br />
Pittsburg and Lake Erie ...<br />
Pittsburg. Shawmut and Northern<br />
Southern Railway!<br />
Virginian Railway<br />
RIVERS AND CANALS.<br />
Barren River, Lock No. 1 ...<br />
Black Warrior River. Lock No. 12<br />
Canal and Falls at Louisville - <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal <strong>•</strong><br />
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal ....<br />
Davis Island Dam<br />
Green River. Lock No. 1<br />
Great Kanawha River<br />
Kentucky River. Lock No. 1 . <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Monongahela River <strong>•</strong><br />
MONTH OF MAY-<br />
Tons<br />
3.095.471<br />
668.795<br />
161.316<br />
1.334,845<br />
100.373<br />
601,183<br />
1.767.549<br />
5.257.111<br />
1.479,430<br />
101.935<br />
325.347<br />
77,347<br />
160<br />
1,706<br />
90.972<br />
12.158<br />
25.578<br />
102.275<br />
3.516<br />
136,780<br />
6.600<br />
935.028<br />
1911<br />
2.948.461<br />
639.744<br />
164.429<br />
1.166.318<br />
76.345<br />
725.135<br />
1.663,082<br />
4.883,950<br />
1.263,005<br />
123.061<br />
290.636<br />
203.971<br />
152<br />
1.052<br />
68.210<br />
8.915<br />
22.625<br />
102.320<br />
2.736<br />
106.440<br />
7.800<br />
824.633<br />
FIVE MONTHS—<br />
1910<br />
Tons.<br />
14.581.471<br />
3.110,710<br />
599.299<br />
5.426.078<br />
556.496<br />
3.403.410<br />
8.243.677<br />
28.050.212<br />
6.724,420<br />
461.016<br />
1.405.558<br />
471.768<br />
1.166<br />
1,863<br />
554,754<br />
36.749<br />
47,462<br />
999.405<br />
15,023<br />
590.400<br />
30.400<br />
3.947,481 l<br />
Tons<br />
13.267.930<br />
3,234.357<br />
815.470<br />
4.870.086<br />
466.592<br />
3.440.440<br />
7.759.972<br />
25.994.571<br />
5.714.643<br />
608.827<br />
1,260.732<br />
970.057<br />
* Includes coal received from connecting lines. t April and four months figures.<br />
878<br />
1. 725<br />
951.133<br />
42.283<br />
45.712<br />
1.825.950<br />
14.678<br />
648.580<br />
45.900<br />
4.627.590
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
LAKE ORE SHIPMENTS.<br />
Shipments of Lake Superior iron ore down the<br />
lakes through July 31 and for entire seasons have<br />
been as follows, in gross tons:<br />
Through July 31. Season.<br />
19H5 10,038,674 34,384,116<br />
1906 17.0(14,368 38,565,762<br />
1907 17,534,741 42,266,668<br />
190S 7,235,281 26,014,987<br />
1909 15,395,35(1 42,586,869<br />
1910 21,863,549 43,442,397<br />
1911 14,004,291<br />
ln the six years from 1905 to 1910 inclusive, tbe<br />
shipments through July comprised, on an average,<br />
42 per cent, of the shipments in the entire season,<br />
The present year appears to be practically a normal<br />
one as to changes in the outlook. Nothing<br />
important has occurred to change, and so the rule<br />
of percentage may be applied with some prospect<br />
of its making a good forecast. In some previous<br />
years the rule would have worked very badly, but<br />
with the current year it promises to work well.<br />
Assuming, then, that the lake shipments through<br />
July constitute 42 per cent, of what the season's<br />
total is going to be, we find a total of 33,500,000<br />
tons. It is likely that the season will come out<br />
within a very few million tons of this figure. This<br />
WEST VIRGINIA DELEGATES NAMED.<br />
Gov. W. E. Glasscock, of West Virginia, has<br />
named the 10 delegates to represent that state at<br />
the fourteenth annual session of the American<br />
Mining Congress, wdiich will meet in Chicago September<br />
26 to 29. In the list of delegates are some<br />
of the best known operators, mining engineers and<br />
practical miners in the state. The delegates are:<br />
C. A. Cabell, general manager Carbon Coal Co.,<br />
of Carbon; Thomas Nichol, general manager Mc-<br />
Kell Coal & Coke Co.. of Glen Jean; H. H. Bertolet,<br />
general manager New River & Pocahontas<br />
Consolidated Coal Co., of Gentry; J. E. Barlow,<br />
general manager Monitor Coal & Coke Co., of Logan;<br />
Daniel Howard, president Central Fairmont<br />
Coal Co., of Clarksburg; Frank Haas, consulting<br />
engineer Consolidation Coal Co., of Fairmont; Edward<br />
Cooper, general manager Mill Creek Coal &<br />
Coke Co., of Bramwell: L. F. Lanham. president<br />
District 17. United Mine Workers of America, of<br />
Charleston; Thomas Cairns of Charleston and<br />
B. F. Morris of East Bank, both members of the<br />
executive committee. United Mine Workers of<br />
America.<br />
A new coal vein is said to have been found by<br />
drillers on the property of C. W. Hoffa, Bernice,<br />
Pa.<br />
<strong>•</strong> PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS <strong>•</strong><br />
The extension of the Quemahoning branch of<br />
the B. & O. railroad from the former terminal at<br />
Acosta to Somerset by way of Husband has been<br />
completed and opened for traffic. This opens a<br />
shorter route and easier grade for the shipment<br />
of coal from the present mines at Boswell, Jenner,<br />
Belmont and Acosta. Over 100 cars of coal<br />
passed over the new line on the opening day. and<br />
shipment from the new shaft at Husband and<br />
other new openings will soon begin and add greatly<br />
to the traffic. Passenger service will begin later.<br />
A 4-foot vein of coal has been discovered about<br />
7 feet below the surface on the Chambers farm,<br />
east of Linton, Ind. The discovery was made by<br />
some men working on the farm repairing tile<br />
drains. The coal is said to be equal to the best<br />
coal found in the district. Mr. Chambers proposes<br />
to remove the surface earth by means of a<br />
steam shovel, and, if the vein appears extensive,<br />
machinery will be installed.<br />
The Westmoreland Coal Co. will re-open its<br />
Southside mine, near Irwin, Pa., which has been<br />
closed nearly 20 years. It is said to be good for<br />
would be 11 >-2 per cent, less than the average move 30 years' supply. New houses, a store and a club<br />
ment in the past six years, which has been 37,900,house<br />
will be erected, along with a new tipple and<br />
000 tons per season.<br />
gasoline haulage. It is the intention to make a<br />
model town, giving employment to 250 men. Work<br />
has already been started.<br />
Robert Peed, Alex. Adams, H. C. Mann, H. G.<br />
Gardner and L. C. Pruther, of Salyersville, Magoffin<br />
county, Ky., sold 60,000 acres of mineral<br />
land near the line of the Louisville & Nashville<br />
extension, to Col. C. E. Edwards, of Charleston,<br />
W. Va., and Ge<strong>org</strong>e F. Miller, of Huntington, W.<br />
Va., for $600,000. Developments of the property<br />
will begin at once.<br />
A company of Michigan men, headed by John<br />
Snyder, has leased a large tract of land near Staunton,<br />
Ind., and will at once begin drilling for coal<br />
and clay. If the desired quality of clay is found<br />
the company will build a clay plant in addition<br />
to sinking a coal shaft.<br />
The coal department of the Missouri, Kansas &<br />
Texas railway has begun the sinking of a new<br />
shaft at Colgate, Okla., which it is said will be<br />
one of the largest and best equipped operations in<br />
the Southwest.<br />
The Pittsburgh & Erie Coal Co. started with<br />
August 1 in its new offices on the third floor of<br />
the House building, Pittsburgh, having moved from<br />
its old location in the Lewis block to gain addi-<br />
Uonal office space.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
THE MINING INDUSTRY AND THE PUBLIC LANDS—NECESSARY<br />
AMENDMENTS TO THE MINERAL LAWS*<br />
By Ge<strong>org</strong>e Otis Smith. Director of the United States Geological Survey.<br />
The increasing share which the United States<br />
Geological Survey has been asked to take in the<br />
public land administration by the Interior Department<br />
has brought many of the problems connected<br />
with the public land laws more directly to the<br />
attention of those charged with the work of this<br />
bureau. For over 30 years, however, these problems<br />
have interested the Survey geologists who<br />
have had exceptional opportunities for first-hand<br />
observation in nearly all the important mining districts<br />
of the country, and for almost as long a<br />
period the engineers of the Survey have been in<br />
touch with the irrigation and power developments<br />
in the public land states. This intimate experience<br />
with both field conditions and administrative<br />
problems justifies an expression of opinion which<br />
may be appropriate to this occasion.<br />
The objects to be sought by amendment of the<br />
public land laws are, first, purposeful and economical<br />
development of resources for which there<br />
is present demand with retention of such control<br />
as may insure against unnecessary waste or excessive<br />
charges to the consumer, and second, the<br />
reservation of title in the people of all resources<br />
the utilization of which is conjectural, or the need<br />
of which at least is not immediate. The means that<br />
are essential to the attainment of these objects<br />
are, first, the classification of the public lands,<br />
second, the separation of surface and mineral<br />
rights, and third, the disposition of the lands on<br />
terms that will secure the highest use, enforce<br />
development and protect the public interest. Legislation<br />
based on these principles will not only<br />
secure the positive benefits of immediate utilization<br />
but will also avoid the evils of speculative<br />
holdings of lands by fictitious use or by admitted<br />
non-use, for the future enjoyment of the unearned<br />
increment or of the profits of monopolization.<br />
With actual development made a condition of possession,<br />
and with land classification and separation<br />
of estates made preliminaries of disposition,<br />
the present day utilization by individuals or corporations<br />
and the reservation to the people for<br />
future use become at once possible without conflict<br />
of interests.<br />
The classification of the public land is essential<br />
to the administration of not only such laws as<br />
express the principle of separation but also of<br />
those whose purpose is to promote the highest use<br />
of the land. Land classification is first of all<br />
the determination of the best use to which each<br />
particular portion of the public domain can be<br />
<strong>•</strong>Address delivered at the Twenty-first Anniversary of the<br />
Michigan School of Mines. Houghton. Mich., August 9, 1911.<br />
put, and by the <strong>org</strong>anic act of March 3, 1879, this<br />
duty was specifically imposed upon the Director of<br />
the Geological Survey.<br />
Under the withdrawal act of June 25, 1910, classification<br />
is made possible in advance of disposition<br />
and disposition can be postponed to await<br />
needed legislation.<br />
The second step, both in principle and practice,<br />
appears to be that of making possible by legislation<br />
the separation of surface and mineral rights<br />
whenever the two estates have values which can be<br />
separately utilized. A notable advance in public<br />
land legislation was the passage of the acts of<br />
March 3, 1909, and June 22, 1910, which provide<br />
that patents issued thereunder grant title to the<br />
surface of the land only and thus permit the agricultural<br />
development while at the same time the<br />
United States retains title to the underlying coal<br />
deposits.<br />
On the subject of water-power legislation the position<br />
of the Geological Survey is essentially that<br />
set forth in January of this year in a report addressed<br />
to the Secretaries of the Interior and of<br />
Agriculture by a joint committee representing the<br />
two departments. The legislation there outlined<br />
would provide for lease of public and reserved<br />
lands of the United States valuable for waterpower<br />
development for a fixed term, not to exceed<br />
50 years, with moderate charges for use and occupancy<br />
of the land, and revocable only upon breach<br />
of conditions or on account of the charge of excessive<br />
rates to consumers. These leases should<br />
be identical in terms, whatever the department<br />
under which they are granted, with joint and uniform<br />
regulations governing all matters relating to<br />
water-power development of land belonging to the<br />
United States. Provision should also be made<br />
for periodic and equitable readjustment of charges,<br />
transfer of leases, preferential rights to renewal,<br />
and compensation for improvements at the termination<br />
of the leasehold. The law should specifically<br />
recognize water-power use as dominant and<br />
both insure to the lessee undisturbed occupancy<br />
of the land needed for such use and reserve for<br />
future utilization all the land believed to possess<br />
value for water-power development, these lands to<br />
be designated by the President but to be open to<br />
other entry subject to this reserved right wherever<br />
separation of the water-power use and other use<br />
is possible.<br />
The chief advantage of land withdrawal and classification<br />
lies in the essential relation to the principle<br />
of proper disposition of the public domain,
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
the real purpose of public land administration<br />
being to secure such reservation or disposal of the<br />
people's land as will assure its highest use. The<br />
question of amendment of the present laws relat<br />
ing'to the disposition of coal, oil. gas and phosphate<br />
deposits on tlie public domain is recognized as<br />
fairly before the public by the specific mention of<br />
these minerals in the Withdrawal Act.<br />
The coal land law is unquestionably the most satisfactory<br />
of the present mineral land laws in that it<br />
admits of the placing of an adequate valuation<br />
upon the deposits, and in the administration of<br />
this law the purpose is not only to base the appraisal<br />
price upon the quantity and quality of the<br />
coal present and to give consideration to every<br />
known physical and commercial factor affecting<br />
the value of the deposits but also to make the selling<br />
price approach as nearly as possible the present<br />
purchase of a royalty under a leasehold.<br />
Thereby it is intended to permit purchase for immediate<br />
development and at the same time to prevent<br />
or at least discourage purchase for longtime<br />
investment or for monopolization. So many<br />
factors, however, require consideration that an<br />
ideal adjustment of the values is well nigh unattainable<br />
for many if not tor most coal lands,<br />
and on this account a strong argument may be<br />
made for support of the lease over the sale system.<br />
Under leasehold it would be comparatively<br />
easy so to adjust the relationship between ground<br />
rental and royalty as to prevent the acquisition<br />
of coal deposits until such time as their development<br />
should be profitable. On the other hand, it<br />
is possible, under the present law. and it is the<br />
policy in its administration, to readjust the prices<br />
from time to time, either by reduction to encourage<br />
development in special cases or, more commonly,<br />
by raising the price on account of increased<br />
value due to new discoveries or to changed<br />
commercial conditions. Hardly less important.<br />
moreover, is the better control possible under a<br />
lease system, although against the advantage of<br />
such control must be weighed the cost of Federal<br />
management and the possibilities of inefficient administration<br />
or even maladministration. The pres<br />
ent coal land law. however, has one serious defect,<br />
which should be remedied if a leasing law is<br />
not enacted. The restriction of area that may<br />
legally be acquired to a maximum of 160 acres for<br />
an individual and 640 acres for an association is<br />
not in accord with good mining practice. The<br />
fixed charges on the cost of a modern coal mine,<br />
provided with the up-to-date equipment necessary<br />
to conserve life and property and to assure maxi<br />
mum recovery are too high to be assessed against<br />
the tonnage of so limited a tract, especially if the<br />
coal seam is of moderate thickness. A law designed<br />
to promote the practical utilization of coal<br />
deposits, whether the system contemplates sale or<br />
lease, must provide for the holding of a large<br />
enough unit to permit the opening and equipment<br />
of a modern mine and to warrant its operation on<br />
an economical scale. Without such provision for<br />
commercial operation too great an advantage is<br />
secured to the laud-grant railroads and large coal<br />
companies already in possession of considerable<br />
areas of high-grade coal.<br />
The present uncertainty wdiether the phosphate<br />
rock of the public land should be entered under<br />
the lode law or under the placer law is conclusive<br />
evidence of the need of legislation. As a matter<br />
of fact neither of these laws is more applicable<br />
to the acquisition of beds of phosphate-bearing<br />
limestone than it would be to that of coal beds.<br />
The realization that the phosphate deposits are<br />
more extensive than was known or suspected when<br />
the Survey geologists began land classification<br />
work in Idaho and Wyoming does not lessen but<br />
rather increases the urgency for a leasing law<br />
which will provide for the utilization of this large<br />
supply of mineral fertilizer, so as to meet both<br />
present and future needs.<br />
The most urgent need of legislation for the<br />
disposition of mineral deposits is in the case of<br />
oil and gas. It is most apparent that the placer<br />
law, which is none too well adapted to meet<br />
modern conditions in mining placer gold, is wholly<br />
inadequate as a method of dealing with public oil<br />
lands, inasmuch as the discovery of oil is a late<br />
stage in the exploration and development of the<br />
land claimed under the law. Thus, large expenditures,<br />
extending over several months, if not years,<br />
are necessary before any right is acquired against<br />
the Government, and during all this time there is<br />
lacking any legal protection of the oil prospector<br />
against unscrupulous claimants or competitors<br />
better backed by capital. The need for remedial<br />
oil legislation is somewhat less acute than it was<br />
a year ago, by reason of the passage of the act<br />
approved March 2, 1911, the effect of which is to<br />
validate a class of claims which, while clouded by<br />
the construction which the department was forced<br />
to place upon the misfit placer law, under which<br />
title to oil lands must now be made, were bona<br />
fide in that the inception of their development<br />
antedated the oil land withdrawals. This enactment<br />
was in accord with the spirit of the withdrawal<br />
act, which provides for the protection of<br />
equities already established.<br />
The need for a better law is, however, imperative<br />
and the legislative action demanded by the<br />
situation should not be limited to an attempt to<br />
revamp the general placer law but should be the<br />
enactment of an altogether new measure, especially<br />
adapted to provide for the sane and equitable<br />
development of this industry in the future.<br />
First, the new law should authorize the issue of<br />
exploratory permits, granting to individuals or
associations the exclusive privilege of occupation,<br />
the sole condition of such a grant being diligent<br />
and adequate prosecution of development work,<br />
measured by the expenditure of fixed sums within<br />
certain periods, with possibly the payment of a<br />
small fee to the Government in lieu of such expenditure<br />
during the first six months. The issue<br />
of this permit should preferably be limited to one<br />
to each citizen or association of citizens, although<br />
after the lapse or surrender of such a permit the<br />
former holder should be allowed to again apply<br />
for an exploratory permit. In the second place,<br />
the law should provide that upon discovery, the<br />
holder of the permit be given a leasehold title<br />
with a royalty varied to meet local and actual<br />
conditions. The "wild-catter," or prospector in unproved<br />
country, whether such unproved territory<br />
is classified on geological evidence as oil land or<br />
not, should be given special privilege to offset his<br />
greater risk. This privilege might take the form<br />
of an increased acreage, held both under permit<br />
and under lease, or a practical exemption from the<br />
payment of royalty, merely a nominal rental being<br />
charged under the lease. The chief advantage of<br />
the leasehold for oil over a fee simple title lies<br />
in the prevention of monopolization through large<br />
holdings. Such large holdings without production<br />
would be guarded against by a ground rental<br />
sufficiently high to discourage the acquisition of<br />
lands except for immediate and continued development,<br />
although provision should also be made in<br />
the lease for surrender under terms which would<br />
protect the Government. This indirect control of<br />
development would be preferable to the direct enforcement,<br />
by forfeiture, of continuous production,<br />
which should be avoided because of the danger<br />
of disturbing the delicate equilibrium between<br />
supply and demand. Transfers of interest, under<br />
either permit or lease, should be permitted because<br />
of the absolute necessity in most instances<br />
of securing capital for both drilling and operating<br />
an oil well. The law, however, should set forth<br />
the purpose of such control of transfer, which<br />
would be to provide protection for the original<br />
locators, most of them men of small means, and<br />
more especially to secure the prohibition of too<br />
large holdings of Government leases by big companies.<br />
Proposed amendments of the well established<br />
laws relating to metalliferous minerals always<br />
raise the warmest discussion. With the opinion<br />
of mining men in general favoring revision of<br />
the mining laws of the United States and with<br />
commission after commission appointed by various<br />
bodies to suggest improvements, the statutes<br />
have remained practically unchanged for nearly<br />
40 years, while the geology of ore deposits and<br />
the technology of metal mining have made mar<br />
velous progress.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
The law of the apex has proved more productive<br />
of expensive litigation than of economical<br />
mining. In many of the more recently established<br />
and more progressive mining districts this statute<br />
has been made inoperative by either common<br />
agreement or compromise between adjoining owners.<br />
Its repeal could not affect established equities<br />
under patents already granted but would render<br />
Iiossible more certain property rights in large<br />
mining districts as yet undiscovered, where new<br />
and valuable claims will be located 100 years from<br />
now. The unit of disposition should be the claim,<br />
preferably square, limited on its four sides by<br />
vertical planes, and of a size sufficient to allow<br />
the miner occupying two contiguous claims to<br />
follow the vein or lode to considerable depth, even<br />
if its dip is only 45 degrees. Such definition of a<br />
mining claim is found practicable in both Mexico<br />
and British Columbia, and in the latter country<br />
the change from the apex law was affected without<br />
trouble or confusion.<br />
The same knowledge of natural conditions that<br />
leads to the suggestion of a repeal of the law of<br />
the apex forces the further suggestion that discovery<br />
of ore in place can not be made universally<br />
a prerequisite to the location of a mining claim.<br />
Geologic study of ore deposits has furnished examples<br />
in a number of regions where the present<br />
law can not be complied with, although rich deposits<br />
exist underground and their extent can be<br />
more definitely surmised than in most cases where<br />
ore is discovered at the surface. To meet such<br />
actual conditons the law should provide for the<br />
acquisition of metalliferous mineral land classified<br />
as such upon the basis of adequate geologic<br />
evidence, whether actual outcrops are present or<br />
not.<br />
Most important, perhaps, in any amended mining<br />
law would be provision for enforced development,<br />
a principle expressed, it is true, in the present<br />
law, but not effective in its workings. A<br />
requirement of actual use as a condition of occupancy<br />
of mineral land can not be regarded as<br />
either novel or radical. As regards the large<br />
acreage of undeveloped land in many mining<br />
camps to which patent has already been issued,<br />
it is perhaps true that the situation is without<br />
relief, unless the Western Australia plan is<br />
adopted, whereby the Government steps in and<br />
permits mining under a lease, the proceeds of<br />
which are assessed, collected, and paid over to the<br />
owner. The principle invoked seems to be that<br />
no property owner can rightfully oppose the development<br />
of the state.<br />
In the case of unpatented claims, a remedy<br />
should' be sought for what has been termed "the<br />
paralysis of mining districts," and the rigid requirement<br />
of annual assessment work should be<br />
made actual and effective by inspection and super-
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
vision, in order to put an end to the present<br />
procedure of allowing a claim to lie idle for<br />
practically two years after its location, not to<br />
mention the many localities where claims are<br />
held year after year with only perfunctory compliance,<br />
or even without any performance of assessment<br />
work,—a type of local disregard for law<br />
that is in striking contrast to the observations<br />
accorded to the district customs and regulations<br />
of earlier days, whereby the right of possession<br />
was made absolutely dependent upon continuous<br />
operation.<br />
The remedy, then, for the existing evil of idle<br />
mining property must be sought either in the<br />
adoption of leasehold, under which the Government<br />
can enforce operation, a system which fully<br />
attains the desired end of promoting mining development<br />
in Australia and New Zealand according<br />
to the report made in 1907 by Geologist Veatch<br />
of this survey to the President, or in the thorough<br />
revision of the existing system. Radical amendment<br />
to the present law would be necessary in<br />
order to secure something more nearly approaching<br />
equality of opportunity. Some limitation<br />
should be put on the number of claims which an<br />
individual can locate in each mining district, and<br />
the prevention of monopolization would be furthered<br />
by the rigid enforcement of assessment<br />
development. The record of claims kept by a local<br />
official elected by the miners should be reported<br />
promptly to the nearest land office in order to<br />
furnish the Federal Government with a notice of<br />
the intention of the claimant, and thus to initiate<br />
the operation of effective inspection, the purpose<br />
of which would be to enforce the use and development<br />
of mineral land as contemplated in the law.<br />
Whatever the details that may characterize this<br />
or that amendment to the public land laws, the<br />
essentials to be sought are development of those<br />
resources for which there is present need and<br />
the protection of the other resources for which<br />
there is no immediate demand. To this end the<br />
lawmakers, in my opinion, should concern themselves<br />
more in retaining such control as will prevent<br />
either non-use on the one hand or waste on<br />
the other, than in devising means of increasing<br />
the public land receipts by heavy royalties on the<br />
producing coal mine or hydro-electric plant. Tax<br />
instead the idle property. Through the full<br />
development of the mineral industry, the nation<br />
can secure indirect benefits far in excess of any<br />
direct profits in the form of fees or royalties.<br />
C. K. Spragg, W. H. Spragg and S. K. Strosnider,<br />
all of Waynesburg, Pa., have sold to M. A.<br />
.lolliffe of Fairmont, W. Va., 150 acres of coal<br />
near Mannington, W. Va., for $50,000.<br />
IDLE CAR STATEMENT.<br />
The bulletin of the American Railway Association<br />
states that on July 5 the net surplus of idle<br />
cars on the lines of the United States and Canada<br />
stood at 163,621, compared with 163,170 two weeks<br />
before. The difference is 451, or not quite threetenths<br />
of one per cent., an almost infinitesimal<br />
change. The number of idle cars or the gross<br />
surplus was 165,508, compared with 165,934, while<br />
the shortage decreased from 2,764 to 1,887. It<br />
was this decrease in the shortage that brought the<br />
net surplus ahead of a fortnight ago.<br />
In the two weeks ended July 5, the surplus of<br />
coal cars decreased from 72,885 to 70,363, while the<br />
box car surplus decreased from 53,208 to 52,875.<br />
Both flat and miscellaneous cars showed considerable<br />
increases, which almost offset the decrease<br />
in the gross surpluses of the two principal classes<br />
of cars, coal and box.<br />
Following is a table showing the surpluses and<br />
shortages at various recent dates:<br />
Date.<br />
July 5. 1911. . 165.508<br />
June 21<br />
June 7<br />
Mav 24<br />
Mav 10<br />
April 26<br />
April 12<br />
March 29<br />
March 15<br />
*Decrease.<br />
Sur<br />
plus.<br />
. 165,934<br />
. 169,006<br />
. 168,233<br />
. 188,847<br />
. 189,524<br />
. 187,219<br />
. 196,217<br />
. 208,527<br />
Short<br />
age.<br />
1.887<br />
2,764<br />
2,086<br />
835<br />
1,569<br />
2,518<br />
1.166<br />
1.330<br />
1,266<br />
Net<br />
Surplus. crease.<br />
163,621<br />
163.170<br />
166,970<br />
167,398<br />
187.278<br />
187,006<br />
186,053<br />
194,887<br />
207.527<br />
In<br />
451<br />
*3,800<br />
*428<br />
*19,880<br />
272<br />
953<br />
*8,834<br />
*12,640<br />
17,611<br />
J. V. Thompson and W. J. and Alexander Sherrard,<br />
of Uniontown, Pa., have purchased 530 acres<br />
of coal land from Moses Little and his sister, Mrs.<br />
Margaret Melvin, near Washington. Pa. The<br />
price was $375 an acre.<br />
Mr. D. B. Zimmerman, a well known coal operator<br />
of Somerset, Pa., was attacked by Tony Sicilian,<br />
an Italian, on August 4, and was badly cut<br />
by his assailant. Sicilian wanted to put a store<br />
on Mr. Zimmerman's property but was refused<br />
permission and the attack followed.<br />
Mr. Howard D. Mannington has resigned as secretary<br />
of the Ohio Coal Operators' Association<br />
and the Michigan-Ohio-Indiana Coal Dealers' Association<br />
and has come to Pittsburgh, where he<br />
has become affiliated with the Pittsburgh operators'<br />
association.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
TEXT OF NEW BITUMINOUS MINING CODE OF PENNSYLVANIA<br />
PASSED BY THE LEGISLATIVE SESSION OF 1911.<br />
(CONTINUED FROM ISSUE OF AUGUST 1)<br />
ARTICLE XII.<br />
OPENING KOR DRAINAGE, ET CETERA, ON OTHER LANDS.<br />
Section 1. If any person, firm of corporation is,<br />
or shall hereafter, be, seized in his or their own<br />
right of coal lands, or shall hold such lands under<br />
lease and shall have opened, or shall desire to<br />
open, a coal mine on said land, and it shall not be<br />
practicable to drain or ventilate such mines or to<br />
comply with the requirements of this act as to<br />
ways of ingress and egress or traveling ways by<br />
means of openings on lands owned or held under<br />
lease by him, them, or it, and the same can be<br />
done by means of openings on adjacent lands, he,<br />
they or it may apply, by petition, to the court of<br />
quarter sessions of the proper county, after 10<br />
days' notice to the owner or owners, their agents<br />
or attorney, setting forth the facts under oath or<br />
affirmation, particularly describing the place, or<br />
places, where such opening, or openings, can be<br />
made and the pillars of coal or other material<br />
necessary for the support of such passageway and<br />
the right of way necessary to any public road as<br />
may be needed in connection with such opening,<br />
and that he or they cannot agree with the owner<br />
or owners of the land as to the amount to be paid<br />
for the privilege of making such opening or openings,<br />
whereupon the said court shall appoint three<br />
disinterested and competent citizens of the country<br />
to view the ground designated and lay out from<br />
the point, or points, mentioned in such petition, a<br />
passage, or passages, not more than 80 feet in area<br />
by either drift, shaft or slope, or by a combination<br />
of any of said methods, by any practicable and convenient<br />
route to the coal of such person, firm or<br />
corporation, preferring in all cases an opening<br />
through the coal strata where the same is practicable.<br />
The said viewers shall, at the same time,<br />
assess the damages to be paid by the petitioner or<br />
petitioners to the owner or owners of such lands<br />
for the coal or other valuable material to be removed<br />
in the excavation and construction of said<br />
passage, also, for such coal or other valuable material<br />
necessary to support the said passage, as<br />
well as for a right of way not exceeding 15 feet<br />
in width from any such opening to any public<br />
road, to enable persons to gain entrance<br />
to the mine through such opening, or to<br />
provide therefrom, upon the surface, a water<br />
course of suitable dimensions to a natural<br />
water stream. to enable the operator to<br />
discharge the water from said mine, if such right<br />
of way shall be desired by the petitioner or peti<br />
47<br />
tioners, which damages shall be fully paid before<br />
such opening is made. The proceedings shall be<br />
recorded in the road docket of the proper county<br />
and the pay of the viewers shall be the same as in<br />
road cases. If exceptions be filed they shall be<br />
disposed of by the court as speedily as possible<br />
and both parties shall have the right to take<br />
depositions as in road cases. If, however, the petitioner<br />
desires to make such openings, or roads,<br />
or waterways, before the final disposition of such<br />
exceptions, he shall have the right to do so by<br />
giving bond, to be approved by the court, securing<br />
the damages as provided by law in the ease of<br />
lateral railroads.<br />
Section 2. It shall be compulsory upon the part<br />
of the mine owner or operator to exercise the<br />
powers granted by the provisions of the last preceding<br />
section for the procuring of a right of way<br />
on the surface from the opening of a coal mine to<br />
a public road, or public roads, upon the request.<br />
in writing, of 50 miners employed in the mine or<br />
mines of such owner or operator. Provided, however,<br />
That, with such request, satisfactory security<br />
be deposited with the mine owner or operator by<br />
said petitioners (being coal miners) to fully and<br />
sufficiently pay all costs, damages and expenses<br />
caused by such proceedings and in paying for such<br />
right of way.<br />
Section 3. In any mine, or mines, or portions<br />
thereof, wherein water may have been allowed to<br />
accumulate in large and dangerous quantities, putting<br />
in danger the adjoining or adjacent mines and<br />
the lives of the miners working therein, and when<br />
such can be tapped and set free and flow by its<br />
own gravity to any point of drainage, it shall be<br />
lawful for any operator or person having mines so<br />
endangered, with the approval of the inspector of<br />
the district, to proceed to remove the said danger<br />
by driving a drift or drifts, protected by bore<br />
holes, as provided for by this act. and in removing<br />
said danger it shall be lawful to drive across<br />
property lines if needful.<br />
And it shall be unlawful for any person to dam<br />
or. in any way, obstruct the flow of any stream<br />
from said mine, or portions thereof, when so set<br />
free on any part of its passage to point of drainage.<br />
Section 4. From and after the passage of this<br />
act it shall and may be lawful for any person or<br />
persons, company or companies, now or hereafter<br />
to be incorporated in this commonwealth, to drive<br />
headings and construct entryways, tramways and<br />
mine tracks, with one or more tracks under the
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
surface, or partly under and partly over the surface,<br />
through or over, any intervening lands, not<br />
exceeding one mile in length, to or from any coal<br />
and connect the same with any entryways, headings,<br />
tramways or railroads belonging to any individual<br />
or individuals, company or companies, now<br />
or hereafter to be incorporated in this state, and<br />
also with any highway or public improvement:<br />
Provided, That the parties interested shall be subject<br />
to the same proceedings required in section<br />
1 of this article. And, provided, further, That no<br />
such entryway, heading, tramway, mine track or<br />
railroad shall be constructed through or over such<br />
intervening lands where the same would injure<br />
or interfere with he existing mining operations of<br />
any other person or company or where the same<br />
would endanger the safety of the employes therein.<br />
ARTICLE XIII.<br />
AMBULANCES AND STRETCHERS, RESCUE APPLIANCES<br />
AND EMERGENCY HOSPITALS.<br />
Section 1. The operator or the superintendent<br />
of every mine, in which 50 or more persons are<br />
employed inside, shall provide and keep in good<br />
condition at the principal entrance of the mine,<br />
or at such other place as the superintendent and<br />
inspector may determine and designate, one ambulance<br />
and at least two stretchers, for conveying<br />
to his place of abode any person that may be injured<br />
while in the discharge of his duties, and<br />
also woolen and waterproof blankets: Provided,<br />
that, if the places of abode of 90 per centum of the<br />
workmen at any mine are within a radius of one<br />
mile from the principal entrance to the mine, an<br />
ambulance shall not be required. Provided, further,<br />
that, where two or more mines are located<br />
within one mile of each other, or where the ambulance<br />
is located within one mile of each mine,<br />
only one ambulance as aforesaid shall be required,<br />
if such mines have ready and quick means of communication<br />
by telegraph or telephone.<br />
Section 2. The ambulance shall be constructed<br />
upon good, substantial, easy springs. It shall<br />
be covered and closed and shall have windows on<br />
the sides or ends, and shall be provided with spring<br />
mattresses, or other comfortable bedding, to be<br />
placed on roller frames, together with sufficient<br />
covering and protection for the convenient movement<br />
of the injured. It shall be of sufficient size<br />
to convey at least two injured persons and two<br />
attendants at one time and shall be provided with<br />
seats for the attendants.<br />
The stretchers shall be constructed of such material<br />
and in such a manner as to insure ease and<br />
comfort in the carriage of the injured persons.<br />
At all mines there shall be provided bandages,<br />
splints and other medical supplies, to render first<br />
aid and relief to employes who may be injured.<br />
These supplies shall be kept in a suitable room.<br />
The room shall be located near the entrance to,<br />
or inside of, the mine and shall be sufficiently<br />
large to accommodate the injured employes while<br />
they are receiving temporary medical attention.<br />
Section 3. Whenever any person employed in or<br />
about any mine shall receive such an injury, by<br />
accident or otherwise, as to render him unable to<br />
walk to his place of abode, the operator or the<br />
superintendent shall immediately have said person<br />
removed to his place of abode or to a hospital as<br />
the case may require.<br />
Section 4. If the conditions are such that the<br />
person injured can be conveyed to his home or to<br />
the hospital more conveniently and more quickly<br />
by railroad, trolley road, or other conveyance, such<br />
mode of conveyance shall be permitted and no<br />
ambulance required, but in such cases the conveyance<br />
must be under cover and the comfort of<br />
the injured person must be provided for.<br />
ARTICLE XIV.<br />
WASH HOUSES.<br />
Section 1. When the clothing or wearing apparel<br />
of the employes in any mine becomes wet<br />
by reason of working in wet places therein, it<br />
shall be the duty of the operator or superintendent<br />
of said mine, at the request, in writing, of the inspector,<br />
who shall make such request upon the<br />
petition of any 10 employes working in the aforesaid<br />
wet places, to provide a suitable building convenient<br />
to the principal entrances of such mine<br />
for the use of the persons employed in wet places<br />
therein, for the purpose of washing themselves<br />
and changing their clothes when entering the<br />
mine and returning therefrom. The said building<br />
shall be maintained in good order and be<br />
properly lighted and heated and shall be provided<br />
with hot and cold water and facilities for persons<br />
to wash. Any operator, superintendent or inspector,<br />
who shall neglect or fail to comply with<br />
the provisions of this article, or any person who<br />
shall maliciously injure or destroy, or cause to be<br />
injured or destroyed, the said building, or any<br />
part thereof, or any of the appliances or fittings<br />
used therein, or do any act tending to the injury<br />
or destruction thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a<br />
misdemeanor.<br />
ARTICLE XV.<br />
INSIDE STAPLES.<br />
Section 1. It shall not be lawful for the superintendent<br />
or mine foreman to provide a horse or a<br />
mule stable inside of any mine, unless space for<br />
said stable is excavated in solid strata of rock.<br />
slate or coal. If excavated in the coal seam, the<br />
wall shall be built of brick, stone or concrete, not<br />
less than 12 inches in thickness, and said wall
shall be built from the bottom slate to the roof.<br />
Wood or other combustible material shall be used<br />
in the smallest practicable quantity in the construction<br />
of the inside of said stable. The air<br />
current used for the ventilation of said stable<br />
shall not be intermixed with the air current used<br />
for ventilating any other portion of the mine, but<br />
shall be conveyed directly to the return air current.<br />
No open light shall be permitted in any<br />
stable in any mine.<br />
No hay or straw r shall be taken into any mine<br />
unless pressed and made up into compact bales,<br />
which shall be kept in a storehouse built apart<br />
from the stable and in the same manner as the<br />
stable. Under no circumstances shall the hay<br />
be stored in the stable.<br />
ARTICLE XVI.<br />
REGULATIONS FOR POWDER AND DETONATORS.<br />
Section 1. No powder or high explosive shall be<br />
stored in any mine and no more of either article<br />
shall be taken into any mine at one time, by any<br />
one person, than is required in one shift. The<br />
quantity shall not exceed 5 pounds: Provided, that,<br />
in a mine where shot firers are employed, the shot<br />
firers shall have the right to take a sufficient quantity<br />
to complete their work.<br />
Black powder for use in mines shall be put up<br />
in 5. 10, 15 and 25 pound metallic cans, or canisters,<br />
or receptacles of equally safe material.<br />
No black powder, high explosives or detonators<br />
shall be hauled on any electric motor trip in any<br />
mine, unless the same are encased in non-conductive<br />
boxes or receptacles.<br />
Section 2. In such portions of dry and dusty<br />
mines wherein explosive gas is being generated, in<br />
quantities sufficient to be detected by an approved<br />
safety lamp, no explosives shall be used except<br />
"permissible" explosives as designated by the Testing<br />
Station of the Federal Bureau of Mines. Each<br />
charge shall consist of only one kind of explosive.<br />
The Department of Mines shall forward to the<br />
operators, upon application, the names of all explosives<br />
on the permissible list.<br />
No "permissible" explosive shall be sold for use<br />
in bituminous mines unless the name of the manufacturer,<br />
name of explosive, method of handling.<br />
and full instruction for use, are conspicuously displayed<br />
on or in the package containing the explosive.<br />
Section 3. Detonators shall, at all times, be<br />
kept in securely locked cases, separate and apart<br />
from other explosives, until required for use.<br />
The Chief of the Department of Mines, when satisfied<br />
by tests, that any permissible explosive has<br />
deteriorated from the standard established by the<br />
Testing Station of the Federal Bureau of Mines<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
and thereby becomes dangerous, may prohibit the<br />
use thereof either absolutely or subject to conditions.<br />
ARTICLE XVII.<br />
REGULATIONS FOR OIL.<br />
Section 1. The oiling or greasing of cars inside<br />
of any mine is strictly prohibited, unless the place<br />
where said oil or grease is used is thoroughly<br />
cleaned at least once every day, to prevent the accumulation<br />
of waste oil or grease on the roads or<br />
in the drains at that point. Not more than one<br />
barrel of lubricating oil shall be permitted in any<br />
mine at one time and it shall be kept in a fireproof<br />
building, cut out of solid rock or made of masonry<br />
or concrete of sufficient thickness to insure safety<br />
in case of fire.<br />
Section 2. No explosive oil shall be taken into<br />
or used in any mine for lighting purposes, except<br />
when used in safety lamps and shall not be taken<br />
into or stored in any mine in quantities exceeding<br />
five gallons. Said oil, when stored in a mine, shall<br />
be kept in a fireproof vault made of masonry or<br />
concrete.<br />
Section 3. All oils, or materials used in open<br />
lamps, shall be non-explosive and free from odors<br />
and fumes deleterious to health and shall have a<br />
burning point not lower than 300 degrees and<br />
must not produce over eleven one-hundredths of<br />
1 per centum of their weight of soot when burned<br />
in a miner's lamp with a flame 1% inches high,<br />
the determination of the percentage of soot to be<br />
by tests specified by the Department of Mines.<br />
Section 4. Paraffine wax used in mines shall<br />
not contain over 3 per centum of oil.<br />
Section 5. All illuminants sold, to be used in<br />
open lamps in mines, shall have branded conspicuously<br />
on the barrel or package containing the same,<br />
the name of the manufacturer, date of shipment<br />
and percentage of soot.<br />
Section 6. Any employe who shall use, or any<br />
mine foreman who shall permit to be used, or any<br />
person who shall sell for use in any mine, any<br />
oil or any other material for illuminating purposes,<br />
other than that prescribed in this article<br />
shall be guilty of a misdemeanor: Provided, however,<br />
that any illuminant that is found not detrimental<br />
to health and safety, after the proper tests<br />
specified by the Department of Mines, can be used<br />
in any mine with the consent of the inspector.<br />
Section 7. It shall be the duty of the inspector,<br />
whenever he has reason to believe that an illuminant<br />
is being used, or sold, or offered for sale, in<br />
violation of the provisions of this article, to take<br />
samples of the same and have them tested under<br />
the direction of the Depaitment of Mines.
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
ARTICLE XVIII.<br />
EMPLOYMENT OF BOYS AND FEMALES.<br />
Section 1. No boy under the age of 14 years.<br />
and no woman or girl of any age, shall be employed,<br />
permitted or suffered to work in or about<br />
any mine, and no boy under the age of 18 years<br />
shall be permitted to mine or load coal in any<br />
room, entry or other working place, unless in company<br />
with an experienced person over 18 years of<br />
age.<br />
No boy under the age of 16 years shall be employed<br />
in or about any mine unless, during the<br />
entire period that said boy is so employed, there<br />
is on file in the office of said mine, and accessible<br />
to the inspector, an employment certificate issued<br />
by the city, borough, township or county superintendent<br />
of public schools, or by the secretary of<br />
the school board of the township, borough or city,<br />
or by a principal of a parochial school, or by such<br />
superintendent's, secretary's or principal's duly<br />
appointed deputy or assistant, reciting the age of<br />
said boy as it appears on any record that the person<br />
who issues said certificate has reason to believe<br />
to be true and correct; or if such record of<br />
age be lacking, reciting the age of said boy according<br />
to an affidavit taken by his parent, guardian<br />
or custodian and attached to said certificate and<br />
said certificate and the affidavit, if any. shall, for<br />
the purposes of this act, be conclusive evidence of<br />
the age of said boy.<br />
Nothing in this section shall be held to forbid<br />
the employment of a girl between the ages of 14<br />
and 16 years in the office of a mine, provided, that,<br />
during the entire period of said employment there<br />
is, in like manner, on file for said girl in said<br />
office an employment certificate of the character<br />
hereinbefore provided for as a prerequisite to the<br />
employment of boys under the age of 16 years inside<br />
any mine.<br />
Section 2. Any superintendent or mine foreman,<br />
who fails to comply with the provisions of<br />
this article, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor<br />
and it shall be the duty of the inspector,<br />
or any other person who knows that the superintendent<br />
or mine foreman has violated any of the<br />
provisions of this article, to prosecute said superintendent<br />
or said mine foreman in accordance<br />
with section 2 of article 26 of this act, and any<br />
person who shall falsely certify or swear to the<br />
age of any boy or girl in the certificate and affidavit<br />
described and required by section 1 of this<br />
article, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.<br />
ARTICLE XIX.<br />
MINE INSPECTORS' EXAMINING BOARD, APPOINTMENT<br />
AND DUTIES, MINE INSPECTORS, THEIR APPOINT<br />
MENT, OUTIES AND POWERS.<br />
Section 1. The Governor shall appoint during<br />
the month of January, 1913, and every four years<br />
thereafter, five citizens of this Commonwealth, of<br />
good repute, to be known as the Mine Inspectors'<br />
Examining Board, whose duty it shall be to examine<br />
applicants for the office of inspector in the<br />
bituminous coal region of this Commonwealth.<br />
Two of the members of said board shall be mining<br />
engineers and three of the members shall have<br />
passed successful examinations qualifying them<br />
to act as inspectors or mine foremen in bituminous<br />
mines generating explosive gas and shall have<br />
had at least five years' practical experience as<br />
miners in the bituminous mines of Pennsylvania.<br />
Applicants for apiiointment on the said Examining<br />
Board shall be at least 30 years of age.<br />
Each member of the Examining Board shall receive<br />
the sum of $10 a day for each day actually<br />
employed, and all necessary expenses incurred in<br />
carrying out the provisions of this article, which<br />
shall be paid out of the State Treasury on warrant<br />
of the Auditor General, issued upon presentation<br />
of vouchers properly made out and sworn to by<br />
each member of the board and approved by the<br />
Chief of the Department of Mines. The Examining<br />
Board is hereby authorized to engage the<br />
services of a clerk who shall be a stenographer.<br />
Any vacancy that may occur in the membership<br />
of the Examining Board shall be filled by the<br />
Governor according to the provisions of this section.<br />
Section 2. The said Examining Board shall meet<br />
on the first Tuesday in March, following its appointment,<br />
in the city of Pittsburgh, to examine<br />
applicants for the office of inspector. Two weeks<br />
previous to the aforesaid time, the board shall<br />
meet to prepare questions and formulate rules for<br />
conducting the examination. The board may also<br />
be convened by the Governor at any other time<br />
for the purpose of filling vacancies or performing<br />
any other necessary work.<br />
The board, after being duly <strong>org</strong>anized, shall<br />
take and subscribe to, before any officer authorized<br />
to administer the same, the following oath,<br />
namely:<br />
"We, the undersigned, do solemnly swear tor<br />
affirm) that we will perform the duties of examiners<br />
of applicants for appointment as inspector of<br />
mines to the best of our ability and that, in recommending<br />
or rejecting said applicants, we will be<br />
governed by the evidence of their qualifications to<br />
fill the position and not by any consideration of<br />
political or personal favor and that we will certify<br />
all whom we may find qualified according to the<br />
true intent and meaning of this act and none<br />
other." The oaths of the members of the Examining<br />
Board shall be filed in the Department of<br />
Mines.
Section 3. The qualifications of candidates for<br />
the office of inspector shall be certified to the Examining<br />
Board and shall be as follows:<br />
The candidates shall be citizens of Pennsylvania,<br />
of temperate habits, of good repute as men<br />
of personal integrity, in good physical condition,<br />
and shall be between the ages of 30 and 50 years:<br />
Provided, however, that any inspector appointed<br />
under the provisions of the act of May 15, 1893,<br />
or under the provisions of this act, shall be eligible<br />
for reappointment even if beyond 50 years<br />
of age if in good physical condition. The candidates<br />
shall have a knowledge of the different systems<br />
of working coal seams and shall have had at<br />
least 10 years' practical experience in bituminous<br />
mines, five years of which, immediately preceding<br />
their examination, shall have been in bituminous<br />
mines of this Commonwealth, and shall also have<br />
had practical experience with explosive gas and<br />
other dangerous gases found in coal mines, and,<br />
upon examination, shall give evidence of such<br />
theoretical as well as practical knowledge and<br />
general intelligence iespecting mines and mining<br />
and the working and ventilation of mines as will<br />
satisfy the Examining Board of their capability<br />
and fitness for the duties imposed upon inspectors<br />
of mines by the provisions of this act.<br />
Section 4. The principal examioation shall be<br />
in writing and each applicant shall also undergo<br />
an oral examination pertaining to explosive gas,<br />
safety lamps, methods of ventilation, and mine<br />
management. The questions, and answers thereto,<br />
in the oral examination, shall be reported \ erbatim<br />
by an expert stenographer and typewritten fully<br />
to assist the board in the work of rating the qualifications<br />
of the candidats. Candidates who shall<br />
make a general average of at least 90 per centum<br />
shall be deemed successful. The manuscripts and<br />
other papers of all applicants in the principal examination,<br />
together with the tally sheets and the<br />
correct solution of each question as prepared b.v<br />
the Examining Board, and also the stenographer's<br />
report of the oral examination, shall be filed in<br />
the Department of Mines. The Examining Board,<br />
or at least four members thereof, shall certify to<br />
the Governor, and also to the Department of<br />
Mines, the names and percentages of all successful<br />
candidates who are properly qualified under the<br />
provisions of this article to fill the office of inspector.<br />
A certificate of qualification prepared<br />
by the Chief of the Department of Mines shall be<br />
issued to each successful candidate.<br />
The Examining Board shall, as soon as practicable<br />
after the examination, furnish to each applicant<br />
on printed slips of paper a copy of all questions<br />
(oral and written) given at the examination<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
marked solved right, imperfect, or wrong, as the<br />
case may be.<br />
Section 5. The Governor shall, from the names<br />
certified to him by the Examining Board, commission<br />
one person to be inspector for each district in<br />
pursuance of this act, whose commission shall be<br />
for a full term of four years from the 15th day of<br />
May following the regular examinations. Each<br />
inspector appointed under the provisions of the<br />
act of May 15, 1893, may continue in office until<br />
May 15, 1913.<br />
After the passage of this act, the Chief of the<br />
Department of Mines shall have the right to assign<br />
the inspectors to the districts for which, in his<br />
opinion, they are best fitted.<br />
Section 6. When a vacancy occurs in said office<br />
of inspector, the Governor shall commission for<br />
the unexpired term, from the names on file in the<br />
Department of Mines, a person who has received<br />
an average of at least 90 per centum. When the<br />
number of candidates who have received an average<br />
of at least 90 per centum shall be exhausted,<br />
the Governor shall cause the aforesaid Examining<br />
Board to meet for a special examination and examine<br />
the persons who may present themselves for<br />
examination in accordance with section 3 of this<br />
article and the board shall certify to the Governor,<br />
and also to the Chief of the Department of Mines,<br />
the names of all applicants who have made a general<br />
average of at least 90 per centum in said examination,<br />
as provided for in section 4 of this<br />
article, one of whom shall be commissioned by the<br />
Governor according to the provisions of section 5<br />
of this article for the office of inspector for the unexpired<br />
term. In conducting the said special examination,<br />
the board shall comply with all the requirements<br />
of sections 3 and 4 of this article.<br />
Section 7. After the passage of this act the<br />
salary of the inspectors shall be $3,000 a year, to<br />
be paid quarterly by the State Treasurer, on warrant<br />
of the Auditor General, issued upon the presentation<br />
of voucher approved by the Chief of<br />
the Department of Mines. Each inspector may<br />
also incur traveling expenses and such other expenses<br />
as may be necessary for the proper discharge<br />
of his duties, under the provisions of this<br />
act, which shall be paid quarterly by the State<br />
Treasurer, on warrant of the Auditor General,<br />
issued upon presentation of vouchers properly<br />
made out and sworn to by the inspector and approved<br />
by the Chief of the Department of Mines.<br />
Each inspector shall have an office in his district,<br />
which may be at bis place of residence; provided,<br />
that a suitable room, approved by the Chief of the<br />
Department of Mines, be set apart for that purpose.<br />
The Chief of the Department of Mines shall<br />
have authority to procure for the inspectors, on
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
their request, furniture, instruments, chemicals,<br />
typewriters, stationery and all other necessary<br />
supplies, which shall be paid for by the State<br />
Treasurer, on warrant of the Auditor General,<br />
issued upon presentation of vouchers approved by<br />
the Chief of the Department of Mines. All furniture,<br />
instruments, plans, books, memoranda, notes,<br />
and other materials, pertaining to the office of inspector,<br />
shall be the property of the state and shall<br />
be delivered by the inspector to his successor in<br />
office.<br />
Section 8. The inspectors shall be allowed all<br />
necessary expenses incurred by them in enforcing<br />
the several provisions of this act in the respective<br />
courts of this Commonwealth (provided they have<br />
the consent of the Department of Mines before<br />
such expense is incurred), the same to be paid by<br />
the State Treasurer, on warrant of the Auditor<br />
General, issued upon presentation of itemized<br />
vouchers approved by the court before which the<br />
proceedings were instituted and also by the Chief<br />
of the Department of Mines.<br />
Section 9. Each inspector shall, before entering<br />
upon the discharge of his duties, give bond in<br />
the sum of $5,000 with sureties to be approved by<br />
the president judge of the district in which he resides,<br />
conditional for the faithful discharge of<br />
his duties, and shall take an oath, or make affirmation,<br />
that he will discharge his duties with impartiality<br />
and fidelity to the best of his knowledge<br />
and ability. But no person, who Is acting as<br />
manager or agent of any coal mine, or as mining<br />
engineer, or who is interested in operating any<br />
coal mine, shall at the same time act as inspector<br />
under this act.<br />
Section 10. In case the inspector becomes incapacitated<br />
to perform the duties of his office, or<br />
is granted a leave of absence by the Chief of the<br />
Department of Mines, it shall be the duty of the<br />
Governor, at the request of the Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines, to appoint temporarily to the<br />
office, a person on the eligible list of applicants<br />
filed in the Department of Mines. The temporary<br />
inspector shall act until the regular inspector is<br />
able to resume the duties of his office and shall<br />
be paid in the same manner as hereinbefore provided<br />
for the payment of the regular inspector.<br />
Section 11. Each inspector shall devote the<br />
whole of his time to the duties of his office. It<br />
shall be his duty to thoroughly examine each mine<br />
in his district as often as possible (but at least<br />
once every four months), giving special attention<br />
to all.mines generating explosive gas and to other<br />
mines where unusual dangers may be suspected to<br />
exist, and to see that all the provisions of this<br />
act are observed and strictly carried out, especially<br />
those that demand that the air current be<br />
carried to the working faces. He shall keep, in<br />
his office, a record of all examinations of mines,<br />
showing the condition in which he finds them,<br />
especially with reference to ventilation and drainage,<br />
the number of persons employed inside of<br />
each mine, the extent to which the law is obeyed,<br />
and the progress made in the improvement of<br />
mines. He shall keep a record of all serious accidents,<br />
showing the nature and causes thereof,<br />
and the number of deaths resulting therefrom.<br />
Section 12. It shall be the duty of the inspector,<br />
after the final examination of any mine,<br />
to make out a written or partly written and partly<br />
printed report of the condition in which he finds<br />
it and to post the said report, immediately after<br />
the final examination, in the office at the mine or<br />
in some other conspicuous place, where it shall<br />
remain for one year open to examination by any<br />
person employed in or about the said mine. The<br />
report shall show the date of the inspection, the<br />
number of cubic feet of air in circulation, where<br />
the measurement of the air was made, and the<br />
quantity of air as measured at the last cut-through<br />
iu each split, together with the number of persons<br />
employed in each split, and, also, at any othei<br />
place requested by the Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines. The report shall contain such other<br />
information as the inspector may deem necessary.<br />
If the inspector discovers any room, entry, airway,<br />
or other working places, being driven in advance<br />
of the air current, contrary to the requirements<br />
of this act, he shall order the workmen in<br />
such places to cease work at once until the law is<br />
complied with.<br />
Section 13. To enable the inspector to perform<br />
the duties imposed upon him by this act, he shall<br />
have the right, at all times, to enter any mine<br />
in his district, or any mine in any other district,<br />
when directed to do so by the Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines, to make examinations or obtain information<br />
and upon the discovery of any violation<br />
of this act, or upon being informed of any violation<br />
of the act, he shall institute proceedings<br />
against the person or persons at fault, under the<br />
provisions of section 2 of article 26 of this act.<br />
In case any mine or portion of a mine is, in the<br />
judgment of the inspector, in so dangerous a con<br />
dition from any cause as to jeopardize life and<br />
health, he shall at once notify the Chief of the<br />
Department of Mines, who shall immediately direct<br />
two or more of the other inspectors to accompany,<br />
promptly, the said inspector to the mine wherein<br />
said dangerous condition is alleged to exist. The<br />
inspectors shall make a full investigation, and,<br />
if they shall agree that there is immediate danger,<br />
they shall direct the superintendent of the mine,<br />
in writing, to remove forthwith said dangerous
condition. If the superintendent fails to do so,<br />
the inspectors shall immediately apply, in the<br />
name of the Commonwealth, to the court of common<br />
pleas of the county in which said mine is<br />
located, or to a judge of said court in chambers,<br />
for a writ of injunction to enjoin the operation of<br />
all work in and about said mine. Whereupon<br />
said court or judge shall at once proceed to hear<br />
and determine the case and if the cause appear to<br />
be sufficient, after hearing the parties and their<br />
evidence as in like cases, shall issue its writ to<br />
restrain the working of said mine until all cause<br />
of danger is removed, and the costs of said proceedings<br />
shall be borne by the owner, lessee, or<br />
agent of the mine: Provided, that, if said court<br />
shall (ind the cause not sufficient, then the case<br />
shall be dismissed and the costs shall be borne by<br />
the county wherein said mine is located. Provided,<br />
also, that, should any inspector find, during<br />
his inspection of a mine or portion of a mine,<br />
such dangerous conditions existing therein that,<br />
in his opinion, any delay in removing the workmen<br />
from such dangerous places might cause loss<br />
of life or serious personal injury to the employes.<br />
the said inspector shall have the right to temporarily<br />
withdraw all persons from such dangerous<br />
places until the foregoing provisions of this section<br />
can be carried into effect.<br />
Section 14. Each inspector shall make the following<br />
reports to the Chief of the Department of<br />
Mines on blank forms provided for that purpose:<br />
Not later than the tenth of each month he shall<br />
make a report of all fatal and serious non-fatal<br />
accidents that have occurred in his district during<br />
the preceding month, stating the date, nature<br />
and cause of each accident, and placing the responsibility<br />
therefor, together with the name, age,<br />
occupation, aud nationality of each person killed<br />
or injured, and whether married or single, and<br />
the number of widows and orphans left, which<br />
report shall be recorded and filed in the Department<br />
of Mines and included (or a synopsis of the<br />
same) in the annual report of said Department.<br />
Not later than the sixth of each month he shall<br />
make a report giving the name of operator and<br />
the name and location of each mine inspected during<br />
the preceding month, with date of inspection,<br />
condition of mine, quantity of air in circulation,<br />
at all points required by the Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines, and the number of persons employed<br />
in each split of air. Not later than the<br />
20th of February of each year he shall make an<br />
annual report which shall briefly recapitulate the<br />
duties performed by him during the preceding<br />
year and briefly describe the condition of the<br />
mines in his district relative to ventilation, drainage,<br />
and general sanitary arrangements, as relat<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 63<br />
ing to the health, safety and welfare of the employes,<br />
and which shall also contain such suggestions<br />
or information of importance as he may deem<br />
necessary or as required by ihe Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines.<br />
ARTICLE XX.<br />
DISCRETIONARY POWERS OF INSPECTORS, ARBITRATION.<br />
Section 1. The inspector shall exercise sound<br />
discretion in the performance of his duties under<br />
the provisions of this act and if the operator,<br />
superintendent, mine foreman, or other person<br />
employed in or about any mine, shall be dissatisfied<br />
with any decision the inspector has given in<br />
the discharge of his duties, which decision shall<br />
be in writing, it shall be the duty of the dissatisfied<br />
person to appeal from said decision to the<br />
Chief of the Department of Mines, who shall at<br />
once direct two or more of the other inspectors<br />
to accompany, promptly, the inspector of the district<br />
to make further examination into the matter<br />
in dispute. If the said inspectors shall agree<br />
with the decision of the inspector of the district,<br />
their decision shall be final unless the dissatis.<br />
fied person shall, within seven days of the receipt<br />
of the decision of the committee of inspectors,<br />
appeal therefrom to the court of quarter sessions<br />
of the county in which said mine is situated.<br />
Section 2. Whereupon the court, or the judges<br />
of said court in chambers, shall forthwith appoint<br />
a commission of five persons as required by article<br />
10 of this act, and thereafter the proceedings had<br />
shall be as prescribed by sections 1 and 2 of said<br />
article 10.<br />
ARTICLE XXI.<br />
NEGLECT OR MALFEASANCE OF INSPECTORS.<br />
Section 1. The court of common pleas in any<br />
county or district upon a petition signed by not<br />
less than 15 reputable citizens, who shall be miners<br />
or operators of mines, and with the affidavit<br />
of one or more of said petitioners attached, setting<br />
forth that any inspector of mines is neglectful<br />
of, or is incompetent to, perform the duties<br />
of his office, or that he is guilty of malfeasance in<br />
office, shall issue a citation, in the name of the<br />
Commonwealth, to the said inspector to appear on<br />
not less than 15 days' notice, upon a day fixed,<br />
before said court at which time the court shall<br />
proceed to inquire into and investigate the allegations<br />
of the said petitioners: Provided, however,<br />
that the citation shall not issue until the petitioners<br />
shall file a bond in said court, with sufficient<br />
sureties to be approved by the court, conditioned<br />
that the petitioners shall pay all the costs of the<br />
proceedings in case the charges are not sustained.<br />
Section 2. If the court finds that the said inspector<br />
is neglectful of, or is incompetent to, perform<br />
the duties of his office or that he is guilty
64 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
of malfeasance in office, the court shall certify the<br />
same to the Governor, who shall declare the office<br />
of said inspector vacant and proceed in compliance<br />
with the provisions of this act to fill the<br />
vacancy.<br />
The costs of said investigation shall, if the<br />
charges are sustained, be imposed upon the inspector,<br />
but if the charges are not sustained, they<br />
shall lie imposed upon the petitioners.<br />
ARTICLE XXII.<br />
INSPECTION DISTRICTS.<br />
Section 1. Under this act the bituminous counties<br />
of the Commonwealth shall be arranged by<br />
the Chief of the Department of Mines into 25 inspection<br />
districts, and it shall be the duty of the<br />
Chief of the Department ol Mines to assign the<br />
inspectors to tlieir respective districts. He shall<br />
also designate their places of abode, at points as<br />
convenient as iiossible to the mines ot their districts.<br />
Section 2. With the consent of the Governor,<br />
the Chief of the Department of Mines may, at<br />
any time, redistrict the bituminous districts and<br />
add to the number of inspectors if, in his judgment,<br />
the number should be increased.<br />
(TO BE CONTINI ED IN ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 1)<br />
CERTIFIED MINE MANAGERS,<br />
EXAMINERS AND ENGINEERS.<br />
The following are the successful candidates who<br />
recently passed the Illinois State Mining Board:<br />
Hoisting Engineers—Joseph E. Beeby, Springfield;<br />
Fred Sexton, Benton; Lawrence Seets, Herrin;<br />
John J. Redman, Witt; Leonard Pease, Wyoming;<br />
Leonard Keay, Seatonville; Deside Arnold,<br />
Seatonville; Vance MacDonald, Staunton; 0. W.<br />
Walker, Staunton.<br />
Mine Managers (first class)—Joseph Wood. Benton;<br />
Benj. Firth, Gillespie; Alex. Adams, Carterville;<br />
Claude Little. West Frankfort; Geo. Dickinson,<br />
Eldorado; Harry Adams Kane, Farmington;<br />
Alexander Jones, LaSalle; James Love, Benton;<br />
Wm. Medill. W. Frankfort; M. J. Carraher, Benton;<br />
James McMillan, Lincoln; John J. Jeremiah,<br />
Christopher; Robert Crofts, Cardiff; James Towal,<br />
Benton; W. B. Miller, Carterville; Joseph Farrimond,<br />
Williamson; G. W. Shanahan, Gillespie.<br />
Mine Managers (second class)—John Kucera,<br />
Dorsey; R. A. Brackett, Exeter; R. L Wilson, Catlin;<br />
E. E. Rining, Arenzville: M. J. Norton, Milan;<br />
Geo. Northrop, Alsey; James Conn. Ipava; L. P.<br />
Brown, Marion.<br />
Mine Examiners—Eugene Maule, Shiloh; Albeit<br />
Goodman, Harrisburg; John Catlin, Elmwood;<br />
John Campbell, Benton; Thos. L. Wood, Pinckney-<br />
ville; John Frazer, Gillespie; Mike Priddy, Herrin;<br />
Jos, W. Johnson, Murphvsboro; John C. Wilson,<br />
Lockport; M. F. Pittman, Carterville; John<br />
Day, Gillespie; M. F. Cummings, Springfield;<br />
Frank Fullerton, Girard; Benson King, West<br />
Frankfort; John E. Byron, Springfield; Wm. J.<br />
Cummings, Springfield; Geo. Stille, Staunton; Geo.<br />
N. Luke, Benton; John Taylor, Lincoln; Chas.<br />
Roth, Virden; Thos. Eddy, Dorrisville; Edmund<br />
Hunsinger, Staunton; Walter Eddy, Dorrisville;<br />
Thos. Ferguson, Sawyerville; Richard Davis, Harrisburg;<br />
Peter Kasavage, Johnston City; Pearl T.<br />
Wilber, Hillsboro; John W. Benson, Benton.<br />
LAKE COMMERCE DURING JUNE, 1911.<br />
A decline since last year of almost 25 per cent.<br />
in the monthly volume of the domestic lake shipments<br />
is shown by the June figures of trade movements<br />
on the Great Lakes just made public by the<br />
Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce<br />
and Labor.<br />
The June shipments of soft coal, 2,231,632 short<br />
tons, for the first time in the present year likewise<br />
show a considerable decline from the 1910<br />
shipments of 2,806,963 short tons, the heaviest<br />
losses affecting some of the largest coal ports<br />
such as Ashtabula and Cleveland. The six months'<br />
shipments of this article, 5,008.853 short tons, indicate<br />
a loss of about 15 per cent, from the 1910<br />
record. Of the 4,715,989 short tons unloaded during<br />
the first half of the present year, 2,537,170<br />
short tons are credited to Lake Superior ports,<br />
1,965,410 short tons to Lake Michigan ports and<br />
over 200,000 tons to ports on the other Great Lakes,<br />
Milwaukee being the only port which shows a larger<br />
quantity of soft coal received during the<br />
month and six months' period as compared with<br />
last year. The June shipments of anthracite coal,<br />
725,277 short tons, proceeding mainly from Buffalo,<br />
compare favorably with the quantities shipped last<br />
year, 628,026 short tons. Owing to lighter shipments<br />
during the earlier month, the total for the<br />
first half of the present year. 1,372,039 short tons,<br />
shows some decrease as compared with the corresponding<br />
1910 figures. About 60 per cent, of the<br />
hard coal shipped during the first half of the present<br />
year was destined for Lake Michigan ports and<br />
slightly over 27 per cent, to Lake Superior ports.<br />
The O'Gara Coal Co. has renewed its contract<br />
with the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie<br />
road, but this year the tonnage bought considerably<br />
exceeds that of last year, amounting to nearly<br />
250,000 tons. The coal comes from the Harrisburg<br />
or Saline county, 111., field. The excess sold<br />
this year over last season displaces dock coal.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK ti KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA,<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
56 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
OHIO TAX COMMISSION CERTIFIES $17,850,623<br />
OF COAL LANDS IN NINETEEN COUN<br />
TIES.<br />
Coal land valuations, aggregating $17,S50,623,<br />
have just been certified by the Tax Commission<br />
of Ohio to County Auditors in the counties where<br />
this mineral abounds. This represents only the<br />
coal valuation where the mineral right is separate<br />
from the land title and the coal is separately listed<br />
and assessed.<br />
The certificates by counties were:<br />
Monroe $1,(142,416<br />
Gallia 70,940<br />
Lawrence 156,030<br />
Carroll 85,382<br />
Columbiana 144,350<br />
M<strong>org</strong>an 241,035<br />
Coshocton 49,387<br />
Washington 19.72S<br />
Hocking 256,7S5<br />
Noble 424,150<br />
Harrison 539,704<br />
Guernsey 845.000<br />
Belmont 6,649,794<br />
Athens 1,727,604<br />
Tuscarawas 529,877<br />
Muskingum 146,335<br />
Perry 1,491,733<br />
Jefferson 3.036,232<br />
Meigs 394.141<br />
Total $17,850,623<br />
For months the Commission has had a mineral<br />
land expert attached to its staff and has develope 1<br />
a great deal of coal land that had not heretofore<br />
been on the duplicate. It has also caused to be<br />
separately listed a great deal of coal land that was<br />
being overlooked by the assessors. Additions<br />
have had to be made in several counties in order<br />
that assessments might be uniform. In Athens<br />
county it was necessary to add 25 per cent, to all<br />
the townships. Ten per cent, was added to three<br />
townships in Monroe county. In Columbiana<br />
county an increase of 10 per cent, was made in all<br />
~ LOOK INTO THE j<br />
YOU CAN'T EARTH, but WE<br />
CAN get you a large<br />
clean core of all strata un- 5<br />
der your land to be ex- j<br />
amined in broad daylight.<br />
townships except Fairfield, Liverpool and Madison.<br />
In the latter 15% per cent, was added and<br />
in the other two townships no addition was made.<br />
In Noble county the Commission made a straight<br />
12\u per cent, raise in all townships. Monroe<br />
township of Harrison county is raised 50 per cent.,<br />
Washington township 25 and Green and Short<br />
Creek 20 per cent.<br />
Guernsey county gets a straight 10 per cent.<br />
raise, while the increase in Belmont county runs<br />
from 20 to 60 per cent.<br />
To Rush township of Tuscarawas county is<br />
added 25 per cent. Several deductions were made<br />
in Jefferson county, one in Springfield township<br />
amounting to 33% per cent.<br />
When starting on this work the Commission requested<br />
the coal companies to make reports to it<br />
of all of their properties. The coal operators demurred<br />
at first, but soon saw that the Commission's<br />
intention was not only to see that the coal<br />
was properly listed and assessed, but that it was<br />
listed and assessed uniformly. The operators<br />
aided the Commission materially in getting the<br />
whole subject straightened out. There was a<br />
good deal of work in getting back to the County<br />
Auditors the valuations of coal whose owners had<br />
reported it direct to the Commission—coal that<br />
had never before been listed. Some of this work<br />
is uncompleted and the valuations will be certified<br />
later.<br />
John .1. Davis, a former state mine inspector,<br />
and father of Mrs. J. R. Davidson, died August 6<br />
at the Davidson residence, Connellsville, Pa. Had<br />
he lived until the 29th of August Mr. Davis would<br />
have celebrated his 82nd birthday anniversary.<br />
Death was due to the infirmities of old age. Mr.<br />
Davis was born in Wales and was a son of John<br />
and Margaret Davis. He married Miss Margaret<br />
M<strong>org</strong>an and the greater part of their married life<br />
was spent in Pittsburgh. Te was state mine inspector<br />
for 12 years, but for the past 20 years had<br />
lived a retired life. He is survived by four daughters.<br />
The death is announced of Mr. B. M. Libby,<br />
president of the National Commissary Managers'<br />
Association, which occurred at his home in Dutton.<br />
Fla., on July 28.<br />
. No Guess Work. . Freight tariffs making advances on bituminous<br />
The J. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO. coal and coal briquets filed by the Cleveland, Cincinnati,<br />
Chicago & St. Louis Railway and connect<br />
Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA. j ing carriers were suspended by the Interstate Com<br />
: Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING. OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING ; merce Commission until November 16 next.
Paragon Colliery Co., Macdonald. W. Va.; capital,<br />
$100,000; incorporators, P. M. Snyder, Mt.<br />
Hope, W. Va.; W. E. Deegans, Glen Jean. W. Va.;<br />
A. G. Kirtley, J. W. Wilson and L. E. Yoder, Macdonald,<br />
W. Va.<br />
Michaels Coal Co., Clarksburg, W. Va.; capital,<br />
$50,000; incorporators, A. J. Michaels, of Dola,<br />
W. Va.; H. W. Heavner. M. J. Francis, W. Guy<br />
Tetrick and E. Ferd Rogers, all of Clarksburg,<br />
W. Va.<br />
Smokeless Coal Co., Johnstown, Pa.; capital,<br />
$60,000; incorporators, James P. Thomas, Josiah<br />
T. Evans, William R. Thomas. Frank D. Baker,<br />
Charles A. Owen, Charles E. Thomas, all of Johnstown.<br />
Murray & Hemlock Coal Co.. Murray City, O.;<br />
capital, $20,000; incorporators, Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. Van<br />
Sickle, Ge<strong>org</strong>e H. Brooker, Fred Sanborn, Charles<br />
Seidenfeld and Louis N. Siedenfeld.<br />
Crown Coal & Coke Co.. Logan, W. Va.; capital,<br />
$50,000; incorporators, John Lax, Fred Raybould,<br />
Plummer Lax. Eliza Lax and Maud Raybould. all<br />
of Nelsonville, O.<br />
Shelby Coal Mining Co., Warren. O.: capital,<br />
$50,000; incorporators, J. H. Price, Jos. M. Aubel,<br />
M. A. Pierce. Wm. A. Gebhart and T. H. Whitehouse.<br />
J. B. Arpin Coal Co.. Brazil, Ind.; capital, $30,-<br />
000; incorporators, J. B. Arpin, J. B. Nash, G. O.<br />
Babcock, J. J. Looze and R. C. Forbes, all of Brazil.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
Williams Branch Land & Coal Co.. Pikeville,<br />
Ky.; capital, $20,000; incorporators, R. C. Ford,<br />
W. T. Murray. M. J. Moses and John H. Wilson.<br />
Deep Fourth Vein Coal Co., West Terre Haute,<br />
Ind.; capital, $11),Odd; incorporators, John R. Connelly,<br />
J. \V. Manson and R. J. Smith.<br />
Little Mud Cannel Coal Co., Catlettsburg, Ky.;<br />
capital, $60,000; incorporators, Frank Stafford,<br />
Fred Stafford and C. M. Preston.<br />
Higgins-Martin Coal Co., Terre Haute. Ind.;<br />
capital, $20,000; incorporators, J. J. Higgins, O. H.<br />
.Martin and G. W. Higgins.<br />
NEW INSPECTORS NAMED.<br />
The four new bituminous coal mine inspectors<br />
have been appointed by Governor Tener of Pennsylvania<br />
in accordance with the standing of the<br />
men after examinations.<br />
Chief of Mines James E. Roderick will assign<br />
the districts and they will probably go as follows:<br />
Richard Maize, Ivanhoe, Somerset region; Edward<br />
E. Gired, Brownsville, Masontown region;<br />
Thomas A. Mather, Jr., Johnstown, Tyrone region,<br />
and Thomas D. Furniss, Johnstown, Punxsutawney<br />
region.<br />
In this connection the Twelfth Bituminous district,<br />
with headquarters at Punxsutawney, has<br />
been divided and part of it erected into the<br />
Twenty-fifth district. Inspector Thomas S. Lowther<br />
has been transferred from the Eighteenth<br />
district at Tyrone, to the new Twenty-fifth district.<br />
Inspector C. P. Byrne of the old Twelfth<br />
district has been transferred to the new Twentysecond<br />
district at McKeesport.<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
FAMOUj<br />
TT<br />
"ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
O A<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
58<br />
RECENT COAL TRADE PATENTS.<br />
The following patents recently granted of interest<br />
to the coal trade, are reported expressly<br />
for THE COAT, TRADE BULLETIN, by J. M. Nesbit,<br />
Patent Attorney, Park Building, Pittsburgh, Pa„<br />
from whom printed copies may be procured for 15<br />
cents each:<br />
Drill mounting, Wm. Prellwitz, Easton. Pa., as<br />
signor to Ingersoll-Rand Co., New York; 997,509.<br />
Oilless car wheel, A. E. Domville, Philadelphia,<br />
Pa.; 997,655.<br />
Mining machine, Ernest Penberthy, Painesdale,<br />
Mich.; 997,698.<br />
Mining machine, W. H. Rains, Hartford, Ark.;<br />
997,699.<br />
Process of obtaining ammonia from coal, H. I.<br />
Doherty, New York; 997.908.<br />
Apparatus for washing coal, Joseph Dodds, Rutherglen,<br />
Scotland; 998,163.<br />
Lightning attachment for miners' lamps, John<br />
Chevallard, Millersburg, Ohio; 90S,466.<br />
Coke quenching machine, John W. Seaver, Cleveland<br />
Heights, and J. E. A. Moore, East Cleveland,<br />
Ohio; 998,556.<br />
Coking furnace, L. L. Summers, Chicago, 111.,<br />
assignor to Continuous Process Coke Co., same<br />
place, (reissue); 13,274.<br />
Coal and ore washer or separator, J. M. Draper,<br />
and Charles Hamilton, Manchester, England; 998,-<br />
606.<br />
Coal mining machine, John Sutch and W. M.<br />
Claik, Somerset, Colo.; 998,654.<br />
Chute coal wagon, J. E. Townsend, Philadelphia,<br />
assignor to Peoples Wagon Co., same place;<br />
998,724.<br />
Mine car wheel, William Young, Kayford, W.<br />
Va.; 998,731.<br />
Miner's lamp, Josef Johnszta, Silesia. Austria-<br />
Hungary; 998,778.<br />
Coke oven, Carl Schroeter, Chicago, 111.; 998,805.<br />
Weighing pan for coal tipples, H. E. Miller,<br />
Ford City, Pa.; 998,918.<br />
Miner's tool, H. R. Taylor, Copperton, N. Mex.;<br />
999,133.<br />
A geological survey report just issued by the<br />
Canadian Geological Survey on the Big Horn coal<br />
basin in Alberta estimates that there are 6,600,-<br />
000,000 tons of workable coal in a single area of<br />
about 187 miles. The Big Horn basin is about<br />
85 miles northwest of Banff, 140 miles southwest<br />
of Edmonton and 70 miles south of the Grand<br />
Trunk Pacific and Canadian Northern railroad,<br />
surveyed routes.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
FOR. SALE.<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jer<br />
sey wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full par<br />
ticulars, analysis' of coal, name, location and out<br />
fit of mine, etc.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VENEER & LUMBER CO.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.
GOAL TRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, SEPTEMBER 1, 1911 Nc<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN;<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STBAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matter*<br />
relating to coal or coal production are Invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDINO, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
BETTER CONDITIONS EXIST IN THE COAL TRADE as<br />
September opens than have been the case for<br />
some time. That this is true is not due so much<br />
to a big spurt in any way as it is to the fact that<br />
rises in the rivers have enabled river shippers in<br />
Pennsylvania and Ohio and West Virginia to get<br />
product to market thereby removing a stagnation<br />
that has existed for some time. In addition to<br />
this somewhat cooler weather and the continued<br />
stoppage in the Canadian Northwest have added<br />
to the activity with the result that improvement<br />
is shown all along the line.<br />
The decided decrease in the number of idle cars<br />
throughout the United States is another factor<br />
indicative of better things, for it means more<br />
motive power is in use and more raw materials<br />
and finished products are moving, and in conse<br />
quence the fuel requirements of railroads are cor<br />
respondingly larger. With orders for fabricated<br />
materials increasing in the iron and steel trade<br />
this condition is reasonably sure to continue, and,<br />
in all probability, to show a still further increase<br />
as the colder weather approaches.<br />
From all parts of the country come reports of<br />
better working time in the mines—save of course<br />
those places where strikes exist—and a better out<br />
put and firmer prices. These increases in output<br />
are particularly noticeable in the anthracite and<br />
coke branches of the trade.<br />
While it is early in the game the leaders of the<br />
miners are hard at work strengthening tlie <strong>org</strong>ani<br />
zation and tiie most activity seems to be displayed<br />
in the anthracite fields. Aside from the Colorado<br />
strike, some petty little strikes, and the attempt<br />
to adjust -factional differences in the Pittsburgh<br />
district, this oiganizing activity is the only fea<br />
ture of the labor situation. No report of a scar<br />
city of men is heard, and on the other hand, there<br />
are places where the men are warned to stay away<br />
as tbe mines are full.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district the closing of August<br />
was featured by a good rise in the rivers that en<br />
abled the river shipping concerns to get away to<br />
market approximately 8,000,000 bushels of coal.<br />
This movement is the first for months and relieves<br />
a congested condition in the Pittsburgh harbor<br />
that has been noticeable for some time. In addi<br />
tion to getting this coal to market by river there<br />
is a steady increase of all rail shipments toward<br />
lower lake ports that has helped the trade in the<br />
district considerably. Predictions of a heavy<br />
rush in the period between now and the close of<br />
navigation are heard, and the general opinion<br />
seems to be the predictions will be fulfilled. Mines<br />
in the district are working probably 85 per cent.<br />
of capacity with the prospect of a still further<br />
increase now that the river mines will get some<br />
empty craft to load, and that colder weather is in<br />
sight. Nothing is heard of changes in the matter<br />
of prices, and all grades of product are holding<br />
firm with the exception of slack, which is in plen<br />
tiful supply and which is causing some few opera<br />
tors a little disquietude. Because of the better<br />
conditions card prices prevail as follows: Run-<br />
of-mine coal, $1.25 to $1.35; three-quarter inch<br />
coal, $1.35 to $1.15; inch and one-quarter coal,<br />
$1.15 to $1.55; slack, 75 to 85 cents.<br />
The up curve in the coke trade is a little more<br />
pronounced just now than it has been at any time<br />
since the low point was passed about the middle<br />
of June. The last available report of tonnage
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
shows that the week for wdiich it was compiled<br />
was the best since the latter part of March, and<br />
this fact is very encouraging to the manufacturers.<br />
Shipments show an increase commensurate with<br />
production, and in the face of all this prices nat<br />
urally show more back bone and are firmer. Fur-<br />
nace ovens in the two Connellsville regions are<br />
more active than are merchant plants, but the<br />
latter are securing their share of the better times<br />
tnat seem to be at hand and manufacturers are<br />
not in any way anxious to close contracts save<br />
at increased prices. Spot buyers are having more<br />
difficulty in getting their orders filled because of<br />
this and there is nothing to bring joy to bargain<br />
hunters. With heavier demand, and prospects<br />
growing brighter manufacturers are holding prices<br />
firm at $1.75 to $1.85 for furnace coke and $2.00<br />
to $2.25 for foundry coke.<br />
Activity marks the anthracite trade generally<br />
and orders have gone out for steady operation of<br />
collieries by the larger producing companies;<br />
which orders, it is said, will remain in force until<br />
the spring of 1912. Newspaper reports are abroad<br />
that storage of product has started by some of the<br />
more important concerns, and that this will spread<br />
as the weeks roll around. These reports are heard<br />
in connection with those of increased membership<br />
in the miners' <strong>org</strong>anization and of the demands<br />
the men will make next spring in the way of<br />
wage conditions, but the probabilities are the coal<br />
is being stored to meet the heavy demand that is<br />
bound to come when the wintry winds whistle<br />
along the streets and over the hills and valleys.<br />
With this date the final addition is made to prices<br />
and quotations now are at winter figures.<br />
* * #<br />
DETAILED STATISTICS OF THE COKE PRODUCTION for<br />
1910 will be found on another page of THE COAL<br />
TRADE BULLETIN'. They show that the average<br />
price of the product during the year was some<br />
what better than during the previous year, and<br />
also show that the coke produced was greater per<br />
ton of coal in the preceding year. Both of these<br />
conditions are exceedingly gratifying and the bet<br />
ter knowledge of manufacturers along with the<br />
adoption of improved methods and plants probably<br />
had much to do with the results.<br />
* * *<br />
CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA OPERATORS HAVE MADE<br />
COMPLAINT anent the districting of mines in force<br />
by the railroads, and have asked the Interstate<br />
Commerce Commission for relief. Their conten<br />
tion seems to hinge on the Latrobe-Irwin fields<br />
rating, and the outcome will be watched with in<br />
terest by the trade.<br />
* * *<br />
TROUBLES OF THE PITTSBURGH DISTRICT MINERS<br />
are now being considered by the International<br />
officers of the <strong>org</strong>anization, and, from all reports,<br />
the job isn't an easy one. Testimony of a con<br />
flicting nature has been offered, and it is up to<br />
the officers to sift the matter out. It seems these<br />
factional differences always are knotty problems to<br />
unravel and this case is not different from others<br />
of its ilk.<br />
FLUSHING REFUSE INTO MINES TO PREVENT SUBSI<br />
DENCE is practiced to a certain extent in the an<br />
thracite fields of Pennsylvania, with some degree<br />
of success. In line with this same practice is<br />
the hydraulic method being tried in Germany,<br />
with the result that not only is the mine kept<br />
from caving, but it has been found possible to<br />
recover an additional large amount of coal from<br />
the mines in the shape of pillar and rib coal.<br />
The practice at least deserves study and considera<br />
tion.<br />
Now, Mr. Coal Man, you've had your vacation,<br />
so get down to "cutting coal" and don't take too<br />
long a time to each "bord" at that.<br />
Anthracite miners are busy <strong>org</strong>anizing and preparing<br />
demands. Incidentally they are digging<br />
coal.<br />
* * *<br />
An ounce of prevention would have been useful<br />
in the Pittsburgh miners' <strong>org</strong>anization at one<br />
time.<br />
Wonder what they were hunting when they<br />
found that 1,000 (?| foot vein of coal in Canada?<br />
* * *<br />
Official figures for 1910 tonnage are about due.<br />
'Tis said they will be a big surprise when sprung.<br />
The river coal man just now wears a ten by<br />
twelve smile that grows broader each day.<br />
* * *<br />
Seven million bushels of coal makes a pretty<br />
husky shipment, thank you.<br />
* * *<br />
Less idle cars means less idle mines, so here's<br />
hoping we have both.
THE MINERS INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE<br />
BOARD WORKING ON PITTSBURGH DIS<br />
TRICT CONTROVERSY.<br />
Both sides have submitted their cases to the<br />
Board in writing, witnesses to support the claims<br />
contained therein being later summoned before the<br />
body. A mass of charges were presented by the<br />
two sides which gave the Board some idea of the<br />
muddled state of affairs in the district. It is<br />
claimed that unless some compromise agreement<br />
is reached, the Board will have to remain in session<br />
an interminable length of time in order to<br />
sift out the many claims and counter-claims which<br />
have been placed before them.<br />
The Gibbons wing assert that the Board cannot<br />
consistently overlook the sworn charges of misconduct<br />
in handling the affairs of the district which<br />
have been made against Feehan and his associates<br />
and are confident of the outcome. Feehan, on the<br />
other hand, is equally optimistic, it is said, and<br />
predicts that the so-called "progressives" will be<br />
effectually squelched by the Executive Board.<br />
Sentiment among members of the Board seems<br />
to be that peace and harmony can only be secured<br />
by holding another election of officers. This election<br />
would have to be held under the direction of<br />
the International Board in order to insure fair<br />
treatment for both sides.<br />
President John P. White is said to be extremely<br />
anxious to bring about a settlement of the civil<br />
war in the district which has been waging for over<br />
a year. The Pittsburgh district is one of the<br />
union's strongholds and the chances of a satisfactory<br />
out"ome in the wage scale conference with<br />
tlie operators, it is pointed out. will be decidedly<br />
slim if the district remains divided and rent from<br />
stem to stern hy these factional contentions.<br />
Mr. Thomas J. Mitchell has resigned his position<br />
as manager of the W. J. Rainey Coke Co.<br />
plants and will devote his time to his private<br />
affairs.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
T. L. LEWIS MAKES CLEAR HIS POSITION<br />
REGARDING CANDIDACY FOR OFFICE.<br />
The following announcement sent to the editor<br />
of the Industrial Index is self-explanatory:<br />
The International Executive Board of the Uni<br />
To correct a number of inspired newspaper reted<br />
Mine Workers of America convened in tlie<br />
ports and to clearly define my position since 1<br />
Labor Temple, Pittsburgh, at 1(1 A. M., Thursday,<br />
retired from official position in the United Mine<br />
August 24, for the purpose of hearing the facts in<br />
Workers' <strong>org</strong>anization on April 1 of this year, I<br />
the controversy between the Gibbons and Feehan<br />
desire to state that at no time either publicly or<br />
factions of District No. 5. It was still in session<br />
privately, have 1 expressed an opinion that I<br />
when THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN went to press. A<br />
would be a candidate for a district office or an<br />
full attendance of the Board is present, with Presi<br />
International office of the United Mine Workers.<br />
dent John P. White occupying the chair. The<br />
Neither have I said at any time that I would not<br />
meeting was called in accordance with the terms<br />
be a candidate. At no time since April 1 have I<br />
of the agreement signed by both contingents at a<br />
expressed any opinion in regard to any official<br />
joint meeting held in Pittsburgh with President<br />
position in the United Mine Workers' <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
White and several other members of the International<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization August 10-13.<br />
If the Mine Workers of the country are to be<br />
protected in their rights next year, they better<br />
get active. It will take more than trying to be<br />
a good fellow to extend the <strong>org</strong>anization into the<br />
non-union districts of the country and get for our<br />
people improvements in the wage contracts that<br />
will mean better wages.<br />
With as keen an interest as ever in the success<br />
of the United Mine Workers of America and the<br />
success of the membership, I remain,<br />
Yours truly,<br />
T. L. LEWIS, Miner.<br />
MARYLAND'S COAL OUTPUT<br />
IN 1910 SHOWS BIG INCREASE.<br />
The production of coal in Maryland in 1910 was<br />
5.217,125 short tons, with a spot value of $5,835,-<br />
05S, according to statistics collected by the United<br />
States Geological Survey in co-operation with the<br />
Maryland Geological Survey. Maryland, like Virginia,<br />
benefited indirectly from the six months'<br />
strike among the miners in the Central or Mississippi<br />
Valley States.<br />
Maryland's coal iiroduction, which because of<br />
the approaching exhaustion of the famous "Big<br />
vein," had been showing a declining tendency for<br />
the last two years, was also given an impetus by<br />
the trade conditions in 1910 and increased from<br />
that of 1909 by 1,193,884 tons, or 29.67 per cent.<br />
The value increased $1,363,327. or 30.5 per cent.<br />
The coal mines of Maryland gave employment in<br />
1910 to 5.809 men, who worked the unusually high<br />
average of 270 days, and although 97 per cent, of<br />
Maryland's tonnage is hand mined the average<br />
productive efficiency of the miners is considerably<br />
above the mean average for all the states. In<br />
1910 the average production for each man employed<br />
was 898 short tons for the year and 3.33<br />
tons for each working day. No labor troubles<br />
were reported in the coal mines of Maryland in<br />
1910. The mines are operated 10 hours a day.
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
ENORMOUS COAL VALUATION.<br />
Under the present scheme of classifying govern<br />
ment coal land 56,089,214 acres of withdrawn land<br />
had been, on August 1, examined in geologic de<br />
tail and classified by the United States Geological<br />
Survey. The lands found to contain workable<br />
coal beds aggregated 16,873.37b acres. These<br />
lands, in 40-acre tracts, have been appraised by<br />
the Survey at a total valuation of $711,992,537, in<br />
prices ranging from the minimum figure stated in<br />
the coal law—$10 or $20 an acre, according to<br />
whether the land is located within 15 miles of the<br />
railroad—to figures of over $400 an acre where the<br />
thickness of the coal beds may aggregate 60, 80,<br />
or 100 feet, or even more. The government valuations<br />
accord in a general way with the market<br />
values of private coal lands in tlie West, although<br />
as a matter of fact they are somewhat more liberal<br />
to tlie purchaser. Four hundred dollars an acre<br />
may seem a high price for Uncle Sam's coal land,<br />
which a few years ago might have been bought<br />
for $20 an acre. However, the Geological Sur<br />
vey's plan of classification and valuation contemplates<br />
that the government should receive at least<br />
a reasonable return for its coal, admittedly the<br />
most useful rock mineral in its possession. When<br />
it is understood that an acre with. say. a 40-foot<br />
coal bed or seam contains approximately 72.000<br />
tons of coal and an acre with 100 feet of coal<br />
contains 180,000 tons, the price asked by the<br />
government, instead of being exorbitant, seems,<br />
on the other hand, hardly sufficient. On land<br />
having a thickness of SO feet of coal $400 an acre<br />
would be less than 3 cents a ton. In reality,<br />
under the Survey regulations which consider depth<br />
of the coal, number of beds, quality, and other<br />
physical details, the prices asked for many areas<br />
containing 80 feet of coal are equivalent to nearer<br />
2 than 3 cents a ton.<br />
At the minimum prices which were in effect<br />
before the government withdrawals of coal lands.<br />
the 16,873.370 acres above referred to would have<br />
been priced at only $266,652,431. the difference in<br />
favor of the public revenue at the new prices being<br />
therefore $445,340,106. Under the provisions of<br />
the national irrigation law the proceeds from all<br />
sales of coal land are credited to the "reclama<br />
tion fund," so that government irrigation has, as<br />
it were, a considerable trust fund for future operations.<br />
NEW PRICE CARD.<br />
The New Pittsburgh Coal Co. has issued the following<br />
price card, effective this date: Domestic<br />
lump, $1.50; %-inch screened lump, $1.35; run-ofmine,<br />
$1.15; domestic nut. $1.15. Coal in box<br />
cars, 10 cents per ton additional.<br />
The annual convention of Sub-district No. 1 of<br />
District 7, United Mine Workers of America, was<br />
held at Lansford, Pa„ August 25, the body going<br />
on record as being opposed to a renewal of the<br />
present anthracite agreement unless the officers<br />
of the union nave the right to defend the men<br />
and to take up grievances with the operators direct.<br />
Other resolutions adopted declared for the<br />
check-off system, an 8-hour workday and an increase<br />
of wages, 30 per cent, for outside and 20<br />
per cent, for inside men.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Hartlein, general <strong>org</strong>anizer of the United<br />
.Mine Workers of America, and formerly secretarytreasurer<br />
of District No. 9, comprising the coun<br />
ties of Northumberland, Schuylkill, Columbia and<br />
Dauphin, Pa., was arrested Aug. 19, charged hy<br />
President John Fahey of the district with having<br />
embezzled $1,600 belonging to the <strong>org</strong>anization,<br />
and mutilating records. Hartlein entered bail for<br />
a further hearing. He denied the charges.<br />
The Oklahoma State Federation of Labor has<br />
elected these officers: President, C. C. Ziegler;<br />
vice presidents, Fred F. Price (miner), Alex<br />
Mount (miner), Samuel Allans, W. T. Maxwell,<br />
G. W. Lindsay (miner); secretary. J. L. Langs<br />
ton; auditors. Alex Bayoris I miner), D. N. Ferguson<br />
and A. W. Bennett: legislative committee.<br />
Lee Payne (miner).<br />
Fourteen striking coal miners of Lafayette and<br />
Louisville. Col., members of the United Mine<br />
Workers of America, who were on trial on charges<br />
of contempt in disregarding the court's injunction<br />
against violence and intimidation, were found<br />
guilty by Judge Whitford and were given sentences<br />
ranging from one year to fines of $250 and costs.<br />
John T. Dempsey, of Scranton, Pa., recently<br />
elected president of District No. 1. X T . M. W.. vice<br />
Benjamin McEnaney, has also succeeded Mr. Mc<br />
Enaney as a member of the Anthracite Conciliation<br />
Board.<br />
Luke Lanham is the new president of District 17,<br />
West Virginia, United Mine Workers of America.<br />
He has been the vice president of the district for<br />
a number of years.<br />
The United Mine Workers of the Monongahela<br />
and Youghiogheny valleys will hold a big reunion<br />
at Olympia park, McKeesport. Pa., on Sept. 28.<br />
It's a sight good for sore eyes to see loaded coal<br />
trains moving lakeward.
BIG COAL SHIPMENTS MADE BY<br />
RIVER FROM PITTSBURGH.<br />
Almost 7,000,000 bushels of coal left Pittsburgh<br />
August 30 bound down river, on a stage of about<br />
12 feet. The rise is said by rivermen to be the<br />
first at this time of the year since 1898. The<br />
news that the water would finally reach Pittsburgh<br />
on August 30 aroused all of the rivermen, and the<br />
wharf, Water street and the coal offices were<br />
crowded with scurrying people, all bent on getting<br />
everything prepared for what is said to be the<br />
largest shipment out of this city in years. Most<br />
id' the coal companies have more loaded coal than<br />
their towlioats can take out.<br />
The rise on which the coal companies relied<br />
most is that from the Allegheny, but heavy rains<br />
fell over the headwaters of the Monongahela and<br />
the weather office predicted that the Monongahela<br />
would give out its rise just about in time to back<br />
up the Allegheny's rise.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
All of the boats in the fifth and sixth pools,<br />
down the Ohio, cleared first and most of the big<br />
coal fleet in the harbor cleared later in the day.<br />
The fleet of tne Monongahela River Consolidated<br />
Coal & Coke Co. tied up in the lower pools, got<br />
away first, as follows: The James Moren, with<br />
15 coal boats, two model barges, two barges and<br />
three fuels, assisted by the Rover; the Coal City,<br />
with 21 barges, one model barge and four fuels,<br />
assisted by the J. C. Risher; the Charley Brown,<br />
with 22 barges and four fuels, assisted by the<br />
Volunteer; the Exporter, with 22 barges and four<br />
fuels, assisted by the Fallie: the Jim Wood, with<br />
22 barges and three fuels, assisted by the Cruiser;<br />
the Ironsides, with 22 barges and four fuels, assisted<br />
by the Rival; the Sam Clark, with 22 barges<br />
and five fuels, assisted by the Voyager, and<br />
the Valiant, with 22 barges and three fuels, assisted<br />
by the Little Fred.<br />
The following towboats tied up in Pittsburgh<br />
harbor cleared the same day: The Alice Brown.<br />
with 15 coal boats, two models and two barges:<br />
the Boaz, with two models, two barges and 15 coal<br />
boats: the Duquesne, with 22 barges and two<br />
models: the Raymond Horner and the Thomas<br />
Dodsworth will each tow 17 coal boats, two barges<br />
and two models. The Diamond Coal Co. fleet included<br />
the Monitor, at Safe Harbor, with 17 barges:<br />
the A. R. Budd. with 17 barges; the Volcano,<br />
with 14 barges, and the Diamond with 14 barges.<br />
The Peoples Coal Co. sent out the Charley Jutte,<br />
with 10 barges, followed by the P. M. Pflel, with<br />
seven barges. The Pflel will turn her tow over<br />
to the Jutte at Bellaire. The G. W Thomas.<br />
also of the Peoples company, cleared from the<br />
Kanawha river with a tow bound for Cincinnati.<br />
25<br />
The United Coal Co. sent out the Helen White and<br />
22 barges bound for Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis<br />
and New Orleans. The last coal shipment<br />
Irom here was made the latter part of last April,<br />
and it was small.<br />
CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA OPERATORS<br />
FILE COMPLAINT ON DISTRICTING.<br />
The Association of Bituminous Coal Operators<br />
of Central Pennsylvania has complained to the<br />
Interstate Commerce Commission of classification<br />
of localities in that district naming the Pennsylvania<br />
Railroad Co. as the only defendant.<br />
The Commission was asked to incorporate the<br />
sub-district of Latrobe in the Greensburg district<br />
and to apply reasonable rates on bituminous coal<br />
from shipping points in the Clearfield district, excluding<br />
sub-district of Latrobe, Pa., to South Amnoy.<br />
N. J.<br />
WILL HOLD EXAMINATION.<br />
The State Civil Service Commission of Illinois<br />
has announced the date for the holding of an examination<br />
for state mine inspector. The salary<br />
of the inspector is $1,800 per year, with an allowance<br />
foi' traveling and other necessary expenses<br />
not to exceed $100 per month. The examination<br />
is open to citizens of the state between the ages<br />
of 30 and 55 years, and who have had a practical<br />
mining experience of 10 years. The written examination<br />
will take place in the State house, in<br />
Springfield. Tuesday, September 12, commencing<br />
at 9 o'clock. Applicants will be given the oral<br />
examinations on Wednesday, September 13.<br />
OPPOSES RECONSIGNMENT CHARGE.<br />
The Detroit Board of Commerce has filed a complaint<br />
of alleged discrimination against Detroit in<br />
the matter of the reconsignment of cars. It appears<br />
from the complaint that reconsignment is<br />
free on all points south of Malinta. Ohio, while on<br />
all coal cars reaching Detroit or places contiguous<br />
to Detroit, the charge of $2 a car applies. The<br />
Wheeling & Lake Erie tariff allows free reconsignment<br />
of cars in transit, provided they are<br />
stopped in time on that road, to any new destination<br />
beyond or directly intermediate to the original<br />
destination. This matter will probably come<br />
before the Interstate Commerce Commission some<br />
time in September, when the question of reconsignment<br />
will come up for a rehearing.<br />
Mr. Harry P. Thomas, of Newlyn, W. Va., head<br />
of the Newlyn Coal Co. and the Meadow Fork Coal<br />
Co., was married recently to Miss Mamie Binns of<br />
the same town.
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
LAKE COMMERCE DURING JULY.<br />
A slight improvement in the lake commerce<br />
situation is marked by the figures of merchandise<br />
shipments between domestic lake ports during the<br />
month of July, just made public by the Bureau<br />
of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and<br />
Labor. These shipments totaled 11,424.669 short<br />
tons, over a million tons in excess of the June<br />
tonnage, though as compared with the July figures<br />
for 1910 and 1909—12.7S9,158 and 12,398,550 short<br />
tons—a considerable decline is shown. Domestic<br />
lake shipments since the beginning of the year<br />
aggregated 33,941,243 short tons, compared with<br />
43,237,223 short tons in 1910, and 31,989,231 short<br />
tons two years ago.<br />
The iron ore shipments during July, 5,056,620<br />
long tons, were heavier than during the preceding<br />
month. The rate of decrease since 1910 was<br />
about 25 per cent, for July as against 35 per cent.<br />
in June, though it should lie noted that during the<br />
preceding year the July shipments of iron ore<br />
were smaller than during the earlier month.<br />
Iron ore shipments since the beginning of the<br />
year, 13,732,244 long tons, were about 36 per cent.<br />
less than in 1910, as against a simultaneous decrease<br />
of about 20 per cent, in the pig iron output<br />
for the territory served by the lake ore. Of<br />
the total iron ore landed since January—10.565,117<br />
long tons are credited to Lake Erie ports and<br />
2,412,562 long tons to Lake Michigan ports,<br />
chiefly Chicago, Indiana Harbor and Gary.<br />
The July shipments of soft coal. 2,767,087 short<br />
tons, show a considerable gain over the June shipments,<br />
being also larger in volume than in July,<br />
1910, when 2.735,263 short tons were loaded. Shipments<br />
for the 7 months of the present year—7.-<br />
775,940 short tons—fell about 10 per cent, short<br />
of the 1910 record. Cleveland and Lorain showing<br />
the largest losses. It is noteworthy that receipts<br />
of soft coal at the largest receiving ports, Duluth-<br />
Superior and Milwaukee, show but little change<br />
since last year, the main losses affecting smaller<br />
ports, such as Manitowoc, Ashland and Green Bay.<br />
The hard coal shipments for the month—801,685<br />
short tons—were unusually heavy, raising the<br />
seven months' record to the unprecedented total<br />
of 2,173,724 short tons.<br />
The Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co.<br />
officials issued orders August 25 that all their collieries<br />
would work five days next week. It is<br />
semi-officially announced that full time will commence<br />
this date, not alone with the above company,<br />
but the Lehigh Valley, the Thomas and the<br />
Susquehanna companies and all the individual<br />
collieries and washeries. This news will make<br />
many homes happy and cause a general revival in<br />
business. "v<br />
T (<br />
5 T !<br />
<strong>•</strong> PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS <strong>•</strong><br />
At the miners' international congress in London<br />
two resolutions were introduced by delegates from<br />
Belgium and France in favor of the nationalization<br />
of all mines. Representatives from France<br />
endorsed the resolution. The English representative<br />
advocated the state ownership of mines,<br />
and a representative from Austria stated that the<br />
conditions in the private mines in Austria were<br />
better than those in the state mines, a fact which<br />
he said should militate against any fresh nationalization<br />
movement. An amendment to the resolution<br />
was introduced by a representative from<br />
Germany, wdiich declared: "This congress is of<br />
the opinion that the wealth of the subsoil belongs<br />
to the nation, and that, therefore, it ought not to<br />
be conceded to private capitalists for exploitation."<br />
Officials of several of the anthracite companies<br />
have instructed the heads of their mine rescue<br />
and first-aid corps to prepare teams to take part<br />
in the national exhibition to be held at Pittsburgh<br />
in October, in the presence of President Taft and<br />
other distinguished visitors. The teams will be<br />
composed of men wdio make the best showing in<br />
competitive tests which each company wdll hold<br />
in the course of the next few weeks.<br />
The barn of the Pittsburgh & Southwestern Coal<br />
Co. at Avella. Pa., was burned recently, entailing<br />
a loss of $4,(100. The live stock had been removed<br />
from the barn a short time before the fire.<br />
C. S. Duvall, of Monessen, Pa., has been appointed<br />
trustee in bankruptcy representing the<br />
creditors of the Zundel Coal Co. and D. L. Zundel<br />
individually.<br />
The Rich Hill Coal Co., James H. Allport, president,<br />
Hastings, Pa., will develop a new mine near<br />
that town. The mine wdien opened, wdll employ<br />
300 men.<br />
The No. 1 mine of the Latrobe Coal Co., at<br />
Lloydsville, near Latrobe. Pa., is to be put on full<br />
time. A force of men is at work clearing up the<br />
mine.<br />
The Marsh Creek Splint & Gas Coal Co., Charleston,<br />
W. Va., is to develop 2,740 acres of coal in<br />
West Virginia and is in the market for a new steel<br />
tipple.<br />
The T. M. Dodson Co., of Pottsville, Pa., has sol<br />
its Kaska William colliery near that place to the<br />
Alliance Coal Co.<br />
"Let me see some ladies' hosiery."<br />
"For your wife or do you want something more<br />
expensive?"
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
COKE PRODUCTION BY STATES<br />
The coke production of the United States for the<br />
year 1910, as ascertained by the United States<br />
Geological Survey and summarized by E. W. Par<br />
ker, statistician, appeared in THE COAL TRADE BUL-<br />
State Estabor<br />
lish-<br />
Territory. ments.<br />
Alabama 43<br />
Colorado * .. 16<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>ia<br />
2<br />
Illinois<br />
5<br />
Kansas<br />
6<br />
Kentucky ... 6<br />
Missouri<br />
1<br />
New Mexico. . 4<br />
Ohio<br />
7<br />
Oklahoma . . . 5<br />
Pennsylvania 283<br />
Tennessee ... 16<br />
Utah<br />
2<br />
Virginia Washington . . . 19 6<br />
West Virginia. . 138<br />
Indiana<br />
Maryland<br />
Massachusetts ..<br />
Michigan<br />
Minnesota<br />
Montana<br />
20<br />
New Jersey<br />
New York<br />
Wisconsin<br />
Total 579<br />
Alabama 43<br />
Colorado * 16<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>ia 2<br />
Illinois 5<br />
Kentucky 6<br />
Missouri 1<br />
New Mexico. ... 4<br />
Ohio 8<br />
Pennsylvania . . 288<br />
Tennessee 16<br />
Utah 2<br />
Virginia 18<br />
Washington ... 6<br />
West Virginia. . 135<br />
Indiana<br />
Kansas<br />
Maryland<br />
Massachusetts .<br />
Michigan ....<br />
Minnesota ,28<br />
Montana<br />
New Jersey. ..<br />
New York....<br />
Oklahoma ....<br />
Wisconsin<br />
Ov<br />
Built.<br />
10,061<br />
3,846<br />
350<br />
468<br />
67<br />
494<br />
4<br />
1,030<br />
447<br />
536<br />
54,506<br />
2,729<br />
854<br />
5,469<br />
285<br />
20,283<br />
2,553<br />
03,982<br />
10,132<br />
3,611<br />
350<br />
508<br />
495<br />
4<br />
1,030<br />
496<br />
55,656<br />
2,792<br />
854<br />
5,589<br />
285<br />
19,912<br />
2,926<br />
ens.<br />
\<br />
Building.<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
40<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
0<br />
49<br />
0<br />
2,072<br />
0<br />
0<br />
100<br />
0<br />
126<br />
Coal used<br />
(short<br />
tons).<br />
1909<br />
5,080,764<br />
1,984,985<br />
86,290<br />
1,682,122<br />
0<br />
89,083<br />
0<br />
694,390<br />
340,735<br />
0<br />
36,983,568<br />
493,283<br />
t<br />
2,060,518<br />
69,708<br />
6,361,759<br />
LETIN of July 1, on page 36\ Since that time the<br />
survey has published the statistics of production<br />
in 1909 and 1910 by states and territories, in the<br />
following table:<br />
Yield<br />
of coal<br />
in coke<br />
(per cent).<br />
60.7<br />
63.1<br />
53.8<br />
75.9<br />
52.0<br />
53.9<br />
65.4<br />
67.3<br />
53.1<br />
65.4<br />
61.7<br />
62.0<br />
Coke produced<br />
(short<br />
tons).<br />
3,085,824<br />
1,251,805<br />
46,385<br />
1,276,956<br />
0<br />
46,371<br />
0<br />
373,967<br />
222 711<br />
0<br />
24,905,525<br />
261,808<br />
t<br />
1,347.478<br />
42,981<br />
3,943,948<br />
Total<br />
value<br />
of coke.<br />
$8,068,267<br />
4,135,931<br />
159,334<br />
5,361,510<br />
0<br />
101,257<br />
0<br />
1,099,694<br />
683.155<br />
0<br />
50,377,035<br />
667,723<br />
t<br />
2,415,769<br />
240,604<br />
7,525,922<br />
563 3,427,732 73.3 2,509,306 9,129,282<br />
2,950<br />
341)<br />
()<br />
0<br />
0<br />
o<br />
(l<br />
0<br />
0<br />
1,334<br />
0<br />
0<br />
10(1<br />
0<br />
230<br />
59,354,937<br />
1910.<br />
5.272,322<br />
2,069,266<br />
80,019<br />
1,972,955<br />
104,103<br />
0<br />
651,494<br />
413,059<br />
39,455.785<br />
597,658<br />
j.<br />
i<br />
2,310,742<br />
94,223<br />
6.226,234<br />
66.2<br />
61.6<br />
65.1<br />
54.8<br />
76.8<br />
51.7<br />
61.6<br />
68.3<br />
66.7<br />
54.0<br />
64.6<br />
63.0<br />
61.1<br />
39,315,065<br />
3,249,027<br />
1,346.211<br />
43,814<br />
1,514,504<br />
53,857<br />
0<br />
401.646<br />
282,315<br />
26,315,607<br />
322,756<br />
t<br />
1,493.655<br />
59,337<br />
3,803,850<br />
89,965,483<br />
$9,165,821<br />
4,273,579<br />
173,049<br />
6,712,550<br />
120,554<br />
0<br />
1,306,136<br />
911,987<br />
55,254,599<br />
959,104<br />
2,731,348<br />
347,540<br />
7.354,039<br />
563 3,840,467 73.5 2,822,231 10,432.395<br />
Price<br />
of coke<br />
ton.<br />
$2.61<br />
3.30<br />
3.44<br />
4.20<br />
2.18<br />
2.94<br />
3.07<br />
2.02<br />
2.55<br />
1.79<br />
5.60<br />
1.91<br />
3.64<br />
2.29<br />
$2.82<br />
3.17<br />
3.95<br />
4.43<br />
2.24<br />
Total 578 104.440 ,567 63,088,327 66.1 41,708,810 99,742,701 .39<br />
*Includes the production of Utah.<br />
tProduction included with Colorado.<br />
3.25<br />
3.23<br />
2.10<br />
2.97<br />
1.83<br />
5.86<br />
1.93<br />
3.70
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
In addition to these figures the total quantity<br />
and value of the coal consumed in the manufacture<br />
of coke in 1909 and 1910, with the quantity and<br />
Coal used<br />
State or Territory. (short<br />
tons I.<br />
Alabama 5,080,764<br />
Colorado * 1,984,985<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>ia 86,290<br />
Illinois 1,682,122<br />
Kentucky 89,083<br />
New Mexico 694,390<br />
Ohio 340,735<br />
Pennsylvania 36.983,568<br />
Tennessee 493,283<br />
Virginia 2,060,518<br />
Washington 69,708<br />
West Virginia 6,361,759<br />
Other States 3,4.27,732<br />
Total 59,354,937<br />
1910.<br />
Alabama 5,272,322<br />
Colorado * 2.069,266<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>ia SO.019<br />
Illinois 1.972,955<br />
Kentucky 104,103<br />
New Mexico 651,494<br />
Ohio 413.059<br />
Pennsylvania 39,455.785<br />
Tennessee 597,658<br />
Virginia 2,310.742<br />
Washington 94.223<br />
West Virginia 6,226,234<br />
OtheF States t 3.S40.467<br />
Total 63,OSS,327<br />
1909.<br />
value of the coal consumed per ton of coke produced,<br />
by states and territories, is shown in the<br />
following tables:<br />
Total<br />
value<br />
of coal.<br />
$6,167,268<br />
2,467,403<br />
104,899<br />
4,812,850<br />
72,983<br />
650,876<br />
619,221<br />
32,065,729<br />
514,501<br />
1.737,910<br />
153,519<br />
4,878,027<br />
7,958,196<br />
62.203,382<br />
$7,293,661<br />
2,573,729<br />
103,605<br />
5,257,838<br />
45,259<br />
952,252<br />
7S4.713<br />
40,667,042<br />
740,598<br />
2,029,751<br />
249,680<br />
5,097,073<br />
9,051,192<br />
74,846.393<br />
Value of<br />
coal per<br />
ton.<br />
$1.21<br />
1.24<br />
1.22<br />
2.S6<br />
.82<br />
.94<br />
1.82<br />
.87<br />
1.04<br />
.84<br />
2.20<br />
.77<br />
2 32<br />
1.05<br />
$1.38<br />
1.24<br />
1.29<br />
2.66<br />
.43<br />
1.46<br />
1.90<br />
1.03<br />
1.24<br />
.88<br />
2.65<br />
.82<br />
2 35<br />
Quantity of<br />
coal per ton<br />
of coke<br />
(short tons).<br />
1.646<br />
1.586<br />
1.860<br />
1.317<br />
1.921<br />
1.857<br />
1.530<br />
1.485<br />
1.884<br />
1.529<br />
1.622<br />
1.613<br />
1.366<br />
1.510-<br />
Value<br />
of coal<br />
to a ton<br />
of coke.<br />
$1,992<br />
1.967<br />
2.269<br />
3.767<br />
1.575<br />
1.746<br />
2.785<br />
1.292<br />
1.959<br />
1.284<br />
3.568<br />
1.242<br />
3.169<br />
<strong>•</strong>Includes Utah.<br />
flncludes Indiana. Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts ts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Jer-<br />
New York, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.<br />
1.19<br />
1.623<br />
1.537<br />
1.826<br />
1.303<br />
1.933<br />
1.622<br />
1.463<br />
1.499<br />
1.852<br />
1.547<br />
1.5S8<br />
1.637<br />
1.361<br />
STATEMENT OF BITUMINOUS COAL MINED IN OHIO AND SHIPPED OVER RAILROADS<br />
SPECIFIED, DURING JUNE AND SIX MONTHS, 1910-1911.<br />
RAILROADS<br />
Hocking Valley<br />
Toledo and Ohio Central<br />
Baltimore and Ohio<br />
Wheeling and Lake Erie <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Cleveland. Lorain and Wheeling<br />
Zanesville and -Western<br />
Toledo Division Pennsylvania Company<br />
Lake Erie. Alliance and Wheeling . . .<br />
Marietta, Columbus and Cleveland Railway<br />
Wabash Pittsburg Terminal Railway<br />
Kanawha & Michigan Ry<br />
Total<br />
Net tons<br />
422,926<br />
222.166<br />
209 801<br />
346.224<br />
309.214<br />
104.888<br />
192,428<br />
82.055<br />
4 270<br />
6.685<br />
JUNE—<br />
270.107<br />
174.387<br />
112.297<br />
280.855<br />
274.778<br />
65 121<br />
140.404<br />
83.760<br />
1.608<br />
6.420<br />
10.386<br />
1.420.123<br />
1.513<br />
SIX MONTHS-<br />
Net tons<br />
2.058,791<br />
920,649<br />
1.153.510<br />
1.813.157<br />
1.614.757<br />
599.311<br />
1.110.118<br />
545.471<br />
50.817<br />
27.073<br />
9.893.654<br />
1.586<br />
$2,240<br />
1.906<br />
2.356<br />
3.466<br />
.832<br />
2.368<br />
2.780<br />
1.544<br />
2.296<br />
1.361<br />
4.208<br />
1.342<br />
3.198<br />
1.S00<br />
Net tons<br />
1.458.340<br />
788.581<br />
816.380<br />
1.502.723<br />
1,247.488<br />
487.217<br />
932.423<br />
564.164<br />
14.112<br />
36.784<br />
32.666<br />
'.8S0.878
"MINER-DOCTORS" DRILL FOR<br />
FIRST-AID CONTEST.<br />
The company's mines will close down on the<br />
gala day. Special trains will bring the first-aid<br />
squads from the collieries to Lakeside. Executive<br />
officials of the Philadelphia & Reading railway<br />
and of the Coal & Iron Co., including President<br />
Baer if ne returns from his vacation in time,<br />
will be present. There will be three bands, and a<br />
dinner will be served for the officials, the competing<br />
teams and invited guests.<br />
All the larger anthracite mining companies have<br />
first-aid corps now, and these have been helped<br />
materially to lessen the number of fatal accidents.<br />
Many an injured miner who would otherwise die<br />
is often saved by the prompt and skilful treatment<br />
of the first-aid-to-the-injured corps. Nowhere<br />
else in the company has system been<br />
brought to such a degree of perfection as in the<br />
anthracite region. The subject has been handled<br />
scientifically from the start; experienced physicians<br />
are put in charge, mine hospitals are equipped,<br />
and regular drills are held.<br />
The holding of an annual contest has been very<br />
successful in arousing and maintaining the interest<br />
of the mine workers. The men look forward<br />
to the event for months ahead, and practice<br />
diligently to attain perfection in assisting the<br />
injured.<br />
In advance, Dr. Ge<strong>org</strong>e H. Halberstadt, who has<br />
had direction of the Reading's first-aid corps since<br />
they were <strong>org</strong>anized, prepared a number of problems<br />
describing various kinds of injuries which<br />
may befall men in the mines. A list of these was<br />
sent to every corps two or three months ago.<br />
Since no district can know which problem will<br />
fall to it in the contest, the first-aid squads have<br />
been practising the entire list all summer.<br />
On September 9 the problems will he assigned<br />
to the districts by lot. Each district will have<br />
its own contest first, and later the winning squads<br />
from all districts will meet in a final contest.<br />
"Dummies" serve as injured men. That is.<br />
some mine worker volunteers to play the "victim"<br />
for each squad. He is told what injury he<br />
is supposed to be suffering from, and then tries to<br />
give as good an imitation as possible of a man<br />
in the described plight, while the first-aid experts<br />
show their skill in handling him.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
INCREASED PRODUCTION OF ANTHRACITE.<br />
With stretchers and splints and bandages the<br />
Except that of the "boom" year, 1907, the production<br />
of anthracite in Pennsylvania in 1910 was<br />
"miner-doctors" of Pottsville section of the an the largest in the history of the industry, accordthracite<br />
region are busy drilling for the greatest<br />
ing to E. W. Parker, coal statistician of the United<br />
States Geological Survey. The quantity pro<br />
first-aid-to-the-injured contest of the year. The<br />
duced in 1910 was 75,433,346 long tons, an in<br />
contest takes place at Lakeside, near Mahanoy crease over 1909 of 3,058,997 long tons, the value<br />
City, on Saturday, September 9. Teams from all increasing from $149,415,S47 in 1909 to $160,275,302<br />
the Philadelphia & Reading collieries, comprising in 1910. The production in 1910 was within al<br />
475 men, will compete.<br />
most exactly 1,000,000 long tons of the maximum<br />
record for 1907, when the output amounted to<br />
76,432,421 long tons. The value of the product<br />
in 1907 exceeded that of 1910 by $3,308,754. The<br />
average price per ton at the mines in 1910 was<br />
$2.12, against $2.06 in 1909, $2.13 in 190S, and $2.14<br />
in 1907.<br />
Through the recent invention, says Mr. Parker,<br />
of grates and furnaces adapted to the use of small<br />
sizes of anthracite, and owing to the higher<br />
prices of the prepared sizes, the percentage of<br />
waste has been reduced to a minimum. "Buckwheat,"<br />
"rice," "barley," and even culm are now<br />
important steam raising fuels, particularly in hotels,<br />
apartment houses, and large office buildings<br />
in the cities of the East, where smoke-inhibiting<br />
ordinances are in force. An object lesson in<br />
practical conservation is here furnished and to the<br />
credit of the operators in the anthracite region<br />
be it said that it was put into effect a number of<br />
years before the agitation over the conservation of<br />
natural resources began. Not only are the small<br />
sizes produced in the present mining operations<br />
sold and utilized, but the unsightly culm banks<br />
which blotted the landscape in the anthracite region<br />
are fast disappearing as the usable coal is<br />
being recovered from them by washeries.<br />
Of the total production in 1910, 4,1S4,629 tons<br />
were recovered from the old culm banks, and 91,-<br />
833 tons were recovered by dredges from the bed<br />
of Susquehanna river.<br />
The anthracite producing industry was without<br />
any marked features during the year. The operators<br />
and miners had in 1909 renewed by mutual<br />
agreement for a third term of three years the<br />
awards of the Anthracite Commission that settled<br />
the great strike of 1902, and while there were a<br />
few temporary shut-downs because of labor difficulties,<br />
there was only one in which the idleness<br />
extended over 12 days, and most of them were<br />
from one day to one week. The board of conciliation<br />
created by the Anthracite Commission, consisting<br />
of six members, three representing the<br />
operators and three representing the miners, has<br />
done exemplary service in bringing the employers<br />
and employes into harmonious relations and has<br />
demonstrated the wisdom and practicability of conciliatory<br />
methods of settling labor disputes.<br />
The policy adopted several years ago by the
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
operators, of allowing discounts from the circular<br />
prices for coal purchased in the spring and early<br />
summer months, continues to work satisfactorily.<br />
The discounts allowed on domestic sizes are 50<br />
cents a ton in April, 40 cents a ton in May, 30<br />
cents in June, 20 cents in July, 10 cents in August,<br />
the circular prices being restored in September.<br />
The inducement thus offered to make the cellars<br />
of consumers the storage places for the winter<br />
supplies of fuel has had a notably steadying in<br />
fluence on the trade and gives steady employment<br />
to the miners throughout the year, against the<br />
conditions of rush work in winter and much idleness<br />
in summer prevailing before the rule was put<br />
into effect.<br />
According to a statement made to the United<br />
States Bureau of Mines by Mr. James E. Roderick,<br />
chief of the department of mines of Pennsylva<br />
nia, there were 601 fatal and 1,050 non-fatal accidents<br />
in the anthracite mines in 1910. This was<br />
an increase of 34 in the number of fatal accidents<br />
and of 15 in the number of men injured as compared<br />
with 1909, when 567 men were killed and<br />
1,035 injured. As the production in 1910 amounted<br />
to 75,433,246 long tons, the quantity of coal mined<br />
for each life lost was 125,513 long tons against<br />
126,644 long tons in 1909. The death rate per<br />
thousand employes in 1910 was 3.55. against 3.31<br />
in 1909.<br />
STATISTICS OF ANTHRACITE PRODUCTION, 1906-1910.<br />
Year. Quantity. Value.<br />
(long tons).<br />
1906 63,645,010 $131,917,694<br />
1907 76,432,421 163,584,056<br />
1908 74,347,102 158,178,849<br />
1909 72,374.249 149.415,S47<br />
1910 75,433,246 160,275,302<br />
Average Average<br />
Average number number<br />
Year. price of men of days<br />
per ton. employed. worked.<br />
1906 $2.07 162,355 195<br />
1907 2.14 167,234 220<br />
190S 2.13 174.174 200<br />
1909 2.06 fol71,195|<br />
)6166,801j<br />
1910 2.12 169,197 229<br />
a State Mining Department figures.<br />
b II. S. Census figures.<br />
A coal tipple with a capacity of 2,000 tons every<br />
24 hours, is to be erected at a cost of $20,000 by<br />
the Gulfport Shipping Co. on the Cross Dock, at<br />
Gulfport, Miss. The Fairbanks-Morse Co., of<br />
Chicago, will construct it.<br />
CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANY<br />
MAKES CHANGES IN OFFICIALS.<br />
H. H. Watson, manager of the West Virginia<br />
division of the Consolidation Coal Co., has announced<br />
the following changes in mine officials,<br />
effective at once:<br />
Lowell Childs, now superintendent at mines<br />
46, 39 and -60, appointed inspector at large.<br />
L. C. Keener now superintendent at No. 46,<br />
transferred to the same capacity at Nos. 46 and 39.<br />
Thomas Smith, now mine foreman at No. 49,<br />
transferred as superintendent at No. 60.<br />
F. B. Robinson appointed superintendent at Nos.<br />
44 and 64.<br />
CELL STRUCTURE AS A MEASURE<br />
FOR COKE QUALITY.<br />
Until very recent time there has never been dis<br />
covered any definite connecting link between the<br />
physical and chemical properties of coke; nor has<br />
there ever been discovered any ratio between cells,<br />
cell-structure and the gravities, says Coal & Coke<br />
Operator.<br />
After about three years' research work, pursued<br />
intermittently, of course, in handling hundreds of<br />
samples of coke in the laboratory, W. F. Elwood,<br />
chief chemist for the Keystone Coal & Coke Co..<br />
at Greensburg, has discovered a fixed and certain<br />
ratio which has stood the tests from all<br />
viewpoints in the hands of various experts to<br />
whose attention the matter was brought. The<br />
fact of such relationships was sent to experts in<br />
Philadelphia of the highest scientific standing.<br />
and they have corroborated Mr. Elwood's results.<br />
and account it a notable discovery in industrial<br />
science.<br />
In briefly describing his discovery Mr. Elwood<br />
thus spoke of it:<br />
"All other conditions being regular, the percentage<br />
of cells by volume of any coke is inversely<br />
proportionate to the apparent specific grav<br />
ity; the compression-strength is also governed directly<br />
by the quality and quantity of ash. This<br />
law I have attacked personally, and have also had<br />
it criticised by others from all possible sides without<br />
having to alter my conclusions in the least.<br />
I have a full line of data to substantiate my conclusions.<br />
I feel that this finding is going to<br />
benefit coke and steel makers alike, and especially<br />
those who are getting closer to science—<br />
which they must do sooner or later, in order tc<br />
keep up on the narrow margin on which they are<br />
forced to work. Of course, the men who work<br />
by 'thumb rule' may not be approached so readily,<br />
and may not appreciate such laws of science,<br />
but for that end I am not laboring."
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
MINE GASES, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MINE FIRES AND THE<br />
EFFECT OF CARBON MONOXIDE ON SMALL ANIMALS AND<br />
MEN, AND GAS ANALYSIS APPARATUS*<br />
By G A. Burrell. Chemist. Mine Gas Investigations. United States Bureau of Mines.<br />
The Bureau of Mines has during the past year<br />
been actively engaged in the study of mine gases.<br />
A large number of samples having to do with various<br />
phases of mine gas investigations have been<br />
gathered and subjected to examination for this<br />
purpose, and special apparatus has been devised<br />
for the analytical work.<br />
This paper deals with a few general remarks<br />
having to do with the occurrence of the gases in<br />
normal mine air, the chemistry of mine fires, and<br />
the effect of carbon monoxide on men and small<br />
animals.<br />
This evening views will lie shown of the gas<br />
analysis apparatus used by the Bureau of Mines.<br />
Analyses representing mine gas samples collected<br />
under different conditions will also be shown.<br />
Some of the constituents in mine gas mixtures<br />
exist therein in extremely small quantity. Methane<br />
in normal mine air may occur in amounts<br />
much less than .1 per cent., and the carbon dioxide<br />
may be present in quantities just as small. If<br />
methane is present at all the mine management<br />
desires to know it, because under conditions<br />
whereby the ventilating system may be disarranged,<br />
an accumulation of methane of considerable<br />
proportions may result. Measured in terms<br />
of cubic feet even small quantities of methane<br />
represent a large volume of this constituent expelled<br />
from a mine in 24 hours. A current carrying<br />
100,000 ctiDic feet of air per minute discharges,<br />
if .1 per cent, of methane lie present, 144,000,000<br />
cubic feet of air every 24 hours from a mine. A return<br />
of the same volume carrying .5 per cent, of<br />
methane, which is not by any means unknown,<br />
discharges 720,000 cubic feet of methane in 24<br />
hours; rather a good gas well if the methane could<br />
be concentrated.<br />
Carbon monoxide produced in mines by fires and<br />
explosions is harmful in very small quantities,<br />
and the amount produced is valuable to know.<br />
In addition, exact apparatus has been installed<br />
for the purpose of closely studying certain questions,<br />
some of which have been a matter of dispute<br />
among mining men and chemists for a long<br />
time. For instance, whether or not<br />
CARBON MONOXIDE,<br />
ole hydrocarbons, hydrogen, or paraffine<br />
hydrocarbons other than methane, may be found<br />
in normal mine air, as given off from the coal<br />
pores and strata or formed by the action of oxygen<br />
of the air on tlie coal at normal temperatures.<br />
*By permission of the Director Bureau of Mines.<br />
A study of the effect of the barometric pressure<br />
on the exudation of methane in coal mines demands<br />
that the analyses be performed with considerable<br />
precision, in order that small changes<br />
in the composition of the atmosphere of the mines<br />
be recorded. After explosives have been fired in<br />
mines, the atmosphere may contain certain explosive<br />
and noxious gases in extremely small quantities,<br />
and because some of these gases are very<br />
harmful in small quantity, apparatus with which<br />
exact work can be performed must be used.<br />
In order to refresh your memory, 1 wish to cite<br />
a few facts regarding the occurrence of gases<br />
found in mines and their effect on the human system,<br />
because data given in the paper depends for<br />
its interpretation on the significance of these facts.<br />
Carbon dioxide is produced in mines in tlie<br />
largest part by exudation from coal, in the pores<br />
of which it has been locked up as a product of<br />
carbonization of plants. Fresh quantities are<br />
also being formed b.v the oxidation of coal in contact<br />
with atmospheric air. As a rule the amount<br />
of carbonic acid in blowers is small and likewise<br />
the carbon dioxide present in stagnant atmosphere<br />
seldom exceeds 3 or 4 per cent., even when the<br />
area has been stagnant for days or weeks.<br />
The production of carbon dioxide and absorption<br />
of oxygen by a mine far exceeds that of the men,<br />
mules and lamps. Probably, in few coal mines is<br />
the total carbon dioxide increased by more than<br />
.02 or .03 per cent, by the latter cause. The<br />
larger number of the samples of normal mine air<br />
collected by the Bureau at the returns of many<br />
mines have contained between .2 and .3 per cent.<br />
and in a few cases .5 per cent. On the other<br />
hand, samples have been collected in which the<br />
carbon dioxide has not exceeded .05 per cent.<br />
Fresh atmospheric air contains about .034 per<br />
cent, carbon dioxide.<br />
Carbon dioxide in air up to 3 per cent., as a<br />
rule, has no noteworthy effect except that it deepens<br />
the breathing. The breathing of 5 or 6 per<br />
cent, produces headache,<br />
PALPITATION OF TIIK HEART,<br />
sweating, and tbe breathing becomes distressing.<br />
Higher percentages. 11 or 12 per cent., produce<br />
coma, but do not quickly destroy life. As much<br />
as 25 per cent, may be breathed for several hours<br />
before death occurs.<br />
Normal dry air contains about 20.9 per cent, of<br />
oxygen. In large cities some small departure<br />
from this figure is usually encountered, about .1<br />
per cent, lower. Mine air is poorer in oxygen
32<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
than atmospheric air, and the difference in the<br />
proportion of oxygen in the intake and return air<br />
in coal mines may amount to several per cent.<br />
Samples of normal mine air from coal mines have<br />
been collected by the Bureau which contained only<br />
19 per cent, of oxygen but-the great majority contain<br />
about .20.6 or 20.7 per cent. The greedy<br />
consumption of oxygen-by the coal in mines can<br />
be shown by a calculstWtt of oxygen deficiency<br />
based upon a difference-of 1 per cent, of oxygen<br />
between the intake and return air. If 40,000<br />
cubic feet of air per minute were passing into<br />
an area drained by a return, the total volume of<br />
oxygen consumed would be 400 cubic, feet per minute.<br />
In but few cases, which have thus far come<br />
to the notice of the Bureau, has an oxygen deficiency<br />
greater than 1 per cent, in return air been<br />
found.<br />
Stagnant air not in enclosed areas, but where<br />
air only enters by diffusion from other parts of<br />
the mine where the air is fresh, frequently contains<br />
as little as 17, 16, or even less percentages<br />
of oxygen. Instances are on record where unsuspecting<br />
miners have put their heads in cavities<br />
where the air has been so deficient in oxygen as to<br />
render them unconscious. ©Dr. Haldane recites<br />
the case of a man who was rendered suddenly<br />
unconscious oy climbing up a ladder to explore<br />
a cavity, and after being quickly revived<br />
by breathing fresh air, knocked his companion<br />
down for making him fall off the ladder.<br />
While a light will not burn in air containing<br />
less than about 17 per cent, oxygen, and not satisfactorily<br />
under 19 per cent., the percentage can<br />
be lowered to 14 per cent, without noticeably affecting<br />
the bodily functions. With 12 per cent.<br />
the breathing becomes deeper and<br />
TITLRE QUICKER.<br />
At 6 per cent, consciousness is lost, and death takes<br />
place when the oxygen sinks to 3 or 4 per cent.<br />
In an atmosphere entirely deficient in oxygen<br />
death in less lime than one minute takes place.<br />
An atmosphere in which not even a trace of oxygen<br />
occurred was entered by the Bureau men with<br />
helmets not long ago. A section of a mine had<br />
been tightly sealed off for several months because<br />
of a mine fire which had" existed therein.<br />
As far as the effect of oxygen deficiency and<br />
carbon dioxide excess in normal mine air are<br />
concerned, we find that in the large majority of<br />
cases in American mines and other mines, too, bad<br />
effects upon miners, because of the carbon dioxide<br />
and oxygen content of the air are not felt. The<br />
miner, as far as the purity of the air normally<br />
sweeping through the workings is concerned, is<br />
usually much better off than people in badly ven-<br />
©Rescue Work in Mines, Leonard Hill. Read at<br />
Royal Sanitary Institute March 4. 1911.<br />
tilated dwelling houses, workshops, schools and<br />
meeting houses. This excepts atmospheres in<br />
mines vitiated by powder smoke air at the working<br />
faces, etc. In most ventilation studies too<br />
much attention has been paid to the chemical<br />
purity of air and not enough to the freshness of<br />
the air, its temperature and humidity. The activity<br />
of men engaged in sedentary occupations depends<br />
very largely on the temperature and humidity<br />
of the air. If the air is over-warm, moist<br />
and not moving, men become listless. The stationary<br />
air next to the body becomes warmed to<br />
body temperature, and saturated with water at body<br />
temperature, and the air and body cannot lose<br />
heat by radiation to each other. It has been<br />
insisted with good reason, that more attention be<br />
paid to the temperature in factories and mines,<br />
and that by keeping the air cool the efficiency of<br />
workers may be greatly increased.<br />
In an experiment he tried, Leonard Hill found<br />
that suddenly raising the carbon dioxide content<br />
of an atmosphere 1 or 2 per cent, had no appre<br />
ciaible effect in increasing the<br />
DISCOMFORT OK MEN,<br />
yet in a high, wet bulb temperature, putting the<br />
fan on or off made a very great difference. Haldane<br />
has insisted that a wet bulb temperature not<br />
over 70 degrees Fahrenheit should be maintained<br />
in order to obtain the best efficiency from men,<br />
and that 75 degrees Fahrenheit should not be exceeded.<br />
Figures regarding the percentages of carbon<br />
dioxide and oxygen, and their effect upon the<br />
human system, have been given preliminary to<br />
the presentation of certain regulations in some<br />
countries having to do with fixing allowable percentages<br />
of these constituents in mines and factories.<br />
Proposed regulation on the Transvaal allows .2<br />
per cent, of carbonic acid. In Great Britain the<br />
members of the Royal Commission of mines in<br />
the report issued in 1909 considered 1.25 per cent.<br />
of carbon dioxide as a maximum, and no greater<br />
oxygen deficiency over normal air than 2 per cent.,<br />
that is 19 per cent. In the Victoria mines the<br />
maximum quantity of carbon dioxide is fixed at<br />
.25 per cent., with not less oxygen than 20 per<br />
cent. In Western Australia the maximum carbon<br />
dioxide is .25 per cent, except for 30 minutes<br />
after blasting, when a greater but unspecified percentage<br />
is permitted. In by-laws enacted in 1810<br />
in Great Britain for the regulation of air in factories,<br />
the maximum quantity of CO.. is fixed at<br />
.2 per cent.<br />
Regarding the wet bulb temperature which is<br />
far more important, the Transvaal Commission<br />
adopted a maximum temperature of 80 degrees<br />
Fahrenheit. In these metal mines blasting gases,<br />
dust, heat and dampness of the stagnant air make
the atmosphere unpleasant. In those regulations<br />
adopted by the countries mentioned regarding the<br />
maximum quantity of carbon dioxide, the quantity<br />
allowable has been fixed much below that<br />
capable of producing bad effects. Especially in<br />
factories is the qunntity placed low, in order to<br />
provide plenty of fresh air, thereby preventing<br />
unpleasant smells arising from dirty clothes, sweat<br />
and floors, and to keep down the mass influence<br />
of infecting bacteria. In mines powder smoke<br />
contains besides carbon dioxide, noxious gases,<br />
such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide,<br />
with the carbon dioxide usually in excess, consequently<br />
a regulations which<br />
PLACES A LOW MAXIMUM<br />
quantity for carbon dioxide keeps down the other<br />
more harmful gases, some of which are not so<br />
easily determined chemically.<br />
Methane occurs in enormous quantities in coal<br />
seams as a product of the decomposition processes<br />
which have resulted in the formation of the coal.<br />
The greater proportion of methane in coal seams<br />
fills up the pores of the coal and escapes from<br />
working faces with a peculiar hissing noise well<br />
known to miners. Gas pent up in the cracks<br />
and clefts of the enclosing rocks is often under<br />
considerable pressure. Sometimes blowers may<br />
be used as a source of gas for years. The explosive<br />
limits of methane-air mixtures lie between<br />
5.5 per cent, gas low limit and 13 per cent, high<br />
limit. Some departure from these figures may be<br />
obtained b.v using different modes of ignition. A<br />
blown-out shot for instance may cause the ignition<br />
of a mixture containing lower percentages of<br />
methane. The most violently explosive mixture<br />
of methane and air contains 9.47 per cent, methane.<br />
Because rather inconsistent results have been obtained<br />
in examining the products formed by incomplete<br />
combustion of methane, that is when insufficient<br />
oxygen is not present for the complete<br />
oxidation of the gas, I have subjected mixtures<br />
containing more than 9.47 per cent, of methane<br />
to explosion and examined the products of combustion.<br />
As the percentage of methane increased<br />
carbon monoxide and methane were formed in increasing<br />
amounts, and the carbon dioxide decreased.<br />
The results showed that no methane<br />
remained unburned, that all of the carbon of the<br />
methane had oxidized either to carbon dioxide or<br />
to carbon monoxide, and that part of the hydrogen<br />
had burned, leaving the remainder free in the residual<br />
gas.<br />
In the products of combustion I examined, resulting<br />
from the incomplete combustion of methane,<br />
exact analysis failed to find ethylene or olefine<br />
hydrocarbons, or acetylene.<br />
Some coal mines are so little troubled With<br />
methane as to be called non-gaseous, while from<br />
others thousands of cubic feet are being discharged<br />
hourly. A few samples of mine air have<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
been received at the laboratory in which methane<br />
in quantities greater than .01 per cent, could not<br />
be detected, but probably 99 per cent, of the samples<br />
show more than this. There are many mines<br />
apparently in which the methane in the return<br />
air currents does not exceed .03 to .05 per cent.,<br />
but a great many in which the percentage is as<br />
high as .4 per cent. - Frequently this figure is exceeded.<br />
I have in mind the<br />
BETUBH AW CURRENT<br />
of a large well equipped mine which carried 1<br />
per cent, methane, a very large amount. In some<br />
mines the quantity of methane daily discharged<br />
from a mine is surprisingly regular. In a month's<br />
sampling, samples taken twice a day in the two<br />
returns of a coal mine, showed that the methane<br />
during that entire period varied scarcely more<br />
than .04 per cent, either side of .4 per cent, in<br />
one return and .04 per cent, either side of .3 per<br />
cent, in another return. One-half of this mine<br />
made the most methane. In some mines one section<br />
may produce almost all of the methane, and<br />
it has happened that when that section has been<br />
worked out tne mine may not lie much troubled<br />
wdth methane for some time.<br />
Now .4 per cent, or less methane may appear<br />
to be a small quantity of this constituent, and of<br />
course is not dangerous when the percentage remains<br />
that low, but should an accident occur to<br />
the ventilating system whereby the air becomes<br />
still in a certain section of the mine, an accumulation<br />
of methane rapidly occurs and an explosive<br />
mixture forms. Only the strict regard for this<br />
possibility prevents many accidents.<br />
Apparatus has been developed at the Bureau,<br />
to be shown later, which it is believed fulfills the<br />
purpose'for accurately and rapidly making daily<br />
analyses of the methane in mine air better than<br />
forms now available. Some of the mining companies<br />
now exercise supervision over the gas produced<br />
in tneir mines now and many more are considering<br />
it. Most mining men use the safety lamp<br />
exclusively. The latter is of course one of the<br />
greatest aids toward safety in mining ever invented.<br />
A quantity of methane likely to quickly<br />
become dangerous can be detected—in ordinary<br />
lamps about 2 per cent., although with some lamps<br />
1% per cent. Special lamps, not by any means<br />
in general use, may detect as little as 1 per cent.<br />
Where the safety lamp fails to detect gas. however.<br />
the management of a mine is left quite in the<br />
dark regarding the actual quantity of methane produced<br />
in the workings. The normal methane content'<br />
of the air is never determined. With the<br />
knowledge that sufficient<br />
METHANE IS ALWAYS PRESENT<br />
in a mine for an accumulation of same due to<br />
a stoppage of tile fan or derangement of the ventilating<br />
system to quickly produce an exceedingly<br />
dangerous condition, the men are likely to be more
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
careful than when they are only brought to face<br />
such a condition by the occasional derangement<br />
of the ventilating system of from other causes.<br />
Under such conditions a mine in which little fear<br />
is felt from fire damp explosions, because of the<br />
seldom detection of gas by means of safety lamps,<br />
may become in certain sections exceedingly gaseous.<br />
Regular analyses made of samples taken in different<br />
sections of the mine—in the main returns.<br />
in the gob, at the face, etc., define the potentiality<br />
of a mine regarding the danger from fire damp<br />
explosions. If a split ventilating a certain section<br />
of a mine contains at any time a large amount<br />
of metharie, more air can be forced through that<br />
section at the expense of the air ventilating a less<br />
gaseous section, thereby equalizing conditions.<br />
As a final resort the total quantity of air passing<br />
through the mine can be increased. Systematicanalyses<br />
made of the air in different sections of<br />
the mine will reveal to the manager every disturbance<br />
in the ventilation.<br />
With the knowledge that coal dust plays a heavy<br />
part in explosions, quantities of methane in less<br />
proportion than that required for an explosive mixture<br />
must be considered. It is claimed that as<br />
little as 2 per cent, may bring about the ignition<br />
of coal dust. The exact influence of methane in<br />
this respect is to be studied at the experimental<br />
mine of the Bureau now almost ready for operation<br />
at Bruceton, Pa.<br />
As the result of the careful analyses of many<br />
samples of mine gas by the Bureau, it is believed<br />
that hydrocarbons higher than methane are<br />
scarcely ever produced in the pores and cavities<br />
of coal seams along with methane, at least in quantities<br />
above .02 per cent. A few samples have<br />
been received in which the presence of traces of<br />
the higher paraffine could be detected, but in the<br />
greatest majority of the samples only methane.<br />
This excepts certain<br />
SAMPLES OBTAINED FROM MINES<br />
into which natural gas had intruded from gas<br />
sands 2.600 feet below, and caused disastrous explosions<br />
in two coal mines. At those mines close<br />
chemical supervision is kept over the methane<br />
produced. The returns seldom showed more than<br />
a few hundredths of one per cent, methane. Consequently<br />
little fear was felt from this constituent.<br />
Over night, however, natural gas filled certain<br />
sections of the mine and when men entered next<br />
morning disastrous explosions occurred in both<br />
mines a few hours apart. A gas well passes<br />
through a barrier pillar in one of these mines,<br />
and the casing at some point in the string was,<br />
I believe, found responsible.<br />
Because of the apparent absence of higher paraffine<br />
in normal mine air, I believe that those<br />
samples showing these constituents may be an indication<br />
of natural gas intrusion from the gas<br />
sands. The natural gases of Pennsylvania and<br />
West Virginia almost invariably contain higher<br />
members of the paraffin series, while natural gases<br />
from other places in the country may or may not.<br />
This observation is based upon the analysis of<br />
many samples of natural gas received by the<br />
Bureau.<br />
The question of natural gas intrusion is going<br />
to be a serious problem when certain valuable<br />
tracts of coal lying deep and close to natural gas<br />
bearing strata are worked. This formation occurs<br />
in one section of West Virginia, perhaps other<br />
places also.<br />
Carbon monoxide has not been identified as a<br />
part of those samples taken in normal mine air in<br />
quantities above .01 per cent. One or two investigators<br />
using the iodic acid method for the determination<br />
of CO report percentages less than<br />
this, and others with less refined methods find<br />
more.<br />
Our experience teaches that CO is only produced<br />
in mines through the agency of heat. It is<br />
found in the afterdamp of explosions and mine<br />
fires in many cases in deadly proportion. Many<br />
colliery disasters have claimed heavy toll because<br />
of this constituent. Incomplete combustion of<br />
methane not only produced carbon monoxide, as<br />
already stated, but the<br />
REDUCTION OF CARBON DIOXIDE<br />
by heated coal dust and incomplete combustion of<br />
the gases produced in a mine fire are other<br />
sources.<br />
Carbon monoxide combines with the haemoglobin<br />
of the blood much more readily than oxygen does,<br />
and raises the pressure of the blood to such an<br />
extent that oxygen cannot be taken up and a person<br />
dies of oxygen deprivation. A person not<br />
too far overcome may be revived by oxygen administered<br />
in the effort to displace the carbon<br />
monoxide. Opinion differs as to the effect of<br />
small quantities of carbon monoxide on a person,<br />
but the affinity of different persons for the gas<br />
may account for discrepancies in the results of<br />
different investigators.<br />
Samples examined at the Bureau laboratory, collected<br />
by means of oxygen helmets after mine<br />
fires and explosions have occurred in mines, have<br />
contained as much as 2 per cent, of CO. This too<br />
when the products of combustion had been somewhat<br />
diluted with air from other unaffected sections<br />
of the mine. This percentage would bring<br />
about quick death. Dr. Haldane makes the following<br />
statement:<br />
"The volume of blood in a man of average<br />
weight has been found to be about 5% pints and<br />
is capable of entering into combination with about<br />
1 pint of CO."<br />
Supposing that he is breathing about 7 liters<br />
of air per minute containing 2 per cent, of CO. only<br />
about 5 liters of air will reach the air cells of his
lungs and he will not be able to absorb more than<br />
10 c.c. of CO per minute, and it will thus be at<br />
least one-half hour before his blood becomes onehalf<br />
saturated with CO. At one-half saturation<br />
Dr. Haldane states that pronounced distress is<br />
felt.<br />
Representatives of the Bureau have visited and<br />
assisted in exploration and fire fighting work at<br />
almost all of the disasters occurring in American<br />
mines in the last few years. Oxygen helmets<br />
have been of great service in this work and their<br />
value is well recognized.<br />
Chances have been taken, however, when men<br />
unequipped with helmets have entered workings<br />
in which carbon monoxide has been present.<br />
A miner's safety lamp gives him warning of al<br />
most every aonormal<br />
CONDITION OK THE ATMOSPHERE<br />
except the presence of carbon monoxide. The<br />
presence of methane or a depletion of oxygen is<br />
indicated, but a lamp gives no warning of the<br />
presence of small and dangerous quantities of<br />
carbon monoxide. Then, too, the latter may be<br />
present in a mine atmosphere and the oxygen still<br />
be sufficiently high to support combustion so that<br />
the wick flame appears normal.<br />
The statement has been made that carbon monoxide<br />
gives a cap on a flame of the lamp, and so<br />
it does, but when the percentage is high enough<br />
to show a cap (about the same minimum percentage),<br />
a man could scarcely live to tell it were he<br />
in the same atmosphere. Where carbon monoxide<br />
is present, as a rule, so is methane, so that even<br />
were the cap test sufficiently good, the test would<br />
be complicated b.v the methane. The need has<br />
been felt for some kind of a test which will immediately<br />
notify exploring parties of the presence of<br />
carbon monoxide. Quick chemical tests for the<br />
presence of this const ituenl are not entirely satisfactory,<br />
unless in the hands of a chemist, and<br />
even so they possess disadvantages when it comes<br />
to conducting them in a mine.<br />
Mice and birds have been successfully used in<br />
testing the atmosphere of mines and have proven<br />
of great value in saving human life. Consequently,<br />
the Bureau is urging their use for this<br />
purpose.<br />
Two or three of these small animals can be<br />
placed in a cage and carried into the mine with<br />
the party. Because the rate at which chemical<br />
changes occur in them is enormously greater than<br />
in large animals they will show symptoms of<br />
poisoning sooner than a man will. Haldane<br />
states that a mouse weighing one-half an ounce consumes<br />
about 15 times as much oxygen as one-half<br />
an ounce of the human body would consume in the<br />
same time. With .1 per cent, of carbon monoxide<br />
in the air he found that during rest it took about<br />
two hours before giddiness, etc. began to appear<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
in a man, and that according to analyses made<br />
of the blood during the<br />
COURSE OK THE EXPERIMENT<br />
another half hour would have sufficed to produce<br />
practical disablement. A mouse was similarly<br />
affected in 10 minutes. With .6 per cent, of carbon<br />
monoxide in the air all of the animals became<br />
helpless in two minutes and rapidly became<br />
comatose or died, while a person breathing the<br />
mixture was quite unaffected even after 10 minutes.<br />
An examination of this person's blood<br />
showed it was one-fourth saturated. An examination<br />
b.v Dr. Haldane of the blood of men who<br />
have been killed in colliery explosions shows that<br />
the blood is 80 per cent, saturated by carbon monoxide<br />
wdien death occurs.<br />
Experiments have been performed at this laboratory<br />
in wdiich white mice were subjected to<br />
the action of the following percentages of carbon<br />
monoxide: .16 per cent.. .33 per cent., .46 per cent.,<br />
.57 per cent, and .77 per cent. The mice were<br />
placed under a gas tight bell jar having a capacity<br />
of 10 liters into which the carbon monoxide<br />
had previously been introduced. The atmosphere<br />
inside the jar was thoroughly mixed, sampled<br />
and analyzed twice during the experiment,<br />
taking the samples from different parts of the<br />
jar in order to make sure that the carbon monoxide<br />
content was correct and uniform throughout.<br />
The analyses were made by combustion of the<br />
carbon monoxide in an apparatus accurate to .01<br />
per cent.<br />
With .16 per cent, of carbon monoxide present<br />
a mouse showed slight signs of sluggishness in<br />
about six minutes, but this sluggishness and distress<br />
did not increase to any great extent. The<br />
animal's respiration had dropped from 160 per<br />
minute to about 120 per minute at the finish.<br />
With .31 per cent, of carbon monoxide in the<br />
air a mouse suffered collapse in 7% minutes with<br />
decided symptoms of distress in about 4 minutes.<br />
but 35 minutes elapsed before it lost all muscular<br />
power and ability to turn over when placed on its<br />
back. Upon removing the bell jar it became<br />
normal again in about two hours.<br />
With .46 per cent, of carbon monoxide in the<br />
air a mouse showed signs of distress in two minutes.<br />
It staggered around and<br />
SUFFERED PARTIAL COLLAPSE<br />
in four minutes; in six minutes it lost all muscular<br />
power.<br />
With .57 per cent, of carbon monoxide in the<br />
air a mouse partially collapsed in two minutes,<br />
and died in 16 minutes.<br />
With .77 per cent of carbon monoxide in the<br />
air a mouse showed distinct signs of distress in<br />
one minute, in 5% minutes it had lost all muscular<br />
power, and died in 12% minutes.<br />
Up to the time the mice lost power to move
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
about, or respond to prodding, they evinced varying<br />
degrees of activity. The delicacy of the test<br />
of course depends upon the warning the mice give<br />
while they are being affected. Under the same<br />
conditions of experiment especially in the presence<br />
of the smaller quantities of carbon monoxide, one<br />
mouse may clearly exhibit signs of distress while<br />
another one may pass into the comatose condition<br />
without so distinctly showing by its actions that<br />
carbon monoxide is affecting it. Consequently,<br />
is is necessary that tbe animal be closely watched<br />
and that a person retire at once if unequipped with<br />
oxygen helmets from a mine, the atmosphere of<br />
which distresses mice.<br />
Because different mice may behave somewhat<br />
differently under the influence of noxious gases,<br />
it is a good plan to carry at least three of them<br />
info the mine at the same time. It is also advisable<br />
to prod them slightly if they remain too<br />
quiet in order to observe them in action. A man<br />
if he exerts himself by carrying objects, climbing<br />
ladders, hastening too much, etc., consumes<br />
more oxygen in a given time, and also more carbon<br />
monoxide than when at rest, consequently.<br />
symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning may under<br />
such conditions be produced in a man which<br />
might not be observed in a mouse, unless the latter<br />
was very closely watched. With the small<br />
percentages of<br />
CARBON MONOXIDE FREQUENTLY FOUND<br />
in mines, after explosions and mine fires, a person<br />
may be able to go a long distance without<br />
expressing much inconvenience. On the return<br />
trip, however, the symptoms may become so aggravated<br />
that considerable difficulty may be experienced<br />
in negotiating the return to the base or<br />
surface.<br />
Because under the condition of excessive exertion<br />
by men mice may be slow upon responding<br />
with the presence of carbon monoxide in the air,<br />
experiments similar to those performed upon mice<br />
were tried, using birds in order to determine their<br />
susceptibility to carbon monoxide poison. Canary<br />
birds were exposed to atmospheres containing the<br />
following percentages of carbon monoxide: .09 per<br />
cent., .12 per cent., .15 per cent., .20 per cent.,<br />
.29 per cent.<br />
After an exposure of one hour to an atmosphere<br />
containing .09 per cent, of carbon monoxide a bird<br />
was not affected to such an extent that it would if<br />
carried into a mine indicate by its action the<br />
presence of that quantitv of carbon monoxide.<br />
Only close observation showed that a slight distress<br />
was felt by it at the end of the hour.<br />
With .12 per cent, of carbon monoxide in the<br />
atmosphere of the bell jar the symptoms were<br />
still not clearly defined, the bird did not fall from<br />
the perch but close observation showed that it<br />
was decidedly weaker at the end of an hour than<br />
the bird which was subjected to the action of<br />
.09 per cent, of carbon monoxide. In about 15<br />
minutes it had lost its liveliness and remained<br />
comparatively quiet.<br />
With .15 per cent, of carbon monoxide present<br />
a bird evinced symptoms of slight distress in<br />
three minutes, it opened its mouth, panting for<br />
oxygen, gradually became weaker,<br />
SWAYED AND FLUTTERED<br />
from the perch in IS minutes. At the end<br />
of the hour it had not lost muscular power, but<br />
showed decided symptoms of extreme weakness.<br />
Witli .2 per cent, of carbon monoxide present a<br />
bird showed pronounced signs of distress in one<br />
and one-half minutes. In three minutes it bei<br />
an;? very unsteady on the perch and fell from the<br />
latter place in five minutes. After taking it out<br />
ol' the jar it regained its feet in two minutes and<br />
in five minutes had revived so that it appeared<br />
quite normal again.<br />
With .29 per cent, of carbon monoxide a bird<br />
completely collapsed and fell from the perch in<br />
two and one-half minutes. In five minutes time<br />
it had almost revived when placed in fresh air.<br />
These tests show that small birds may be better<br />
indicators of the presence of noxious gases in the<br />
atmosphere of mines than mice. Birds show<br />
signs of distress quicker in the presence of smaller<br />
quantities of carbon monoxide than mice do. The<br />
symptoms are much clearer defined in that a bird<br />
sways markedly on its perch and its fall is a<br />
sign of almost complete collapse, consequently the<br />
symptoms are more easily noticed by an exploring<br />
party than the effects of carbon monoxide on mice,<br />
and more timely warning is given when small<br />
quantities of the gas are present.<br />
A device recently received at the Bureau of<br />
Mines consists of a light aluminum cage provided<br />
with glass sides and a perch in the interior.<br />
A double door is also provided, one of which is<br />
made of wire netting and an outer one of glass.<br />
The handb of the cage consists of a small iron<br />
cylinder charged with oxygen.<br />
Birds are placed inside the cage and the outer<br />
glass door left open. When they begin to show<br />
signs of distress the glass door is closed and oxygen<br />
turned into the cage, thereby saving the bird<br />
for future explorations. The exploring party, if<br />
unequipped with helmets, of course immediately<br />
retreat.<br />
The fact is well known and taken advantage of<br />
that systematic analyses made of the flue gases<br />
from a boiler furnace indicate the conditions existing<br />
therein and that a regulation of these conditions<br />
based upon the interpretation of the analysis<br />
is one of the factors<br />
LEADING TO POWER PLANT<br />
economy. Combustible gases given off by the<br />
burning coal must he supplied with sufficient oxygen<br />
and a certain relation must be maintained between<br />
the oxygen consumed and combustion pro-
ducts in the outgoing flue gases, in order to obtain<br />
the highest economy ot fuel consumption. The<br />
quantity of carbon dioxide, oxygen and carbon<br />
monoxide in the flue gases is significant aud tells<br />
the engineer how well his boiler and coal are performing.<br />
The combustion of coal during a mine fire presents<br />
some features different to the combustion of<br />
coal in a boiler furnace, but to a person trained in<br />
the interpretation of results, the analysis of the<br />
air and products of combustion in a mine or section<br />
of a mine sealed off because fire exists or has<br />
existed therein, gives what is often very valuable<br />
information.<br />
In the early stages of a mine lire every effort<br />
is directed toward fighting same right at the seat<br />
of the conflagration, by loading out the hot coal,<br />
by drenching it with water, and by the use of<br />
portable fire extinguisehrs, etc. In many cases<br />
these efforts are not successful, and one of the<br />
last expedients adopted entails the sealing of the<br />
mine, or affected section of the mine, with stoppings,<br />
in order to exclude air and smother the<br />
fire.<br />
Certain fires have gained so much headway that<br />
the entire mine had to be flooded. This artifice,<br />
i hough effective, demands the use of an enormous<br />
quantity of water, not always easily obtainable,<br />
and subsequently much money is expended and<br />
time lost in draining the mine and putting it in<br />
shape again after the fire has been extinguished.<br />
When a mine fire has progressed to that stage,<br />
where the entire mine, or affected section of a<br />
mine, has been sealed off to prevent admission of<br />
air, it becomes especially desirable to sample the<br />
atmosphere behind the stoppings or dams, in<br />
order to determine the effectiveness of the latter<br />
in excluding air, or if the<br />
STOPPINGS ARE TIGHT,<br />
the depletion of oxygen which must follow air<br />
exclusion. A period of anxiety to all concerned<br />
follows the sealing operation, and any aid which<br />
can be rendered towards allaying fears of renewed<br />
conflagration, or of enabling the fire fighters to<br />
act timely in case conditions get worse, is worth<br />
considering.<br />
Disastrous consequences have sometimes followed<br />
the too early reopening of fire areas, and fires<br />
have flamed afresh when it was thought that the<br />
area had been well protected from air admission.<br />
Conditions have prevailed following the sealing of<br />
a mine or section which had caught fire, where the<br />
interpretation of observations based on facts relating<br />
to ordinary combustion had thoroughly convinced<br />
the fire fighters that reopening of the area<br />
could be safely accomplished, but with the reopening<br />
of the area time and again the admission<br />
of air has given the fire a fresh start. Because of<br />
this fact stoppings are sometimes left in place for<br />
months, and even then the greatest caution is<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN :>7<br />
taken when finally the stoppings are removed and<br />
air admitted into the fire area.<br />
When as a last resort a fire area in a mine is<br />
sealed off by means of the necessary stoppings,<br />
the atmosphere inside the area changes in composition,<br />
so that it becomes extinctive to flame for want<br />
of sufficient oxygen. Then the coals or wood coool<br />
to such an extent that readmission of air will not.<br />
lan them into a blaze and cause a renewal of the<br />
fire. Finally, the fire zone loses all excessive<br />
heat, so that it becomes normal in temperature<br />
again, although to reach this last named condition<br />
a considerable time usually elapses because embers,<br />
especially if they are buried beneath falls,<br />
are excellently insulated from heat radiation.<br />
Actual experiment shows that a flame of a candle,<br />
or ordinary miner's lamp, becomes extinguished<br />
when the oxygen in the surrounding air<br />
has fallen to about 17% per cent, in the presence<br />
of a small amount of carbon dioxide, and although<br />
a fire well under way when walls are built may<br />
continue to flame with the oxygen deficiency less<br />
than this figure, yet it gives some basis upon<br />
which to draw conclusions<br />
REGARDINNG THE OXYGEN<br />
deficiency required to extinguish a blaze in a coal<br />
mine, or the oxygen required to fan smouldering<br />
embers again into a blaze. Since the atmosphere<br />
in an enclosed mine sealed to prevent entrance of<br />
air to a fire rapidly reaches and exceeds this figure,<br />
it becomes a matter of sealing the area sufficiently<br />
tight to acomplish this purpose. If not<br />
tight, slow combustion may be maintained, such<br />
that the coals are kept in a condition whereby only<br />
the influx of more air either accidentally, or when<br />
stoppings are removed to open the district, will<br />
start the fire afresh.<br />
A stagnant area in a coal mine loses oxygen<br />
from another source than by combustion of coal<br />
due to the fire, viz: absorption of the oxygen by<br />
the coal at normal temperatures. This absorption<br />
appears to be a chemical combination between<br />
the oxygen and certain unsaturated compounds in<br />
the coal, and takes place with more or less rapidity,<br />
depending upon the nature of the coal. The<br />
action may be so rapid that oxygen depletion in<br />
an enclosed area, due to the absorption of this<br />
constituent, because of the fire, may play but a<br />
minor part in the total oxygen disappearance. This<br />
statement has especial reference to those cases<br />
where the area on fire has been small and the<br />
total area enclosed relatively large. That this<br />
phenomena occurs is especially fortunate, because<br />
oxygen in an enclosed area is removed so that the<br />
entire atmosphere rapidly becomes extinctive to<br />
flame.<br />
The absorption of oxygen by coal at ordinary<br />
temperatures is not accompanied by the production<br />
of a corresponding quantity of carbon dioxide,<br />
as is the case in ordinary combustion in a
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
boiler furnace, and accounts for the fact that<br />
those samples of abnormal mine air obtained by<br />
the Bureau from stagnant coal mine areas, have<br />
not contained large<br />
AMOUNTS OF CARRON DIOXIDE,<br />
even when the oxygen has been entirely absent.<br />
A fire in an enclosed coal mine area of course adds<br />
to the total quantity of carbon dioxide produced,<br />
but when the samples collected represent fire<br />
gases diluted by air from other parts of the enclosure,<br />
the carbon dioxide will not be proportionate<br />
to the oxygen consumed.<br />
When the air supply has become restricted,<br />
which quickly occurs, incomplete combustion begins,<br />
and at the seat of the fire, before the gases<br />
have been diluted, large quantities of carbon monoxide<br />
are usually formed and sometimes exist in<br />
all parts of the area in deadly quantities.<br />
Certain mines under normal conditions generate<br />
methane in large quantities, and an accumulation<br />
of same in a stagnant area may amount to 50 per<br />
cent, or more, in extreme cases, in a comparatively<br />
short time. On the other hand, stagnant atmospheres<br />
have been sampled by representatives of the<br />
Bureau, in which an accumulation extending over<br />
several months has not been sufficient to produce<br />
an explosive mixture were sufficient air present<br />
to form one. Small quantities of methane are undoubtedly<br />
formed from burning coal in a mine<br />
fire, and add in some measure to the normal methane<br />
from the coal pores and strata, but here again<br />
the factor of a relatively small fire area proper and<br />
large enclosed area may enter into consideration,<br />
so that throughout the larger section of the enclosure<br />
the amount of methane produced by the<br />
fire, and added to that exuded from the great body<br />
of Ihe coal is relatively small. Limited data obtalued<br />
by the Bureau on this point have indicated<br />
th f, this quantity may oe very small. In one<br />
ca.e samples obtained directly over the fire area<br />
shi-wed only about % per cent, more methane<br />
th./i was present behind a stopping 2,000 feet<br />
av ay from the affected section.<br />
Although the oxygen had fallen at the place where<br />
the first mentioned sample was taken to about 2 per<br />
cent., and the coals were intensely hot, only about<br />
1.5 per cent, carbon monoxide was present. Considerable<br />
conjecture has taken place as regards the<br />
part carbon monoxide might play in producing<br />
explosions during mine fires, but the data thus<br />
far accumulated by the Bureau points to an improbability<br />
of this happening, because of the presence<br />
of the gas in insufficient quantities. The<br />
real danger from explosion appears to lie in the<br />
presence of methane, which in some mines rapidly<br />
accumulates as soon as an<br />
AREA BECOMES STAGNANT,<br />
so that sufficient is present to form an explosive<br />
mixture with an inrush of air.<br />
Since the controlling and subduing of many fires<br />
so often develop into a matter of air exclusion,<br />
though this is hard to accomplish in some cases,<br />
it becomes a matter of walling the area for this<br />
purpose, and when this is accomplished, it is then<br />
desirable to sample the atmosphere behind the<br />
walls, in order to determine their effectiveness in<br />
excluding air. If the oxygen content remains<br />
stationary, or rises after a steady fall, efforts can<br />
be directed toward tightening the walls. If the<br />
oxygen content behind a wall contains 2 per cent.<br />
oxygen after four hours' time, which happened at<br />
a particular fire the writer attended, and then<br />
commences to rise due to inleakage of air, efforts<br />
can be made to tighten the stoppings before serious<br />
trouble becomes imminent. In tlie above case<br />
the percentage of oxygen necessary for the existence<br />
of flame was quickly passed, and this phenomenon<br />
has been observed to take place at all<br />
those mine fires attended by the author where air<br />
has been excluded.<br />
After a fire has been brought under control,<br />
samples of gas can be obtained and the composition<br />
of the atmosphere regularly ascertained, so<br />
that inleakage of air at any place can be determined.<br />
Exact figures regarding the oxygen content of<br />
an atmosphere required to fan smouldering embers<br />
into a blaze are difficult to giye, but data<br />
obtained by the Bureau throw some light on the<br />
subject. The author has in mind a heavily timbered<br />
stope in a metal mine which had been<br />
brought under control by sealing off the section,<br />
but which fanned into a blaze when the oxygen<br />
content, because of slow admission of air, had<br />
reached about 18 per cent. The area had blazed<br />
up again when attempts had been made to reopen<br />
the section about one week before. A fire in<br />
a timbered airway of an anthracite mine also<br />
greatly increased in intensity when the atmosphere<br />
in the area had approximated this percentage.<br />
Conclusions regarding the approximate length<br />
of time a fire area should remain closed after the<br />
fire had been brought under control have not<br />
been reached, because of different conditions existing<br />
at different fires, but certain it is that if the<br />
atmosphere can be analyzed so that the exact<br />
quantity of oxygen is known and if necessary<br />
steps are taken to tighten the area, more intelligent<br />
conclusions can be drawn regarding the<br />
length of time a particular area should remain<br />
closed. With the oxygen in an area almost or<br />
entirely consumed, combustion has ceased, and<br />
the question resolves itself into how long the<br />
embers can retain sufficient heat so that the admission<br />
of air will not fan them again into a<br />
flame.<br />
The Ebensburg Coal Co. shipped the first coal<br />
from its new mines at Colver, Pa., on August 21.
JEFFREY SINGLE ROLL CRUSHER.<br />
The growing demand for chain stokers has<br />
created a demand for fine coal in power plant use.<br />
The knowledge of the higher efficiency obtained<br />
by using stoker only in a finely divided state has<br />
led to a demand for as small sizes as may be consistent<br />
with practical firing. The two or threeinch<br />
lump coal, formerly<br />
considered satisfactory,<br />
has been reduced to oneinch<br />
and smaller, depending<br />
upon the type of<br />
stoker. The demand for<br />
screenings has grown to<br />
such an extent that, in<br />
many sections it is already<br />
greater than for<br />
lump or mine-run coal,<br />
and exceeds the output<br />
of the mine screens.<br />
To meet this demand<br />
and to dispose of the surplus<br />
lump, many of the<br />
coal operators are finding<br />
it necessary, and highly<br />
profitable. to install<br />
crushers for reducing the<br />
lump coal to smaller sizes. The Jeffrey Single<br />
Roll Crusher, as per accompanying illustration.<br />
has only recently been placed on the market. This<br />
crusher is built for use either at the tipple, or<br />
may be mounted on wheels to operate on a trackway<br />
over the storage bunkers.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
The design of this crusher is extremely simple,<br />
consisting of a heavy cast iron plate frame, in<br />
which are mounted a crushing roll and a breaker<br />
plate. The breaker plate is hinged at its upper<br />
edge and held in position b.v a pair of adjusting<br />
rods, enabling the roll to be varied to give any<br />
product required. The coal is received in any<br />
volume without a mechanical feeding device for<br />
regulating the feed. An efficient safety device protects<br />
men against shocks or accidents. By making<br />
all reduction simultaneously, it accomplishes in<br />
a single operation the results which usually require<br />
two operations in two separate machines.<br />
MOVEMENT OF COAL AND COKE OVER VARIOUS RAILROADS, RIVERS, AND CANALS<br />
FOR SIX MONTHS AND JUNE, 1910 AND 1911.<br />
RAILROADS.<br />
Baltimore and Ohio* <strong>•</strong> - <strong>•</strong><br />
Buffalo. Rochester and Pittsburgh<br />
Buffalo and Susquehanna . .<br />
Chesapeake and Ohiot<br />
Huntingdon and Broadtop Mountain* ....<br />
New York Central and Hudson River <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Norfolk and Western*<br />
Pennsylvania (east of Pittsburg and Erie)* <strong>•</strong><br />
Pittsburg and Lake Erie <strong>•</strong><br />
Pittsburg. Shawmut and Northern<br />
Southern Railway!<br />
Virginian Railway RIVERS AND CANALS.<br />
Barren River, Lock No. 1 ...<br />
Black Warrior River, Lock No. 12<br />
Canal and Falls at Louisville <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal <strong>•</strong><br />
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal . . . <strong>•</strong><br />
Davis Island Dam<br />
Green River, Lock No. 1<br />
Great Kanawha River<br />
Kentucky River. Lock No. 1 <strong>•</strong> - <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Monongahela River<br />
MONTH OF JUNE SIX MONTHS-<br />
Tons<br />
3.344,411<br />
7S3.494<br />
177,334<br />
1.239.590<br />
95.104<br />
650.618<br />
1.602.056<br />
>.206.327<br />
.672.321<br />
93.439<br />
351.706<br />
89.580<br />
204<br />
792<br />
273.877<br />
11.121<br />
20.024<br />
378.280<br />
2.651<br />
145.400<br />
4,200<br />
988.983<br />
Tons.<br />
2.872.461<br />
630.424<br />
161.968<br />
1.228,307<br />
87.495<br />
588.743<br />
1.610.436<br />
5.038.591<br />
1.405.666<br />
106.896<br />
301.684<br />
245.625<br />
120<br />
398<br />
17,129<br />
11,739<br />
22,782<br />
55.040<br />
1.124<br />
78,340<br />
1.800<br />
480.372<br />
Tons.<br />
17.925.999<br />
3.864.204<br />
776,633<br />
6.665,668<br />
651.tOO<br />
4.054,028<br />
9,845.733<br />
33,256.539<br />
8.396.741<br />
554.455<br />
1,757.264<br />
561,348<br />
1,370<br />
2,655<br />
828.641<br />
47.870<br />
67.486<br />
1,377.685<br />
17,674<br />
735.800<br />
34,600<br />
4,936.464<br />
* Includes coal received from connecting lines. tMay and five months figures.<br />
Tons<br />
16,140.675<br />
3.864,781<br />
977,438<br />
6.098.393<br />
534.087<br />
4.029.183<br />
9.370.408<br />
31,033.162<br />
7.120.309<br />
715.725<br />
1.562.416<br />
1.215,682<br />
998<br />
2,123<br />
968.262<br />
54.022<br />
68.494<br />
1.880,990<br />
15.802<br />
726.920<br />
47,700<br />
5,107.962
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
IDLE CARS LOWEST AT ANY<br />
TIME SINCE DECEMBER 21, 1910.<br />
The American Railway Association in tbe statement<br />
of car surpluses and shortages as of August<br />
10, says:<br />
"There* is a decrease in the surplus of all classes,<br />
the total decrease being 22,136 cars brings the<br />
total surplus down to 108,000, the lowest figure<br />
since the report for December 21, 1910. The decrease<br />
is principally in coal cars in group 3<br />
(Middle) although box cars show a reduction of<br />
5,692, principally in group 3 (Middle) and group<br />
S (Middle-Western), and miscellaneous cars 1,257.<br />
The car shortage shows a slight increase, the total<br />
being 3,830."<br />
The following table shows the surplus and shortages<br />
of cars on 166 roads on August 16. last:<br />
Surplus. Short. Net Surp.<br />
Box 37.912 1.319 36.593<br />
Flat 4.161 117 3.744<br />
Coal. gond. and hopper. 34.190 1,866 32,324<br />
Other kinds 31.737 228 31.509<br />
Total 108,000 3,830 104,170<br />
The appended table shows tbe net surpluses of<br />
equipment of various kinds on the dates mentioned:<br />
1911. Total.<br />
August 16 104.170<br />
August 2 128,OSS<br />
July 19 149,102<br />
July 5 103,621<br />
June 21 163,170<br />
June 7 160.802<br />
May 24 107.398<br />
May 10 1S7.27S<br />
April 26 1S7.000<br />
April 12 1S5.053<br />
March 29 194,887<br />
March 15 207,261<br />
March 1 189.841<br />
February 15 173.667<br />
February 1 155,068<br />
January IS 119,S20<br />
Jannary 4 106,924<br />
A NEW SHAFT RECORD.<br />
Reports from Globe, Arizona, indicate that a<br />
new record for rapid shaft sinking has been set<br />
for this country, if not for the world, says Mine<br />
and Quarry.<br />
During the 30 days elapsed between April 21<br />
and May 21, the Live Oak Development Co. sunk<br />
its No. 2 shaft vertically 205% feet and the miners<br />
did their own timbering, in addition. This<br />
is a double compartment shaft 5x4% feet in size.<br />
Three shifts, of four men each, were worked per<br />
24-hour day. All drilling was done with two<br />
US 2Vi-inch Sullivan rock drills, driven by air furnished<br />
by a class WB-2 straight line, two-stage,<br />
Sullivan Air Compressor, with 16xl6-ineh steam<br />
cylinders, and IS and llxl6-inch air cylinders.<br />
Shafts have oeen sunk farther than this in<br />
South Africa in 30 days' time, notably that of the<br />
Van Ryn Deep in July and August. 1910, 279 feet.<br />
This shaft was 20x7% feet in size, but was comparatively<br />
fiat, being driven at an angle of only<br />
22 degrees from the horizontal. This work was<br />
done with six S^-inch drills.<br />
From May 1 to May 31, the Live Oak shaft was<br />
driven 183 feet.<br />
RETAIL TRADE NOTES W<br />
The Merchants' Weight Protective Association<br />
has been <strong>org</strong>anized at Omaha, Neb,, for the purpose<br />
of assisting the city officials in enforcing<br />
a new ordinance designed to insure the giving of<br />
honest weights. The membership is composed<br />
largely of coal men, most of the leading firms in<br />
the local retail trade being represented, but dealers<br />
in grain, builders' supplies and other commodities<br />
are also interested. J. A. Sunderland<br />
was elected president: A. L. Patterson, treasurer;<br />
A. L. Havens and C. W. Hull, vice presidents.<br />
Garret H. Levis suddenly disappeared on the 5th<br />
inst. from Lansdowne, Pa., where he had been in<br />
the coal business for 35 years, and has not been<br />
heard from since. At a meeting of creditors last<br />
week it was found that he owed over $15,000 to<br />
wholesale companies and others and that his assets<br />
were not of much value.<br />
Dealers at Springfield, Mass., where the local<br />
trade has long been in unsatisfactory shape, are<br />
still selling at the April figures, but it is said<br />
that an advance will be made September 1.<br />
INDUSTRIAL NOTES<br />
Electrical Mining for July is in the hands of its<br />
readers and in addition to a complete description<br />
of an Illinois mine that is equipped entirely wdth<br />
Goodman machinery has a fund of other information<br />
that will be of interest to the coal trade at<br />
large.<br />
Mine and Quarry for August is just from the<br />
press and contains a number of articles relative<br />
to mines and mining that are both interesting and<br />
instructive.<br />
The July-August Bulletin of the Ohio Brass Co.,<br />
Mansfield, O., is just out, and as usual is full of<br />
interesting information.
HYDRAULIC STOWAGE OF COAL<br />
WASTES IN COAL MINES.<br />
The British consul-general at Dusseldorf, Mr.<br />
Koenig, in his annual report, gives some interesting<br />
details on the subject of "Hydraulic Stowage<br />
of Coal Wastes in Coal Mines," says the Colliery<br />
Guardian. He says there is at present an everincreasing<br />
interest in hydraulic stowing of coal<br />
waste in the coal mines of Westphalia, and it is<br />
considered likely that the majority of the coal<br />
mines will sooner or later be compelled to adopt<br />
the hydraulic stowing as already introduced by a<br />
certain number of coal mining companies. The<br />
general idea of the method is to fill the void made<br />
in working with material carried by water from<br />
the surface. The object of hydraulic stowing is:<br />
1. To support the surface and prevent buildings<br />
from cracking.<br />
2. To allow of the working of the whole coal in<br />
very thick seams, thus dispensing with coal pillars.<br />
3. To prevent surface water from flooding the<br />
workings.<br />
4. To support the surface carrying roads and<br />
railways which would otherwise sink in the natural<br />
course of time.<br />
5. It is maintained that hydraulic stowing prevents<br />
fire by spontaneous ignition, thus causing<br />
greater safety to the miners.<br />
0. Hydraulic stowing is stated to be a saving<br />
in Ihe timber used underground.<br />
In olden times the main thing in coal mining was<br />
to produce large quantities of coal and thus keep<br />
down the cost per ton. Under government regulations<br />
certain pillars of coal had to be left to support<br />
railways and buildings. To-day the laws as<br />
to surface damages are very strict and claims for<br />
compensation are very frequent. The expenditure<br />
under this heading has become very considerable,<br />
so that in many cases hydraulic stowing<br />
has become a necessity. It would appear that<br />
under the new system of hydraulic stowing the<br />
leaving of coal pillars as supports would, to a<br />
large extent, become superfluous. The substitution<br />
of a complete support is one of the burning<br />
questions of the day, especially in the thickly populated<br />
mining and industrial district of Westphalia,<br />
where the value of landed property and buildings<br />
has increased so enormously.<br />
With regard to the materials used for hydraulic<br />
stowing, the ideal material would appear to be<br />
sand wherever immediately available. In many<br />
cases, however, pit waste, blast furnace slag, and<br />
ashes are used. The slag is reduced to a sandy<br />
state, and in this form proves to be very good<br />
stowing material. In Westphalia sand is not<br />
always available and substitutes have to be found.<br />
ground down, and well mixed before being flushed<br />
down the pipes for stowing purposes. In the<br />
Saarbrucken State mines the material used is<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
chiefly boiler ashes and furnace slag mixed with<br />
brick clay. The storage there has proved so successful<br />
that they have been able to win the pillars<br />
of coal left to support the surface where formerly<br />
surface damage had taken place. It is<br />
said that in some cases in thick seams the loss of<br />
coal under the old system, apart from safety pillars<br />
left standing amounted to 40 to 50 per cent.,<br />
which, it is proved, would be entirely obviated<br />
under the new method. In many cases in Westphalia<br />
the coal is being worked from under the<br />
villages, and in some eases towns, where the damage<br />
caused to the surface used to be very heavy;<br />
the hydraulic system has been installed, and has<br />
proved a great success, preventing further subsi<br />
dence of the surface. It is generally considered<br />
that hydraulic stowing does not prevent surface<br />
damage entirely, but it has been proved to keep<br />
down the claims caused by subsidence of the surface<br />
to a minimum. In all cases hydraulic stowing<br />
has been found a great improvement on the<br />
old method, the coal output being increased, and<br />
the costs experienced in the past from claims for<br />
damages being vastly decreased.<br />
With regard to the pipes used for hydraulic<br />
stowing, steel or wrought iron is chiefly used, with<br />
a cast iron, cast steel, or porcelain lining. The<br />
diameter of the pipes averages about 7 inches. The<br />
cast iron lining appears to be the one preferred,<br />
and is less expensive than the porcelain lining.<br />
With regard to the cost of hydraulic stowing it<br />
appears to vary very much, according to the material<br />
used in flushing. The cheapest material is<br />
sand where it can be obtained on the spot, whereas<br />
the most expensive material is that which has to<br />
be ground down and mixed before it can be used.<br />
The actual cost of hydraulic stowdng would appear<br />
to be anything between 6d. and 1s. 6d. per ton of<br />
coal.<br />
When it is considered that under the old system<br />
of work the loss of coal is in some cases some 40<br />
to 50 per cent., and that the production in Germany<br />
in 1909 amounted to 148,900.000 tons, of<br />
which 85.000,000 tons, or nearly 60 per cent., was<br />
produced in the mining board district of Dortmund,<br />
and that Germany's total output in 1910<br />
amounted to 153,000,000 tons, it would mean a dead<br />
loss (taking 20 per cent, only as an average loss)<br />
of coal left in the pit of about 30,000.000 tons in<br />
one year, an enormous saving in national wealth<br />
being possible in the adoption of the hydraulic<br />
stowing system, which is so simple and inexpensive.<br />
Assuming the production in the United<br />
Kingdom to be at the very least 270,000,000 tons<br />
per annum, there would be a saving of 54,000,000<br />
tons per annum at least.<br />
The advantages claimed in Westphalia are as<br />
follow:<br />
1. The increase of the total coal output per
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
annum owing to the advantages enumerated under<br />
2 to 10.<br />
2. The reduction under given circumstances in<br />
the consumption of pit timber.<br />
3. The effectual prevention of underground fires<br />
and the great dangers connected therewith.<br />
4. The favorable action against the dangers of<br />
firedamp as all vacuities in or in direct communi<br />
cation with the goaf are filled.<br />
."]. The possibility given of winning coal out<br />
of lower seams without injuriously affecting those<br />
above, and the consequently increased elasticity<br />
as to disposition of work.<br />
6. The remarkable and much-needed power of<br />
concentration of the work, the increase of the pow<br />
ers of production, the reduction of forewinning<br />
operations, an.i the facilities of bringing a new<br />
winning rapidly into full production.<br />
7. The reduction of losses in working the broken,<br />
the saving to tbe nation of enormous quanti<br />
ties of mineral wealth, the winning of deposits<br />
which were formerly considered lost, having to be<br />
left as pillars.<br />
8. A thorough securing of tbe surface against<br />
damages through good execution of the work.<br />
9. The reduction to a minimum of the danger of<br />
life and limb in the falling of stone and coal.<br />
10. The great advantage of the system is that<br />
it brings with it no new dangers, and that it obvi<br />
ates many dangers and accidents.<br />
There is no doubt that hydraulic stowing has<br />
proved successful in Westphalia, and is extending.<br />
As by degrees experience is being gathered, new<br />
installations are being erected. Where stowing<br />
has been practiced, it has greatly reduced the<br />
claims for damages to buildings. Tbe wear and<br />
tear of the pipes depend largely upon the stowing<br />
material available and the quality and quantity<br />
of the water used.<br />
It may safely be stated that hydraulic stowing<br />
will spread extensively throughout this mining<br />
district, and particularly so in cases where it is<br />
a question of getting tbe coal under villages or<br />
towns where the claims for damages are very<br />
heavy, and wdien in some case the getting of the<br />
coal would be practically impossible under the old<br />
system.<br />
The- Panish Coal Co. is expending about $75,000<br />
on the erection of three large washeries in Wilkes-<br />
Barre, Pa. Two of these are nearing completion<br />
at the Buttonwood. alongside of the Buttonwood<br />
colliery, and the foundation for the third has been<br />
laid near the Parrish collier.v. Frank B. Davenport<br />
drew the plans for the washeries. They are<br />
being erected by the Wheeler & Reilly Construction<br />
Co. The washeries are being supplied with<br />
all of the most modern mining apparatus, and<br />
will have a number of new inventions for washing<br />
out the culm.<br />
COAL IN CALIFORNIA IN 1910.<br />
California's iiroduction of coal in 1910 was 11.164<br />
short tons, with a spot value of $1S,336, accord<br />
ing to E. W. Parker, of the United States Geological<br />
Survey.<br />
In 1909 California showed the largest percentage<br />
of increase among the coal producing states. In<br />
191(1 it showed the largest percentage of decrease.<br />
Both changes were due to fluctuations in the operations<br />
of the Stone Canyon Consolidated Coal Co.,<br />
in .Monterey county. For two years preceding<br />
1909 this company had expended large amounts<br />
of money in developing its property and in building<br />
a 25-mile railroad to connect its mine with the<br />
Southern Pacific railroad. Unfortunately unforeseen<br />
difficulties were encountered, and one misfortune<br />
followed another until the resources of<br />
the company were exhausted and as it was unable<br />
to procure additional capital a receiver was ap<br />
pointed and work was suspended in October, 1909.<br />
In the nine months from January to September of<br />
that year the Stone Canyon mines had produced<br />
75 per cent, of the state's output for the entire<br />
year. Xo coal was produced at this mine in<br />
1910 and the iiroduction for the state decreased<br />
about 75 per cent.<br />
All of the coal produced in 1911) came from<br />
Amador and Riverside counties, principally from<br />
the lone mine in Amador county. This coal is<br />
lignite. The Stone Canyon coal is a non-coking<br />
bituminous coal of good quality and should make<br />
an excellent domestic fuel. It stands exposure<br />
well and wilh favorable freight rates would compete<br />
successfully with foreign coals in the markets<br />
of San Francisco and other cities of the state.<br />
BIG COAL DEPOSIT DISCOVERED?<br />
Edwin Perry, secretary-treasurer of the l'uited<br />
.Mine Workers, who recently returned to headquarters<br />
in Indianapolis from the Northwest,<br />
heard glowing accounts, at Fernie, Canada, of the<br />
<strong>•</strong> mountain" of coal that was discovered not long<br />
ago in Canada, near Corbin, about 40 miles north<br />
of the Montana line.<br />
Mr. Perry did not have an opportunity to visit<br />
the deposit of coal, which is more in the nature<br />
of a mountain than an ordinary mine, but was<br />
told about it by the officials of the mine workers.<br />
He was told that there are about 10,000,000 tons<br />
of loose coal in sight, and that it is estimated<br />
there are 70,000,000 tons in the deposit, which is<br />
covered by about one foot of soil and is in the<br />
form of a mountain. It was said that a drill was<br />
sunk 1,000 feet without reaching the bottom of the<br />
coal.<br />
T. Riley Huffman and others have sold to J. V.<br />
Tnompson, of Uniontown, Pa., 363 acres of coal<br />
in Greene county. Pa., for $95,162.71.
:<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
THE MAKING OF A PRACTICAL MINER-<br />
By W. M. Hart, Fire Boss at Salem Mine Keystone Coal &. Coke Company.<br />
When my subject was proposed for discussion<br />
before this Institute it may have been thought<br />
by some to be of a trivial character, but to those<br />
who have given it serious thought, it is a matter<br />
of great importance to the mining interests, not<br />
only at the present time, but for the future.<br />
The year that has just passed has wrought a<br />
very radical change in tne general character of<br />
the miner—especially in this section of the Pennsylvania<br />
coal field—from the fact that thousands<br />
of men, strong and vigorous of body have become<br />
miners as a means of earning a livelihood, but<br />
who are destitute of all knowledge relating to the<br />
science of mining. The question has naturally<br />
arisen—and in a very pressing manner—as to the<br />
best methods to be employed by those having<br />
charge of the mines in taking this raw material<br />
aud moulding it into capable, self-reliant, trustworthy<br />
miners—miners who can be trusted to<br />
guard against the many dangers that are common<br />
in and about every mine.<br />
Tlie great majority of these men are natives of<br />
Southern Europe, and are as ignorant of the<br />
English language as they are of the necessary<br />
knowledge that should be possessed by a skilled.<br />
practical miner. Only those who have been called<br />
upon to watch over and instruct these men can<br />
form the faintest idea of the difficulties that have<br />
to be met with and overcome. The man who is<br />
engaged in<br />
THIS TASK OF INSTRUCTION<br />
has reason to congratulate himself if he meets<br />
with but a moderate degree of success; for to<br />
meet with entire success a man would have to<br />
possess the hand and the rod of a despot and the<br />
heart and patience of an angel of wisdom and<br />
understanding.<br />
Accidents to life and limb will, no doubt, always<br />
occur wherever mining is engaged in, even<br />
among experienced and well trained men; therefore,<br />
it is an obvious fact that unless these newrecruits<br />
are carefully watched and properly instructed,<br />
and a constant vigilance is exercised, the<br />
list of casualties will be greatly increased. That<br />
deplorable state of affairs can only be obviated in<br />
one way, and that is by the officials of each mine<br />
making an earnest effort to see that these men<br />
get the proper instruction in the methods of mining,<br />
timbering, the handling of explosives, the<br />
care of lamps, the requirement^ of the law, and the<br />
numberless other things which it is necessary for<br />
him to know before he can qualify as an efficient<br />
miner. The man who undertakes the instruction<br />
of a number of these men must, from the very<br />
"Paper read before the Keystone Mining Institute. Greensburs.<br />
Pa.. August 3, 1911.<br />
start, consider the unchangeable fact that each<br />
separate individual is a sepaiate proposition. No<br />
two men are built exactly alike in temperament or<br />
,.imposition; and the teacher will gain much, and<br />
meet greater success, if he studies the tendencies<br />
ol bis pupil. Of coins, he labors under the disadvantage<br />
ot not being able to speak in all the<br />
various languages anti dialects with which he<br />
comes in contact, but by signs, pantomime and<br />
actual demonstration, he can generally<br />
MAKE HIMSELF UNPEKSTOOD<br />
in regard to undermining coal, taking down dangeious<br />
rock or roof, setting posts, preparing a<br />
blast, the proper handling and use of a safetylamp,<br />
and such other duties as complete the routine<br />
of a miner's day's labor.<br />
The law should be taught him in his own language,<br />
through an interpreter, in as plain and<br />
comprehensive a manner as is possible; and he<br />
should be clearly impressed with the fact that the<br />
law was put in force for his own safety as well<br />
as that of others, and that punishment will quickly<br />
and certainly follow any violation of it.<br />
It is a comparatively light task to teach a certain<br />
portion of these men. Those who are conscious<br />
of their lack of mining knowledge and are<br />
ready and willing to learn, learn quickly, and<br />
take up every suggestion, observing closely when<br />
being shown, and making an earnest effort to'obey<br />
every order coming from the proper source.<br />
The instructor here meets with a difficulty that<br />
is hard to overcome in teaching his pupil how to<br />
protect himself from injury, from loose rock, slate,<br />
etc., by taking it down. By repeated warnings<br />
and continually reminding him of the danger from<br />
overhanging rock or roof, he instills a fear into<br />
the heart of his pupil for everything that is over<br />
his head; and through this fear the man is unfitted<br />
to be placed on rib or pillar work, from the fact<br />
that his fear will prevent him from being a capable<br />
man to withdraw- timber and make a fall in<br />
the proper manner. Through his fear he will also<br />
stand up on his loose coal, and dig down slate<br />
that is not in anyway dangerous, and will mix<br />
it up with his coal in such a manner that, by the<br />
feeble<br />
LIGHT OF Ills SAFETY LAMP<br />
he is unable to separate it. Consequently, he<br />
sends out dirty and unmarketable coal, and<br />
through this becomes a detriment to all parties<br />
concerned. Therefore, it wdll be readily seen, the<br />
instructor in gaining one point may defeat himself<br />
in two other very important ones.<br />
When these men enter a mine for the purpose<br />
of earning a livelihood they open their eyes on a<br />
new world. Everything is entirely new to both<br />
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
their head and their hands. They do not lack<br />
brawn or muscle, for they have grown to manhood<br />
on the skirmish-line for bread in their native<br />
lands; but a coal mine, and everything connected<br />
witli it, is a revelation, and their untrained eyes<br />
and ears fail to detect the many hidden dangers<br />
that are met with in every mine. They see no<br />
special danger, except the general one of going<br />
underground and working with thousands of tons<br />
of rock above their heads, and they have no knowledge<br />
of telling whether it is liable to fall or not.<br />
Therefore, these men must, of necessity, start at<br />
the very A, B, C of mining knowledge. They are<br />
living, human machines, having the power anil<br />
willingness to perform the arduous duties of a<br />
miner, but their force and efforts must be guided<br />
in the proper direction; for their own unaided<br />
efforts will be futile and may end in accident or<br />
death.<br />
Here is where the duties of an instructor or<br />
teacher come in; and this matter grows to serious<br />
proportions when we consider how few there are<br />
who are capable and fitted in every way for these<br />
instructors. The most successful teacher, and<br />
the one who would secure the best results all along<br />
this line of instruction, is at the present time<br />
somewhat of a rarity. We speak of the old time<br />
practical miner, who has an education which is<br />
not named nor classified. He secured his diploma<br />
through a life-long scholarship in the school of<br />
real experience. Starting in boyhood, generally<br />
under the eye of his father or elder brother, his<br />
hand has acquired a skill, and his eye and ear<br />
have become so trained, that it is a second nature<br />
with him to<br />
DETECT MANY OF THE DANGERS<br />
that surround him. He did not secure this education<br />
in any shrine of art nor temple of learning.<br />
He does not recognize it by any Greek or Latin<br />
term. It cannot be calculated by any mathematical<br />
equation. Its boundary cannot be determined<br />
by any lines of geometry or of trigonometry. It<br />
is a wealth of which he is unconscious, from the<br />
fact that it has actually been rubbed into his system<br />
through years of constant application. By<br />
lightly tapping an overhanging rock his ear will<br />
instantly note wnether it be safe or unsafe; and<br />
his eye will tell him, by its position and surroundings,<br />
whether it should be taken down or<br />
not. He can tell at a glance whether a place has<br />
sufficient timber set or not, and will note whether<br />
they are properly set or not. His eye will search<br />
out a cutter or water slip in the slate or roof<br />
which may be the cause of immediate danger and<br />
which would pass unnoticed by an untrained man.<br />
From conditions surrounding him he would realize<br />
the probability of fire-damp collecting in some<br />
portion of the mine, and the first law of nature,<br />
which is self-preservation, would urge him to form<br />
some plan to lessen the danger caused thereby.<br />
Though a man may have the faculty of detecting<br />
and avoiding many of the dangers which beset tbe<br />
miner, and may be well schooled in all the details<br />
of the best known methods of mining, there are<br />
other attributes which he must possess before he<br />
can be a successful, efficient teacher among these<br />
gi own-up pupils. These men are fully developed<br />
human machines. Their form and muscle and<br />
strength and moral character are already moulded.<br />
Therefore it is a subtle knowledge which the<br />
teacher must try to impart. He cannot improve<br />
on the mechanism or character of the machine,<br />
but he must bend his efforts to utilize the force or<br />
power which he has to get the best results for all<br />
parties from it. His pupil wants to learn, for<br />
ne well knows tnat the<br />
.MORE SKILLFUL HE BECOMES<br />
tbe better will he be able to earn more money.<br />
His employer wants him to learn, for he is not a<br />
source of profit until he is able to mine his coal<br />
properly and to furnish a clean, marketable product,<br />
as well as to make proper use of material<br />
furnished him; and until he is a practical, reliable<br />
miner there is the ever-present danger of<br />
an accident occurring through his ignorance. This<br />
frequently happens in spite of the laws and rules<br />
and safety devices that have been installed—dangers<br />
that could not be foreseen and provided for<br />
unless the miner himself had sufficient mining<br />
knowledge to secure his own safety.<br />
The legislature of this state and the different<br />
coal companies of this section have been liberal,<br />
and have spent large sums of money to promote<br />
the health and safety of the miner, yet accidents<br />
are numerous. The law of common humanity<br />
impels us all to deplore this fact, and the same<br />
law urges us to use every means within our reach<br />
to lessen the list of casualties.<br />
The man who undertakes the instruction of these<br />
raw recruits must possess his soul in patience;<br />
for it is certainly a trying undertaking to show<br />
and explain and demonstrate every feature of mining<br />
coal down to the very simplest details, all the<br />
various duties of a miner, and the best method of<br />
performing each duty, keeping the law and safety<br />
in sight at all times.<br />
Where it can be done, the beginner should be<br />
placed at work with a man who has had at least<br />
some experience as a miner; but here we meet<br />
with our first difficulty, as the more experienced<br />
man objects to working with a man who is not<br />
able to do his<br />
HALF OF THE WORK,<br />
and who yet expects to receive the half of the<br />
money which they both earn. We do not wonder<br />
at this, as the law of fair play teaches that only<br />
an equal division of labor will justify an equal<br />
division of reward: therefore, this plan cannot<br />
always be followed.<br />
The next best plan is to put two of them to-
gether in the safest place that can be secured, and<br />
a careful watch kept over them by some experienced<br />
person to look to their safety and to instruct<br />
them as to the proper methods of procedure<br />
in every part of mining. This instructor may he<br />
the mine foreman or his assistant, the fire-boss or<br />
shot-firer, or a man specially employed for that<br />
purpose. Great pains should be taken that they<br />
learn to perform all the various duties in the<br />
safest and most approved manner.<br />
The instructor should take a pick and by actual<br />
demonstration show him the easiest, as well as the<br />
most rapid and safest way to undercut his coal.<br />
He should set up and show him the use of a<br />
sprag under his coal.<br />
He should show him where, and at what pitch,<br />
to bore his hole for a blast to secure the best results.<br />
He should teach him to handle all explosives<br />
with great care.<br />
He should set up a post properly for his instruction,<br />
and endeavor to show him the proper<br />
place to set a post.<br />
He should teach him to distinguish, by the<br />
sound, between a loose rock and a solid one.<br />
He should show him the proper wa\ to lay the<br />
rails in his road.<br />
He should impress upon him an understanding of<br />
EVERY FEATURE OF TIIE LAW.<br />
as well as the rules and customs of the mine—in<br />
regard to traveling ways, danger boards, signals,<br />
etc.<br />
He must teach him the proper use of his lamp,<br />
and how to obtain the best illumination.<br />
A safety lamp at its best is but an imperfect<br />
light for the purpose of mining coal: hut it is<br />
the safest and best that the genius of man has<br />
been able to devise up to the present time, and<br />
we are compelled to use it until we get a better<br />
one; but it is only safe in a safe man's hands.<br />
It is both heavy and cumbersome; and. if moving<br />
about, must be held in one hand. As far as the<br />
miner's work is concerned, he might just as well<br />
have a lamp in ihe other hand: for he can neither<br />
lift, shovel, sledge, dig nor drill, with one hand.<br />
This forces him to hang his lamp up. It should<br />
never be allowed to sit on the bottom while the<br />
miner is at work: and it is not always convenient<br />
to find a suitable place to hang a lamp where Its<br />
rays will shine in that part of his working place<br />
where he most needs the light.<br />
The instructor who is called upon to teach, say<br />
30 or 40 of these men at one time, will find that<br />
if he is in earnest in the matter his time will be<br />
fully occupied. His patience will be tried to the<br />
utmost, and he will have a wide and fertile field<br />
in which to discover whether he is easily discouraged<br />
or not.<br />
There are other duties which he may be called<br />
upon to perform that are not calculated to stimu<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
late his pride. He may have to take one of these<br />
grown-up children and lead him to some portion<br />
of the mine and<br />
SHOW HIM HOW VXD WHERE<br />
be may attend to the calls of nature without polluting<br />
air currents which must be breathed by<br />
himself and other men. This is not a very dignified<br />
office to fill. In fact, you can lay your dignity<br />
entirely aside; but, nevertheless, here is a<br />
fact wdiich must be borne in mind. The performance<br />
of that humble duty is one of the items which<br />
go toward the fulfillment of the law, which has<br />
been enacted to "promote the health and welfare<br />
of all persons employed in the mine."<br />
With proper instruction, many of these men<br />
will in time, become careful, efficient miners, will<br />
perform their work in a neat, workmanlike manner,<br />
getting the coal out clean and causing no<br />
uncalled-for waste in material, and will be especially<br />
desirable for rib and stump work, where a<br />
careless, slovenly, wasteful, half-trained man will<br />
cause untold loss.<br />
Money spent on the instruction of these men<br />
is a good investment; and the returns will come<br />
through having miners who are capable of performing<br />
their duties in the safest and most economical<br />
way. both to themselves and to their employer.<br />
No mine is safe, and no amount of care nor<br />
expenditure of money wdll make it absolutely safe.<br />
With all the law. all the safety appliances: with<br />
the most experienced and brainy of men of the<br />
mining world as officials, the immense sums of<br />
money that are poured out yearly by the state<br />
and the corporations to promote safety, yet in<br />
the face of all these costly remedies, accidents are<br />
numerous, and the measure of our success seems<br />
small when compared with the mighty effort put<br />
forth, in the war against accident and disaster.<br />
The very nature of mining entails danger. The<br />
overhanging rock or roof is a constant<br />
MENACE TO I.TFE AXD LIVID.<br />
The accumulation of fiery or noxious gases is<br />
like a hair-hung sword over the miner's head.<br />
The pitch or grade of tracks often necessitate the<br />
rapid and hazardous running of trips. Ropes,<br />
dillies, motors, shafts and machinery, are often<br />
sources of danger, yet are necessary for the successful<br />
operation of the mine; but the most prolific<br />
source of danger in a mine is the miner himself.<br />
We speak of the miner as a bodv; and in this<br />
case, as well as in all other cases, the exception<br />
onlv proves the rule.<br />
Among these European recruits we find so many<br />
phases of the human character, which are the<br />
prime factors of accident: ignorance, carelessness.<br />
curiositv, indiscretion, greed and drunkenness.<br />
These are the elements of all human woe: and<br />
in the mines are the fountainhead and the direct.
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
positive cause of the greater part of the unfortu<br />
nate happenings. The predominating cause is<br />
ignorance; then how important it is that a deter<br />
mined effort be directed against this one baleful<br />
cause of so much misery and loss of life and<br />
property?<br />
Instruction is the only known remedy for ignor<br />
ance. Then, most certainly, the proper course<br />
to puisne is the spreading of knowledge, working<br />
on the theory that "an ounce of prevention is<br />
worth a pound of cure." By so doing, we may,<br />
to a certain extent, overcome the deplorable re<br />
sults of all these frailties in the character of the<br />
miner.<br />
It is a rare instance wdiere the cause of an acci<br />
dent can be traced to any other source than the<br />
miner himself, and many of these are due to the<br />
lack of proper instruction. The disposition to<br />
risk and take chances is born in humanity, but<br />
seems to have gained an abnormal growth in the<br />
miner, even where bis own life, or that of others.<br />
is endangered: and some of these<br />
ACTS ARE So FLAGRANT<br />
that they take the form of suicide or wanton destruction.<br />
Of course there are other causes which contribute<br />
to the list of cansualties: but the greater<br />
part of the list can be directly traced to the ele<br />
ments above named.<br />
We arrive at this conclusion through a process<br />
of elimination. The government and the state<br />
perform their part to prevent accident by enacting<br />
stringent laws, costly in their enforcement<br />
and far-reaching and strict in their demands:<br />
therefore, they are not responsible.<br />
The government officials and the inspectors—<br />
state and corporation—are men of integrity and<br />
of proved ability, perform their duties in accordance<br />
with the law and array their knowledge<br />
against the causes of accident to life and limb.<br />
We therefore erase their names from the list of<br />
probable causes.<br />
The corporations do not question the wisdom<br />
nf the law. but stand ready to comply wdth every<br />
demand of tne law in the interests of safety, re<br />
gardless of expense, in the way of new appliances<br />
or methods, or the employment of more expert<br />
knowledge in the operating of their mines. Therefore,<br />
they are not one of the causes.<br />
The superintendents are men of sound judg<br />
ment and executive ability, and their best efforts<br />
are put forth to avoid accident and to continually<br />
increase the degree of securilv for all employes<br />
under their charges; they also are eliminated in<br />
our search for the cause of accident.<br />
The mine foremen, assistants and fire-bosses.<br />
are men who have given satisfactory proof before<br />
a board of competent examiners tbat thev have a<br />
general knowledge of mining, of the varied dan<br />
gers of a mine, and of their ability to<br />
AVERT THESE DANGERS<br />
as far as it is possible for any human power to<br />
avert them; therefore we strike these from the<br />
list of probable causes.<br />
If one of these officials, employed by either the<br />
state or by the corporation, becomes delinquent in<br />
tbe performance of duties the fact is soon known,<br />
and he also is eliminated. He has fallen by the<br />
sword of either the one or the other of the consuming<br />
features that afflict humanity—ignorance,<br />
carelessness, curiosity, greed or drunkenness;<br />
but ignorance, the arch enemy of all enlightenment,<br />
has more scalps hanging at his belt than<br />
all other causes combined.<br />
By this process of elimination we come back<br />
to our original assertion—that the greatest peril<br />
connected with mining is the miner himself.<br />
Nearly all other contingencies can be provided<br />
for to safeguard life and property; but knowledge<br />
and instruction are the only weapons with which<br />
we can ward off the calamities induced by ignor<br />
ance and its pernicious kindred.<br />
Valiant strides are being made in the way of<br />
first-aid and rescue corps; but in this commendable<br />
work let us not lose sight of the fact that<br />
if. through instruction, we can prevent a man<br />
from getting injured we render him a greater<br />
service than we can by being able to take care<br />
of him by approved methods after the damage is<br />
done.<br />
It is small comfort to an injured man to tell<br />
him that there is a fracture about the center of the<br />
"femur" bone; for he will insist that his leg is<br />
broken, and his mind is dwelling on the fact that<br />
several pay days will pass before he will be able<br />
to enter the mine again. With more complete<br />
instruction this man might have been able to<br />
AVOID THIS ACCIDENT,<br />
as we feel assured that the service of instruction<br />
among the miners is not keeping step with the<br />
other great humane movements which are achieving<br />
such grand results in the diffusion of knowl<br />
edge regarding first-aid and rescue work; but present<br />
conditions naturally confine this instruction<br />
tn the more intelligent class of working men.<br />
Where instruction and knowledge is most needed<br />
is in f he lower strata of the mining fraternity;<br />
and the kind of instruction most needed cannot<br />
be given through any text-book, nor testing station.<br />
Ignorance prevents any good results through these<br />
medium 1 --; therefore, the instructor must get down<br />
and stand wdth his pupil in his own working place,<br />
and point out the various dangers and how to avert<br />
them<br />
The instructor who can take a number of these<br />
nieces of untempered metal and mould them into<br />
careful, efficient miners is worthy of his hire, and<br />
has just reasons for being proud of his work;<br />
for, certainly, in the mining world, they are children<br />
of his own creation.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
TEXT OF NEW BITUMINOUS MINING CODE OF PENNSYLVANIA<br />
PASSED BY THE LEGISLATIVE SESSION OF 1911.<br />
(CONTINUED FROM ISSUE OF AUGUST 15)<br />
ARTICLE XXIII.<br />
ANNUAL REPORTS.<br />
Section 1. On or before the 25th day of January<br />
in each year, the operator or the superintendent<br />
of every mine shall send to the inspector<br />
of the district a correct report, specifying with<br />
respect to the year ending the 31st day of December,<br />
preceding, the name of tlie operator and officers<br />
of the mine, number of tons of coal mined,<br />
number of tons of coke manufactured, number of<br />
different employes classified, and the total number<br />
of days worked during the year. The report<br />
shall be in such form, and give such information<br />
regarding the mine, as may be from time to time<br />
required and prescribed by the Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines.<br />
The operator or the superintendent who fails to<br />
comply with the provisions of this article shall be<br />
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.<br />
ARTICLE XXIV.<br />
BOARDS TO EXAMINE APPLICANTS FOR CERTIFICATES OF<br />
QUALIFICATION AS MINE FOREMEN. ASSISTANT<br />
MINE FOREMEN AND FIRE BOSSES.<br />
Section 1. On petition of the mine inspector,<br />
the court of common pleas in any county in said<br />
district shall appoint an examining board of three<br />
persons, consisting of a mine inspector, a miner<br />
and an operator or superintendent, which said<br />
miner shall have had at least 10 years' practical<br />
experience and be in actual practice in mines of<br />
this Commonwealth, generating explosive gas, and<br />
the members of said examining board shall be citizens<br />
of this Commonwealth; and the persons so<br />
appointed shall, after being duly <strong>org</strong>anized, take<br />
and subscribe before an officer authorized to administer<br />
the same, the following oath, namely:<br />
"We, the undersigned, do solemnly swear for<br />
affirm) that we will perform the duties of examiners<br />
of applicants for certificates of qualification<br />
as mine foremen, assistant mine foremen, and fire<br />
bosses; that we will not divulge, or make known<br />
to any person, any question prepared for the examiners<br />
or in any manner assist any applicant to<br />
pass the examination, but will be governed by the<br />
evidence of the qualifications of the applicants<br />
to fill said positions and not by any consideration<br />
of personal favor and that we will certify all<br />
whom we may find qualified in accordance with<br />
this act and none other."<br />
Any member of any board of examiners who<br />
shall divulge, or make known any question prepared<br />
for an examination prior to such question<br />
being handed to the applicant at the examination,<br />
or in any manner assist any applicant to pass the<br />
examination, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.<br />
Any vacancy that may occur in the<br />
membership of the board shall be filled by the<br />
court of common pleas, in accordance with the<br />
provisions of this section.<br />
The said board of examiners shall meet for the<br />
purpose of holding examinations at the call of the<br />
mine inspector, and at least two weeks' notice<br />
of time and place where the examination will be<br />
held shall be given.<br />
Section 2. The members of the Boards of Examiners<br />
appointed by the courts of common pleas.<br />
with the inspectors in office, shall meet in the<br />
city of Pittsburgh each year two weeks before<br />
the time set for the examination of applicants,<br />
for the purpose of discussing the general scope<br />
of the theoretical and practical questions to be<br />
given the applicants, and to adopt rules to govern<br />
the examinations, and to decide any other important<br />
matters pertaining to their duties, and said<br />
boards shall select a committee of six of their<br />
number comprising two inspectors, two miners,<br />
and two operators, managers, or superintendents,<br />
to formulate a code of questions to be used at the<br />
next suceecding examinations. The said committee<br />
shall select one of their members as chairman<br />
and one as secretary. The questions prepared<br />
by the said committee shall be printed under<br />
the personal direction of the chairman and the<br />
secretary of the committee and sent by them by<br />
express in sealed packages, each package containing<br />
a set of questions for each session to the<br />
chairman of each Board of Examiners, who shall<br />
break the seal and open the package at the commencement<br />
of each session, in the presence of the<br />
other members of the board.<br />
After the examinations of applicants are over,<br />
and before the several boards meet to examine the<br />
papers of the applicants, the said committee of<br />
six shall meet again to prepare answers for the<br />
questions propounded; and these answers shall<br />
be sent to the chairman of each board to be used<br />
in rating the value of the answers given by the<br />
applicants. While preparing answers to the questions,<br />
the committee is hereby authorized to engage<br />
the services of a clerk, who shall be a stenographer<br />
and whose compensation and mileage<br />
shall be the same as that of the members of the<br />
committee.<br />
Section 3. Each member of each board shall<br />
receive $6 a day for each day actually employed,<br />
not exceeding 20 days in all. and mileage at the<br />
rate of 2% cents a mile for each mile necessarily<br />
traveled in going from his home to the place of
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
meeting and return, by the shortest practicable<br />
railway route: Provided, that, the mileage shall<br />
be paid but once for each continuous session of<br />
the board. By a continuous session is meant a<br />
session of not less than four days in each week:<br />
Provided, further, that the committee of six shall<br />
each receive additional compensation at the rate<br />
of $6 a day for the time spent in preparing the<br />
questions and answers. Each member shall also<br />
be reimbursed for all other necessary expenses<br />
incurred by him in discharge of his duties.<br />
Each Board of Examiners is hereby authorized to<br />
employ the services of a clerk, wdio shall be a<br />
stenographer, and whose compensation and rate of<br />
mileage shall be the same as that of the members<br />
of the board. The clerk of each board shall, on<br />
final adjournment, send to the Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines properly attested vouchers for compensation<br />
and expenses of each member of the<br />
board, and also a voucher covering his own compensation<br />
and expenses, which vouchers shall be<br />
first approved by the chairman and the secretary<br />
of the board. The Chief of the Department of<br />
Mines shall then approve said vouchers and transmit<br />
them to the Auditor General, who shall issue<br />
a warrant for their payment to the State Treasurer.<br />
Section 4. Applicants must appear before the<br />
Board of Examiners of which the inspector of the<br />
inspection district in which they reside is a member.<br />
All persons who desire to attend the examination<br />
shall notify the chairman of the board of<br />
their intention, if possible, not less than six days<br />
prior to the day set for the examination. The<br />
boards shall inquire into the character and qualifications<br />
of applicants who present themselves for<br />
examination.<br />
Applicants for certificates of qualification as<br />
mine foremen and assistant mine foremen shall be<br />
citizens of the Fnited States, of good moral character<br />
and of known temperate habits, at least 23<br />
years of age, and shall have had at least five years'<br />
practical experience, after 16 years of age, as miners<br />
or mining engineers, or men of general work<br />
inside of the mines of Pennsylvania. Applicants<br />
for certificates of qualification as fire bosses shall<br />
be citizens of the Fnited States, of good moral<br />
character and of known temperate habits, at least<br />
23 years of age and shall have had at least five<br />
years' practical experience, after 16 vears of age,<br />
as miners or men of general work, and shall have<br />
had experience in mines in Pennsylvania that generate<br />
explosive gas.<br />
All applicants shall be able to read and write<br />
the English language intelligently, and shall furnish<br />
the board with certificates as to their character<br />
and temperate habits, which certificates shall<br />
also show the length of service In the different<br />
mines.<br />
Certificates of qualification as mine foremen<br />
shall be of two grades, namely: Certificates of<br />
first grade shall be granted to persons who have<br />
given to the Board of Examiners satisfactory evidence<br />
of their ability to perform the duties of<br />
mine foremen in gaseous mines, and who shall<br />
have received an average of at least 80 per centum<br />
in the examination. Certificates of second grade<br />
shall be granted to persons who have given to<br />
the Board of Examiners satisfactory evidence of<br />
their ability to perform the duties of mine foremen<br />
in non-gaseous mines, and who shall have<br />
received an average of at least SO per centum in<br />
the examination.<br />
Certificates of qualification as assistant mine<br />
foremen shall be granted to persons who have<br />
given to the Board of Examiners satisfactory evi<br />
dence of their ability to perform the duties of assistant<br />
mine foremen in gaseous mines, and who<br />
shall have received an average of at least 70 per<br />
centum in the examination.<br />
All applicants for certificates as mine foremen<br />
and assistant mine foremen in gaseous mines must<br />
also undergo an oral examination in the presence<br />
of explosive gas.<br />
Certificates of qualification as fire bosses shall<br />
be granted to persons who have given to the<br />
Board of Examiners satisfactory evidence of their<br />
ability to perforin the duties of fire bosses in<br />
gaseous mines, and who shall have received an<br />
average of at least 65 per centum in the examination<br />
and shall also have undergone an oral examination<br />
in the presence of explosive gas.<br />
Section 5. Before examination, each applicant<br />
for a certificate of qualification as mine foreman,<br />
assistant mine foreman, or fire boss, shall pay to<br />
the Board of Examiners the sum of $1, and, if<br />
successful, $2 additional for a certificate. Ail<br />
money received by the Board of Examiners for<br />
examination fees and certificates shall be transmitted<br />
to tbe Chief of the Department of Mines,<br />
who shall pay the same into the State Treasury.<br />
less the cost of issuing and recording certificates.<br />
Section 6. Each Board of Examiners, or at<br />
least two members thereof, shall certify to the<br />
Chief of the Department of Mines, on forms furnished<br />
by him, every person whose examination<br />
shall disclose his fitness for the duties of mine<br />
foreman, assistant mine foreman, or fire boss, as<br />
above classified, and the Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines shall then prepare certificates of qualification<br />
for the successful applicants and send them<br />
to the chairman of the board for distribution.<br />
Each certificate shall contain the full name, age,<br />
and place of birth of applicant, and also the length<br />
aud nature of his previous service in or about the<br />
mines. The certificate shall be in manner and<br />
form as prescribed by the Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines.
Section 7. Each Board of Examiners shall send<br />
to the Chief of the Department of Mines the answers<br />
and ail other papers of the applicants, together<br />
with the tally sheets, and a list of the questions<br />
and answers, as prepared by the committee<br />
selected by the boards, which shall be filed in the<br />
Department of Mines as public documents.<br />
Section 8. Certificates of service, that shall have<br />
the same effect, for the purposes of this act, as<br />
certificates of qualification, shall be granted by the<br />
Chief of the Department of Mines on the reports<br />
of the Boards of Examiners to all persons who are<br />
acting as assistant mine foremen in gaseous mines<br />
when this act becomes effective. Certificates of<br />
service shall be in manner and form as prescribed<br />
by the Chief of the Department of Mines, and<br />
shall contain tb.e full name, age, and place oi<br />
birth, of applicant and also the length and nature<br />
of his previous service in or about the mines. Applicants<br />
for certificates of service shall pay to the<br />
board the sum of $2. which shall be transmitted<br />
to the Chief of the Department of Mines.<br />
Section 9. It shall be unlawful for any operator,<br />
manager, or superintendent, to employ as mine<br />
foreman, in any mine, or as assistant mine foreman<br />
in any gaseous mine, any person who has not<br />
obtained the proper certificate of qualification or<br />
service required by this act: Provided, that all<br />
persons holding certificates of qualification as mine<br />
foremen, granted under the provisions of the act<br />
of Mav 15, 1893, may continue to serve, and. provided,<br />
further, that any person acting as mine<br />
foreman by virtue ot holding a certificate of service,<br />
granted previous to the passage of the act of<br />
May 15. 1893, may continue to serve at any mine<br />
where the general conditions affecting the health<br />
and safety of the persons employed do not differ<br />
materially from those at the mine in which he<br />
was employed wiien said certificate was granted,<br />
which question shall be decided by the inspector of<br />
the district, and it shall be unlawful for any operator,<br />
manager, superintendent, or mine foreman,<br />
to employ as fire boss, any person who has not obtained<br />
the proper certificate of qualification required<br />
by this act: Provided, that all persons<br />
holding certificates of qualification as fire bosses,<br />
granted under the provisions of the act of May<br />
15, 1893, may continue to serve.<br />
Section 10. If any person shall f<strong>org</strong>e or counterfeit<br />
a certificate, or knowingly make or cause<br />
to be made any false statement in any certificate<br />
issued under this act, or any previous act. or in<br />
any copy thereof, or shall make use of such f<strong>org</strong>ed<br />
or false certificate, or copy thereof, or shall make<br />
use of any false declaration, representation or<br />
statement, in any such certificate, or copy thereof,<br />
or any document containing the same, he shall be<br />
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and. upon conviction<br />
thereof, shall be fined not less than $200,<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
nor more than $500 or imprisoned for a term not<br />
exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion of<br />
the court.<br />
Section 11. In case of the loss or destruction<br />
of a certificate, the Chief of the Department of<br />
Mines shall issue a copy thereof to the person losing<br />
said certificate on payment of the sum of $1:<br />
Provided, that it shall be shown to the satisfaction<br />
of the Chief of the Department of Mines that<br />
the loss or destruction has actually occurred.<br />
Section 12. Nothing in this article shall prevent<br />
a first grade mine foreman from acting as<br />
assistant mine foreman in any mine, or a second<br />
grade mine foreman from acting as assistant mine<br />
foreman in a non-gaseous mine.<br />
ARTICLE XXV.<br />
RUT.ES SPECIAL RULES DUTIES OF MINER.<br />
Rule 1. The miner shall examine his working<br />
place before beginning work and take down all<br />
dangerous slate or otherwise make it safe by properly<br />
timbering it before commencing to mine or<br />
load coal. He shall examine his place to see<br />
whether the fire boss has left the date marks indicating<br />
his examination thereof, and, if said marks<br />
cannot be found, it shall be the duty of the miner<br />
to notify the mine foreman or the assistant mine<br />
foreman of the fact. The miner shall at all<br />
times be careful to keep his working place in a<br />
safe condition during working hours.<br />
Should he, at any time, find his place becoming<br />
dangerous from gas, or roof, or from any unusual<br />
condition that may arise, he shall at once cease<br />
working and inform the mine foreman or the assistant<br />
mine foreman of said danger, but, before<br />
leaving his place, he shall put some plain warning<br />
across the entrance thereto to warn others<br />
against entering into danger.<br />
It shall be the duty of the miner to mine his<br />
coal properly before blasting and to set sprags<br />
under the coal while undermining to secure it<br />
from falling. After each blast he shall exercise<br />
care in examining the roof and coal and shall<br />
secure them safely before beginning to work.<br />
He shall order all props, cap pieces, and all other<br />
timbers necessary, at least one day in advance of<br />
needing them, as provided for in the rules of the<br />
mine. If he fails to receive said timbers and<br />
finds his place unsafe, he shall vacate it until the<br />
necessary timbers are supplied.<br />
Under no condition shall the miner use coal<br />
dust, or any other combustible material, for tamping<br />
in any gaseous mine.<br />
When places are liable to generate sudden outbursts<br />
of explosive gas, no miner shall be allowed<br />
to charge or fire shots, except under the supervision,<br />
and with the consent of the mine foreman,<br />
or the assistant mine foreman, or some other competent<br />
person designated by the mine foreman for<br />
that purpose.
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
The miner shall remain during working hours<br />
in the working place assigned to him by the mine<br />
foreman or the assistant mine foreman, and he<br />
shall not leave his working place for another working<br />
place without the permission of the mine foreman,<br />
assistant mine foreman, or fire boss, and he<br />
shall not wander about the hauling roads or enter<br />
abandoned or idle workings.<br />
DUTIES OF DRIVER.<br />
Rule 2. When a driver has occasion to leave<br />
his trip, he must be careful to see that it is left,<br />
when possible, in a safe place, secure from cars<br />
or other dangers, and where it will not endanger<br />
the driver of other trips or other persons.<br />
He must take care, while taking his trip down<br />
grade, to have the brakes or sprags so adjusted<br />
that he can keep the cars under control and prevent<br />
them from running over himself or others.<br />
He shall not leave any cars standing where they<br />
may materially obstruct the ventilating current,<br />
except in case of accident, which he shall promptly<br />
report to the mine foreman or assistant mine foreman.<br />
He shall not allow any person to ride on loaded<br />
mine cars. He shall not allow any person to<br />
drive his horses or mules in his stead. When it<br />
is his duty to open a door, for the purpose of<br />
passing his trip through, he shall see that the<br />
door is immediately closed thereafter.<br />
DUTIES OF TRIP RIDER.<br />
Rule 3. The trip rider shall exercise care in<br />
seeing that all hitehings are safe for use and that<br />
all the trip is coupled before starting, and should<br />
he at any time see any material defect in the rope,<br />
link, or chain, he shall immediately remedy said<br />
defect, or, if he is unable to do so. he shall detain<br />
the trip and report the matter to the mine foreman<br />
or assistant mine foreman. He shall not<br />
allow any person to ride on the full trip. He shall<br />
not allow any person to ride on the empty trip,<br />
except by the authority of the mine foreman, and<br />
the speed shall not exceed six miles an hour.<br />
DUTIES OF HOISTING ENGINEER.<br />
Rule 4. Tt shall be the duty of the engineer,<br />
who shall be a sober, competent, person, over 21<br />
years of age, to keep a careful watch over his<br />
engine, and all machinery under his charge, and to<br />
see that the steam pressure does not exceed, at any<br />
time, the limit allowed by the superintendent.<br />
He shall make himself acquainted with the signal<br />
codes provided for in this act.<br />
He shall not allow any unauthorized person to<br />
enter the engine house, nor shall he allow any person<br />
to handle or run the engine without the permission<br />
of the superintendent.<br />
When workmen are being lowered or raised he<br />
shall take special precautions to keep the engine<br />
well under control.<br />
DUTIES OF MOTORMAN AM) LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER.<br />
Rule 5. The motorman or locomotive engineer<br />
shall keep a sharp lookout ahead and sound the<br />
whistle or alarm bell frequently when coining near<br />
the parting switches or landings, and shall not<br />
exceed the speed allowed by the mine foreman.<br />
He shall see that the motors, cables, and controlling<br />
parts, are kept clean and in a safe operating<br />
condition, and that the headlight is burning<br />
properly when the locomotive is in motion. He<br />
shall not allow any person, except his attendant,<br />
to ride on the locomotive or on the full cars.<br />
DUTIES OF FIREMAN.<br />
Rule 6. Every fireman in charge of a boiler or<br />
boilers, for the generation of steam, shall keep<br />
a careful watch over the same. He shall see that<br />
the steam pressure does not. at any time, exceed<br />
the limit allowed by the superintendent; he shall<br />
frequently try the safety valve and shall not increase<br />
the weight on the same; he shall maintain<br />
a proper depth of water in each boiler and if anything<br />
should happen to prevent this he shall report<br />
it without delay to the superintendent or other<br />
person designated by the superintendent and take<br />
such other action as may under the circumstances<br />
be necessary for the protection of life and the<br />
preservation of property.<br />
DUTIES OF FAN ENGINEER.<br />
Rule 7. The engineer in charge of the ventilating<br />
fan at a mine shall keep it running at such<br />
speed as the mine foreman shall direct, in writing.<br />
He shall report promptly to the mine foreman<br />
or assistant mine foreman any defect in the pressure<br />
gauge, and, in case of accident to the boiler<br />
or fan machinery, he shall immediately notify the<br />
mine foreman or the assistant mine foreman. If<br />
only ordinary repairs of the fan or machinery<br />
become necessary, he shall await the instructions<br />
of the mine foreman or assistant mine foreman<br />
before stopping the fan. Should it become impossible<br />
to run the fan or become necessary to stop<br />
it to prevent its destruction, he shall notify at<br />
once the superintendent or mine foreman, who<br />
shall give immediate warning to the persons in<br />
the mine.<br />
DUTIES OF FURNACEMAN.<br />
Rule 8. The furnaceman shall be over 18 years<br />
of age and shall attend to his duties with regularity<br />
and in case it is necessary for him to be<br />
off duty, for any reason whatever, he shall give<br />
timely notice to the mine foreman.<br />
The furnaceman shall, at all times, keep a clear<br />
brisk fire and the fire must not be smothered with<br />
coal or slack during working hours, and he shall<br />
not allow ashes to accumulate excessively on or<br />
under the bars, or in the approaches to the furnace,<br />
and ashes shall be cooled before being removed.
DUTIES OF HOOKER-ON.<br />
Rule 9. The hooker-on at the bottom of any<br />
slope shall be over 18 years of age and shall be<br />
very careful to see that the cars are properly<br />
coupled to a rope or chain, and that the safety<br />
catch or other device is properly attached to the<br />
rear car before giving the signal to the engineer.<br />
He shall not allow any person to ride up the slope<br />
on the full trips other than the trip rider.<br />
DUTIES OF CAGER.<br />
Rule 10. The eager at the bottom of any shaft<br />
shall be over IS years of age. He shall not attempt<br />
to withdraw the car until the cage comes to<br />
a rest, and, when putting the full car on the cage,<br />
he must be very careful to see that the springs or<br />
catches are properly adjusted so as to keep the<br />
car in its proper place before giving the signal to<br />
the engineer.<br />
DUTIES OF FOOTMAN.<br />
Rule 11. At every shaft or slope, where persons<br />
are lowered into or hoisted from the mine,<br />
a footman (who shall be over 21 years of age)<br />
shall be designated by the mine foreman. He<br />
shall be at his proper place from the time that<br />
persons begin to descend until all persons who may<br />
be at the bottom of said shaft or slope when quitting<br />
work at the end of the day shall be hoisted.<br />
The footman shall personally attend to the signals<br />
and see that the provisions of this act, in respect<br />
to hoisting persons in shafts or slopes, are complied<br />
with.<br />
The footman shall not allow any tools to be<br />
placed on the same cage with men or boys, or on<br />
either cage, when they are being hoisted out of<br />
the mine, except for the purpose of repairing the<br />
shaft or machinery therein. The men shall place<br />
their tools in cars provided for that purpose, which<br />
cars shall be hoisted before or after the men have<br />
been hoisted. He shall see that no driver or other<br />
person ascends the shaft with any horse or mule,<br />
unless the said horse or mule is secured in a suitable<br />
box or safely penned, and only the driver in<br />
charge of said horse or mule shall accompany it<br />
in any case. The footman shall immediately inform<br />
the mine foreman of any violation of this<br />
rule or of general rule 15.<br />
DUTIES OF TOPMAN.<br />
Rule 12. At every shaft or slope where persons<br />
are lowered into or hoisted from the mine, a topman<br />
or trip rider (who shall be over 21 years of<br />
age) shall be designated by the superintendent or<br />
mine foreman. He shall be at his proper place<br />
from the time that persons begin to descend until<br />
all the persons who may be at the bottom of the<br />
shaft or slope when quitting work at the end of<br />
the day shall be hoisted. The topman or triprider<br />
shall personally attend to the signals and<br />
see that the provisions of this act, in respect to<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
lowering persons in shafts or slopes, are complied<br />
with.<br />
The topman shall not allow any tools to be<br />
placed on the same cage with men or boys, or on<br />
either cage, when persons are being lowered into<br />
the mine, except for the purpose of repairing the<br />
shaft or the machinery therein. The men shall<br />
place their tools in cars provided for that purpose,<br />
which cars shall be lowered before or after the<br />
men have been lowered.<br />
He shall also see that no driver or other person<br />
descends the shaft with any horse or mule unless<br />
the said horse or mule is secured in a suitable<br />
box or safely penned and only the driver in charge<br />
of said horse or mule shall accompany it in any<br />
ease.<br />
The topman of a slope or incline plane shall be<br />
careful to close the safety block or other device as<br />
soon as the cars have reached the landing, in<br />
order to prevent any loose or runaway cars from<br />
descending the slope or incline plane, and, in no<br />
case, shall said safety block or other device be<br />
withdrawn until the cars are coupled to the rope<br />
or chain and the proper signal given. He shall<br />
carefully inspect each day all the machinery in<br />
and about the check house and the rope used follow<br />
ering the coal and shall promptly report to<br />
the superintendent any defect discovered and shall<br />
use care in attaching securely the cars to the rope<br />
and in lowering them down the incline. He shall<br />
ring the alarm bell in case ot accident, and, when<br />
necessary, immediately set free to act the drop logs<br />
or safety switch.<br />
The topman of a shaft shall see that the springs,<br />
or keeps, for the cage to rest upon, arc kept in<br />
good working order, and, when taking the full car<br />
off, he must be careful that no coal or other material<br />
is allowed to fall down the shaft.<br />
It shall be the duty of the topman to report to<br />
the superintendent any violation of general rule<br />
15 of this article.<br />
GENERAL RULES.<br />
Rule 1. No unauthorized person shall enter the<br />
mine without permission from the superintendent.<br />
Rule 2. No person in a state of intoxication<br />
shall be allowed to go into or loiter about the mine.<br />
Rule 3. No person shall be employed to blast<br />
coal, rock or slate, unless the mine foreman is<br />
satisfied that he is qualified by experience to perform<br />
the work with ordinary care.<br />
Rule 4. No inexperienced person shall be employed<br />
to mine out pillars, unless in company with<br />
one or more experienced miners.<br />
Rule 5. Every workman employed in the mine<br />
shall examine his working place before commencing<br />
work, and, after any stoppage of work during<br />
the shift, he shall repeat such examination.<br />
Rule 6. Every workman, when first employed,<br />
shall have his attention directed by the mine fore-
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
man or his assistant to the general and special<br />
rules contained in this act. Said rules shall be<br />
posted at a conspicuous place at or near the main<br />
entrance to the mine and shall be printed in the<br />
various languages of the employes.<br />
Rule 7. All employes shall notify the mine<br />
foreman or the assistant mine foreman of the unsafe<br />
condition of any working place, hauling roads,<br />
or travelingways, or of damage to doors, brattices,<br />
or stopping's, or of obstructions in the air passages,<br />
when said conditions are known to them.<br />
Rule S. No person shall be allowed to travel<br />
on foot to and from his work on any hoisting<br />
slope, incline plane, dilly, or locomotive road, unless<br />
no other roads are provided for that purpose.<br />
Rule 9. No person shall ride upon, or against,<br />
any loaded car or cage, in any shaft, or slope, in<br />
any mine. No person, other than the trip rider,<br />
shall be permitted to ride on empty trips, on any<br />
slope, incline plane, or dilly road, except as provided<br />
for in other sections of this act.<br />
Rule 10. No person, other than the driver or<br />
trip rider, shall be allowed to ride on the full cars.<br />
Rule 11. Any person who shall deface, pull<br />
down, or destroy, any notice board, danger signal,<br />
general or special rules, record books, or mining<br />
laws, shall be prosecuted by the superintendent<br />
on notice given by the mine foreman or obtained<br />
from other sources as provided for in section 2<br />
of article 26 of this act.<br />
Rule 12. All persons are forbidden to meddle,<br />
or tamper in any way, with any electric or signal<br />
wires or any other equipment in or about the mine.<br />
Rule 13. No powder or high explosive shall be<br />
taken into the mine at one time by any one person<br />
in greater quantities than is required for use<br />
in one shift and ihe quantity shall never exceed<br />
five pounds, except as provided for in article 16<br />
section 1. All powder shall be carried into the<br />
mine in metallic cans or canisters or in receptacles<br />
of equally safe material.<br />
Rule 14. No explosive shall be stored in any<br />
tipple or weighing office and no naked lights shall<br />
be used while the attendant is weighing and giving<br />
out explosives.<br />
Rule 15. No greater number of persons shall be<br />
lowered or hoisted at any one time in any shaft<br />
or slope than is permitted by the inspector and<br />
whenever the said number of persons returning<br />
from work shall arrive at the bottom of the shaft<br />
or slope, in which persons are regularly hoisted or<br />
lowered, they shall be promptly furnished with an<br />
empty cage or car and be hoisted to the surface,<br />
and, in cases of emergency, a less number than the<br />
permitted number shall be promptly hoisted.<br />
Any person crowding or pushing to get on or<br />
off the cage or car, thereby endangering life, shall<br />
be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and the super<br />
intendent shall discharge or prosecute him in ac<br />
cordance with section 2 of article 26 of this act,<br />
when the matter is reported to him by the topman<br />
or footman.<br />
Rule 16. No safety lamp shall be entrusted to<br />
any person for use in a mine until said person has<br />
given satisfactory evidence to the mine foreman<br />
that he understands the proper use thereof and<br />
the danger of tampering with the same.<br />
Rule 17. No one, except a person duly authorized<br />
by the mine foreman, shall have in his possession<br />
a key or other instrument for the purpose of<br />
unlocking any safety lamp in any mine where<br />
locked safety lamps are used. Other persons than<br />
tnose duly authorized by the mine foreman, having<br />
keys or other instruments for the opening or safety<br />
lamps, shall be prosecuted by the superintendent<br />
in accordance with section 2 of article 26 of this<br />
act.<br />
Rule 18. In the cutting of clay veins, spars, or<br />
faults, entries or other narrow workings, going<br />
into the solid coal in mines wherein explosive gas<br />
is generated in dangerous quantities, a bore hole<br />
shall be kept not less than three feet in advance<br />
of the face of the work or three feet in advance<br />
of any shot hole drilled for a blast to be fired in.<br />
Rule 19. An accumulation of gas in a mine shall<br />
not be removed by brushing, or when persons in<br />
the mine may be endangered thereby.<br />
Rule 20. When gas is ignited by a blast, or<br />
otherwise, the person having charge of the place<br />
where the said gas is ignited, shall immediately<br />
extinguish it, if possible, and, if unable to do so,<br />
he shall immediately notify the mine foreman or<br />
the assistant mine foreman of the fact. Miners<br />
must see that no gas blowers are left burning upon<br />
leaving their working places. It shall be the<br />
duty of the superintendent to notify the inspector<br />
of any violation of this rule, and the inspector<br />
shall then prosecute, as provided for in section 2<br />
of article 26 of this act.<br />
Rule 21. When a miner or shot-firer is about<br />
to fire a blast he shall be careful to notify all persons<br />
who may be endangered thereby and shall<br />
give sufficient alarm so that any person approaching<br />
may be warned of the danger.<br />
Rule 22. Whenever a miner or shot-firer shall<br />
open a box containing powder, or other explosives,<br />
or while in any manner handling the same, he<br />
shall first place his lamp not less than five feet<br />
from such explosive and in such a position that the<br />
air current cannot convey sparks to the explosive<br />
and he shall not smoke while handling explosives.<br />
Rule 23. In charging and tamping a hole for<br />
blasting, no person shall use any iron or steel<br />
needle. The charger or tamping bar shall be of<br />
wood or tipped with copper.<br />
Rule 24. No explosive shall be forcibly pressed<br />
into a hole that is of insufficient size, and, when a<br />
hole has been charged, the explosive shall not be<br />
taken out and no hole shall be bored for blasting
at a distance of less than 12 inches from any hole<br />
when the charge has misfired.<br />
Rule 25. In gaseous mines, shot-firers or other<br />
persons charging holes for blasting shall use incombustible<br />
material for tamping. All holes before<br />
being fired shall be solidly tamped the full<br />
length of the hole. Any person who violates this<br />
rule shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.<br />
Rule 20. Every abandoned slope, shaft, air hole,<br />
or drift, shall, when so abandoned, be properly<br />
fenced around or across its whole entrance.<br />
Rule 27. No person shall go into an old or abandoned<br />
portion of any mine or into any other place<br />
that is not in actual course of working without<br />
permission from the mine foreman, and no person<br />
shall travel to and from his work except by<br />
the traveling way assigned for that purpose. It<br />
shall be the duty of the mine foreman to prosecute<br />
all persons who violate this rule in accordance<br />
with section 2 of article 26 of this act.<br />
Rule 2S. Workmen and all other persons are<br />
expressly forbidden to commit any nuisances or<br />
throw into, deposit, or leave coal or dirt, stones<br />
or other rubbish, in the airway or road so as to<br />
interfere with, pollute, or hinder the air passing<br />
into and through the mine.<br />
Rule 29. No steam pipes, through which high<br />
pressure steam is conveyed for the purpose ot<br />
driving pumps or other machinery, shall be laid<br />
on traveling or haulage ways unless they are encased<br />
in asbestos or some other suitable non-conducting<br />
material, or so placed that the radiation<br />
of heat into the atmosphere of the mine will be<br />
prevented as far as possible.<br />
Rule 30. When a steam locomotive is used for<br />
the purpose of hauling coal out of a mine, the<br />
tunnel or tunnels thiough which the locomotive<br />
passes shall be properly ventilated and kept free,<br />
as far as practicable, of noxious gases and a ventilating<br />
apparatus shall be specially provided by<br />
the operator to produce such ventilation.<br />
Rule 31. In all shafts and slopes where persons,<br />
coal and other materials are hoisted by machinery,<br />
the following code of signals shall be used:<br />
One rap or whistle to hoist coal.<br />
One rap or whistle to stop car or cage when in<br />
motion.<br />
Two raps or whistles to lower car or cage.<br />
Three raps or whistles to hoist persons. The<br />
engineer shall signal back when ready, after which<br />
the person shall get on the car or cage and then<br />
one rap or whistle shall be given to hoist.<br />
Four raps or whistles to turn on steam to the<br />
pumps.<br />
Rule 32. No person shall carry any matches,<br />
pipes or other smokers' articles into a mine, or<br />
portion of a mine, worked exclusively with locked<br />
safety lamps, nor shall he have any of said articles<br />
in his possession while in such a mine.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 53<br />
Rule 33. If any person shall receive any injury<br />
in or about the mine and the same shall come<br />
within the knowledge of the mine foreman, and,<br />
if he shall be of the opinion that the injured person<br />
requires medical or surgical treatment, he<br />
shall see that said injured person receives treatment,<br />
and, in case of inability of such person to<br />
pay therefor, the expense shall be borne by the<br />
county.<br />
Rule 34. The special and general rules in the<br />
various languages and all books, blank forms, and<br />
notices, mentioned in this act, shall be printed at<br />
the expense of the state and shall be furnished<br />
to the operators by the Department of Mines,<br />
through the inspectors, and all record books shall,<br />
at all times, be accessible to the inspector.<br />
Rule 35. Every person who contravenes or does<br />
not comply with any of the special and general<br />
rules in this act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.<br />
ARTICLE XXVI.<br />
PENALTIES FOR VIOLATIONS OF THIS ACT.<br />
Section 1. Any person who shall intentionally<br />
or carelessly injure any safety lamp, instrument,<br />
air course, or brattice, or, without proper authority,<br />
handle, remove, or render useless, any fencing,<br />
means of signaling, apparatus, instrument, or<br />
machinery, or shall obstruct or throw open airways,<br />
or enter a place in or about a mine against<br />
caution, or carry fire, open lights, matches, pipes,<br />
and otlier smokers' articles, beyond any station<br />
inside of which locked safety lamps are used, or<br />
open a door in the mine and not close it immediately,<br />
or open any door the opening of which is<br />
forbidden, or disobey any order given in carrying<br />
out the provisions of this act, or do any other act<br />
whatsoever, whereby the lives or the health of the<br />
persons employed, or the security of the mine, or<br />
the machinery are endangered, shall be deemed<br />
guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished as<br />
provided in section 2 of this article.<br />
Section 2. Any person who neglects or refuses<br />
to perform the duties required of him by this act,<br />
or who violates any of the provisions or requirements<br />
thereof, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor<br />
and shall, upon conviction thereof in the<br />
court of quarter sessions of the county in which<br />
the misdemeanor was committed, be punished by a<br />
fine not exceeding $200 or imprisonment in the<br />
county jail for a period not exceeding three<br />
months, or both, at the discretion of the court.<br />
Any violation of this art which has been declared<br />
to be a misdemeanor by any part thereof, shall be<br />
punished in like manner.<br />
ARTICLE XXVII.<br />
INQUESTS.<br />
Section 1. Whenever a fatal accident occurs in<br />
or about any mine, or whenever an explosion or<br />
other serious accident of an unusual nature occurs.
64 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
whether fatal or not, it shall be the duty of the<br />
mine foreman or superintendent in charge of such<br />
mine, to give notice thereof forthwith, by telephone<br />
or telegraph, to the inspector and also to<br />
the coroner of the county, if any person is killed.<br />
Section 2. If the coroner shall determine to<br />
hold an inquest, lie shall uotity the inspector of<br />
the time and place of holding the same and the<br />
inspector shall offer such testimony as he may<br />
deem necessary to thoroughly inform the said<br />
inquest of the cause of the death. He shall also<br />
have authority, at any time, to appear before such<br />
coroner or jury and examine or cross-examine any<br />
witness. No person who is directly or indirectly<br />
interested or employed in any capacity by the person,<br />
persons, or company, owning or operating<br />
such mine, or employed in or about any other mine<br />
in which such owners or operators may be interested,<br />
shall be competent to serve upon such<br />
coroner's jpry.<br />
Section 3. It shall be the duty of the inspector,<br />
upon being notified of any fatal accident, as hereinbefore<br />
provided, to proceed in person as soon as<br />
practicable to the scene of the accident and make<br />
such suggestions or give such directions as may<br />
appear to him necessary to secure the safety of<br />
any person who may still be endangered through<br />
said accident. Whether or not the results of the<br />
accident require an investigation by the coroner.<br />
the said inspector snail proceed to investigate and<br />
ascertain the cause of the accident and make a<br />
record thereof, which he shall file as provided for,<br />
and, to enable him to make the investigation, he<br />
shall have power to compel the attendance of persons<br />
to testify and also to administer oaths or<br />
affirmations. If it is found, upon investigation.<br />
that the accident is due to the violation of any of<br />
the provisions of this act by any person, other<br />
than those who may be deceased, the inspector<br />
shall institute proceedings against such person or<br />
persons as provided for in section 2 of article 26<br />
of this act.<br />
Section 4. The cost of such investigation shall<br />
be paid by the county in which the accident occurred,<br />
in the same manner as costs of inquests<br />
held by coroners or justices of the peace are paid.<br />
ARTICLE XXVJil.<br />
Section 1. Should a mine or a portion of a mine<br />
that has at any time generated explosive gas in<br />
quantities sufficient to be detected by an approved<br />
safety lamp, after the passage of this act not so<br />
generate explosive gas during any one period of<br />
one year, then such mine or portion of a mine<br />
shall not be governed or controlled by the provisions<br />
of this act for mines or portions of mines<br />
generating explosive gas.<br />
Section 2. The provisions of this act as to<br />
mines or portions of a mine generating explosive<br />
gas in quantities sufficient to be detected by an<br />
approved safety lamp shall not apply to any mine<br />
wherein explosive gas is being generated only in<br />
live entries.<br />
Section 3. The provisions of this act shall not<br />
apply to any mine employing less than 10 persons<br />
inside the' mine, in any one period of 24 hours.<br />
ARTICLE XXIX.<br />
Section 1. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent<br />
herewith be and the same are hereby repealed.<br />
(THE END)<br />
INDIANA INCREASES COAL OUTPUT IN 1910.<br />
Indiana's production of coal in 1910 was 18,-<br />
389,815 short tons, valued at $20,813,659, a gain<br />
of 3,555,556 tons and $5,658,978 over the figures<br />
for 1909, according to E. W. Parker, of the United<br />
States Geological Survey.<br />
While some of the coal miners of Indiana suspended<br />
work in 1910, in sympathy with the strike<br />
in Illinois and in the Southwestern States, the<br />
idleness in Indiana was not general nor was it<br />
by any means so prolonged as in the other states<br />
affected. Of the total number of men employed<br />
in the coal mines of Indiana only about 60 per<br />
cent, quit work on the strike call and these remained<br />
idle for an average of but 34 days, whereas<br />
in the other fields the idleness extended from April<br />
1 to September 15 and the effects lasted for fully<br />
six months. Inuiana operators and miners as a<br />
whole therefore benefited from the strike, as is<br />
shown by an increase in production from 1909<br />
of 24 per cent. Moreover, on account of the fuel<br />
shortage occasioned by the strike, the prices for<br />
Indiana coal advanced, the average in 1910 being<br />
$1.13 per short ton, against $1.02 in 1909, and the<br />
total value of the coal produced increased 37.34<br />
per cent.<br />
Of the total production in 1910, 8,9S6,495 tons,<br />
or nearly 50 per cent., was mined by machines, of<br />
which there were 645 in use. The coal mines<br />
gave employment to 21.878 men, who, notwithstanding<br />
the average of 34 days lost by 12,638 men<br />
on strike, made an average of 220 working days<br />
each. This was 32 days better in working time<br />
than in the boom year, 1907, and is the best record<br />
made in the history of Indiana coal mining. The<br />
average production per man was also a record<br />
breaker, the average for 1910 being 841 tons to<br />
each employe for the year, and 3.67 tons for each<br />
working day.<br />
The Sandy Creek Coal & Coke Co., which owns<br />
2,200 acres of coal land in West Virginia, met<br />
August 17, at Star Junction, Pa., to arrange for<br />
making application for a charter, with O. C. Sarber<br />
of Greensburg, O. S. Blair, Andy Carson of Star<br />
Junction, H. D. Odbert of Monessen, and A. P.<br />
Music of Ligonier on the application.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK & KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA, P<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
66 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
RECENT COAL TRADE PATENTS.<br />
The following recently granted patents of interest<br />
to the coal trade are reported expressly for<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN, by J. M. Nesbit, patent<br />
attorney. Park building, Pittsburgh, Pa., from<br />
whom printed copies may be procured for 15 cents<br />
each:<br />
.Mine car wheel, W. B. Lloyd, Yankee, N. Mex.;<br />
999,379.<br />
Walling of mines, Friedrich Nellen, Essen-onthe-Ruhr.<br />
Germany; 999,582.<br />
Mine hoist, S. T. Nelson, Chicago, 111., assignor<br />
to Sullivan Machinery Co., same place; 999,841.<br />
Attachment for mining machines, L. F. Hess,<br />
Hawks Nest. W. Va.; 999,996.<br />
Means for quenching and arresting fires in<br />
mines. R. D. Cochrane, Hetton-le-Hole, England;<br />
1,000,236.<br />
Coal mining pick, R. R. Woodson, Erie, Col.;<br />
1.000,475.<br />
Mine car wheel. T. G. Aultman, Fairmont, W.<br />
Va.; 1,000,883.<br />
Miner's safety lamp, Ichitaro Koyanagi, Tokyo.<br />
Japan: 1.001.052.<br />
Mine drill jack, J. E. Powell, Haywood, W. Va.;<br />
1,001,074.<br />
Mine cage signal, Lee Bayer, Willisville, Tib;<br />
1,001,337.<br />
YOU CAN'T rTHT, I<br />
CAN get you a large<br />
clean core of all strata un<br />
der your land to be ex<br />
amined in broad daylight.<br />
. No Guess Work. .<br />
A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
: Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING. OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING<br />
Means for loading skips or other vehicles in<br />
mine-shafts and the like, John Whitford and J. A.<br />
Mills, Johannesburg, Transvaal; 1,001,106.<br />
Coke quenching apparatus, Donald McDonald,<br />
Louisville, Ky.; 1,001,543.<br />
A colored preacher was vehemently denouncing<br />
the sins of his congregation.<br />
"Breddern and sistern, Ah warns yo' against de<br />
heinous sin o' shootin' craps! Ah charges yo'<br />
against de black rascality o' liftin' pullets! But<br />
above all else, breddern and sistern, Ah demonishes<br />
yo' at disher season against de crime o'<br />
melon stealin'!"<br />
A brother in a back seat made an odd sound<br />
with his lips, rose and snapped his fingers. Then<br />
he sat down with an abashed look.<br />
"Whuffo,' mah friend," said the preacher sternly,<br />
"does yo' r'ar up an' snap yo' finghas when Ah<br />
speak o' melon stealin'?"<br />
"Yo' jes' reminds me, pahson." the man in the<br />
back seat answered meekly, "whar Ah let' mah<br />
knife."—Kalamazoo Gazette.<br />
"Will you please drive off the track?" asked the<br />
motorman. The truck driver promptly reined to<br />
one side.<br />
"Thank you ever so much," added the motorman,<br />
with a smile.<br />
"You're very welcome," responded the truck<br />
driver, "but you must pardon my seeming carelessness.<br />
I had no idea your car was so near."<br />
A series of revival services were being held in<br />
a western city, and placards giving notice of the<br />
services were posted in conspicuous places. One<br />
day the following notice was posted: "Hell, Its<br />
Location and Absolute Certainty. Thomas Jones,<br />
baritone soloist, will sing "Tell Mother I'll Be<br />
There."—Exchange.<br />
J. H. SANFORD COAL COMPANY<br />
MINCRS AND SHIPPERS<br />
HIGHEST GRADE PANHANDLE COAL<br />
ANALYSIS :<br />
Moisture - - - . 1J3 BEST FOR STEAM AND<br />
Volatile Matter - 35.96<br />
Fixed Carbon - - - - 56.34 DOMESTIC USES<br />
Ash - 6.17<br />
Sulphur - - - - - 1.79<br />
B. T. U. per pound of Dry Coal, 13544.3 ° ffices : ' 3 ' 5 Palk Mdin g. PITTSBURGH.<br />
Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, ^ p ^ 1822_1823_1824<br />
Jas. Otis Handy, Chief Chemist.
COAL TRADE OF PACIFIC COAST.<br />
The fuel requirements of the Pacific coast and<br />
the methods of meeting them are of especial interest<br />
at the resent time because of the agitation<br />
in regard to the development or nondevelopment<br />
of the coal resources of Alaska. The report on<br />
the production of coal in 1910, by E. W. Parker,<br />
coal statistician of the United States Geological<br />
Survey, now in preparation, will contain some interesting<br />
statements on this subject.<br />
The present consumption of coal on the Pacific<br />
roast, says Mr. Parker, is not large and the successful<br />
operation of any coal mines in Alaska will<br />
depend on naming prices attractive to the development<br />
of manufacturing industries. For railroad<br />
and manufacturing purposes the consumption of<br />
oil, particularly in California, largely exceeds that<br />
of coal—in fact, for railroad use oil is practically<br />
the only fuel. The per capita consumption of coal<br />
in California, Oregon and Washington averages<br />
not much over 1 ton, while the average consumption<br />
in the United States as a whole is about 5%<br />
tons for each inhabitant.<br />
The principal source of coal supply for the Pacific<br />
coast is the state of Washington, the output<br />
of both California and Oregon being at present<br />
small. In 1909 the total production of coal in<br />
Washington was 3.602,263 short tons. California<br />
produced 45,000 tons and Oregon 87,276 tons. In<br />
1910 the production of coal on the Pacific coast<br />
was 3.903,983 short tons in Washington, 62,707<br />
tons in Oregon, and 11,164 tons in California. The<br />
imports of bituminous coal amounted to 752,046<br />
tons, and of anthracite to 9,116 tons. The exports<br />
of coal from Seattle were 26.S83 tons in 1909<br />
and 23,771 tons in 1910. The total consumption<br />
of coal on the Pacific coast from various sources<br />
in 1909 was 4,576,052 short tons and in 1910 4,-<br />
S12.39S tons. The imports of coke to Pacific<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
coast ports (exclusive of Hawaii), as reported by<br />
the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce<br />
and Labor, were 111.676 short tons in 1909<br />
and 111,061 tons in 1910.<br />
Including 761 short tons of coal sent from Puget<br />
Sound to Bering Sea, the total quantity of coal<br />
shipped into Alaska in 1910 was 98,420 short tons,<br />
of which 8,178 tons went from British Columbia,<br />
and 15,877 tons from Washington. The production<br />
within the territory was reported at 1,000<br />
tons, or about 1 per cent, of the total consumption.<br />
Accident Insurance For Members of KoKoal.<br />
As an added feature that will give its members<br />
a tangible and direct benefit the Order KoKoal has<br />
made special arrangements with the North American<br />
Accident Insurance Co. of Chicago whereby<br />
each KoKoal will be given a thousand ($1,000)<br />
dollar accident insurance policy in that company<br />
upon payment of his KoKoal dues for the coming<br />
year. Under this arrangement no KoKoal can<br />
complain of not getting full value for his membership,<br />
as by sending his annual dues of $1.17 to<br />
Charles N. Lester, Imperial Pictor, 1 Broadway,<br />
New York City, he will get a $1,000 accident insurance<br />
policy good for one year and his 1911-1912<br />
Blue Card which will entitle him to admission to<br />
all KoKoal koruskations and scintillations,<br />
wherever he may be, from the Atlantic to the<br />
Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.<br />
Mr. Arthur Latham, president of the Centennial<br />
Coal Co., of Denver, was killed recently while inspecting<br />
the company's mine at Louisville, Col.,<br />
by being crushed between the cage and the side of<br />
the shaft.<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
fAMOUj<br />
TT<br />
"ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
C O ^ A A V<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
FOR THE<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
PUBLISHERS OT<br />
The Coal Dealers' Blue Book<br />
Contains a Complete List for the United States and<br />
Canada of all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron<br />
Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coal and<br />
<strong>•</strong>- Coke in oar Room load lots, with capital 1438 and SO. pay PENN ratings. SQUARE,<br />
: 550 Monon Building, 440 Dearborn St.,<br />
PHILADELPHIA.<br />
CHICAGO.<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN. Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, 1% tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TKADE BULLETIN.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909-10.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
F. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
FOR SALE-<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jer<br />
sey wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full par<br />
ticulars, analysis' of coal, name, location and out<br />
fit of mine, etc.<br />
C. V. EMEEICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VENEER & LUMBER CO.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.
GOAL TRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, SEPTEMBER 15, 1911 No. 8<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TEADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STBAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matter*<br />
relating to coal or coal production are Invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TBADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDING, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mall Matter.]<br />
GROWTH I.\ DEMAND IS THE MOST MABKED FEATURE<br />
of the coal trade at present, and all branches of<br />
the industry feel this stimulus. This growth is<br />
of a slow, steady nature, having none of the ear<br />
marks of a boom or a sudden wild scramble for<br />
coal on the part of consumers. The rather it is<br />
a growth that has its inception in cooler weather<br />
and increasing industrial prosperity with the at<br />
tendant heavier movement of trade. Nothing re<br />
markable in the industry is noticeable, and the<br />
increased business, therefore, must be and can be<br />
attributed only to the steady betterment of con<br />
ditions in all lines.<br />
One of the surest signs of good business is the<br />
situation in regard to idle railway equipment, and<br />
this phase of the situation begins to bear an omi<br />
nous look, with the spectre of a car shortage loom<br />
ing large just around the corner. It is a remark<br />
able fact that one of the large roads has ordered<br />
all its idle rars in the Pittsburgh district into<br />
service, just at the time when some of the other<br />
roads are facing an industrial dispute with some<br />
of its employes;"the inference being that, despite<br />
the dark outlook in the labor matter, the road or<br />
dering out its ears seems to have confidence enough<br />
in conditions to prepare for heavier traffic.<br />
The spectre of car shortage is of some concern<br />
to coal men. naturally, and while there is a sup<br />
ply on hand to meet all demands as yet, the sup<br />
ply of some certain kinds of car is exhausted and<br />
this is what really is causing the unrest in this<br />
respect. Of course, the crop movement is on and<br />
this has something to do with the situation.<br />
More and more is heard the possibility of de<br />
mands by the miners at the end of the scale year,<br />
still more than a six months away, and this is the<br />
only cloud on the labor horizon, as men are plenty<br />
everywhere and all seem anxious to work.<br />
I>ake trade is progressing nicely, although re<br />
ports entirely pessimistic are heard from certain<br />
ports and certain shipping firms. But this does<br />
not eliminate the fact that more coal is being sent<br />
lakeward than was the case at the opening of the<br />
months.<br />
The Pittsburgh district is doing better now than<br />
it has for some time. An estimate of operations<br />
at 80 per cent, of capacity seems a conservative<br />
one, and now that river mines have plenty of<br />
empty craft at hand this estimate may have to be<br />
revised upward very shortly. One thing is sure<br />
and that is that this district is doing an increased<br />
lake trade just now. Manufacturing plants are<br />
going on better time and this means still more<br />
coal consumption. The only grade of coal that<br />
has not felt the stimulus of all conditions is slack<br />
and it has been standing still, or one might say<br />
going backward, if prices alone are to be con<br />
sidered. At some mines this grade is piling up<br />
and producers are having difficulty in disposing of<br />
it. Prices outside of slack are firmer than ever<br />
at list, and all rumors of price cutting have been<br />
silenced. With the situation thus outlined, quo<br />
tations are: $1.25 to $1.S5 for run-of-mine coal;<br />
$1.35 to $1.45 for three-quarter coal; $1.45 to $1.55<br />
for inch and one-quarter coal; 70 to 80 cents for<br />
slack, with shadings on the last named grade,<br />
where producers are not in position to store their<br />
surplus.<br />
Coke makers apparently see things "coming
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
their way." In the last week for which produc<br />
tion figures are available the week more nearly<br />
approached the output of 1910 than during any<br />
previous: week of tlle year. With a smaller num<br />
her of ovens operating the production jumped<br />
fifteen thousand tons over the preceding week,<br />
Ui us indicating that there is some activity in the<br />
trade. Prices are held as firm as ever and coke<br />
that is being sold is bringing as good prices as<br />
has any coke sold this year. All these facts are<br />
encouraging and the net result is betterment in<br />
every way. With the conditions as recited prices<br />
arc held at $1.75 to $1.85 for furnace coke and<br />
$2,110 to $2.25 for foundry coke.<br />
kjiotfy, m-pblems connected with it was surpassed<br />
The cool evenings and the increasing chilliness<br />
by probably; jho man. ' Frank Robbins had his<br />
during the day in the sections using most of the<br />
shortcomings, as have all of us biit no man can<br />
anthracite coal produced have resulted in the domestic<br />
demand taking an upward trend that is re<br />
derty,j,that .when, he answered the last call, a big<br />
flected in heavier movement of coal to market. man—big in every sense of the word—passed from<br />
The tonnage reports of the railroads for August<br />
show the mines were decidedly active and presage<br />
still greater activity during the present month.<br />
Prices are stationary and will remain so until<br />
the spring reduction comes.<br />
* * *<br />
OVER HALF A BILLION TONS OF COAL WERE PRODUCED<br />
in the United States during 1910, according to the<br />
I'. S. Geological Survey report, thus surpassing<br />
tne banner year of 1907. THE COAL TRADE BULLE<br />
TIN'S estimate of the tonnage made on the first of<br />
January, was for four hundred eighty million tons,<br />
and there were those who laughed at it. It is evi<br />
dent we were too conservative by several million<br />
tons. The report also shows another thing that<br />
is very gratifying and that is a slignt advance in<br />
the average price of coal for the year. I'he opera<br />
tors can stand still furtlier advances.<br />
* * *<br />
FIRST AMI WORK IS A CART OF THE TRAININC OF THE<br />
MIXER to-day, and as much importance is'paid to<br />
it as to teaching the man properly to win the coal.<br />
The operating companies are spending money and<br />
putting forth every effort to have their mines and<br />
men properly equipped in this regard, and the<br />
consequence is bound to be a decidedly smaller<br />
number of accidents in which death or serious<br />
injury is tlie paramount outcome. The work<br />
of these first aid men was splendidly demonstrated<br />
in Pittsburgh only a few days ago, and the effici<br />
ency attained by the men surprised even the<br />
judges who are. supposed to he familiar with the<br />
work being done among the miners.. While this<br />
training has nothing to do with more care in the<br />
working of the mines, it is entirely probable the<br />
knowledge gained will make the men more care<br />
ful.<br />
* * * ><br />
"FRANK ROIIIIINS IS PEAO/' was the, news flashed<br />
over the wires during the fortnight;: In.Iws death<br />
there passed awav one of the best known men in<br />
i.K&'l! ii.J'i.N-112..2': L~ <strong>•</strong>.''
THE MINERS INTERNATIONAL BOARD STILL<br />
HEARING PITTSBURGH DISTRICT CASE.<br />
No decision has been reached in the hearing of<br />
the Pittsburgh district miners' controversy, which<br />
has been in progress before the International Executive<br />
Board of the IT. M. W. of A., sitting in<br />
Pittsburgh, since August 24. The Board is in<br />
session when this issue of THE COAL TRADE BULLE<br />
TIN goes to press although indications point to an<br />
adjournment Deing reached before the week end.<br />
Both Robert R. Gibbons and Francis Feehan. who<br />
head the opposing factions, have presented their<br />
cases in writing, scores of witnesses being called<br />
to substantiate the claims contained therein.<br />
It is intimated that a decision will not be ren<br />
dered immediately on adjournment but that the<br />
question will be held under advisement until the<br />
International Executive Board returns to Indianapolis.<br />
The opinion is prevalent that a special<br />
election should ue called and the miners of the<br />
district given the opportunity of choosing the men<br />
whom they desire to fill their administrative<br />
offices.<br />
ILLINOIS TROUBLES TO BE<br />
ADJUSTED BY ARBITRATORS.<br />
At the last meeting of the joint executive board<br />
of the Illinois Coal Operators' Association and the<br />
United Mine Workers of Illinois the troubles in<br />
Saline county were heard and as a result of the<br />
discussion were referred to an arbitration board<br />
to be disposed of.<br />
Following is the arbitration agreement entered<br />
into by the joint executive board providing for the<br />
settlement of the dispute between the miners and<br />
the operators of Saline county:<br />
All mines to resume work immediately under<br />
the same conditions prevailing before the present<br />
trouble.<br />
It is hereby agreed to refer the division of the<br />
machine mining rate in Saline county to an arbi<br />
tration board composed of two representatives of<br />
the miners, two of the operators, and John Williams<br />
of Streator, 111.; the hearing to take place<br />
as soon as it can be arranged, at which time all<br />
parties interested in the matter shall be heard;<br />
a stenographer to be employed to take down the<br />
evidence presented.<br />
Tt is also agreed that the dispute regarding the<br />
driving of wide entries double shift without com<br />
pensation shall be adjusted during this investiga<br />
tion.<br />
These two disputes are all that will be con<br />
sidered in this investigation, and all other causes<br />
of complaint to be adjusted in accordance with<br />
the state agreement.<br />
Decision of the Arbitration Board shall be in<br />
effect at the beginning of the pay-day period<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
nearest the date of decision rendered, not later,<br />
however, than September 1, 1911.<br />
W. R. Russell and William Johnson were se<br />
lected on the part of the operators, and Grace Lawrence<br />
and Paul Smith on the part of the miners;<br />
John U. Williams of Streator being the arbitrator.<br />
SYNDICATE MAY SELL COAL LANDS.<br />
A press dispatch from Fairmont, W. Va., says:<br />
"The Little Kanawha Syndicate Co., whicli is<br />
building the new extensions of the Buckhannon<br />
& Northern railroad from Rivesville. near here, to<br />
Martin, Pa., will in all probability dispose of its<br />
vast holdings of coal lands in West Virginia after<br />
the extension is finished and put in operation. The<br />
syndicate is controlled by Ihe Baltimore & Ohio.<br />
the Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie<br />
Railroad Cos., the latter a subsidiary of the New<br />
York Central.<br />
"The company owns 60,000 acres of valuable coal<br />
property which has never been developed, owing to<br />
the lack of railroad facilities in that part of the<br />
state. The Buckhannon & Northern will tap the<br />
center of the property, and it is believed will bring<br />
about an early development of this immense field."<br />
PENNSYLVANIA'S NEW BRANCH<br />
TO TAP RICH COAL FIELD.<br />
The Pennsylvania railroad is planning to build<br />
a new road between Lore City and Fairview, Ohio,<br />
making a new short line between Cincinnati and<br />
Pittsburgh and opening up several new Ohio coal<br />
fields. Lore City is on the Baltimore & Ohio,<br />
and Fairview on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton,<br />
near Washington C. H., giving the Pennsyl<br />
vania a connection over the Cincinnati & Muskingum<br />
Valley into Cincinnati.<br />
From Cincinnati the coal will be distributed to<br />
various points in the West. It is estimated that<br />
the coal traffic from the Ohio mines will aggregate<br />
1,000,000 tons per year. This road will cut down<br />
the mileage between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, and<br />
it is expected that eventually some of the passenger<br />
trains from Pittsburgh will be run over it, re<br />
ducing time to and from the Smoky City.<br />
Surveying crews are now in the field and have<br />
the route nearly mapped out. Active work of<br />
preliminary grading will be started in the near<br />
future, and will be continued as long as the<br />
weather permits. In the spring it will be rushed<br />
to completion, and it is expected by tlie fall of<br />
1912 to have trains running over the line.<br />
The Northern Pacific has recently been using<br />
smokeless coal in its switch engines at Minneapo<br />
lis, as a result of the activities of the local smoke<br />
inspector.
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
DAVIS COLLIERY COMPANY STOCK<br />
HOLDERS HOLD ANNUAL MEETING.<br />
At the annual meeting of the stockholders of<br />
the Davis Colliery Co.. held recently at the general<br />
ofiices in Elkins. W. Va., the following officers<br />
were named for the ensuing year:<br />
President—Hon. Henry G. Davis.<br />
Vice President—John T. Davis.<br />
Treasurer—Arthur Lee.<br />
Secretary—R. Ii. Isner.<br />
In addition to the above officers, John T. Davis<br />
was made general manager, R. B. Isner. general<br />
manager of sales, and J. T. Tealy general manager<br />
of mines.<br />
The reports made to Ihe stockholders by the<br />
officers of the company indicate that while conditions<br />
in the coal trade have been abnormally poor<br />
during the past several months there is now a<br />
gradual improvement taking place and within a<br />
very short time all the mines and coke ovens will<br />
he working regularly.<br />
AUGUST ANTHRACITE SHIPMENTS.<br />
The shipments of anthracite coal for the month<br />
of August, 1911, by companies, as compared with<br />
August. 1910, were:<br />
Companies. 1911. 1910.<br />
Philadelphia & Reading 912.475 816,525<br />
Lehigh Valley 9S9.285 850.410<br />
Central R. R. of N. J 682,704 643,800<br />
Delaware, Lacka. & Western 843,238 763,167<br />
Delaware & Hudson 658,661 527,676<br />
Pennsylvania 430.041 461.432<br />
Erie 813,790 702,977<br />
Ontario & Western 201,602 230,057<br />
Total 5,531,796 4.996,044<br />
The shipments for the year 1911. as compared<br />
with 1910, were:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
January 5,904,117 5,306,618<br />
February 5,070,948 5,031,784<br />
March 5,996,894 5,174,166<br />
April 5,804,915 6,224,396<br />
May 6,317,352 5,679,661<br />
June 6,215,357 5,398,123<br />
July 4.804,065 4,202,059<br />
August 5,531,796 4,990,044<br />
September 4,967,516<br />
October 5,622,095<br />
November 6,071,746<br />
December 6,231,578<br />
Totals 45,645.444 64,905,786<br />
PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS<br />
During August 1,238,000 bushels more coal were<br />
locked through No. 4, in the Monongahela river,<br />
than in July. A total of 10.565.000 bushels passed<br />
through the ioek. A feature of the river noted<br />
at Lock No. 4 during August was the passenger<br />
trade. There were 2,834 passengers down stream<br />
and 2,996 upbound. Lockages down stream were<br />
506, with 274 steamers and 1,087 boats, barges and<br />
flats. There were 500 lockages up stream, with<br />
276 steamers and 1,075 boats, barges and flats.<br />
The fan house at the Pittsburgh Coal Co.'s Mc-<br />
Govern mine caught fire September 6. and was<br />
entirely consumed. The managers of the company<br />
on being notified of the destruction of the<br />
house at once decided to put in an electric fan,<br />
and material is now on the ground and mechanics<br />
are on the job.<br />
The Department of Mines of Pennsylvania has<br />
just obtained a supply of steel tapes, barographs,<br />
hygrometers and other instruments used by the<br />
mine inspectors. They will be distributed by<br />
Chief James E. Roderick to the new inspectors and<br />
to those whose instruments have worn out.<br />
The Penn Gas Coal Co., of Philadelphia, has purchased<br />
the two large sea-going barges Elk Garden<br />
and Hampshire, formerly belonging to the Davis<br />
Coal & Coke Co., and in the future they will carry<br />
coal from Philadelphia to Boston, instead of from<br />
Baltimore to eastern ports.<br />
The Norfolk & Western, the Southern, the Seaboard<br />
Air Line, the Atlantic Coast Line and other<br />
railroads distributing New River and Pocahontas<br />
coal over the Carolinas have announced a reduction<br />
of 10 cents per ton in their coal tariffs, effective<br />
October 15.<br />
Experiments with an electric safety lamp have<br />
recently been made at the Auchincloss colliery of<br />
the D. L. & W. Current is supplied by a storage<br />
battery so arranged that it does not seriously interfere<br />
with the movements of the miner.<br />
The new breaker of the E. S. Stackhouse operation<br />
at Shickshinny is now well under way, the<br />
foundation having been completed. It will be<br />
constructed of wood and have a capacity of 1,000<br />
tons daily.<br />
September 22 has been set aside as coal men's<br />
day at the Appalachian exposition at Knoxville,<br />
Tenn. The entire day will be turned over to the<br />
coal men and at night a banquet will be given.
FRANCIS LE BARON ROBBINS PASSES AWAY<br />
IN CHICAGO AFTER ILLNESS LASTING<br />
FOR TWO YEARS.<br />
Francis LeBaron Robbins of Pittsburgh, one of<br />
the best known coal operators in the country, died<br />
at 8 o'clock P. ML, Sept. 8, in the Mercy Hospital<br />
in Chicago, 111. His death was due to cirrhosis<br />
of the liver. Recently he had undergone an operalion.<br />
His wife and several close friends were<br />
with him wnen I lie end came.<br />
Air. Robbins was born in Ripon, Wis.. Sept. 3.<br />
1S55. He received all the advantages of a liberal<br />
education. Of English ancestry, he was a son<br />
of Burr and Alice (Brockway) Robbins, and was<br />
MB. F. L. BOBBINS.<br />
named after Francis Le Baron, one of the original<br />
Puritans who landed in Plymouth, Mass., from the<br />
Mayflower in 1639. From this stock, both of his<br />
parents were descended—his father from Richard<br />
Robbins. who was born in England and who upon<br />
arriving in America in 1639. settled in Cambridge,<br />
Mass.; and his mother from Wolstan Brockway<br />
who was the first member of the family to settle in<br />
the new world, at Lyme, Conn., in 1659, where the<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 25<br />
same property is still owned by his descendants.<br />
Both of Mr. Robbins' parents were natives of the<br />
state of New York, his father being born in Camillus,<br />
and his mother in Parma, both flourishing<br />
towns of the Empire State.<br />
Mr. Robbins was married in 1882 to Helen Gill,<br />
a daughter of one of the most prominent families<br />
of Steubenville, 0. A half-brother, who is president<br />
of the Medina Pump & Valve Co. of Medina,<br />
N. Y.. also is living. Mr. Robbins' only brother,<br />
W. B. Robbins of Medina died about three years<br />
ago. His father also died Ihere several years<br />
prior to that time, having moved with his family<br />
to that place after his retirement from business in<br />
Pittsburgh. .Mr. Robbins' home was at 80S Sherman<br />
avenue. North Side.<br />
Mr. Robbins' father moved to Wisconsin, and<br />
there he engaged in the farming and lumbering<br />
business, but in 1871, inducements were held out<br />
to him to engage in the coal business in Pennsylvania,<br />
and thither he (then a widower, accompanied<br />
by his young son I turned his footsteps.<br />
When Robbins. senior, reached Pennsylvania, be<br />
purchased a one-half interest in a coal mine, being<br />
associated with John Amort, of Elmira, N. Y. The<br />
fact that Mr. Arnott left behind him at his death<br />
an estate of $6,000,000 is evidence of the success<br />
with which the enterprise met.<br />
Young Robbins here first entered upon his subsequent<br />
successful career, starting at the age of<br />
15 in his father's employ, and mastering every<br />
detail of the coal business, filling every position<br />
from the breaking of coal to assuming all the responsibilities<br />
of superintendent of the Pittsburgh<br />
& Walnut Hill Coal Co. In fact, when 20 years<br />
of age, young Robbins was superintendent of two<br />
mines.<br />
On reaching his majority Mr. Robbins purchased<br />
two mines, which he named the Robbins Coal Co.<br />
and the Willow Grove Mining Co., and both of<br />
which he operated successfully fhaving an interest<br />
at the same time in the Pittsburgh Consolidated<br />
Coal Co.) until 1900. at which period the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co. was <strong>org</strong>anized, with F. M. Osborne<br />
as president and Mr. Robbins as chairman of the<br />
board of directors.<br />
When F. M. Osborne retired as president shortly<br />
thereafter Mr. Robbins became president as well as<br />
chairman, and continued so until 1907. when he retired<br />
from this company entirely and became president<br />
of the Monongahela River Consolidated Coal<br />
& Coke Co. for a year. Since then he had been in<br />
ill headth, but had been at work on an extensive<br />
coal and cement proposition in Alabama.<br />
He saw early in his career the need of providing<br />
a market in a large way for the coal he produced,<br />
by securing terminal and storage facilities on the<br />
Great Lakes, which are the keys to the coal districts<br />
of the great Northwest. This policy he was
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
enabled to carry out by effecting an alliance in<br />
1890 between the first, pool. Monongahela Gas Coal<br />
Co.. the Pittsburgh, Fairport & Northwestern Dock<br />
Co. and the Youghiogheny & Lehigh Valley Coal<br />
Co. By this combination extensive docks and<br />
selling agencies were obtained on Lake Erie and<br />
at Chicago. Duluth and Superior. The hulk of the<br />
detail work of operating and creating the depart<br />
ments of this new combination fell upon the<br />
shoulders of Mr. Robbins, who in a short linn put<br />
them upon such a splendid basis that their suc<br />
cess and bis reputation as a full-gauged man of<br />
affairs were permanently established.<br />
In working out these problems, as well as the<br />
large ones which came to him later, Mr. Robbins<br />
displayed a firmness and ability which have always<br />
been his marked characteristics, and coal operatois,<br />
miners and business associates alike soon came<br />
to know that, bis statements of facts were un<br />
shakable. These qualities enabled him to bring<br />
lo his support financial men and capitalists who<br />
had looked upon the coal business as a hazardous<br />
and uncertain undertaking.<br />
During the yeai s of the formation of the com<br />
bination alluded to, and the formation of the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co. in September, 1889, Mr. Robbins<br />
was tireless in his investigation of the resources<br />
of the Pittsburgh coal field and the best methods<br />
of conveying its output to the great markets. More<br />
than any other man he established the fame of<br />
Pittsburgh coal in districts that had never used it<br />
before, and established it as the standard of excellence<br />
for steam and gas purposes.<br />
He was the guiding spirit in the formation of<br />
the Pittsburgh Coal Co.. and by means of options<br />
held by himself and his colleagues brought under<br />
its control nearly all the leading railroad mines of<br />
steam and gas coal in the Pittsburgh district, making<br />
fair profits and fair prices the.motto of the<br />
new industrial giant. The company established<br />
a relief association providing disability benefits and<br />
pensions for its operatives who became aged or<br />
decrepit in its service. It was at the suggestion<br />
and through the earnest efforts of Mr. Robbins that<br />
the Pittsburgh Coal Co. became a pioneer among<br />
the great corporations of the country in a profit-<br />
sharing plan whereby its employes were enabled<br />
to participate in the dividends on the preferred<br />
stock, and this plan has proven so successful that<br />
it has been carried out by Ihe United States Steel<br />
Corporation and oilier corporations.<br />
But Francis L. Robbins stood most prominent as<br />
a friend and supporter of trades unions. His<br />
work in this direction will live long after his de<br />
parture from the busy scenes of life. His atti<br />
tude toward <strong>org</strong>anized labor has prevented many<br />
serious conflicts between employers and employes<br />
in the mining industry, and his generosity of<br />
heart, his frankness of speech and his practical<br />
methods of business have all endeared him to and<br />
made him, to a great extent, the guide and coun<br />
sellor of those engaged in the trade.<br />
He in 1904 attended at Indianapolis a conven<br />
tion to adjust the differences between miners and<br />
operators. This was the largest and most import<br />
ant conference between employes and employers<br />
ever held. Mr. Robbins was the representative<br />
and leader of 300 operators, while John Mitchell<br />
represented as leader the 1.2011 labor delegates.<br />
Greatly through Mr. Robbins' efforts and kindly in<br />
fluence a threatened strike was thwarted. The<br />
miners wanted the same scale of wages adopted as<br />
in 1903 and the operators did not. Fortunately<br />
for everybody a compromise was reached through<br />
the good offices of Mr. Ronbins. A scale for two<br />
years instead of one was signed, the miners consenting<br />
to a reduction of 5.55 per cent., the term<br />
to begin April 1. 1904, and terminate April 1, 1906,<br />
i bus preventing the possibility of any trouble in<br />
the bituminous field during the period stated.<br />
Mr. Robbins always took a lively interest in politics<br />
and was chairman of the County Republican<br />
Committee during the Garfield campaign of 1880,<br />
though then but 25 years of age. He was a dele-<br />
gate-at-large to the National Republican Convention<br />
at Chicago in 1904. He was particularly<br />
strong wtb the labor element, who found in him,<br />
although a capitalist and president of a large cor<br />
poration, a strong and earnest advocate. He was<br />
spoken of as the probable successor of the late<br />
Marcus A. Hanna as president of the Civic Federation.<br />
For a time following the death of M. S. Quay,<br />
Mr. Robbins was looked upon as the man most<br />
likely to succeed him in tlie United States Senate.<br />
It was probably a disappointment to him as it was<br />
to a host of friends that he was not called to this<br />
high public position.<br />
His interest in politics as well as his high standing<br />
during a generation in the industrial and finan<br />
cial world, contributed to make him a man of very<br />
wide acquaintance and his death will be the means<br />
of recalling circumstances concerning him to the<br />
memory of a host of persons scattered over a wide<br />
section of the country.<br />
Sheriff Shields of Westmoreland county, Pa., was<br />
Found guilty on three charges of embezzlement,<br />
perjury and misdemeanor on Sept. 8. The cases<br />
grew out of the strike in that field last year.<br />
It is officially announced that the proposed increase<br />
in freight rates on anthracite going into<br />
Canada has been suspended until May 1, 1912.
The following is the full text of the new Illinois<br />
mining law:<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
ILLINOIS NEW MINING LAW<br />
An Act to revise the laws in relation to coal<br />
mines and subjects relating thereto, and pro<br />
viding for the health and safety of persons employed<br />
therein.<br />
Section 1. Be it enacted by the people of the<br />
State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:<br />
(a) That the Governor, with the advice<br />
and consent of the Senate, shall appoint a State<br />
Mining Board which shall be composed of five<br />
members, two of whom shall be practicing coal<br />
miners, one a practicing coal mine hoisting engineer,<br />
and two coal operators.<br />
Powers and Duties of Board. (b) Said Board<br />
shall be authorized, empowered and required to<br />
make formal inquiry into and pass upon the practical<br />
and technological qualifications and personal<br />
fitness of men seeking apiiointment as State Inspectors<br />
of Mines, and of those seeking certificates<br />
of competency as mine managers, as hoisting<br />
engineers and as mine examiners. Said Board<br />
also shall have such other powers and duties as<br />
may be prescribed by the provisions of this Act,<br />
or any other Act relating to coal mining. Said<br />
Board also shall control and direct the State Mine<br />
Inspectors hereinafter provided for, in the discharge<br />
of their duties. Said Board also shall<br />
cause to be collected statistical details relating<br />
to coal mining in the State, especially in its relations<br />
to the vital, sanitary, commercial and industrial<br />
conditions, and to the permanent prosperity<br />
of said industry; and said Board shall<br />
cause such statistical details to be compiled and<br />
summarized as a report of said State Mining<br />
Board, to be known as the Annual Coal Report.<br />
Date and Term of Appointment, (c) Their appointment<br />
shall date from July 1, 1911, and they<br />
shall serve for a term of two years, or until their<br />
successors are appointed and qualified. They<br />
shall all be sworn to a faithful performance of<br />
their duties. One of the coal operators member<br />
of said Board shall be elected as president, and<br />
one of the coal miners member of said Board shall<br />
be elected as secretary. The Board may appoint<br />
a chief clerk and may<br />
EMPLOY SUCH OTHER PERSONS<br />
as may be necessary for the proper discharge of<br />
its powers and duties; all of whom shall perform<br />
such duties as may be prescribed by the Board<br />
from time to time, and the Board may from time<br />
to time also prescribe standing and other rules<br />
for the control and direction of its officers and<br />
employes and of the State Mine Inspectors.<br />
Supplies Furnished by Secretary of State, (d)<br />
The Secretary of State shall assign to the use<br />
of the Board, suitably furnished rooms in the<br />
State House, and shall also furnish whatever<br />
blanks, blank books, printing, stationery, instruments<br />
and supplies the Board may require in the<br />
discharge of its duties and for the use of State<br />
Mine Inspectors.<br />
Frequency of Meetings, (e) The Board shall<br />
hold such meetings from time to time as may be<br />
necessary for the proper discharge of its duties.<br />
The Board shall meet at the Capitol on the second<br />
Tuesday in September of the year 1911, and annually<br />
thereafter, for the examination of candidates<br />
for appointment as State Inspectors of<br />
Mines.<br />
Special examinations also may be held whenever<br />
for any reason it may become necessary to<br />
appoint one or more inspectors.<br />
For the examination of persons seeking certificates<br />
of competency as mine managers, hoisting<br />
engineers and mine examiners, the Board shall<br />
hold meetings at such times and places within<br />
the State as shall in the judgment of the members,<br />
afford the best facilities to the greatest number<br />
of candidates.<br />
Public notice shall be given through the press<br />
or otherwise, not less than ten days in advance,<br />
announcing the time and place at which any examinations<br />
under this section are to be held.<br />
Rules of Procedure, (fl The examinations herein<br />
provided for shall be conducted under rules,<br />
conditions and regulations prescribed by the<br />
Board. Such rules shall be made a part of the<br />
permanent record of the Board, and such of them<br />
as relate to candidates shall be, upon application<br />
of any candidate, furnished to him by the Board;<br />
they shall also be of uniform application to all<br />
candidates.<br />
Compensation of Members—Salary of Chief<br />
Clerk, (g) The members of the State Mining<br />
Board shall receive as<br />
COMPENSATION FOR THEIR SERVICES<br />
the sum of five dollars ($5) each per day for a<br />
term not exceeding one hundred (100) days in<br />
any one year, and whatever sums are necessary<br />
to reimburse them for such actual and necessary<br />
traveling expenses as may be incurred in the discharge<br />
of their duties.<br />
The salary of the chief clerk shall be $2,000 per<br />
annum, and he shall be reimbursed for any<br />
amounts expended for actual and necessary traveling<br />
expenses in the discharge of his duties.<br />
All salaries and expenses of the Board and of<br />
its employees shall be paid upon vouchers duly<br />
sworn to by each and approved by the president of<br />
the Board, or in his absence by the acting president,<br />
and by the Governor, and the Auditor of
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Public Accounts is hereby authorized to draw his<br />
warrants on the State Treasury for the amounts<br />
thus shown to be due, payable out of any money<br />
in the treasury not otherwise appropriated.<br />
Sec. 2. Credentials, (a) An applicant for any<br />
certificate herein provided for, before being examined,<br />
shall register his name with the State<br />
Mining Board and file with the Board the credentials<br />
required by this Act, to-wit: An affidavit<br />
as to all matters of fact establishing his right to<br />
receive the examination, and a certificate of good<br />
character and temperate habits, signed by at least<br />
ten residents of the community in which he resides.<br />
Examinations for Inspectors, (b) Persons applying<br />
to the State Mining Board as candidates<br />
for appointment as State Inspectors of mines<br />
must produce evidence satisfactory to the Board<br />
that they are citizens of this State, at least thirty<br />
years of age, that they have had a practical mining<br />
experience of ten years, and that they are<br />
men of good repute and temperate habits; they<br />
must pass an examination as to their practical<br />
and technological knowledge of mine surveying<br />
and mining machinery and appliances, of the<br />
proper development and operation of coal mines,<br />
of ventilation in mines, of the nature and properties<br />
of mines gases, of first aid to injured, of<br />
mine rescue methods and appliances, of the geology<br />
of the coal measures in this State, and of<br />
the laws of this State relating to coal mines.<br />
Names Certified to the Governor, (c) At the<br />
close of each examination for inspectors the Board<br />
shall certify to the Governor the<br />
NAMES OF ALL CANDIDATES<br />
who have received a rating above the minimum<br />
fixed by the rules of the Board as being persons<br />
properly qualified for the position of inspector.<br />
Examinations for Mine Managers. (d I Persons<br />
applying to the Board for certificates of competency<br />
as mine managers must produce evidence<br />
satisfactory to the Board that they are citizens<br />
of the United States, at least twenty-four years<br />
of age, that they have had at least four years' practical<br />
mining experience, and that they are men of<br />
good repute and temperate habits; they must also<br />
pass such examination as to their experience in<br />
mines and in the management of men, their<br />
knowledge of mine machinery and appliances, the<br />
use of surveying and other instruments used in<br />
mining, the properties of mine gases, the principles<br />
of ventilation, of first aid to injured, of<br />
mine-rescue methods and appliances, and the legal<br />
duties and responsibilities of mine managers, as<br />
shall be prescribed by the rules of the Board.<br />
For Mine Managers—Second Class, (d) Persons<br />
coming before the board for certificates of<br />
competency as mine managers, second class, must<br />
produce evidence satisfactory to the board that<br />
they are citizens of the United States, at least<br />
twenty-four years of age, that they have had at<br />
least four years' practical mining experience, and<br />
that they are men of good repute and temperate<br />
habits; they must also submit to and satisfactorily<br />
pass such an examination as to their experience<br />
in mines and in the management of men,<br />
their knowledge of coal mining, mine ventilation<br />
and the mining laws of this State and the required<br />
duties and responsibilities of second class<br />
mine managers, as shall be prescribed by the rules<br />
of the Board, and it shall be unlawful to employ<br />
second-class mine managers, or for them to serve<br />
in that capacity at mines employing more than<br />
ten men.<br />
Examinations for Mine Examiners, (e) Persons<br />
applying to the Board for certificates of<br />
competency as mine examiners, must produce evidence<br />
satisfactory to the Board that they are citizens<br />
of the United States, at least twenty-one<br />
years of age, and of good repute and temperate<br />
habits, and that they have had at least four years'<br />
practical mining experience. They must<br />
PASS AX EXAMINATION<br />
as to their experience in mines generating dangerous<br />
gases, their practical and technological<br />
knowledge of the nature and properties of firedamp,<br />
the laws of ventilation, the structure and<br />
uses of safety lamps, and the laws of this State<br />
relating to safeguards against fires from any<br />
source in mines.<br />
Examinations for Hoisting Engineers, (f) Persons<br />
applying to the Board for certificates of<br />
competency as hoisting engineers must produce<br />
evidence satisfactory to the Board that they are<br />
citizens of the LTnited States, at least twenty-one<br />
years of age, that they have had at least two<br />
years' experience as fireman or engineer of a<br />
hoisting plant, and are of good repute and temperate<br />
habits. They must pass an examination as<br />
to their experience in handling hoisting machinery,<br />
and as to their practical and technological<br />
knowledge of the construction, cleaning and care<br />
of steam boilers, the care and adjustment of hoisting<br />
engines, the management and efficiency of<br />
pumps, ropes and winding apparatus, and as to<br />
their knowledge of the laws of this State in relation<br />
to signals and the hoisting and lowering<br />
of men at mines.<br />
Examination Papers Preserved, (g) There shall<br />
be a written and an oral examination of applicants<br />
as may be prescribed by the rules of the<br />
Board; and all written examination papers and<br />
all other papers of applicants shall be kept on<br />
file by the Board for not less than one year, during<br />
which time any applicant shall have the right<br />
to inspect his said papers at all reasonable times;<br />
and any applicant shall be entitled to a certified
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
copy of any or all of his said papers upon pay the operator of any mine to permit any person<br />
ment of a reasonable copy fee therefor.<br />
who does not hold a certificate of competency as<br />
Sec. 3. Certificates Issued by the Board, (a) The hoisting engineer issued by the State Mining<br />
certificates provided for in this Act shall be is Board, to hoist or lower men, or to have charge<br />
sued under the signature and seal of the State of the hoisting engine when men are under<br />
Mining Board, to all those who receive a rating ground.<br />
above the minimum fixed by the rules of the Temporary Employment of Uncertificated Per<br />
Board; such certificates shall contain the full sons Not Extended, (g) The employment of per<br />
name, age and place of birth of the recipient and sons who do not hold certificates as mine man<br />
the length and nature of his previous service in agers and mine examiners, shall in no case<br />
or about coal mines.<br />
EXCEED THE LIMIT OF TIME<br />
Record to be Preserved, (b) The Board shall specified herein, and the State Inspector shall not<br />
make and preserve a record of the names and ad approve of the employment of such persons bedresses<br />
of all persons to whom certificates are yond the twenty-three-day limit.<br />
issued.<br />
Removal of Inspectors, (h) Upon a petition<br />
Effect of Certificates, (c) The certificates pro signed by not less than three coal operators, or<br />
vided for in this Act shall<br />
ten coal miners, setting forth that any State In<br />
ENTITLE THE HOLDERS<br />
spector of Mines neglects his duties, or that he<br />
thereof to accept and discharge at any mine in is incompetent, or that he is guilty of malfeasance<br />
this State, the duties for which they are de in office, or guilty of any act tending to the unclared<br />
qualified.<br />
lawful injury of miners or operators of mines, it<br />
Unlawful to Employ Other Than Certificated shall be the duty of the State Mining Board to<br />
Mine Managers. (d) It shall be unlawful for the issue a citation to the said inspector to appear be<br />
operator of any coal mine to have in his service fore it within a period of fifteen days on a day<br />
as mine manager at his mine, any person who fixed for said hearing, when the said Board shall<br />
does not hold a certificate of competency issued investigate the allegations of the petitioners; and<br />
by the State Mining Board of this State; provided, if the said Board shall find that the said inspector<br />
that whenever any exigency arises by which it is is neglectful of his duty, or that he is guilty of<br />
impossible for any operator to secure the imme malfeasance in office, or guilty of any act tending<br />
diate services of a certificated mine manager, he to the injury of miners or operators of mines, the<br />
may place any trustworthy and experienced man said Board shall declare the office of said in<br />
of the mine inspection district in charge of his spector vacant, and a properly qualified person<br />
mine to act as temporary mine manager for a shall be duly appointed, in the manner provided<br />
period not exceeding seven days, and with the for in this Act, to fill said vacancy.<br />
approval of the State Inspector of the district, Cancellation of Certificates. (1) The certificate<br />
for a further period not exceeding twenty-three of any mine manager, hoisting engineer or mine<br />
days.<br />
examiner, may be canceled and revoked by the<br />
Unlawful to Employ Other Than Certificated State Mining Board upon notice and hearing as<br />
Mine Examiners, (e) It shall be unlawful for the hereinafter provided, if it shall be established in<br />
operator of any mine to have in his service as the judgment of said Board that the holder there<br />
mine examiner any person who does not hold a of has become unworthy to hold said certificate<br />
certificate of competency issued by the State Min by reason of violation of the law, intemperate<br />
ing Board; provided, that any one holding a mine habits, incapacity, abuse of authority or for any<br />
manager's certificate may serve as mine examin other cause; provided, that any person against<br />
er; but in any mine employing more than twenty- whom charges or complaints are made hereunder<br />
five (25) men, the mine manager shall not act shall have the right to appear before said Board<br />
in the capacity of mine examiner while acting as and defend against said charges, and he shall<br />
mine manager; and, provided, whenever an exig have fifteen days' notice in writing of such<br />
ency arises by which it is impossible for any op charges previous to such hearing; provided furerator<br />
to secure the immediate services of a certher, that the Board in its discretion may sustificated<br />
examiner, he may employ any trustpend the certificate of any person charged as<br />
worthy and experienced man of the mine-inspec aforesaid, pending said hearing, but said hearing<br />
tion district to act as temporary mine examiner shall not be unreasonably deferred.<br />
for a period not exceeding seven days, and with Sec. 4. Inspection Districts. The State shall be<br />
the approval of the State Inspector of the dis divided into twelve inspection districts, said divitrict,<br />
for a further period not exceeding twentysions to be made by the State Mining Board. The<br />
three days.<br />
Board may also change from time to time the<br />
Unlawful to Employ Other Than Certificated boundaries of said districts, in order to more<br />
Hoisting Engineer, (f) It shall be unlawful for equally distribute the labor and expenses of the
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
several mine inspectors, but this provision shall<br />
not be construed as authorizing the State Mining<br />
Board to increase the number of districts.<br />
Sec. 5. Inspectors Appointed, (a) From the<br />
names certified by the State Mining Board, the<br />
Governor shall select and appoint<br />
shall be for a term of two years from July first,<br />
provided the term of any State Mine Inspector<br />
in office July lst, 1911, shall be extended to Oc<br />
tober lst, 1911, and provided any State Inspector<br />
in actual service and good standing and who has<br />
passed one examination under this Act may be<br />
reappointed for the next ensuing term, without<br />
further certification, but shall not be so reappoint<br />
ed more than three times: provided, further, no<br />
man shall be eligible for appointment as a State<br />
Inspector of Mines who has any pecuniary interest<br />
in any coal mine in Illinois.<br />
The county board of supervisors, or of commis<br />
sioners in counties not under township <strong>org</strong>anization,<br />
or any county in which coal is produced,<br />
upon the written request of the State Inspector<br />
of Mines for the district in which said county is<br />
located, shall appoint a County Inspector of Mines<br />
as assistant to such State Inspector, but no per<br />
son shall be eligible for appointment as County<br />
Inspector who does not hold a State certificate of<br />
competency as mine manager, and the compensation<br />
of such County Inspector shall be fixed by<br />
the county board at not less than three dollars<br />
per day, to be paid out of the county treasury.<br />
The State Inspector may authorize any County<br />
Inspector in his district to assume and discharge<br />
all the duties and exercise all the powers or a<br />
State Inspector in the county for which he is ap<br />
pointed, in the absence of the State Inspector; but<br />
such authority must be conferred in writing and<br />
the County Inspector must produce the same as<br />
evidence of his powers upon the demand of any<br />
person affected by his acts; and the bond of said<br />
State Inspector shall be holden for the faithful<br />
performance of the duties of such assistant In<br />
spector.<br />
Bond, (c) State Inspectors, before entering<br />
upon their duties as such, must take an oath of<br />
office, as provided for by the Constitution, and<br />
enter into a bond to the State in the sum of five<br />
thousand dollars ($5,0001 for State Mine Inspectors,<br />
with sureties to be approved by the Governor,<br />
conditioned upon the faithful<br />
PERFORMANCE OF THEIR DUTIES<br />
in every particular, as required by this Act. Said<br />
oonds. with the approval of the Governor en<br />
dorsed thereon, together with the oath of office,<br />
shall be deposited with the Secretary of State.<br />
Instruments, (d) The State Mining Board shall<br />
furnish to each of said State Inspectors an anemo<br />
meter, a safety-lamp and such other instruments<br />
and such blanks, blank-books, stationery, printing<br />
TWELVE STATE MINE INSPECTOBS;<br />
and supplies as may be required by said inspectors<br />
in the discharge of their official duties. Said<br />
that is to say, one inspector for each of the twelve instruments and supplies shall be paid for on<br />
inspection districts provided for in this Act; or bills of particulars certified by the proper officers<br />
more, if. in the future, additional inspection dip of the Board and approved by the Governor, and<br />
tricts shall be created, and their commission;; the Auditor of Public Accounts shall draw his<br />
warrants on the State Treasury for the amounts<br />
thus shown to be due, payable out of any money<br />
in the treasury not otherwise appropriated.<br />
Examination of Mines, (e) State inspectors<br />
shall devote their whole time and attention to<br />
the duties of their respective offices. State In<br />
spectors shall make personal examination at least<br />
once in every six months of each mine in their<br />
district in which marsh gas has been detected in<br />
quantities which, in the judgment of the State<br />
Mining Board, are dangerous. The State Mining<br />
Board also may require State Inspectors personally<br />
to examine any or all other mines in their respective<br />
districts.<br />
State Inspectors may be assigned by the State<br />
Mining Board to examine mines which have not<br />
been classified as generating marsh gas in dan<br />
gerous quantities.<br />
Every mine in the State shall be examined at<br />
least once in every six months.<br />
Scope of Examination, (f) Every State In<br />
spector in the regular inspection of mines shall<br />
measure with an anemometer and determine the<br />
amount of air passing in the last cross-cut in each<br />
pair of entries in pillar and room mines, or in<br />
the last room of each division in long wall mines.<br />
He shall also measure'with an anemometer and<br />
determine the amount of air passing at the inlet<br />
and outlet of the mines; and he shall compare<br />
all such air measurements with the last report<br />
of the mine examiner and the mine manager<br />
ujion the mine examination book of the mine. He<br />
must observe that the legal<br />
CODE (IF SIGNALS<br />
between the engineer and top man and bottom<br />
man is established and conspicuously posted for<br />
the information of all employes.<br />
State Inspectors also shall require that every<br />
necessary precaution be taken to insure the health<br />
and safety of the workmen employed in the mines,<br />
and that the provisions and requirements of all<br />
the mining laws of this State are obeyed.<br />
State Inspectors shall render written reports<br />
of mine inspections made by them to the State<br />
Mining Board in such form and manner as shall<br />
be required by the Board. State Inspector shall<br />
take prompt action for the enforcement of the
penalties provided for violation of the mining<br />
laws.<br />
Authority to Enter, (g) It shall be lawful for<br />
State Inspectors to enter, examine and inspect<br />
any and all coal mines and the machinery belonging<br />
thereto, at all reasonable times, by day<br />
or by night, but so as not to unreasonably obstruct<br />
or hinder the working of such coal mine,<br />
and the operator of every such coal mine is hereby<br />
required to furnish all necessary facilities for<br />
making such examination and inspection.<br />
Procedure in Case of Objection, (h) If any operator<br />
shall refuse to permit such inspection or<br />
to furnish the necessary facilities for making such<br />
examination and inspection, the inspector shall<br />
file his affidavit, setting forth such refusal, with<br />
the judge of the circuit court in said county in<br />
which said mine is situated, either in term time<br />
or vacation, or, in the absence of said judge, with<br />
a master in chancery in said county in which<br />
said mine is situated, and obtain an order on<br />
such owner, agent or operator so refusing as<br />
aforesaid, commanding him to permit and furnish<br />
such necessary facilities for the inspection<br />
of such coal mine, or to be adjudged to stand in<br />
contempt of court and punished accordingly.<br />
Notices to be Posted, (i) The State Inspector<br />
shall post in some conspicuous place at the top<br />
of each mine inspected by him, a plain statement<br />
showing what in his judgment is necessary for<br />
the better protection of the lives and health of<br />
persons employed in such mine; such statement<br />
shall give the date of inspection and be signed<br />
by the inspector. He shall<br />
POST A NOTICE<br />
at the landing used by the men, stating what<br />
number of men will be permitted to ride on the<br />
cage at one time and the rate of speed at which<br />
men may be hoisted and lowered on the cages.<br />
Sealer of Weights, (jl State Inspectors are<br />
hereby made ex-officio sealer of weights and measures<br />
in their respective districts, and as such<br />
are empowered to test all scales used to weigh<br />
coal at coal mines. Upon the written request of<br />
any mine owner or operator, or of ten coal miners<br />
employed at any one mine, it shall be the duty<br />
of the inspector to test any scale or scales at<br />
such mine against which complaint is directed,<br />
and if he shall find that they or any of them do<br />
not weigh correctly, he shall call the attention<br />
of the mine owner or operator to the fact, and<br />
direct that said scale or scales be at once overhauled<br />
and readjusted so as to indicate only true<br />
and exact weights, and he shall forbid the further<br />
operation of such mine until such scales are adjusted.<br />
In the event that such tests shall conflict<br />
with any test made by any county sealer of<br />
weights, or under and by virtue of any municipal<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
ordinance or regulation, then the test by such<br />
mine inspector shall prevail.<br />
Test Weights. (k) For the purpose of carrying<br />
out the provisions of this Act, each State Inspector<br />
shall be furnished by the State with a<br />
complete set of standard weights suitable for<br />
testing the accuracy of track scales and of all<br />
smaller scales at mines; said test weights to be<br />
paid for on bills of particulars, certified by the<br />
Secretary of State and approved by the Governor.<br />
Such test weights shall remain in the custody<br />
of the inspector for use at any point within his<br />
district, and for any amounts expended by him<br />
for the storage, transportation or handling of the<br />
same, he shall be fully reimbursed upon making<br />
entry of the proper items in his expense voucher.<br />
Inspectors' Annual Reports, (ll Fach State Inspector<br />
of Mines shall, within sixty days after<br />
June 30th of each year, prepare and forward to<br />
the State Mining Board a formal report of his<br />
acts during the year in the discharge of his<br />
duties, with any recommendations as to legislation<br />
he may deem necessary on the subject of<br />
mining, and shall collect and tabulate upon<br />
blanks furnished by said Board all desired statistics<br />
of mines and miners within his district to<br />
accompany said annual report.<br />
Reports to Be Published, (ml On the receipt<br />
of said inspectors' reports the chief clerk of the<br />
State Mining Board shall compile and summarize<br />
the same, to be included in the report of said<br />
Board, to be known as the Annual Coal Report,<br />
which shall, within four months thereafter, be<br />
bound, printed and<br />
TRANSMITTED TO THE GOVERNOK<br />
for the information of the General Assembly and<br />
the public. The printing and binding of said reports<br />
shall be provided for by the Commissioners<br />
of State Contracts in like manner and in like<br />
numbers as they provide for the publication of<br />
other official reports to the Governor.<br />
Reports by Operator, (n) Every coal operator<br />
shall, within thirty days after June 30 of each<br />
year, furnish to the State Mine Inspector of the<br />
district, on blanks furnished by him prior to said<br />
June 30, statistics of the wages and conditions of<br />
their employees as required by law. The failure<br />
of any inspector to forward to the State Mining<br />
Board his formal report, as provided in Paragraph<br />
(1) hereof, or the failure of any coal operator<br />
to furnish to the State Mine Inspector of the<br />
district the statistics provided for herein, shall<br />
be adjudged a misdemeanor and be subject to a<br />
fine of $100.<br />
Sec. 6. Pay of Inspectors. Each State Inspector<br />
of Mines shall receive as compensation for his<br />
services the sum of $1,800 per annum, and for<br />
traveling and other necessary expenses each shall<br />
receive the sum actually expended for that pur-
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
pose in the discharge of his official duties: provided,<br />
such expenses shall not exceed one hundred<br />
dollars ($100) per calendar month for each<br />
State Inspector of Mines, both salary and expenses<br />
to be paid monthly by the State Treasurer,<br />
on warrants of the Auditor of Public Accounts,<br />
from the funds in the treasury not otherwise appropriated;<br />
said expense vouchers shall show the<br />
items of expenditures in detail, with sub-vouchers<br />
for the same so far as it is practicable to obtain<br />
them. Said vouchers shall be sworn to by the inspector<br />
and be approved by the President of- the<br />
State Mining Board and the Governor.<br />
Sec. 7. Maps Required, (a) The operator of<br />
every coal mine in the State shall make, or cause<br />
to be made, an accurate map or plan of such<br />
mine, drawn to a scale not smaller than 200 feet<br />
to the inch. All measurements shall be in feet<br />
and decimals of a foot. On such maps shall appear<br />
the name of the State, county and township<br />
in which the mine is located, the designation of<br />
the mine, the name of the company or owner, the<br />
certificate of the mining engineer or surveyor as<br />
to the<br />
ACCURACY AND DATE<br />
of the survey, the north point and the scale to<br />
which the drawing is made.<br />
Surface Survey, (b) Such map or plan shall accurately<br />
show the surface boundary lines of the<br />
coal right pertaining to each mine, and all sections<br />
or quarter-section lines or corners within<br />
the same; the lines of town lots and streets; the<br />
tracks and side-tracks of all railroads, and the<br />
location of all wagon roads, rivers, streams, ponds,<br />
location and depth of holes drilled for oil, gas<br />
or water that penetrate a workable coal seam, and<br />
the elevation above the coal seam of any stream<br />
or body of water that might endanger the mine.<br />
Underground Survey, (c I For the underground<br />
workings, said maps shall show all shafts, slopes,<br />
tunnels or other openings to the surface or to<br />
the workings of a contiguous mine; all excavations,<br />
entries, rooms and cross-cuts; the location<br />
of the fan or furnace and the direction of the<br />
air currents; the location of pumps, hauling engines,<br />
engine planes, abandoned works, fire walls<br />
and standing water; and the outcrop line of the<br />
seam, if any, on the property.<br />
The general outline of all areas in which pillars<br />
have been drawn shall be indicated on the map.<br />
Each underground map also shall show, in feet<br />
and decimals thereof, the elevation of the floor<br />
of the coal at reasonable intervals on the main<br />
entries and cross entries from the bottom of the<br />
shaft to the face of the workings; such elevations<br />
shall be referred to the floor of the coal at the<br />
bottom of the hoisting shaft.<br />
Map for Every Seam (d) A separate and similar<br />
map, drawn to the same scale, shall be made of<br />
each and every seam, which, after the passage of<br />
this Act, shall be worked in any mine, and the<br />
maps of all such seams shall show all shafts, inclined<br />
planes or other passageways connecting<br />
the same.<br />
Separate Map for the Surface, (e) A separate<br />
map also shall be made of the surface whenever<br />
the surface buildings, lines or objects are so numerous<br />
as to obscure the details of the mine workings<br />
if drawn upon the same sheet with them,<br />
and in such case the surface map shall be drawn<br />
on transparent cloth or paper, so that it can be<br />
laid upon the map of the underground workings,<br />
and thus indicate the relation of lines and objections<br />
on the surface to the excavations of the<br />
mine.<br />
The Dip. (f) Each map shall also show by<br />
profile drawing and measurements, in feet and<br />
decimals thereof, the<br />
RISE AND DIP OF TIIE SEAM<br />
from the bottom of the shaft in either direction<br />
to the face of the workings.<br />
Copies for Inspectors and Recorders, (g) The<br />
original or true copies of all such maps shall be<br />
kept in the office at the mine, and one true copy<br />
thereof shall be furnished to the State Inspector<br />
of Mines for the district in which said mine is<br />
located, and one shall be filed in the office of the<br />
recorder of the county in which the mine is located,<br />
within thirty days after the completion of<br />
the same. The maps so delivered to the inspector<br />
and to the recorder shall remain in the custody<br />
of said inspector and recorder during their respective<br />
terms of office, and be delivered by them<br />
to their successors in office. They shall be kept<br />
at the office of the inspector and of the recorder,<br />
and be open to the examination of all persons interested<br />
in the same, but such examination shall<br />
be made only in the presence of the inspector or<br />
the recorder. Neither the inspector nor the county<br />
recorder shall permit any copies of the same to<br />
be made without the written consent of the operator<br />
or the owner of the property.<br />
The county recorder shall properly index such<br />
map as part of the title record of the property<br />
affected.<br />
A copy of each map and extensions to the same<br />
shall be furnished the manager of the mine-rescue<br />
stations for his use in connection with rescue<br />
work only.<br />
Annual Surveys, (h) An extension of the last<br />
preceding survey of every mine in active operation<br />
shall be made once in every twelve months<br />
prior to July 1, of every year, and the results<br />
of said survey, with the date thereof shall be<br />
promptly and accurately entered upon the original<br />
maps and all copies of the same, so as to<br />
show all changes in plan or new work in the<br />
mine, and all extensions of the old workings to
the most advanced face or boundary of said<br />
workings which have been made since the last<br />
preceding survey. The State Inspector, the County<br />
Recorder and the Manager of the Rescue Stations<br />
shall be furnished with a copy of the said<br />
extended map or of the extensions to said map.<br />
Abandoned Mines. (i I When any coal mine is<br />
worked out or is about to be abandoned or indefinitely<br />
closed, the operator of the same shall<br />
make, or cause to be made, a final<br />
SURVEY OF SUCH MINE;<br />
to show the entire worked-out area when the mine<br />
was closed, and the results of the same shall be<br />
duly extended on all maps of the mine and copies<br />
thereof, herein required to be filed.<br />
Special Survey, (j) The State Inspector of<br />
Mines, or the State Mining Board, may order a<br />
survey to be made of the workings of any mine<br />
in addition to the regular annual survey, the results<br />
to be extended on the maps of the same and<br />
the copies thereof, whenever the safety of the<br />
workmen, unlawful injury to the surface, unlawful<br />
encroachment upon adjoining property, or the<br />
safety of an adjoining mine requires it.<br />
If the State Inspector of Mines or the State<br />
Mining Board shall believe any map required by<br />
this Act is materially inaccurate or imperfect,<br />
the State Inspector or State Mining Board is authorized<br />
to make, or cause to be made, a correct<br />
survey and map at the expense of the operator,<br />
the cost recoverable as for debt, provided if such<br />
test survey shows the operator's map to be correct,<br />
the State shall be liable for the expense incurred,<br />
payable in such manner as other State<br />
accounts incurred by the State Mining Board.<br />
Penalties for Failure. (k| If an operator of any<br />
mine refuses or wilfully neglects, for a period of<br />
three months, to furnish the said State Inspector,<br />
the County Recorder and the Manager of the<br />
Rescue Stations the map or plan of such mine,<br />
or a copy thereof, or of the extensions thereto, as<br />
provided for in this Act, such operator shall be<br />
deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction<br />
thereof shall be fined not less than ten dollars<br />
nor more than one hundred dollars, in the<br />
discretion of the court, and shall stand committed<br />
to the county jail until such fine is paid,<br />
and, in addition thereto, the State Inspector or<br />
State Mining Board is hereby authorized to make,<br />
or cause to be made, an accurate map or plan<br />
of such mine at the expense of the operator thereof;<br />
and the cost of the same may be recovered<br />
by law from the operator in the same manner as<br />
other debts by suit, in the name of the State Inspector<br />
or the State Mining Board, and for his<br />
or its use, and copies of the same shall be filed<br />
by him or the Board, one each with said recorder<br />
and said Manager of the Rescue Stations.<br />
Sec. 8. Sinking Subject to Inspection, (a) Any<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
shaft or other opening in process of sinking, or<br />
driving, for the purpose of mining coal, shall be<br />
subject to the inspection of the State Inspector<br />
of Mines for the district in which said shaft or<br />
opening is located.<br />
(b I Over every shaft that is being sunk or<br />
shall hereafter be sunk, there shall be a<br />
SAFE AND SUBSTANTIAL STRUCTURE<br />
to support sheaves or pulley ropes at a height not<br />
less than 15 feet above the tipping place. The<br />
landing platform of such shaft shall be so arranged<br />
that material can not fall into the shaft<br />
while the bucket is being emptied or taken from<br />
the hoisting rope. If provisions are made to<br />
land a bucket on a truck, said truck and platform<br />
shall be so arranged that material can not<br />
fall into the shaft.<br />
(c) Rock or coal shall not be hoisted except in<br />
a bucket or on a cage when men are in the bottom<br />
of the shaft; and said bucket or cage must<br />
be connected to the hoisting rope by a safety<br />
hook, clevis or other safety attachment. The<br />
rope shall be fastened to the side of the drum<br />
and not less than three coils of rope shall remain<br />
on the drum. In shafts over 100 feet in<br />
depth, suitable provision shall be made to prevent<br />
the bucket from swinging while being lowered<br />
or hoisted, and guides provided for this purpose<br />
shall be maintained at a distance of not more<br />
than 75 feet from the bottom of the shaft.<br />
(d) An efficient brake shall be attached to the<br />
drum of the engine used for hoisting in shaft<br />
sinking and the drum shall be provided with a<br />
flange on each end not less than 4 inches in<br />
height.<br />
(e) Not more than four persons shall be lowered<br />
or hoisted in or on a bucket in a shaft at<br />
one time, and no person shall ride on a loaded<br />
bucket.<br />
(f) All blasts in shaft sinking shall be exploded<br />
by electric battery.<br />
(g) Provision shall also be made for the proper<br />
ventilation of shafts while being sunk.<br />
(h) No one but a certified hoisting engineer<br />
shall be in charge of the hoisting engines while a<br />
saaft is being sunk.<br />
Sec. 9. Two Places of Egress. (a I For every<br />
coal mine in this State, whether worked by shaft,<br />
slope or drift, there shall be provided and maintained,<br />
in addition to the hoisting shaft, or other<br />
place of delivery, an escapement shaft or opening<br />
to the surface, or an underground communicating<br />
passageway with a contiguous mine, so<br />
that there shall be at least two distinct and<br />
available means of egress to all persons employed<br />
in such coal mines.<br />
Distance from Main Shaft, (b) In mines sunk<br />
after the passage of this Act, the first escapement<br />
shaft shall be separated from the main shaft
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
by such extent of natural strata as may be agreed<br />
upon by the inspector of the district and the<br />
OWNER OF THE PROPERTY,<br />
but the distance between the main shaft and the<br />
escapement shaft shall not be less than 500 feet<br />
nor more than 2,000 feet: provided, that in mines<br />
employing ten (10) men or less the distance between<br />
the hoisting shaft and the escapement shaft<br />
shall not be less than two hundred and fifty (250 I<br />
feet.<br />
Unlawful to Employ More Than Ten Men. (cl<br />
It shall be unlawful to employ underground, at<br />
any one time, more men than in the judgment of<br />
the inspector are necessary to complete speedily<br />
the connections with the escapement shaft or adjacent<br />
mine; and said number must not exceed<br />
ten men at any one time for any purpose in said<br />
mine until such escapement or connection is completed.<br />
The time allowed for completing such escapement<br />
shaft or making such connections with an<br />
adjacent mine, as is required by the terms of<br />
this Act, shall be three months for shafts 200 feet<br />
or less in depth, and six months for shafts less<br />
than 500 feet and more than 200 feet, and nine<br />
months for all other mines, slopes or drifts, or<br />
connections with adjacent mines. The time to<br />
date in all cases from the hoisting of coal from<br />
the hoisting shaft: provided, that in mines employing<br />
ten (101 men or less, the time for completing<br />
the escapement shaft shall not be more<br />
than six months from the time of hoisting coal.<br />
Stairways or Cages, (d) The escapement shaft<br />
at every mine opened after the passage of this<br />
Act shall be equipped with a substantial stairway,<br />
set at an angle not greater than forty-five degrees,<br />
which shall be provided with hand-rails and with<br />
platforms or landings at each turn of the stairway.<br />
If any escapement shaft, at the time of the<br />
passage of this Act, be equipped with a cage ofr<br />
hoisting men, such shaft, cage and all equipment<br />
used in connection therewith must conform to<br />
the requirements of this Act in reference to the<br />
hoisting and lowering of men.<br />
Passageways to Escapement. (e I Such escapement<br />
shaft or opening or communication with a<br />
contiguous mine as aforesaid, shall be constructed<br />
in connection with every seam of coal worked in<br />
such mine, and all passageways communicating<br />
with the escapement shaft or place of exit, from<br />
the main hauling ways to said place of exit, shall<br />
be maintained free of obstruction at least 5 feet<br />
high and 5 feet wide. Such passageways must<br />
be so graded and drained that it will be impossible<br />
for water to accumulate in any depression<br />
or dip of the same in quantities sufficient to obstruct<br />
the free and safe passage of men. No<br />
passageway to an escapement shaft shall pass<br />
through a stable. At all points where the passageway<br />
to the escapement shaft or other place of<br />
exit is intersected by other roadways or entries,<br />
conspicuous<br />
SIGNBOARDS SHALL BE PLACED<br />
indicating the direction it is necessary to take in<br />
order to reach such place of exit.<br />
Communications with Adjacent Mines, (f)<br />
When operators of adjacent mines have, by agreement,<br />
established underground communications between<br />
said mines as an escapement outlet for the<br />
men employed in both, the intervening doors shall<br />
remain unlocked and ready at all times for immediate<br />
use.<br />
When such communication has once been established<br />
between contiguous mines, the operator<br />
of either shall not close the same without the consent<br />
of the operator of the contiguous mine and<br />
of the State Inspector for the district: provided,<br />
that when either operator desires to abandon mining<br />
operations the expense and duty of maintaining<br />
such communication shall devolve upon the<br />
party continuing operations and using the same.<br />
Sec. 10. Gates at Landings, (a) The upper and<br />
lower landing at the top of each shaft, and the<br />
opening of each intermediate seam from or to<br />
the shaft, shall be kept clear and free from loose<br />
materials, and shall be protected with automatic<br />
or other gates. At the top landing cage supports,<br />
where necessary, must be carefully set and adjusted<br />
so as to securely hold the cage when at rest.<br />
Lights on Landings, (b) Whenever the hoisting<br />
or lowering of men occurs before daylight or<br />
after dark, or when the landing at which men<br />
take or leave the cage is at all obscured by steam<br />
or otherwise, there must always be maintained<br />
at such landing a light sufficient to show the landing<br />
and surrounding objects distinctly. Likewise,<br />
as long as there are men underground in any<br />
mine the operator shall maintain a good and sufficient<br />
light at the bottom of the shaft thereof, so<br />
that persons coming to the bottom may clearly<br />
discern the cage and objects in the vicinitv<br />
Hoisting Equipment, (c) Every shaft in which<br />
men are hoisted and lowered must be equipped<br />
with a cage, or cages, fitted to guide-rails running<br />
from the top to the bottom. Said cages must be<br />
substantially constructed; they must be furnished<br />
with sheet-metal covers adequate to protect persons<br />
riding thereon from falling objects; they<br />
must be equipped with safety catches. Every<br />
cage on which persons are carried must be fitted<br />
with iron bars or rings in proper place and sufficient<br />
number to furnish a secure handhold for<br />
every person permitted to ride thereon. There<br />
shall be<br />
ATTACHED TO EVERY (ACE<br />
on which men are, or may be hoisted or lowered,
a horn or other device with which signals can be<br />
given on the cage.<br />
(d I In connection with every hoisting engine<br />
used for hoisting or lowering of men there shall<br />
be provided as follows:<br />
Brake on Drum. (DA good and sufficient brake<br />
on the drum, so adjusted that it may be operated<br />
by the engineer without leaving his post at the<br />
levers.<br />
Flanges. (21 Flanges attached to the sides of<br />
the drum, with a distance when the whole rope<br />
is wound on the drum of not less than 4 inches<br />
between the outer layer of rope and the greatest<br />
diameter of the flange.<br />
Rope Fastenings. (3) One end of each hoisting<br />
rope shall be well secured on the drum, and at<br />
least three laps of the same shall remain on the<br />
drum when the cage is at rest at the lowest caging<br />
place in the shaft.<br />
The lower end of each rope shall be securely<br />
fastened to the cage b.v suitable sockets and<br />
chains.<br />
Indicator. (4) An index dial or indicator that<br />
plainly shows the engineer at all times the true<br />
position of the cages in the shaft.<br />
Signals, (e) At every mine where men are<br />
hoisted and lowered by machinery there shall be<br />
provided means of signaling to and from the bottom<br />
man, the top man and the engineer. The<br />
signal system shall consist of a tube, or tubes, or<br />
wire encased in wood or iron pipes, through which<br />
signals shall be communicated by electricity, compressed<br />
air or other pneumatic devices, or by ringing<br />
a bell. When compressed air or other pneumatic<br />
devices are used for signaling, provision<br />
must be made to prevent signal from repeating or<br />
reversing. The following signals shall be used at<br />
mines where signals are required:<br />
From the bottom to the top: One ring or whistle<br />
shall signify to hoist coal or the empty cage, and<br />
also to stop either when in motion.<br />
Two rings or whistles shall signify to lower<br />
cage.<br />
Three rings or whistles shall signify that men<br />
are coming up or going down; when return signal<br />
is received from the engineer the men shall get<br />
on the cage and the proper signal to hoist or<br />
lower shall be given.<br />
Four rings or whistles shall signify to hoist<br />
slowly, implying danger.<br />
Five rings or whistles shall signify accident in<br />
the mine and a call for a stretcher.<br />
Six rings or whistles shall signify hold cage<br />
perfectly still until signaled otherwise.<br />
From top to bottom, one ring or whistle shall<br />
signify: All ready, get on cage.<br />
Two rings or whistles shall signify: Send away<br />
empty cage.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
Provided, that the operator of any mine may,<br />
with consent of the inspector,<br />
ADD TO THIS CODE<br />
of signals in his discretion. The code of signals<br />
in use at any mine shall be conspicuously posted<br />
at the top and at the bottom of the shaft, and<br />
in the engine room at some point in front of the<br />
engineer when standing at his post.<br />
Gauges, (f) Every boiler shall be provided with<br />
a glass water gauge and not less than three try<br />
cocks and also a steam gauge, except that where<br />
two or more boilers are equipped with a steam<br />
drum properly connected with the boilers to indicate<br />
the steam pressure and without any valves<br />
between said boilers and the steam drum, the<br />
steam gauge may be placed in said steam drum;<br />
and other steam gauge shall be attached to the<br />
steam pipe in the engine house, each to be placed<br />
in such a position that the engineer and the fireman<br />
can readily see what pressure is being carried.<br />
Such steam gauges shall be kept in good<br />
order, and adjusted and be tested as often, at<br />
least, as every six months.<br />
Safety Valves, (g) Every boiler shall be provided<br />
with a safety valve with weights or springs<br />
properly adjusted, except that where two or more<br />
boilers are equipped with a steam drum properly<br />
connected with the boilers to indicate the steam<br />
pressure and without any valves between said<br />
boilers and the steam drum, the safety valve may<br />
be placed in said steam drum.<br />
Inspection of Boilers, (h) All boilers used in<br />
generating steam in and about coal mines or<br />
sinking shafts shall be kept in good order, and<br />
the operator of every coal mine where steam boilers<br />
are in use shall have said boilers thoroughly<br />
examined and inspected by a competent boilermaker<br />
or other qualified person, not an employe<br />
of said operator, as often as once in every six<br />
months, and oftener if the Mine Inspector shall<br />
so require in writing, and the result of every such<br />
inspection shall be reported on suitable blanks to<br />
said Mine Inspector.<br />
Run-around at Bottom. (i) At every underground<br />
landing where men enter or leave the cage<br />
and where men must pass from one side of the<br />
cage to the other there shall be a passageway,<br />
free from obstruction and dry as possible, around<br />
the shaft not less than three feet wide for the<br />
use of men only; and animals or ears shall not<br />
be taken through such passageway while men are<br />
passing or desirous of passing through such passageway.<br />
Refuge Place on Shaft Bottom, (j) A refuge<br />
place or places for men coming out at the close<br />
of the day's work shall be provided off the main<br />
BOTTOM OF CAGEROOM<br />
in shaft mines, at a place or places and of such<br />
sizes as shall be approved by the State Mining
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Inspector. Such place or places shall be not more<br />
than 400 feet from the hoisting shaft. When leaving<br />
such refuge places to be hoisted out, the men<br />
shall be governed by the rules of the mine.<br />
Obstructions in Shaft. (k) No accumulation of<br />
ice or obstructions of any kind shall be permitted<br />
in any shaft in which men are hoisted or lowered;<br />
nor shall any dangerous gases or steam be discharged<br />
into said shaft in such quantities or at<br />
such times as to interfere with the safe passage<br />
of men. All surface or other water which flows<br />
therein shall be conducted by rings or otherwise<br />
to receptacles provided for the same in such manner<br />
as to prevent water from falling upon men<br />
while passing into or out of the mine or while in<br />
the discharge of their duties about the shaft bottom.<br />
Inspection. (1) All shafts by which men enter<br />
or leave the mine, and the passageways leading<br />
thereto, or to the works of a contiguous mine<br />
used as an escapement shaft shall be carefully examined<br />
at least once each week that the mine is<br />
operating and the date and findings of such an<br />
examination entered promptly in the books kept<br />
at the mine for that purpose. If obstructions to<br />
the free passage of men are found, their location<br />
and nature shall be stated in said report. Such<br />
obstructions shall be promptly removed.<br />
Sec. 11. Building on the Surface, (a) After<br />
the passage of this Act, there shall not be erected<br />
or re-erected on the surface within 100 feet of<br />
any hoisting shaft or escapement shaft, any inflammable<br />
structure: provided, that this paragraph<br />
shall not apply to mines employing ten<br />
(10) men or less.<br />
Oil and Other Explosives. (b I No oils or similarly<br />
inflammable materials shall be stored within<br />
100 feet of any hoisting or escapement shaft,<br />
nor in any mine.<br />
All explosive materials shall be stored in a fireproof<br />
magazine located on the surface not less<br />
than 500 feet from all other buildings in connection<br />
with the mine, and such magazine shall be<br />
so placed as not to jeopardize the free and safe<br />
exit of men from the mine in case of an explosion<br />
at the magazine.<br />
Engine and Boiler-house, (c) Any building<br />
erected after the passage of this Act, for the purpose<br />
of housing the hoisting engine or boilers at<br />
any mine, shall be substantially fireproof, and no<br />
boiler-house shall be neaier than sixty feet to the<br />
main shaft or other opening, or to any building<br />
or inflammable structure connecting therewith.<br />
(To be concluded in issue of Oct. 1)<br />
The Blacklick Mining Co., Twin Rock, Pa., is<br />
opening a new mine at that place, to have a capacity<br />
of 1,000 tons daily.<br />
Mr. Charles B. Davis, principal assistant engineer<br />
of the coal mines division of the Tennessee<br />
Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., has resigned his position,<br />
effective September 15, and will open an engineering<br />
office in Birmingham.<br />
Prof. Raymond C. Brenner, of the department<br />
of chemistry of the University of Arizona, has associated<br />
himself with Prof. R. K. Duncan, of the<br />
University of Pittsburgh, and will make a study<br />
of the smoke problem.<br />
Mr. H. Bromley, general coal and ore agent of<br />
the New York Central lines west of Buffalo, at<br />
Cleveland, has been retired under the pension rules<br />
of the company.<br />
Mr. J. M. Hughes, a dealer at Altoona, Pa., celebrated,<br />
on the ist, his 29th anniversary in the coal<br />
business, he having succeeded his father in 1882.<br />
J CONSTRUCTION and DEVELOPMENT<br />
It is reported that the Donk Bros. Coal & Coke<br />
Co., of St. Louis, is preparing to open three new<br />
mines in the district south of Edwardsville, 111.<br />
Some of the company's older mines are nearing<br />
exhaustion and other openings will be made in<br />
order to maintain present output.<br />
Announcement is made in Baltimore that a new<br />
coal concern to be known as the Sandy Creek<br />
Coal & Coke Co. will be <strong>org</strong>anized to develop about<br />
2,200 acres of coal lands along the Western Maryland<br />
railway.<br />
W. D. Shull, of Waynesburg, has purchased<br />
from H. L. Duniap of the same place 112 acres of<br />
coal in Center township, Greene county, Pa., for<br />
$22,400. He also has bought from Dr. G. M. Scott<br />
47,926 acres of coal adjoining the other tract for<br />
$8,387.<br />
The Interstate Coal Co. of Barboursville. Ky., has<br />
purchased the holding of the Tye Fork Coal Co. in<br />
the Brush Creek district, buying outright 800 acres<br />
for $50,000. The company also has leased the remainder<br />
of the holdings, comprising 800 acres.<br />
Mrs. G. M. Scott, of Waynesburg, Pa., has sold<br />
to W. D. Shull and W. H. Hickman, 48 acres of<br />
coal in Center township, Greene county, Pa., for<br />
$8,400.<br />
Weoster Griffith, of Ebensburg, Pa., has sold to<br />
Warren Delano, 1,364 acres of coal in Buffington<br />
township, Cambria county, i'a... for $153,691.85.
FIRST AID CONTEST AT ARSENAL STATION<br />
BRINGS OUT TEAMS THAT DO SPELND1D<br />
WORK.<br />
Surprising the most sanguine of friends, 13<br />
first-aid teams ot mine workers in the bituminous<br />
fields of Pennsylvania entered a carefully planned<br />
contest for proficiency under the auspices of the<br />
Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association on September<br />
9. With the co-operation of the United States<br />
Bureau of Mines, the contests were conducted in<br />
Arsenal Park, Lawrenceville. Five events were<br />
arranged, each testing the ability of the miners to<br />
care for victims of accident and upon their efficient<br />
work, as judged by physicians and experts,<br />
were they given ratings and prizes.<br />
The contests were called the "first annual first<br />
aid contest of the Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association."<br />
The teams were sent to Pittsburgh<br />
by the various companies, and each appeared in<br />
attractive uniform and wearing badges presented<br />
by the association. S. A. Taylor, secretary of the<br />
Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association, presided<br />
at the contest. Several hundred persons gathered<br />
to witness the events and inasmuch as most of the<br />
teams had uniforms of khaki, with service hats<br />
of the army, the general appearance of the event<br />
was decidedly military.<br />
Of the contestants teams Nos. 3 and 6 carried<br />
off the greater number of honors, but their competitors<br />
were close behind them and the rating<br />
received by the men was considered little short<br />
of phenomenal.<br />
Elaborate preparations for the contest had been<br />
made and the meeting was watched with keen<br />
interest. The events were as follows:<br />
First—10-minute limit—Caring for man with<br />
left hand smashed, fingers burst, lacerations and<br />
cut in palm of hand; to be dressed by First Aid<br />
packet.<br />
Second—10-minute limit—Man in contact with<br />
live wire. Show three methods of rescue, carry<br />
25 feet after last method, and perform artificial<br />
respiration 1 minute.<br />
Third—10-minute limit—Explosion of a keg of<br />
powder; man burned about the head to the waistband<br />
on the front of the body and arms to the<br />
elbows.<br />
Fourth—15-minute limit—Supposed fracture of<br />
the spine in the middle of the back. Apply splints<br />
and bandages and show method of transportation<br />
so injury will not be made worse; carry 100 feet.<br />
Fifth—15-minute limit—(cup contesti—Full<br />
team work; man cut on top of head, compound<br />
fracture of left leg, between knee and ankle, severe<br />
bleeding; crushed right foot, with blood oozing;<br />
dress and transport 50 feet.<br />
In each of these supposed accidents, there were<br />
men posing as victims and the complete service<br />
of the First Aid chests and remedies were brought<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
into play so that the teams could show the method<br />
of work in actual service. The teams were composed<br />
of trained miners fresh from the mines,<br />
who have been under instruction for some time,<br />
and went about their tasks with wonderful precision<br />
and intelligence. Many physicians present<br />
expressed amazement at what the miners had<br />
developed into in so comparatively short time.<br />
One of the physicians said enthusiastically:<br />
"There are 12,000 of these miners in the country<br />
receiving this training now. What a nucleus<br />
for a magnificent hospital corps for the army in<br />
case of war."<br />
Another declared that in the lesson there was a<br />
pointed one for the city, to train its police and<br />
firemen in the same manner for sudden emergencies<br />
in the streets and at fires.<br />
Signals were given at the opening of each contest.<br />
The teams worked with calmness and without<br />
undue haste. They handled the victim in the<br />
same manner as they would at a mine accident,<br />
and at the completion of their task called out the<br />
number of their team to the time-keeper and announced<br />
their completion. The judges, including<br />
Dr. M. J. Shields of the American National Red<br />
Cross; Dr. J. B. Stoner, surgeon. United States<br />
Public Health and Marine Hospital Service; and<br />
John G. Patterson of the Youghiogheny & Ohio<br />
Coal Co. passed on each case carefully and figured<br />
upon the percentages. J. T. Ryan and William<br />
Burke of the Bureau of Mines were official timekeepers,<br />
and VV. D. Roberts was recorder.<br />
The contesting teams of these events with their<br />
location were as follows:<br />
No. 1. Pittsburgh Coal Co., Superintendent<br />
James Porter's district—Alexander Waugh, William<br />
Feick, Edward Lewis, Thomas McManus, John<br />
Bowles.<br />
No. 2. Superintendent John Hauser's district—<br />
William Bregar, William Scott, Ge<strong>org</strong>e Sterner,<br />
Henry Hall, Fred Jarvis.<br />
No. 3. Superintendent L. C. Sarver's district—<br />
Clyde Nelson, S. W. Cramer, Thomas Holleran,<br />
John Behling, G. W. Lawson.<br />
No. 4. Superintendent William Kelvington's<br />
district—John Prebest, Burt Ramsey, John Stiffly,<br />
Roy E. Fox, Rock Colland.<br />
No. 5. Superintendent Henry Cattley's district<br />
—Ralph Bradley, Joseph Logue. David Strong,<br />
O. C. Trimmer, James Barr.<br />
No. 6. Berwind-White Coal Mining Co.—William<br />
Brownlee, J. L. Swanson, Ralph Gibson, Nelson<br />
Gmith. D. A. Lehman.<br />
No. 7. E. E. Firecoat, Joe Bosco, Joe Kreger,<br />
h,. H. Scourfield, Griff Llewellyn.<br />
No. S. Seanor First Aid Association—Capt. J.<br />
C. Nedrow. J. L. Swanson. W. F. Ream. Edmond<br />
Williams. Bert Sprague.<br />
No. 9. Brier Hill Coke Co.—Harry Blackford.
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Adam Yokohosky, Abraham Gunter, John Catney,<br />
Andrew Dulik.<br />
No. 10. Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad & Coal<br />
Co.—Frank Creehan, Charles Kurtz, John Snyder,<br />
Joseph Keagle, Richard Donley.<br />
No. 11. Pittsburgh-Buffalo Co.—Charles Waine,<br />
J. T. Reynolds, John McMasters, Charles Sweet,<br />
Charles Warrick.<br />
No. 12. Ellsworth Collieries Co., Ellsworth,<br />
Pa.—Joseph Lindsay, Fred Gulick, Ge<strong>org</strong>e Lindsay,<br />
A. W. Harris, Peter Playfair.<br />
No. 13. Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Co.,<br />
Punxsutawney, Pa.—Ge<strong>org</strong>e Facemyer, captain;<br />
Andrew Vilinsky, Samuel Lindsay, Alexander Warden,<br />
Robert Patterson, Daniel McElhattan, subject.<br />
The fact that the contest was the first ever held<br />
in the Pittsburgh district, and that the teams and<br />
officials were new to the work, made the contest<br />
somewhat long drawn out, but the men took deep<br />
interest in their task and followed closely the<br />
events. The announcement of the percentages of<br />
the five winning teams was as follows:<br />
Event No. 1—First, team No. 3, 100 per cent.;<br />
second, team No. 10, 99% per cent.; third, team<br />
No. 12, 99 per cent.<br />
Event No. 2—First, team No. 3, 100 per cent.;<br />
second, team No. 2, 99'^ per cent.; third, team<br />
No. 7, 99 per cent.<br />
Event No. 3—First, team No. 3, 99% per cent.;<br />
second, team No. 10, 97 per cent.; third, team No.<br />
6, 96Vi per cent.<br />
Event No. 4—First, team No. 6, 98 per cent.;<br />
second, team No. 10, 97'-2 per cent.; third, team<br />
No. 12, 97 per cent.<br />
Event No. 5—First, team No. 11, 100 per cent.;<br />
second, team No. 8, 99 per cent.; third, team No.<br />
7, 98% Per cent.<br />
Prizes were awarded in the form of bronze Red<br />
Cross badges to the winning teams with the three<br />
highest percentages, and first aid cases are to go<br />
to them. The names of the winners that hold the<br />
badges will be engraved on the badges, which are<br />
the official badge of the Red Cross order. In the<br />
fifth event, which was the "cup event," in addition<br />
to the other prizes, the Pittsburgh Coal Operators'<br />
Association presented the handsome silk banner,<br />
suitably inscribed in gold lettering, and on<br />
the back of which will be lettered the name of the<br />
team winning the same and the year it was won.<br />
Each succeeding year the winner will have the<br />
banner, until it has been won by the same team<br />
three times in succession.<br />
PRAISE FRO.M OPERATORS.<br />
At the conclusion of the contests Secretary S. A.<br />
Taylor of the Pittsburgh Coal Operators' Association<br />
on behalf of President William K. Field, who<br />
was absent, presented the banner and the medals.<br />
He praised the miners warmly for their splendid<br />
work which he declared was causing more inter<br />
est in the miners' lot among the public than anything<br />
ever before attempted. He called attention<br />
to the national meet on October 30, at which some<br />
20,000 miners from all over the United States will<br />
be present, and the contest will he attended by<br />
President W. H. Taft and government officials as<br />
well as state and local authorities. He complimented<br />
the men on their high average shown,<br />
and that the outcome is expected to be more interesting<br />
next year.<br />
The contest and formalities did not end until<br />
earjy in the evening. A good many of the contesting<br />
teams have only been in training for from<br />
six to eight weeks and the results were therefore<br />
considered the more remarkable.<br />
Mr. Ge<strong>org</strong>e B. Irvin, aged 51, secretary of the<br />
Independent Coke Producers' Association, died<br />
September 9 in Pittsburgh, after a two months'<br />
illness. He was one of the best known coke men<br />
in Fayette county, Pa. The deceased was the<br />
son of William Irvin, deceased, and Elizabeth E.<br />
Irvin, of Pittsburgh, and was born at Greensboro,<br />
Greene county. His childhood days were spent<br />
in Uniontown, and he had been a resident of Fairchance<br />
for about 33 years. For 25 years he was<br />
connected with the H. C. Frick Coke Co. as superintendent<br />
at the Kyle works. At the time of his<br />
death Mr. Irvin was secretary of the Fairchance<br />
borough council, and was at one time its president.<br />
LTntil two years ago he was secretary of<br />
the Fayette County Coke Producers' Association.<br />
He was master of the F. and A. M., No. 22S, Uniontown,<br />
and was a member of the B. P. O. E., No.<br />
371, I'niontown, and the Royal Arcanum. Besides<br />
his widow, Lyle Cunningham Irvin, the following<br />
children survive: Attorney Fred C. Irvin, Max<br />
G.. Harry and Elizabeth Irvin. Brothers and<br />
sisters are William L. Irvin, connected with the<br />
Standard Oil Co. in New York City; Mrs. James<br />
Howard, of Claysville, Washington county, Pa.,<br />
Mrs. James M. MeMoll, of Wilkinsburg.<br />
The All-Rail Coal Shippers' Association at a recent<br />
meeting in Minneapolis, Minn., elected the<br />
following officers: President, Gardner H. Reeves;<br />
vice president, James P. Danson; secretary, Walter<br />
Space; treasurer, R. E. Smith. The association<br />
consists of wholesale coal dealers and mine<br />
representatives located in the northwest, and its<br />
purpose is largely to protect the credits of the companies<br />
represented.<br />
Erie, Pa., retail dealers, together with representatives<br />
of the wholesale companies and attaches of<br />
their offices, held their second annual picnic recently.
GOVERNOR TENER OF PENNSYLVANIA<br />
NAMES DELEGATES TO MINING CON<br />
GRESS.<br />
Governor Tener of Pennsylvania September 6<br />
appointed the following men as delegates to the<br />
American Mining Congress iu Chicago, September<br />
26-29:<br />
E. R. Pettihone. superintendent Delaware & Hudson<br />
Railroad Co., Dorranceton; W. D. Owens, su<br />
perintendent Lehigh Valley Coal Co., Pittston;<br />
Thomas Thomas, division superintendent Lehigh<br />
Valley Coal Co., Wilkes-Barre; H. G. Davis, superintendent<br />
Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Coal<br />
Co., Kingston: S. J. Jennings, inspector Pennsyl<br />
vania Coal Co., P'ittston; ('. F. Huber, general superintendent<br />
Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co.. Wilkes-Barre;<br />
Robert A. Quinn, general superintendent<br />
Susquehanna Coal Co., Wilkes-Barre; W. J. Richards,<br />
general manager, Philadelphia & Reading<br />
Coal & Iron Co., Pottsville; W. H. Davies. superintendent<br />
Coxe Brothers & Co.. Hazleton; Jesse K.<br />
Johnston, general superintendent of the Charleroi<br />
Coal Works. Charleroi; S. A. Scott, general superintendent<br />
of the Monongahela River Consolidated<br />
Coal & Coke Co., Pittsburgh; .1. D. O'Neill, general<br />
superintendent of the Merchants Coal Co., Pitts<br />
burgh; A. W. Calloway, general superintendent of<br />
the Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Co., Punxsutawney;<br />
A. D. Harmon, general superintendent<br />
of the Keystone Coal & Coke Co.. Greensburg;<br />
Harry Whyel, general superintendent of the Whyel<br />
Coal Co.. Uniontown; W. R. Calverley, general<br />
manager of the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co..<br />
Windier: O. W. Kennedy, general superintendent<br />
of the Orient Coke Co., Uniontown; Leslie H. Webb,<br />
115 Chestnut street. Philadelphia; Frank H. Bailie.<br />
care H. K. Porter Co.. Pittsburgh, and Leo Gluck,<br />
care Pittsburgh Coal Co.. Pittsburgh.<br />
j LABOR NOTES<br />
William Evans, superintendent of the Jackson<br />
Hill mine, No. 4, at Sullivan. Ind.. has been placed<br />
under arrest on six charges of violation of the<br />
mining statutes as follows: Failure to have water<br />
for use in case of injuiy; failure to provide cots<br />
for injured men; failure to have on hand a supply<br />
of splints for broken bones: working too many<br />
men on one "split" of air: providing no markers<br />
to show a way of escape from the shaft; operating<br />
the mine without a fire boss when there is black<br />
damp in the shaft. One charge of failure to<br />
close a "break through," is filed against James<br />
Brooks, mine boss.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
interests of the <strong>org</strong>anization. This was one of<br />
the questions determined at the annual state convention<br />
whose sessions were concluded at Missoula<br />
recently. The secretary-treasurer was allowed a<br />
salary of $100 a month for attending to the business<br />
of the <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
It is said that operators in both the anthracite<br />
and bituminous fields of Pennsylvania will rigidly<br />
enforce the child labor law this fall and are already<br />
doing away with the services of boys whom<br />
they suspect of being under age, even if they have<br />
certificates. Boys of 11 may he employed if they<br />
possess certain educational requirements, hut only<br />
hoys of 16 may be employed as long as 58 hours a<br />
week".<br />
As a result of examinations held at Logan. W.<br />
Va.. recently the following men received certicates<br />
entitling them to hold positions as mine<br />
foremen: First grade—James Somers, Fort<br />
Branch, W. Va.; Mat, Gray Hunter. Ethel. W. Va.<br />
Second grade—J. H. Curry. Holden; G. E. Thompson,<br />
Holden; Floyd S. Richards. Logan; Charles<br />
Miller, Holden, and W. G. Whitman. Holden.<br />
For their work during the month of August,<br />
1911, the mine workers in the anthracite region of<br />
Pennsylvania receive an increase of 4 per cent.<br />
on tne rate of wages fixed by the Anthracite Strike<br />
Commission of 1902. The average price of coal at<br />
tidewater was $4.70 in August, and this entitles<br />
the mine workers to 1 per cent, more pay for the<br />
month.<br />
The West Virginia state mining department will<br />
hold an examination for fire boss at Charleston,<br />
W. Va., on Septembe]' 27 and 28. At tbe same<br />
time there will be held an examination for mine<br />
foreman. All persons who are interested in these<br />
examinations should take notice of these dates as<br />
no other tests will he made for possibly a year.<br />
John Buhentan of Jacobs Creek, Pa., has been<br />
placed in jail at Greensburg. Pa., on a charge of<br />
having smoked in the Darr mine, the scene of a<br />
fatal explosion a few years ago.<br />
The union miners of the stale of Washington<br />
have voted to contribute $25.ooo to assist the<br />
strikers in Britisli Columbia.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Mai'kie of Fayette City. Pa., has been<br />
held for court on a charge of carrying a pipe and<br />
matches into a mine.<br />
The new- coal washing plant of the Alabama<br />
Fuel & Iron Co. at Acinar, St. Clair county. Ala.,<br />
Billings will be permanent headquarters for the has been placed in operation, 100 tons having been<br />
United Mine Workers of America, Distiict of Mon washed one day last week. The plant is said to<br />
tana. The secretary-treasurer will maintain have a washing capacity of 2,500 tons a day which,<br />
offices there and will work continuously in the it is expected, will shortly be reached.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
COAL PRODUCTION OF UNITED STATES<br />
IN 1910 BREAKS ALL PREVIOUS RECORDS.<br />
For the first time in the history of the United<br />
States, the coal mines of the country in 1910 were<br />
credited with an output exceeding half a billion<br />
short tons, the combined production of anthracite.<br />
bituminous coal, and lignite having amounted to<br />
5iil.576.S95 short tons, with a spot value of $629,-<br />
529,745. This great output, according to Edward<br />
W. Parker, coal statistician of the United States<br />
Geological Survey, was attained in spite of the<br />
fact that most of the mines in Illinois. Missouri,<br />
Kansas. Arkansas and Oklahoma were closed for<br />
nearly six months hy one of the most bitterly contested<br />
strikes in the history of the industry. The<br />
heaviest tonnage mined in any year previous to<br />
1910 was in 1907. when a total of 480.363,424 short<br />
tons was produced.<br />
Compared with 1909. the output in 1910 showed<br />
an increase of 40.762,279 short tons, or 8.85 per<br />
cent. Prices generally were a little higher in<br />
1910 than in 1909, the average for Pennsylvania<br />
anthracite ueing $2.13 per long ton, against $2.06<br />
in 1909. and the average for bituminous coal was<br />
$1.12 per short ton in 1910, against $1.07 in 1909.<br />
The total value increased 13.50 per cent.<br />
Except for the states affected by the strike order,<br />
the increase in production was general among the<br />
more important coal producing states. The output<br />
of anthracite in Pennsylvania increased from<br />
81.070,359 short tons, valued at $149,181,587, to 84,-<br />
485,236 short tons, valued at $160,275,302. a gain<br />
of 4.21 per cent, in quantity an'd 7.14 per cent, in<br />
value. The bituminous production, including<br />
semi-bituminous, cannel. splint and sub-bituminous<br />
coals, lignite and a, small quantity of anthracite<br />
from Colorado and New Mexico, increased from<br />
379,741.257 short tons, valued at $405,486,777, to<br />
417,091,659 short tons, valued at $469,254,443, a<br />
gain of 9.83 per cent, in quantity and of 15.73 per<br />
cent, in value.<br />
The total increase of 40,762,279 short tons in<br />
1910 over 1909 was equal to 20 per cent, more than<br />
the entire output of the United States in 1870 and<br />
more than half of the total output in 1880.<br />
The largest increases in production in 1910 were<br />
in the states tbat benefited from the idleness in<br />
the Mississippi Valley. The bituminous coal<br />
mines of Pennsylvania showed the largest increase,<br />
12,554,735 short tons. West Virginia was second,<br />
with an increase of 9,821.799 short tons; Ohio<br />
third. 6,270,027 tons; Kentucky fourth, 3,925,935<br />
tons; Indiana fifth, 3,555,556 tons; and Alabama<br />
sixth. 2,388,529 tons.<br />
Missouri's iiroduction of coal in 1910 was 2,982,-<br />
433 short tons, against 3,756,530 short tons in 1909,<br />
a decrease of 774,097 tons, or about 20 per cent.<br />
As in other states of the Mississippi Valley, except<br />
Iowa and Western Kentucky, Missouri's output was<br />
materially reduced by the strike which began on<br />
April 1 and was not officially called off until September<br />
15. Counting the additional time required<br />
for putting the mines into shape for operation<br />
after the order to resume work was issued, fully<br />
six months' producing time was lost. The actual<br />
time lost and the decrease in production was not,<br />
however, 50 per cent, of the normal output or<br />
working time, for the strike order had been anticipated<br />
and for the first three months of the year<br />
the mines were operated to the fullest possible extent<br />
in order to store up a supply of fuel, and<br />
again, when mining was resumed every effort was<br />
made by the operators and miners to make up for<br />
lost time. The scarcity of coal due to the strike<br />
naturally enhanced prices in Missouri and the<br />
value of the product in 1910 was but 13.83 per<br />
cent, less than that of 1909. the figures being, respectively.<br />
$5,328,285 and $6,183,626.<br />
Not all the mines in Missouri were affected by<br />
tbe strike, nor did all the affected mines continue<br />
idle for the entire time. The total number of<br />
men employed was 9,691. The number of men on<br />
strike was 7.774. and the periods of idleness ranged<br />
from 25 to 210 days, with an average for the 7.774<br />
men of 157 days. The time lost by the strike was<br />
equivalent to 81.5 per cent, of the time made, and<br />
yet the iiroduction in 1910 was nearly 80 per cent.<br />
of that of the preceding year.<br />
Michigan's coal output in 1909 was 1.784,692<br />
short tons, which was a little more than 50,000<br />
tons, or about 3 per cent., less than that of 1908.<br />
In 1910 the production amounted to 1.534,967 short<br />
tons, a decrease compared with 1909 of 14 per cent.<br />
The value decreased from $3,199,351 to $2,930,771,<br />
a loss of 8.39 per cent. Although the decrease in<br />
value was proportionately greater than the decrease<br />
in tonnage, the reasons assigned for the<br />
decrease in 1909 are applicable to 1910—that is,<br />
a development for several years preceding 1909 of<br />
coal properties in excess of the ability of the market<br />
to absorh the product. The decrease in 1910<br />
was also partly attributable to labor troubles, for<br />
of the 3.575 men employed 1.663 were on strike<br />
from April 1 to June 1 and the average time lost<br />
for each man on strike was 52 days. However.<br />
the time lost by the strike was only 11 per cent.<br />
of the time worked, and the decrease in tonnage<br />
was 11 per cent. The 3.575 men employed in the<br />
coal mines in 1910 worked an average of 211 days.<br />
The coal operators of Cambria county have presented<br />
to the Interstate Commerce Commission a<br />
complaint that they are discriminated against in<br />
freight rates from the mines to tidewater, in favor<br />
of the operators in the Greensburg field. It is<br />
declared there is a difference of four-tenths of a<br />
mill a ton mile and the Interstate Commerce Commission<br />
is asked to order a readjustment.
It is a matter of common knowledge that in<br />
flammable gas made up chiefly of methane, which<br />
forms with air the so-called fire damp of the<br />
miner, escapes from the coal in many mines; yet<br />
little is known as to the condition of this gas in<br />
the coal, its quantity and rate of escape. In ad<br />
dition to the gas set free by the coal itself, there<br />
is in many mines a large amount of inflammable<br />
gas that comes from reservoirs in the rock strata<br />
above or below the coal bed and enters the mine<br />
through cracks in the roof or floor. Gas enter<br />
ing the mine in such manner from extraneous<br />
sources is not considered in the following report.<br />
which presents rather some results of a labora<br />
tory investigation of the rate of escape of gas<br />
from several coals while kept in bottles connected<br />
to gas-collecting reservoirs. This investigation<br />
was begun by the United States Geological Sur<br />
vey and is being continued by the Bureau of Mines<br />
at the mining experiment station at Pittsburgh, Pa.<br />
The results of the investigation show that gas<br />
escapes from coal not only during the breaking<br />
down of the coal in the mines, but also continu<br />
ously for a long time after the coal is mined. The<br />
volume from some coals is so great as to merit<br />
serious consideration in connection with the ven<br />
tilating of the mines and the choice of methods of<br />
breaking down the coal. For example, during the<br />
first two weeks after mining, there was set free<br />
by one coal, exclusive of the gas that escaped dur<br />
ing mining, a volume of methane equal to three-<br />
fourths of the volume of the coal itself.® Prob<br />
ably each cubic foot of this coal (in the seam)<br />
set free in all during its mining and during the<br />
first two weeks thereafter a cubic foot of methane.<br />
It was shown by further test that during the first<br />
five months after mining there was set free from<br />
this coal a<br />
VOLUME OF METHANE<br />
equal to one and three-fourths times the volume<br />
of the coal.<br />
Many investigators, Chamberlin,® among others.<br />
have shown that methane accumulates along lines<br />
of fracture, such as joint cracks, or in places of<br />
increased porosity in the coal bed and escapes<br />
from these as they are cut in mining. In any<br />
locality of the mine where for any reason adequate<br />
ventilation is not maintained, the methane which<br />
has thus escaped may become a source of danger<br />
from explosion.<br />
In some cases the volume of gas liberated from<br />
broken coal is greater than the volume of the coal<br />
itse]f—that is, of the actual solid and the cellular<br />
<strong>•</strong>Technical Paper No. 2. United States Bureau of Mines.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
THE ESCAPE OF GAS FROM COAL-<br />
By Horace C. Porter and F. K. Ovit;. !<br />
space combined. Several theories have been pro<br />
posed to account for this fact. If the inclosed<br />
gas is mechanically imprisoned in the microscopic<br />
pores of the coal, it must be under a pressure<br />
greater than thai of the atmosphere; otherwise it<br />
would occupy after its escape a volume less than<br />
that of the coal. It is possible, furthermore, that<br />
there is a continual slow formation of methane<br />
b.v chemical decomposition of the coal, or it may<br />
be that the gas is held in a state of occlusion—<br />
thai is. either dissolved molecularly or absorbed<br />
upon the inner surfaces of the cellular spaces.<br />
The gas which escapes from coal lias been very<br />
often called "occluded gas." but, as Chamberlin<br />
has made plain,® the word "occluded" has been<br />
loosely used in this connection, and the radical<br />
difference between mechanical imprisonment and<br />
true occlusion or condensation has been generally<br />
overlooked. The word "occlusion" properly implies<br />
the condensation of a gas within a solid sub<br />
stance to a state approaching that of liquid or<br />
solid, either condensed upon the interior surfaces<br />
of the pores or dissolved molecularly in the solid.<br />
The Century Dictionary defines occlusion as the<br />
absorption of a gas hy a metal, as of hydrogen by<br />
palladium, in which case tbe hydrogen is regarded<br />
as existing in a solid form as a quasi metal. Men-<br />
deleeff® states: "The capacity of certain dense<br />
metals for the absorption of hydrogen * * * * is<br />
termed occlusion and presents a similar phenome<br />
non to solution: it is based on the<br />
CAPACITY OF METALS<br />
of forming unstable, easily' dissociating compounds<br />
with hydrogen similar to those which salts form<br />
with water."<br />
Tlie results presented in this paper do not deter<br />
mine the condition of the gas in coal. The fact<br />
that the gas escapes without the aid of heat or of<br />
reduced pressure is hardly in strict agreement<br />
with the accepted idea of occlusion. But. on the<br />
other hand. Chamberlin© found that during the<br />
crushing of coal to 30-mesh size under a high<br />
vacuum there was liberated only about one-quar<br />
ter of the total volume of methane obtained from<br />
the same coal while bottled for six months in<br />
vacuo. This fact is with difficulty explained by<br />
the theory of mechanical imprisonment under pres<br />
sure, for it seems likely that in such case the<br />
walls confining the gas would be broken by the<br />
large excess of pressure within, and that the bulk<br />
of the gas would escape immediately. The theory<br />
that methane continues to be formed by slow de-<br />
For explanation of reference marks, see page 46.
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
composition of the coal explains satisfactorily<br />
many of the phenomena observed, hut does not<br />
easily account for the decrease in the rate of es<br />
cape of the methane.<br />
Whatever may he the condition of the gas and<br />
its manner of liberation, the results presented in<br />
this paper clearly establish the facl that methane<br />
continues to escape from coal in considerable quan<br />
tities aud for a long period under atmospheric<br />
conditions of temperature and pressure. If al<br />
lowed to accumulate, this slowly escaping methane<br />
in mines may become a source of danger even<br />
greater than ihe methane liberated in breaking<br />
down the coal. Calculations based on these results<br />
show further that contrary to common opin<br />
ion the loss of heat value due to loss of methane<br />
in exposed piles of coal is probably in all cases<br />
so small as to be almost inconsiderable.<br />
Parr and Wheeler© have noted the accumulation<br />
of combustible gas from Illinois coals in laboratory<br />
sample<br />
BOTTLES KEPT SEALEO<br />
for a year. They attribute to this fact part of the<br />
loss of heat value which they found in these samples.<br />
Many investigations have been made of the<br />
so-called occluded gas in coal, notably by Bedson.®<br />
McConnell,® Trobridge,® Parr and Barker,® and<br />
Chamberlin.® With the exception of Chamberlin<br />
these investigators have confined their attention<br />
to the gases drawn from coal by a reduction of<br />
pressure during a comparatively brief space of<br />
time. Their findings as to the quantity and the<br />
composition of the gases vary widely. The discrepancies<br />
are probably due not only to differences<br />
in the character of the coals, hut also to the<br />
fact that most of the investigators have taken<br />
little account of the gas that escaped in the interval<br />
between mining and testing. Parr and Barker<br />
took account of this factor by collecting 200gram<br />
samples in flasks sealed in the mine and<br />
extracting the gases under vacuum on reaching<br />
the laboratory. They obtained in this manner<br />
from one Illinois coal 40 to 80 c. c. id' methane<br />
and about 10 c c. of carbon dioxide per loo grams<br />
of coal, and showed also the rapid absorption of<br />
oxygen by fresh coal. Their experiments, however,<br />
did not take account of the cas liberated in<br />
breaking down the coal, nor did they study the<br />
escape of gas into an open space through an extended<br />
period of time. Chamberlin.® on the<br />
other hand, went further and not only extracted<br />
the loosely held gas of coal hy crushing small<br />
lumps in a vacuum, but collected also considerable<br />
additional quantities of gas by keeping the<br />
crushed coal in a vacuum for six months. By<br />
crushing in vacuo to 10-mesh size coal from Monnngah,<br />
W. Va.. he obtained a volume of methane<br />
For explanation of reference marks, see page 46.<br />
amounting, in different experiments, to 0.1 to 0.4<br />
times the volume of the coal, and by keeping the<br />
crushed coal six months in vacuo he obtained an<br />
additional volume of methane 0.8 to 1.4 times the<br />
volume of the coal. The gas liberated in mining<br />
and during the transit of the coal in covered cans<br />
to the laboratory was disregarded. Other<br />
OASES EXTRACTED<br />
in Chamberlin's experiments were carbon dioxide<br />
(less than one-tenth of the volume of methane),<br />
and very smail quantities of carbon monoxide and<br />
unsaturated hydrocarbons.<br />
The experiments described in this paper supplement<br />
Chamberlin's work, and bring out the additional<br />
fact that methane and small quantities of<br />
carbon dioxide escape from coal for an extended<br />
period under atmospheric pressure, the amount of<br />
the gas and its rate of escape being nearly the<br />
same as when the coal is kept in vacuum. Fur<br />
thermore, the experiments show that oxygen is<br />
absorbed rapidly hy fresh coal and in quantities<br />
which are far out of proportion to the carbon<br />
dioxide liberated, if the latter be assumed to arise<br />
from combustion of the coal. The tabular statements<br />
and graphs on succeeding pages show the<br />
rate at which methane is liberated from several<br />
different coals.<br />
Unfortunately, the results do not permit even<br />
an approximate estimate of the rate at which the<br />
different coals absorb oxygen. It was found late<br />
in the course of the experiments that the concentration<br />
of the oxygen available for action on the<br />
coal had much influence on the rapidity of the<br />
action, and ihis concentration had varied decidedly<br />
in the diffeient tests. Ordinary air was used in<br />
some id' the tests and oxygen, 95 per cent, pure, in<br />
others. In all the experiments there is clearly<br />
shown, however, a rapid and long-continued absorption<br />
of oxygen, with little or no accompanying<br />
formation of carbon dioxide. Later experiments,<br />
now in progress in the laboratory of the<br />
Bureau of Mines, show that coals vary widely in<br />
the rapidity with which they absorb oxygen under<br />
like conditions.<br />
The rapid absorption of oxygen by fresh coal<br />
without the formation of carbon dioxide is well<br />
illustrated by the coal from Connellsville. Pa.<br />
(No. 41, Table 2). Ten kilograms (22 pounds)<br />
of this coal absorbed during the first day after<br />
mining nearly half the oxygen in the 10 liters of<br />
air in the bottle and<br />
CAVE OFF LITTLE MOKE<br />
than one-tenth as much carbon dioxide as would<br />
have been formed if all of the oxygen absorbed<br />
bad combined with carbon to produce carbon dioxide.<br />
The air of a closed mine, or of a poorly ventil-
ated section of any coal mine, is usually deficient<br />
in oxygen, as compared with normal air, and contains<br />
much less carbon dioxide than will account<br />
lor this deficiency on the basis of the reaction of<br />
carbon and oxygen to foim carbon dioxide.<br />
This phenomenon is probably a direct result of<br />
the chemical addition of oxygen to the coal, since<br />
it is not likely that oxygen could be consumed in<br />
any other way without forming carbon dioxide,<br />
unless there were a fire in the mine, in which<br />
case oxygen would combine with hydrogen as well<br />
as with carbon. The oxygen absorbed from air<br />
.by coal probably does not form directly either carbon<br />
dioxide or water, but is merely added, as suggested<br />
by Boudouard® and others, to certain compounds<br />
in the coal that are unsaturated with respect<br />
to oxygen and thereby produces humic acid<br />
or related substances.<br />
The results presented show large variations in<br />
the quantities of methane liberated by the coals<br />
tested. A Kentucky cannel yielded only a trace<br />
of methane in nine months, while the Harrisburg,<br />
111., coal gave off one-fourth of its volume in four<br />
clays, and the Monongah, W. Va., coal one-third of<br />
its volume in the same time.<br />
These results are by no means to be interpreted<br />
as showing that some coals which yield little or no<br />
gas after mining are therefore not accompanied<br />
by gas in the mines. Pocahontas coal, for example,<br />
yields little methane after mining, but the<br />
mines in the western part of what is known as the<br />
Pocahontas district contain at times large quantities<br />
of gas. The methane which accumulates in<br />
coal mines may come, as before mentioned, from<br />
two sources: (1) from reservoirs of gas under<br />
pressure in the rock strata, and (2) from the<br />
coal bed itself, either from cavities where the<br />
GAS HAS ACCUMULATED,<br />
or from a state of condensation or compression in<br />
the micriscopic pores of the coal. The investigation<br />
discussed in this paper has to do only with<br />
the latter source, and although it advances data<br />
which emphasize the importance of the coal seam<br />
itself as a source of gas, it in no sense overlooks<br />
or lessens the importance of the inflow of gas<br />
from outside reservoirs.<br />
It is known that variations in atmospheric pressure<br />
have an influence on the accumulation of<br />
methane in mines. Apparently incompatible with<br />
this fact are the results presented in this paper,<br />
which show that methane escapes from broken<br />
coal at a rate practically unaffected by large reduction<br />
in pressure. Atmospheric conditions,<br />
however, may easily affect the escape of gas from<br />
the bed of coal in situ, since a slight fall in barometric<br />
pressure may open communication with cavities<br />
or crevices.in the coal bed where gas is im<br />
For explanation of reference marks, see page 46.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
prisoned under pressure, although the same decrease<br />
of pressure may have little or no effect on<br />
the gas that is more intimately imprisoned in the<br />
pores of the solid coal.<br />
Carbon dioxide was found in the gases evolved<br />
by all the coals that were tested. The amount<br />
varied decidedly tor the different coals; the maximum,<br />
from the Sheridan, Wyo., coal (No. 43), was<br />
0.36 volumes in seven months. (.See Tables 1 and<br />
2).<br />
A sample ol approximately 10 kilograms (.22<br />
pounds) of the coal was taken from a clean, fresh<br />
iace of the coal seam in the manner prescribed by<br />
the Bureau of Mines lor mine sampling.iu) This<br />
sample was crushed so as to pass a l^-inch screen,<br />
and placed in a 5-gallon crated glass bottle, which<br />
was then stoppered as quickly as possible—usually<br />
within 50 to 80 minutes after beginning the<br />
cut. A tight-fitting rubber stopper was wired in.<br />
Through the stopper passed a 20-cm. (.S-inchj<br />
length of glass tubing of 2-mm. (rV-inch) bore,<br />
its outer end sealed by a piece of heavy rubber<br />
tubing and a solid glass plug. The crushed coal<br />
consisted largely of small lumps between onetenth<br />
and one-half inch in size but contained 10<br />
to 20 per cent, of material under one-tenth inch<br />
in size. The bottle was shipped forthwith to the<br />
laboratory at Pittsburgh. As soon as it arrived<br />
there the rubber stopper and connections were<br />
PAINTED WITH SHELLAC<br />
to avoid all risk of leakage, and a gas sample was<br />
at once withdrawn for analysis. The bottles were<br />
then allowed to stand in the laboratory several<br />
months at a temperature varying from 12 degrees<br />
to 32 degrees C.<br />
Four coals, No. 37 (Pocahontas, Va.), No. 39<br />
(Harrisburg, 111.), No. 43 (Sheridan, Wyo.), and<br />
No. 49 (Benton, 111.), were subjected to further<br />
investigation, as follows:<br />
The bottle of Pocahontas coal (No. 37) was connected<br />
through the glass tube in the stopper to a<br />
reservoir of oxygen, so that the oxygen floyved<br />
into the bottle as fast as it was absorbed by tbe<br />
coal. From time to time the gas that accumulated<br />
in the bottle was drawn out in order to relieve<br />
the pressure and permit the inflow of oxygen.<br />
The bottles containing coals No. 39 and No.<br />
43 were connected to a supply of air instead of<br />
oxygen and the inlet tube extended to the center<br />
of the coal in each bottle. There also was attached<br />
to each of these two bottles a collecting<br />
reservoir for the escaping gas, the connecting tube<br />
ior this purpose passing from the top of the bottle<br />
to the reservoir. The bottle of Benton. 111., coal<br />
(No. 49) was connected with both an oxygen supply<br />
and a gas-collecting reservoir; but oxygen,<br />
not air, was admitted to the bottle and was ad-
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
mitted at the top. the gas being withdrawn from<br />
underneath the coal.<br />
The air, or oxygen, admitted was measuied, and<br />
the gas withdrawn was measured and analyzed.<br />
Air, or oxygen, was admitted in slight excess so<br />
that every gas sample withdrawn contained some<br />
oxygen. It is hardly fair to compare the results<br />
oi the test on Pocahontas coal with the results<br />
oi the other tests, since in this test the accumu<br />
lated gas was not withdrawn as regularly nor as<br />
lapidly as in the others and tbe pressure within<br />
the bottle may have retarded the escape of methane<br />
from the coal. The test, however, serves to show<br />
that this coal evolves a comparatively small quan<br />
tity of methane. A numher of other coals were<br />
tested in somewhat similar manner, occasional<br />
samples of gas being taken Irom the bottle but<br />
witnout drawing off the accumulated gas into collecting<br />
reservoirs or admitting a supply of oxygen.<br />
fne tests made in this manner are named in<br />
Table 2.<br />
The gas samples were analyzed by the Hempel<br />
methods with certain modifications, as described<br />
in Bureau of Mines Bulletin 1, pages 22 to 24.<br />
Methane was determined always by the low combustion<br />
method of Winkler. No attempt was<br />
made to determine less than 0.2 per cent, of car<br />
bon monoxide, and since the first samples from the<br />
bottles showed less than that quantity of carbon<br />
monoxide and also of hydrogen and unsaturated<br />
hydrocarbons, no determinations of these three con<br />
stituents were made thereafter.<br />
The results given in the tables emphasize the<br />
gradual decrease in the rate of escape of methane<br />
and, in some cases, the ending of the liberation<br />
of methane within five months. The escape of<br />
methane from the two southern Illinois coals appeared<br />
to continue for a longer time, but even<br />
these coals showed a well-marked tendency to stop<br />
giving off gas. The experiments with the coals<br />
from Monongah, W. Va., Hanna, Wyo., and Con<br />
nellsville, Pa., were not carried far enough to<br />
show the rate of continuous escape of methane,<br />
but show the large quantity of methane set free<br />
by these coals just after mining. The coals from<br />
Rock Springs and Sheridan, Wyo., Paintsville,<br />
Ky., and Pocahontas. Va., do not appear to contain<br />
much inclosed gas. The results from the<br />
Harrisburg, 111., coal (No. 39) are particularly<br />
instructive in showing, under conditions permitting<br />
good circulation of air, the gradually dimin<br />
ishing escape of methane, the long-continued absorption<br />
of oxygen, and in particular a steadily-<br />
increasing liberation of carbon dioxide. This<br />
last phenomenon has been noted by Chamberlin,®<br />
and seems to indicate that either carbon dioxide<br />
is more tenaciously held in coal or, because of its<br />
For explanation of leference marks, see page 46.<br />
greater density, does not diffuse as readily as<br />
methane. It is of intreest to note in this con<br />
nection the results from the Rock Springs and<br />
Sheridan, Wyo., coals and the Kentucky cannel<br />
coal, all of which yielded at the start greater<br />
quantities of carbon dioxide than the coals that<br />
were more highly charged with methane.<br />
In a few instances, during the analysis of the<br />
hydrocarbons in the gases, a small proportion of<br />
ethane was indicated by the presence after com<br />
bustion of slightly more carbon dioxide than accorded<br />
with the contraction in volume. But the<br />
quantities were so slight as to be within the<br />
probable limits of experimental error.<br />
The rapidity with which the coals absorbed oxygen<br />
may be seen from the data on coals, 43 (Sheri<br />
dan. Wyo. I, and 49 (Benton, 111.), in Table 1,<br />
which show that in less than 15 days these coals<br />
had exhausted the oxygen from a volume of air<br />
equal to their own volume. In neither of these<br />
instances was the<br />
VOLUME OF CARBON DIOXIDE<br />
formed during the process greater than one-tenth<br />
of the volume of oxygen absorbed. That oxygen<br />
is probably taken into chemical combination rather<br />
than occluded or absorbed by coal was shown by<br />
a simple experiment with the Benton, 111, coal<br />
(No. 49). After being supplied with oxygen for<br />
five months, during which time it combined with<br />
oxygen equal in volume to nearly seven times its<br />
own volume of oxygen, a sample of the coal was<br />
placed in boiling water in a flask. The gases<br />
evolved during 15 minutes' boiling showed no excess<br />
of oxygen over that contained in air.<br />
The largest volume of combustible gas evolved<br />
was from the sample of Benton, 111., coal. From<br />
12.2 kilograms of this coal. 16.9 liters of methane<br />
were evolved in one year and five months. If a<br />
calorific value for methane of 9,400 small calories<br />
per liter is assumed, there were lost by the 12.2<br />
kilograms of coal 9,400X16.9=158,860 calories. As<br />
the heating value of the coal was about 7,500 calories,<br />
the percentage of loss was approximately<br />
158,860<br />
= 0.16 per cent. It is evident, there-<br />
12,200x7,500<br />
fore, that no considerable loss of heating value can<br />
be attributed directly to the escape of combustible<br />
gases from coal during storage at ordinary temperatures.<br />
The results of the experiments discussed in this<br />
paper show that certain American coals, whose<br />
mining is attended with danger from accumula<br />
tions of inflammable gas, liberate this gas not only<br />
while they are being broken down in mining, but<br />
also during a long period thereafter. At first<br />
the gas escapes rapidly, but the rate diminishes<br />
and tends toward a final cessation in 3 to 18<br />
months. If the volume of the small lumps of
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF COALS TESTED.<br />
No. Kind of Coal. State<br />
County. Place.<br />
Name of Coal<br />
Bed.<br />
Mine.<br />
29 Bituminous Wyo. . .Sweetwater ....Rock Springs. .Rock Springs. ..No 1.<br />
30 Bituminous Wyo. . .Carbon Hanna .Lower Lower No. 2.<br />
oo Bituminous ( cannel).. Ky. . . .Johnson Paintsville Flambeau.<br />
35 Bituminous W.Va. .Marion Monongah Pittsburgh No. 6.<br />
37 Semi-bituminous Va Tazewell Pocahontas . . . .No. 3 Baby.<br />
39 Bituminous Ill Saline Harrisburg . . . .No. 5 No. 9.<br />
41 Bituminous Pa Fayette Connellsville . ..Pittsburgh Leisenring No. 1.<br />
43 Sub-bituminous Wyo Sheridan Sheridan No. 9 Dietz No. 2.<br />
49 Bituminous Ill Franklin Benton No. 7 Hart-Williams.<br />
TABLE 1. CASES GIVEN OFF AM) OXGEN AESOHBED BY Foil: COALS.<br />
Gas Removed.<br />
Volume of Gas<br />
Relative to<br />
Volume of Coal.®<br />
Coal.<br />
Pocahontas, Va..<br />
(No. 37).<br />
Harrisburg. 111..<br />
(No. 39).<br />
Sheridan, Wyo. .<br />
(No. 43).<br />
Benton, 111<br />
~~ (No. 49)'.<br />
Coal<br />
No.<br />
29<br />
30<br />
33<br />
35<br />
41<br />
of Coal.<br />
Kilos.<br />
13.4<br />
14.6<br />
8.1<br />
19 1<br />
Period of Time.<br />
First 31 days. .<br />
Next 28 days. .<br />
Next 31 days. .<br />
Next 183 days.<br />
Next 31 days. .<br />
10 months. . . .<br />
First 4 days. . .<br />
Next 24 days. .<br />
Next 31 davs. .<br />
Next 30 days. .<br />
Next 153 days.<br />
Next 31 days. .<br />
First 7 days. . .<br />
Next 23 days. .<br />
Next 31 davs. .<br />
Next 30 days. .<br />
Next 92 days. .<br />
Next 31 days. .<br />
First 15 days. .<br />
| Next 15 days..<br />
| Next 62 days..<br />
Next 30 days. .<br />
1 Next 31 days. .<br />
Next 365 days.<br />
1<br />
Carbon<br />
Dioxide.<br />
c.c.<br />
18<br />
0<br />
2<br />
15<br />
26<br />
61<br />
16<br />
0<br />
39<br />
0<br />
34(1<br />
218<br />
613<br />
144<br />
57<br />
289<br />
350<br />
1,014<br />
436<br />
. 2,290<br />
9S<br />
0<br />
182<br />
167<br />
63<br />
741<br />
Oxvgen.<br />
c.c.<br />
[ 17 months<br />
. 1,251<br />
. . .<br />
2.353 16.916 66,840<br />
TABLE 2. 1ASES GIVEN OFF AND OXYGEN AI1SOI U'.EI) IIV FIVE COAl.S.<br />
(Gas allowed to accumulate in a confined space)<br />
Period of time. Carbon<br />
Dioxide.<br />
c.c.<br />
First 22 days 600<br />
Next 9 days 1<br />
First 10 days 204<br />
Next 21 days 14<br />
First 24 days 650<br />
Next 249 days 230<br />
First 4 days 0<br />
Next 26 days 120<br />
First day 135<br />
Next 10 days 155<br />
Next 415 days 16<br />
37<br />
7<br />
9<br />
11<br />
5<br />
102<br />
21<br />
I)<br />
456<br />
102<br />
363<br />
181<br />
1.126<br />
0<br />
52<br />
61<br />
54<br />
282<br />
166<br />
615<br />
0<br />
34<br />
844<br />
603<br />
872<br />
Gas Evolved per 1(1<br />
Kilos of Coal<br />
Methane.<br />
c.c.<br />
120<br />
0<br />
1.540<br />
265<br />
0<br />
0<br />
3,190<br />
2,010<br />
980<br />
3011<br />
Methane.<br />
c.c.<br />
"/', 1<br />
95<br />
18<br />
39<br />
0<br />
4S3<br />
2.456<br />
1,370<br />
2,435<br />
1.407<br />
4,185<br />
330<br />
12.1S3<br />
408<br />
4S6<br />
192<br />
0<br />
a<br />
0<br />
1.146<br />
7,095<br />
1,051<br />
5,349<br />
996<br />
605<br />
1,820<br />
Admitted.<br />
c.c.<br />
1,830<br />
4,010<br />
7,275<br />
24,510<br />
4,860<br />
42,185<br />
1.660<br />
0<br />
7.320<br />
2,744<br />
17,460<br />
4,040<br />
33,224<br />
2,520<br />
1,550<br />
3,110<br />
2,940<br />
13,760<br />
3,99(1<br />
27,870<br />
2,040<br />
4,610<br />
33,700<br />
10,970<br />
15,520<br />
Oxygen<br />
Absorbed.<br />
c.c.<br />
2,500<br />
0<br />
2,500<br />
0<br />
2,500<br />
2,300<br />
1.080<br />
1,220<br />
Methane<br />
Evolved.<br />
0.032<br />
.009<br />
.002<br />
.004<br />
.0<br />
.047<br />
.218<br />
.122<br />
.217<br />
.125<br />
.372<br />
.029<br />
1.083<br />
.075<br />
.078<br />
.031<br />
.0<br />
.(I<br />
.0<br />
.184<br />
.763<br />
.113<br />
.577<br />
.107<br />
.065<br />
.196<br />
1.821<br />
,<br />
Oxygen<br />
Absorbed.®<br />
0.174<br />
.390<br />
.705<br />
2.375<br />
.471<br />
4.115<br />
.145<br />
.0<br />
.610<br />
.235<br />
1.520<br />
.343<br />
2.S53<br />
.403<br />
.240<br />
.488<br />
.462<br />
2.157<br />
.612<br />
4.362<br />
.220<br />
.494<br />
3.532<br />
1.113<br />
1.576<br />
©6.935<br />
Volumes of Gas Relative<br />
to Volun e of Coal.<br />
Methane<br />
Evolved.<br />
0.015<br />
.192'<br />
.033<br />
0<br />
.390'<br />
.251<br />
.122'<br />
.038<br />
Oxygen<br />
Absorbed.<br />
0.313<br />
.313<br />
.313<br />
.135<br />
.153
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
coal used in the experiments be taken as the unit<br />
of measurement, about one-fourth volume of meth<br />
ane escapes during the crushing of the coal, as<br />
shown by Chamberlin, and one-half to one and<br />
one-half volumes on continued exposure to the air,<br />
as shown by the authors. The loss of fuel value<br />
BRITISH COAL STATISTICS.<br />
During last year in the United Kingdom there<br />
were employed in all the mines 1,078.083 persons,<br />
of whom 1,049,407 worked at the 3,253 coal mines,<br />
and 28,676 at the 663 metalliferous mines, writes<br />
Consul Samuel M. Taylor, of Nottingham, Eng.<br />
Compared with 1909. there was an increase of 35,-<br />
409 persons employed at the coal mines and 239<br />
persons in the other mines. Of the 201,926 sur<br />
face workers, 6,221 were females, being 258 more<br />
than in 1909. The number of persons under 16<br />
employed below ground was 53,612, and the total<br />
number employed under 16 above and below the<br />
surface was 72,094. The output of coal was 264,-<br />
417,588 tons, an increase over 1909 of 658,216 tons.<br />
There were 1,292 fatal accidents in coal mines<br />
resulting in 1,775 deaths, which is an increase of<br />
60 accidents and 322 deaths over 1909; 159,042 per<br />
sons were injured in accidents, an increase of 5,736<br />
over the previous year. The total number of<br />
deaths from accidents is the highest ever recorded<br />
n any one year.<br />
by this loss of gas is small, but the danger of<br />
accumulation of explosive gas from this source in<br />
mines and in coal bunkers is sufficient to justify<br />
its being taken into account in the ventilation of<br />
mines and in the storage of coal.<br />
©See footnote © for explanation of volume relations.<br />
©Chamberlin, R. T., Notes on explosive mine gases and dusts, with special reference to the<br />
explcsions in the Monongah. Darr, and Naomi Coal Mines, U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 383, 1909, p. 32.<br />
©Op. cit., op. 16-17.<br />
©Mendeleeff, D. L. Principles of Chemistry, English Translation of 6th Edition, vol. 1, p. 143.<br />
©Op. cit.. pp. 31-30.<br />
©Illinois State Geol. Survey Bull. No. S, 190(, p. 168.<br />
©Chem. News, vol. 6S, 1893, p. 187.<br />
©Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind.. vol. 13, 1894, p. 25.<br />
©Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind., vol. 25. 1906, p. 1129.<br />
©University of Illinois Eng. Exp. Sta. Bull. 32, 1909, pp. 10-28.<br />
©Op. cit., lip. 16-39.<br />
©U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3S3. pp. 17-39.<br />
©Bull. Soc. chim.. ser. 4, vol. 5. p. 380.<br />
©Bureau of Mines Technical Paper 1, The sampling of coal in the mine, by J. A. Holmes.<br />
1911. ISpp.<br />
©Relative volumes of gas are computed on the basis of the apparent specific gravity of the<br />
coal (taken as 1.3), this value being the average of a large number of determinations of small<br />
lump size (1-inch) coals made in the laboratory of the United States fuel-testing plant at St. Louis,<br />
Mo., in 1905 (U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. No. 323. pp. 23-24 1. Tbe volume occupied by 10 kilograms<br />
of coal is therefore taken as 10-hl.3=7.7 liters. The volume of the pores in small lump coal, assuming<br />
an average absolute specific gravity- of 1.45, may be computed as one-tenth of the volume of the<br />
1.45—1.30<br />
lumps; that is, = .103.<br />
1.45<br />
©Oxygen from air in case of Nos. 39 and 43; from oxygen 95 per cent. pure, in case of Nos. 37<br />
and 49. See page 8. The great irregularities in the rate of absorption of oxygen are due to<br />
the irregular admission of oxygen, as explained on page 6.<br />
©Total for five months only.<br />
@U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 383. p. 30.<br />
Lieutenant Colonel H. C. Newcomer, in charge of<br />
the Pittsburgh United States Engineers' office, and<br />
Colonel L. H. Beach, of New Orleans, returned<br />
from their European trip recently. In their trip<br />
of inspection which was made by order of the sec<br />
tary of war. they visited the countries of Belgium.<br />
Holland. Germany, Austria. Hungary, France<br />
and England and made inspection of the rivers<br />
Rhine, Elbe. Oder. Danube, Rhone. Garonne, Seine<br />
and Scheldt. They are part of the towboat<br />
committee, which are to design two towboats, as<br />
directed by Congress, which are suitable for the<br />
Mississippi and its tributaries. The reports of<br />
the most suitable construction of a practical ves<br />
sel will be submitted to the secretary of war and<br />
the committee.<br />
It is announced by the Boston & Maine railroad<br />
that effective September 1 only 48 hours free time<br />
will be allowed on cars, instead of 72 hours as has<br />
heretofore been the case.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CASTLE VALLEY COAL FIELD, UTAH 1<br />
The Castle Valley coal field of Utah lies about<br />
20 miles southwest of the town of Price, 125 miles<br />
from Salt Lake on the Denver & Rio Grande railroad.<br />
It is a portion of the Pleasant Valley coal<br />
district in whicu are the principal coal camps of<br />
Utah. The total length of the coal area in this<br />
part of the state is 160 miles in a northerly and<br />
southerly direction, the Pleasant Valley district<br />
lying at the edge of a field which extends over the<br />
Utah line into Colorado. This district is 34 miles<br />
long north and south, and 28 miles in greatest<br />
width. It lies at the junction of the Book cliffs<br />
and the Wasatch plateau on whose bare and abrupt<br />
faces the coal measures are plainly exposed, the<br />
outcropping rocks lying almost flat and jutting out<br />
boldly from the cliffs.<br />
In general the region presents three distinct<br />
topographical features, the bare and rugged escarpments<br />
of the Wasatch plateau and the Book<br />
cliffs, which rise abruptly to a height of 1,000 to<br />
1,500 feet, and along which can be traced the<br />
prominent outcropping rocks which accompany the<br />
coal seams, Castle Valley, a broad rolling plain<br />
from 500 to 1,000 feet below the coal bearing<br />
strata, and a smooth, evenly sloping tableland running<br />
back from the top of the cliffs, and which is<br />
but a few feet above the highest of the coal bearing<br />
rocks, to a flat plateau on top. The beds occur<br />
in a group of strata of sandstone and shale, each<br />
of which grades into the other, the sandstone being<br />
found in all grades from a pure, white variety<br />
which is quite hard, to a yellowish or brownish<br />
argillaceous sandstone, and the shale from a clayey<br />
variety through the various grades to sandy. The<br />
shale is blue to black, moderately soft and in many<br />
places, especially in proximity to the coal beds,<br />
is carbonaceous. The individual beds of the different<br />
strata range in thickness from very thin<br />
layers to beds 100 feet thick, and the total volume<br />
of the two rocks seems to be about equal. The<br />
shale in the Castle Valley region is estimated to<br />
have<br />
A TOTAL THICKNESS<br />
of 1,500 feet, tilting at a low angle, about one<br />
degree, toward the Book cliffs and the Wasatch<br />
plateau and presenting an outcrop 15 to 18 miles<br />
wide. The coal seams outcrop to the surface, and<br />
the coal itself is exposed by simply removing a<br />
small amount of surface soil. This fact with the<br />
flat dip of the seams makes them especially adapted<br />
to drift mining. The formation includes the whole<br />
of the Colorado group and a part of the Montana<br />
*Paper prepared for the Mining and Engineering World.<br />
By Leroy A. Palmer<br />
and has been correlated with the Mancos shale of<br />
southwestern Colorado.<br />
The Castle Valley region has been prospected for<br />
years and was known to contain seams of unusual<br />
thickness, but on account of lack of transportation<br />
facilities, active development on a large scale was<br />
commenced only within the last two years. For<br />
some time ranchers from the country about secured<br />
their coal from the Mohrland mine by driving<br />
their 4-horse teams directly to the face where<br />
they loaded. The Con. Fuel Co. built the Southern<br />
Utah railroad from Price to the tipple at East<br />
Hiawatha, a distance of 19 miles, and commenced<br />
operations at the Hiawatha mine in the late fall<br />
of 1909. In January, 1910, the Castle Valley Coal<br />
Co. commenced to open the Mohrland mine, bought<br />
a half interest in the Southern Utah and built the<br />
Castle Valley railroad from Castle Junction on it<br />
to Mohrland.<br />
The Hiawatha mine lies in Miller Creek canon<br />
about two miles above the mouth, at which is the<br />
tipple and the town of East Hiawatha. The company<br />
owns 5,000 acres, of which 3,000 contain coal.<br />
Five coal seams are exposed of which only one,<br />
the lower, is being worked. This seam shows 18<br />
feet of a very hard bituminous coal of excellent<br />
heating quality. It is the only one on which any<br />
amount of development work has been done. A<br />
tunnel 150 feet long has been driven in an adjacent<br />
canon on the second seam, showing, as far<br />
as it has gone, 5V-, feet of excellent coking coal.<br />
The third seam shows 8 feet of coal similar to the<br />
first, but has not been explored. The thickness<br />
and value of the fourth and fifth seams<br />
HAVE .NOT BEEN DETERMINED,<br />
nor has their position relative to the others. From<br />
the first to the second is 64 feet of hard sandstone;<br />
from the second to the third is 52 feet of<br />
the same formation. If we may assume that the<br />
first and second seams cover the entire 3,000 acres<br />
at the thickness given, and use the government<br />
standard of 1,600 tons per foot-acre, we have a<br />
tonnage of 113,000,000 in this property, without<br />
considering the possibilities of the upper seams.<br />
Two mines are operated, the entrances being on<br />
opposite sides of the canon in which the company<br />
has built the town of Hiawatha. Mine No. 1 is<br />
on the north side and No. 2 on the south side.<br />
Both are worked on the 2-entry system, but the<br />
driving of a third entry for each is being seriously<br />
considered. The main entries were originally<br />
driven 12 feet wide and 7 feet 4 inches to a<br />
parting, which gave a good roof, but this height
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
was not found to be sufficient, when certain undulations<br />
in the seam were allowed for, and the<br />
height was increased to 12 feet where there is a<br />
second parting.<br />
At mine No. 1 the entries are driven with 100foot<br />
pillars between them, and a chain pillar 80<br />
feet thick on each side. On each side of the main<br />
entries three cross entries have been turned off at<br />
intervals of 450 feet. Break-throughs have been<br />
driven at intervals of 100 to 150 feet. The rooms<br />
are turned at right, angles to the cross entry, and<br />
thus parallel the main entry. They are driven<br />
at a distance of 73 feet between centers, with a<br />
12-foot neck in the center, which is carried in 20<br />
feet, and then widened on a slant to 22 feet, thus<br />
leaving a 51-foot pillar of coal between the rooms.<br />
Each room is carried back 400 feet, leaving a<br />
pillar 50 feet thick between the end and the next<br />
cross entry. The breast is taken out to a height<br />
of 12 feet in two cuts, and the remaining 6 feet left<br />
until the time comes for<br />
DRAWING THE PILLARS.<br />
At present the coal is undercut by hand for a<br />
width of 6 feet and an equal height. Four or<br />
five holes 5 feet deep are put in with 2% and 3inch<br />
hand augers, and fired with black powder,<br />
the men firing their own holes. Such a shot<br />
breaks 30 to 32 tons. These methods are only<br />
such as have been in use since the mine was a<br />
prospect, but a more modern system is to be installed.<br />
The coal will be undercut by machines<br />
and an electric system of firing installed. When<br />
a room is driven the full length, 400 feet, a crosscut<br />
20 by 12 feet is driven to the next, and the<br />
track taken up. When the time comes for drawing<br />
the pillars the track is to be relaid in alternate<br />
rooms and the roof will be taken down to the full<br />
height, as the pillars are robbed. Work of drawing<br />
the pillars will be commenced at the back,<br />
and they will be sliced off with holes 6 to 8 feet<br />
deep, and the roof allowed to come in.<br />
As the company owns a large acreage it is quite<br />
possible that the drawing of the pillars will be<br />
postponed until the upper seams are proven, and<br />
if these are found to yield as they are expected<br />
to. they will be worked previous to the drawing<br />
of the pillars in the lower seams so that the entire<br />
amount of coal may be recovered. But as the company<br />
is new it may be found expedient to work<br />
out the lower and thicker seam to a certain extent<br />
and take chances on the roof, which as noted is<br />
very substantial, coming in and depriving them of<br />
a certain portion of the upper seams, the loss of<br />
which in the immense tonnage known to exist will<br />
not be felt, during the present generation at least.<br />
The seam undulates more or less, and in the first<br />
mining was followed down to the floor which<br />
caused several low places which collect water. It<br />
was decided, however, that it was more economical<br />
to sacrifice the little coal which could be extracted<br />
from these loyver portions in order to secure a uniform<br />
grade for the haulage, and these irregularities<br />
were filled up. This caused the raising of the<br />
roof previously mentioned. The water is collected<br />
by<br />
SEVERAL SMALL PUMPS<br />
which deliver it to a sump, from which a 4 by<br />
6-inch Goulds triplex pump delivers it through a<br />
4-inch water column. So far there has not been a<br />
sufficient amount of work done to cause such a<br />
collection of dust as would render sprinkling necessary,<br />
but precautions have been taken in this<br />
respect by tapping the water column at intervals<br />
of 1 00 feet and inserting plugs by means of which<br />
hose connection can be made whenever deemed expedient.<br />
So far gathering from the rooms in No. 1 has<br />
been by mules, but this, too, is to be replaced by<br />
a haulage system. Ventilation is effected by a<br />
14-foot Jeffrey reversible fan belted to a 100-h.p.<br />
direct current motor, which supplies the air required<br />
by the Utah laws (100 cubic feet per minute<br />
to each man and 30 cubic feet to each animal).<br />
The fan is so placed that it will not be damaged<br />
by an explosion.<br />
At mine No. 2 four entries have been turned off<br />
from the main haulage way, and are worked the<br />
same size and system as in No. 1. Mechanical<br />
haulage has replaced the mules to some extent in<br />
this mine, and a Goodwin 5-ton cable reel electric<br />
locomotive is used for gathering in some of the<br />
rooms. This equipment will entirely supplant<br />
the animals as the mines are developed. Hand<br />
pumps are used for delivering the water, but a<br />
system of siphons is to be tried out in both mines.<br />
The main haulage ways are laid with 40-pound steel<br />
and the rooms with 20-pound.<br />
When these notes were collected in the early<br />
part of January the entire force employed was 240<br />
men. and the mines were outputting 1,200 tons<br />
per day, the work of the night shift being confined<br />
to extending the entries.<br />
Mine No. 2 is equipped with an 8-foot fan belted<br />
to a 50-h.p. motor. Present plans are to drive<br />
the main entries of No. 2 a distance of about half<br />
a mile, when it will break through into a canon<br />
on the north, thus affording excellent ventilation.<br />
The ground owned by the company affords an<br />
ample water supply and a considerable<br />
AMOUNT OF TIMBER.<br />
although very little of the latter is required, the<br />
formation being such that only in exceptional cases<br />
is timber necessary.<br />
Each mine is provided with a 10-ton Goodman<br />
electric locomotive by which the 3%-ton cars are<br />
hauled in trips of 16 to the haulage plane and de-
livered at a point below the head house. As the<br />
tram has a steep grade the hauling of the trip,<br />
the length of the 16 cars would be a rather severe<br />
strain on the motor, or else require the use of one<br />
larger than necessary to bring the cars from the<br />
mine. To obviate this a hoist with a 24 by 48inch<br />
drum geared to an 80-h.p. variable speed General<br />
Electric induction motor has been installed<br />
at the head of the tram to haul the loaded trip<br />
onto the haulage plane.<br />
The tramway is a balanced-gravity plane 10,400<br />
feet long with a double track on the upper portion.<br />
In order that a Shay engine may go up to<br />
the mine with supplies a third rail is laid at the<br />
lower end, so that with the outer rail of the tram<br />
track it gives a standard gauge, and on the upper<br />
portion, where the tram is double tracked, the<br />
tyvo inner rails are so set as to give the standard<br />
gauge. This makes it necessary that the rope<br />
shall always lie between the rails of the tram<br />
track, and to accomplish this a series of spring<br />
sheaves has been installed so that it is brought<br />
back to position after the trip has passed.<br />
The trip of 56 tons net is lowered in 14 minutes.<br />
and each is accompanied by a rope rider. Signal<br />
wires are strung along the track within a few feet<br />
of the ground, and the rope rider carries a piece<br />
of metal on a wooden handle, by which he can<br />
close the circuit and thus signal the engineer at<br />
the head house.<br />
The topography of the country makes it necessary<br />
to flatten the track considerably at the lower<br />
end, and while the grade is sufficient to make the<br />
loads haul up the empties, there are several sharp<br />
curves which would be a source of danger if a<br />
speed sufficient to land the trip by gravity were<br />
maintained. On this account an 82-h.p. motor<br />
similar to that used on the hoist is geared to the<br />
sheaves and operated by a clutch. At the lower<br />
end of the run the trip is braked down to a rope<br />
speed of about 400 feet per minute, the speed of<br />
the motor, and the clutch thrown in. This takes<br />
up the weight of the empties and the rope and allows<br />
a smooth landing to be made at the tipple.<br />
The rope is a 1-ineh plough steel, making a half<br />
turn around a 66-inch bullwheel, and three half<br />
turns around each of two 72-inch sheaves. Each<br />
SHEAVE IS EQUIPPED<br />
with two broad wood-lined brakes applied by hand<br />
through a worm gear.<br />
The loaded trip is spragged and the cars run<br />
one at a time to a squeeze of 12 by 18-inch tim-<br />
Ders, from which they are released and run to a<br />
rotary dumping cradle. The cars are built with<br />
a high body and heavy wheels, so that when the<br />
cradle is unlocked the load is dumped with little<br />
effort, and the car brought back to vertical with<br />
the wheels assisting. From the cradle they run<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
on a switchback to the empty track. The coal<br />
drops to a hopper from which it is fed to a series<br />
of shaking screens on which it is seiiarated into<br />
lump, California lump, engine coal, pea coal and<br />
dust, the latter the undersize of a 4 by 12-trommel<br />
with :: s-inch mesh, and loaded direct to the cars.<br />
A 40-h.p. induction motor runs the shakers and a<br />
112-h.p. the box car loader. The tipple was equipped<br />
by the Link Belt Machinery Co. It has a<br />
capacity of 3,000 tons, but is limited by the capacity<br />
of the box car loader, which will handle the<br />
lump of only 1,500 tons per day.<br />
Electricity for the mine and tipple is generated<br />
in a steam electric plant equipped with five 250h.p.<br />
Erie return tubular boilers, and two 18 by<br />
20-inch Ridgeway slide-valve engines, direct connected<br />
to 200-kw., 2.300-volt Ridgeway alternating<br />
current generators. A steam driven 25-kw. General<br />
Electric direct current generator acts as an<br />
exciter. One set of transformers at the tipple<br />
steps down the current used there from 2,300 to<br />
440 volts, and at the mine there is a similar set.<br />
and a 200-h.p. 2,300-volt induction motor direct connected<br />
to a 150-kw. direct current generator which<br />
furnishes power for haulage, number one fan.<br />
lights, etc. The Southern Utah railroad is equipped<br />
with three 90-ton engines and one Shay.<br />
An analysis of the coal from the lowest seam<br />
at the Hiawatha shows:<br />
Moisture 3.30<br />
Volatile combustible matter 44.69<br />
Fixed carbons 46.58<br />
Ash 5.43<br />
100.00<br />
Sulphur 0.637<br />
The following is a dry analysis of the coal from<br />
the second seam:<br />
Volatile combustible matter 47.00<br />
Fixed carbons 49.72<br />
Ash 3.22<br />
Phosphorus Trace<br />
99.94<br />
Sulphur 0.60<br />
An interesting experiment was made with coal<br />
from the second seam. A shipment was made in<br />
sealed barrels to one of the coke ovens making<br />
Connellsville coke, the barrels were placed in the<br />
oven unsealed and the oven filled with Connellsville<br />
COAL SELECTED FOR THE PURPOSE.<br />
The two cokes were distinctly separated by a layer<br />
of charcoal so that accurate samples of each were<br />
taken. The analysis showed that the Utah coke<br />
was higher in volatile combustible matter and<br />
fixed carbon, and lower in ash, sulphur and phosphorus,<br />
only a trace of the latter appearing.
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
The Castle Valley Coal Co. operates the Mohr<br />
land mine in Cedar Creek canon about a mile above<br />
the town of Mohrland. The company holds 5,OOO<br />
acres, of which 4,00(1 contain coal. As at Hia<br />
watha five seams are exposed, and it is estimated<br />
that these contain 400.000,000 tons of coal. As<br />
no development work has been done on the upper<br />
four seams actual conditions may be at consider<br />
able variance with this estimate. The lower<br />
seam has been shown to have a thickness of 25 to<br />
35 feet and if we may assume an average between<br />
these two, the deposit, contains 192.000,000 tons in<br />
this portion alone. This seam has a sandstone<br />
floor and a sandstone and shale roof 80 feet thick.<br />
Work of opening the Mohrland mine and equipping<br />
it was commenced in January, 1910. It is a<br />
drift mine driven on the 3-entry system, the east<br />
and west entries driven 10 by 9 feet and used for<br />
haulage, and the middle 16 by 12 feet used as a<br />
return airway. Ventilation is supplied by an 8-<br />
foot fan belted to a 100-h.p. direct-current Ridgway<br />
motor, and so placed that it will not be damaged<br />
by explosion.<br />
The haulage ways are driven with 75-foot pillars<br />
between them, and 10 by 9-foot break-throughs at<br />
intervals of 100 feet. Two side entries have been<br />
turned at right angles to them. The latter are<br />
spaced on 60-foot centers with a neck 10 by 9<br />
feet, 20 feet long on the left rib. This is widened<br />
out to 24 feet, leaving a pillar 36 feet thick to<br />
support the roof. The coal is firm and uniform<br />
so that no timbers are used. Crosscuts 10 by 9<br />
feet are<br />
DRIVEN BETWEEN THE ROOMS<br />
at intervals of 75 feet which are carried 300 feet<br />
each way from the entries so as to meet. The<br />
pillars will probably be drawn when seven or eight<br />
such rooms are ready by cutting through at the<br />
face of the room and working back each way to<br />
the entry.<br />
So far most of the work has been by hand un<br />
dercutting, but at the time these notes were collected<br />
different chain and puncher machines were<br />
being tried out. In the hand work a slice 5 to 6<br />
feet deep is put under the coal and three holes<br />
V-2 to 5 feet deep drilled at a height of 0 feet with<br />
a 2-inch hand auger. Such a shot will break<br />
about 20 tons. The hand drills are to be replaced<br />
by Ingersoll electrics. The chain machine cuts<br />
a 4-inch slice to a depth of 7 feet and takes a<br />
6-foot hole for firing. Such a round will bring<br />
down 26 to 28 tons. Two slices are taken across<br />
the face, bringing it down to a height of 12 feet<br />
on the first cut. The remainder will be shot<br />
down preparatory to drawing the pillars.<br />
The coal is loaded to 4-ton cars, which are gath<br />
ered by a Goodman cable-reel locomotive, and<br />
hauled in trips of eight to the tram. The main<br />
haulageways are laid with 51-pound steel, and the<br />
side entries and rooms with 35-pound. One 120<br />
and one 40-h.p. locomotive are used.<br />
The haulage system is a balanced-gravity plane<br />
with two tracks the entire distance. It is 5,600<br />
feet long with a rise of 600 feet, and no grade less<br />
than 5 per cent., which is at the passing point,<br />
and two stretches of 25 per cent., one of them<br />
at the upper end. It is laid with 52-pound steel<br />
on a 4-foot gauge. A trip of eight cars is low<br />
ered in an average time of 4U. minutes. The<br />
control house is at the head of the incline, so that<br />
the operator has a good view clown the first steep<br />
grade. Beyond this house is about 200 feet of<br />
moderate grade, on which Ibe trip gets its start.<br />
and at the end of which are the sheaves beneath<br />
the track. A 1%-inch plough steel rope is used,<br />
making five half turns around two 7-foot sheaves,<br />
which are controlled by wood-faced strap brakes,<br />
operated through a cable led to a worm gear in<br />
the control house. Two sharp curves are neces<br />
sary in the line, and that the rope may be<br />
KEPT BETWEEN TIIE TRACKS<br />
and made to run on the guide sheaves, a slight reverse<br />
has been put in on the upper end of each.<br />
The cars are of the end-dump type, and at the<br />
tipple are run to a tilting table, which dumps them<br />
automatically to the bin, after wdiich thew are<br />
shunted to the empty track on a switchback. The<br />
bin discharges to a 4-foot picking belt, which runs<br />
at, an angle of 23 degrees with the horizontal to<br />
the tip of the tipple, in which the coal is screened<br />
to lump, 5-inch nut, 3-inch nut. lVs-ineh nut and<br />
slack. The tipple is operated by a rope drive from<br />
a 75-h.p. Atlas engine. Such slack as is needed<br />
in me power house is delivered to it by a conveyor<br />
belt and, at present, the remainder is wasted.<br />
The tipple is equipped with Link Belt machinery.<br />
In the power house are two 125-h.p. and one<br />
100-h.p. Atlas return tubular boilers, generating<br />
steam at 100 pounds pressure for a 21 by 22-inch<br />
McEwen automatic engine, belted to a 200-kw. 250-<br />
volt direct-current Goodman generator, which furnishes<br />
power for the mine and lighting system.<br />
The Castle Valley railroad has two 80-ton locomotives.<br />
An analysis of the Mohrland coal shows:<br />
Moisture 3.49<br />
Ash 5.93<br />
Volatile combustible matter 43.35<br />
Fixed carbons 47.23<br />
100.00<br />
Sulphur 0.67<br />
B.t.u 13,211<br />
At present the mine is employing 100 men and<br />
outputting 500 tons per day. The tipple has a<br />
(CONTINUED TO PAGE 59)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
MINE EXPLOSIONS FROM NATURAL GAS WELL*<br />
By C, H Tarleton, Superintendent of Mining. West Virginia Division. The Consolidation Coal Company.<br />
Iii the last few years there has been considerable<br />
interest manifested on Ihe part of mining<br />
men generally relative to the drilling of oil and<br />
gas wells through workable coal seams, as well<br />
as operating mines. There have been able papers<br />
written on the subject pointing out many possible<br />
dangers to mining, and the reading and discussing<br />
of these papers have been the cause of a general<br />
awakening on the part of the mining public<br />
throughout the state. It is, therefore, not necessary<br />
for the writer of this paper to go further<br />
into the matter of iiossible dangers, neither is it<br />
the intention to go into the question of what<br />
should be done for the protection of mines and<br />
coal seams or oil and gas wells. A brief description<br />
of two explosions that were caused by gas<br />
escaping from a well into mines will be given,<br />
with a view to showing that the danger from the<br />
conflict of the two industries can no longer be<br />
regarded as a probability merely affording a good<br />
subject for papers and discussion, but that it has<br />
taken its place as an actual reality, foremost<br />
among the many other hazards of coal mining.<br />
On December 19. 1910, the officials of The Consolidation<br />
Coal Co. were called upon to face a<br />
disaster resulting from the above cause, and. as<br />
is usually the case, the trouble came from an unexpected<br />
source. About 6:50 A. M., an explosion<br />
occurred in Consolidation No. 47 mine, which<br />
caused the death of three men, and completely<br />
WRECKED ONE SECTION<br />
of the mine. On the same date, about 4:50 A.<br />
M., Consolidation No. 49 mine was badly wrecked<br />
and set on fire by an explosion, but fortunately<br />
no lives were lost. Eventually both explosions<br />
were found to have been caused by natural gas<br />
escaping into the mines through the pavement or<br />
bottom, from a gas well located over and drilled<br />
through a pillar of coal in mine No. 47.<br />
Mine No. 47 is located about eight miles south<br />
of Fairmont. The opening to mine No. 49 is<br />
about four miles by railroad from No. 47, but tinworkings<br />
are adjacent to each other. Both mines<br />
are drift openings and are operating the Pittsburgh<br />
seam. Mine No. 47 was opened in 1899,<br />
and previous to December 19, 1910, there had<br />
never been a trace of explosive gas detected in it.<br />
Mine No. 49 commenced operation in 1897, and<br />
with the exception of some slight traces in clayveins<br />
in the farthest advanced workings, no explosive<br />
gas had ever been detected in it. In the<br />
last year or two, numerous oil and gas wells have<br />
been drilled through or near the mine workings.<br />
'Paper read before the meeting of the West Virginia Mining<br />
Institute. White Sulphur Springs. June 24. 1911.<br />
These wells were always located so they would<br />
pass through solid coal and where it would be<br />
possible to leave a block of coal of yvhat would<br />
he considered of ample dimensions to protect the<br />
mine and the well. It was generally thought that<br />
there would be no particular danger from these<br />
wells until the time arrived for extracting the<br />
coal around them. For this reason no one was<br />
expecting the occurrence on the morning of December<br />
19.<br />
On the date mentioned, the miners at mine No.<br />
47 started to their work as usual. Some of them<br />
had already reached their places, while others<br />
were on the main heading, when an explosion occurred<br />
that threw them down and rolled them<br />
quite a distance along the heading, but aside from<br />
being slightly bruised and badly scared, those<br />
on the main heading were uninjured, and were<br />
able to make their<br />
WAV TO THE OUTSIDE.<br />
The fan was running as a blower, hut was immediately<br />
reversed and a rescue party <strong>org</strong>anized and<br />
started in the mine. It was soon discovered<br />
that tbe explosion had occurred on the first south<br />
face, and had not extended beyond this immediate<br />
section. The men beyond this section were able<br />
to leave the mine through an opening on No. 3<br />
south face and through an opening to mine No.<br />
30, thus avoiding the afterdamp.<br />
While the necessary arrangements were being<br />
made to restore the ventilation on first south<br />
face, a census was taken and all men accounted<br />
for, except, five. By this time the rescue partywas<br />
able to advance and explore the first south<br />
face. A body was found at the neck of No. 2<br />
loom, second butt, and two more at the junction<br />
of tlie third butt. All were badly burned and a<br />
statement of one of the doctors who made a post<br />
mortem examination of one of them was to the<br />
effect that death was caused b.v inhalation of flame.<br />
After the exploration of the second and third butts<br />
and the discovery of the three bodies, it was<br />
thought that the other two were on first butt.<br />
This heading was longer than the others and the<br />
men were supposed to be a considerable distance<br />
from the bottom; it seemed a certainty that they<br />
would be dead. For this reason and from the<br />
fact that there had been considerable gas and<br />
some smouldering fire on the other headings, it<br />
was not thought advisable to act hastily in restoring<br />
the ventilation on this heading. The company's<br />
Dreager Oxygen Apparatus had been sent<br />
for. and was expected any minute. Wtih its arrival,<br />
it was the intention to explore the heading<br />
before any air was permitted to enter. While
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
these arrangements were being made, a very happy<br />
incident occurred which, however, illustrates one<br />
of the great dangers to which a rescue party is<br />
subjected while exploring a mine. A start had<br />
not yet been made to enter the heading when<br />
TWO LIC.HTS WERE NOTICED<br />
near the top. It was quickly ascertained that<br />
the lights were on the heads of the two men that<br />
were being sought and that the men were coming<br />
out. A stopping had been blown from a crosscut<br />
through the barrier pillar, enabling them to pass<br />
to the main heading, thus unconsciously avoiding<br />
the gas, preventing a second explosion that probably<br />
would have killed all present. These men,<br />
who were foreigners, stated that when the explosion<br />
occurred, tney supposed it was a heavy shot<br />
in the adjoining room. When tbe afterdamp<br />
reached them, they left their working place and<br />
passed up the heading to where there was a door<br />
that had not been wrecked. Finding the air<br />
fresh on the other side of this door, they remained<br />
there until they got tired waiting for the driver,<br />
when they started out to find why he did not come.<br />
When an entrance was gained to the first south<br />
face section, large bodies of standing gas were<br />
encountered at second and third left butts, and on<br />
the sixth right butt. This gas was being liberated<br />
through the pavement, and could be heard boiling<br />
and seething through the water for a long distance,<br />
a near approach made it possible to detect<br />
the gas with the lamp. Later on it was found<br />
that these blowers occurred in almost a straight<br />
line from a gas well located in the barrier pillar<br />
between first south face heading and room No. 1<br />
off second left butt, the line extending in a southwesterly<br />
direction parallel to the contour lines<br />
of the Pittsburgh coal seam to a point in mine<br />
No. 49 about 2,300 feet distant from the well. On<br />
account of the very pronounced odor of the gas,<br />
it was surmised that it was coming from a gas<br />
well, and the well mentioned above being the nearest<br />
one to the affected area, was naturally suspected<br />
as being responsible. As soon as the<br />
necessary arrangements could be made, or about<br />
9 P. M., on December 19. the valves on this well<br />
were opened and immediately thereafter the gas<br />
blowers in both mines began to recede.<br />
The explosion in mine No. 47 was evidently<br />
caused by the miners on first south face coming<br />
into<br />
CONTACT Willi THE (IAS<br />
with their open lights. It could not be definitelydetermined<br />
wnich one of the men fired the gas,<br />
but in all probability it was one of those found<br />
at the entrance to third left butt. These men<br />
had passed the point where the gas was being liberated<br />
and it seemed, had been in the act of shifting<br />
their car to their working place where there<br />
undoubtedly was a body of standing gas. The<br />
explosion in this mine was not violent, and from<br />
the indications, extended but a short distance<br />
from the point of origin, due in all probability to<br />
the fact that there was not sufficient air at that<br />
point to dilute the entire amount of gas to an<br />
explosive mixture. This belief is substantiated<br />
to some extent by the act that a large amount of<br />
standing gas was found in that section of the mine<br />
by the first men reaching the scene soon after the<br />
explosion.<br />
It has been proved that the circulation of large<br />
volumes of air through a mine in cold weather<br />
will carry out the moisture, thus creating a dangerous<br />
condition from dust. For this reason, and<br />
mine No. 47 being a non-gaseous mine, the fan<br />
was run only when the mine was in operation.<br />
Although the fan had been idle for a period of<br />
36 hours, and to within about one hour previous<br />
to the accident, it is not thought that this fact<br />
had an immediate significance in connection with<br />
the explosion. From calculations, it was estimated<br />
that the time necessary for air entering at<br />
the fan to travel the entire distance of the split,<br />
which passed the affected area, and return to the<br />
outside, was about 38 minutes. Assuming that<br />
these calculations were approximately correct, the<br />
air after the fan was started on the morning of<br />
December 19, would have had almost enough time<br />
to make two complete circuits around the split,<br />
in which event it is reasonable to assume that it<br />
had sufficient time to carry away any gas directly<br />
in its path. No provision had been made, however,<br />
for circulating the<br />
FULL VOLUME OF AIR<br />
to the working faces, it not being required or<br />
considered necessary in a non-gaseous mine, consequently<br />
the air current would not have removed<br />
any gas that might have collected in tight ends<br />
or places where the ventilation was light. With<br />
the gas blowers in this mine located in just such<br />
places as described, one of them being in a tight<br />
end, and several others in places where the ventilation<br />
would be light, without special arrangement<br />
being employed to conduct the air into<br />
them, it is not unreasonable to believe that conditions<br />
would have been practically the same had<br />
the fan been running continuously.<br />
The above statement can be strengthened somewhat<br />
by the following: It has already been said<br />
that the fan was operating as a blower; as a result,<br />
the miners entering the mine traveled against<br />
the air, even as far as the end of first south face,<br />
where the explosion occurred. The two men,<br />
found at the entrance to third left butt, who have<br />
been mentioned as probably firing the gas, passed<br />
by some of the heaviest blowers in the mine to a<br />
point 100 feet or more beyond where they were<br />
found, in the direct path of the current of air<br />
supplying this section of the mine. The infer-
ence to be drawn from this fact, is that the gas<br />
directly in the path of the air current was being<br />
swept away, and that the amount was not sufficient<br />
to render the air current explosive; but as<br />
soon as the men left the main volume of air, and<br />
reached a point where the ventilation was lighter,<br />
they came in contact with an explosive mixture<br />
which was fired from their open lights. This<br />
being true, it is reasonable to assume that the<br />
same conditions could have existed, as has been<br />
stated, yvith the fan running continuously.<br />
The explosion in mine No. 49 was set off by<br />
the night pumper, yvho was the only man in the<br />
mine at the time. He escaped or was rescued<br />
later, and was not seriously injured. According<br />
to reliable information, he entered the mine on<br />
the evening of December 18, and some time near<br />
8 P. M., came in contact with<br />
SOME GAS BLOWERS<br />
in rooms Nos. 10 and 11, on third right butt off<br />
main south face, the blowers being ignited from<br />
his open light. After considerable trouble, he<br />
was able to extinguish the flames with his coat,<br />
after which he continued at his work, not thinking<br />
it important to report the matter to the officials<br />
at once, but deciding to wait until morning;<br />
this, of course, was a bad mistake and one that<br />
might have caused a more serious disaster, but<br />
was due to his lack of previous experience with<br />
gas in that mine. He attended the pumps in the<br />
same section of the mine until nearly 5 o'clock<br />
in the morning of the 19th, at which time he<br />
started into third face heading to throyv an electric<br />
switch which was located a short distance<br />
from the main heading and beyond an overcast<br />
at the intersection of first butt off third face.<br />
When directly under the overcast, and before he<br />
had reached the switch, he came in contact with a<br />
body of gas that must have extended throughout<br />
that section. The gas was ignited from his open<br />
light, causing an explosion with apparently little<br />
violence at the point of ignition, but from indications<br />
accumulating tremendous force farther in<br />
the mine. The gas evidently burned rather than<br />
exploded for some distance, when the flames probably<br />
encountered a mixture of gas and air more<br />
nearly the correct proportion, where a violent<br />
explosion took place.<br />
On account of there being little force at the<br />
initial point of the explosion, the pumper was not<br />
seriously injured, beyond being slightly burned,<br />
and about the only other damage done at that<br />
point was a partial wrecking of the over-cast; the<br />
latter no doubt saved the pumper's life, since the<br />
damaging of the overcast caused a short circuit<br />
of the air at that point, the ventilating system<br />
from there to the pit-mouth and fan having been<br />
little disturbed. This allowed a supply of fresh<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 53<br />
air to reach him, which of course kept the gases<br />
away. As soon as the<br />
AFTERDAMP WAS CLEARED<br />
sufficiently from the main heading, parties from<br />
the outside entered the mine, found the pumper<br />
and took him out.<br />
'Ihe fan at mine No. 49 as at No. 47, was operating<br />
as a blower. The only difference in connection<br />
with the operation of the two fans was<br />
that with the exception of about five hours on the<br />
17th, the fan at No. 49 had been running continuously.<br />
This was thought to be another good<br />
reason for assuming that the explosion at mine<br />
No. 47 would have happened just the same if the<br />
fan there had been running continuously. The<br />
fan at mine No. 49 was reversed before any extensive<br />
exploration was arranged for. When arrangements<br />
were completed, a party of mine officials<br />
and others, properly equipped with the necessary<br />
tools and material for restoring the ventilation,<br />
entered the mine. When they had made<br />
their way into the third face, gas blowers were<br />
found coming through the pavement in several<br />
different places, and a fierce fire was burning in<br />
room No. 5 on first left butt. It was the general<br />
opinion that some of the gas blowers were fired<br />
by the flames and continued to burn, thus firing<br />
the coal.<br />
The fire in room No. 5 extended from the first<br />
to the second crosscuts and was burning fiercely<br />
when it was first reached. It was soon realized<br />
that it would be useless to undertake to fight this<br />
fire with the means at hand. Work was commenced<br />
at once to seal it off and prevent it spreading<br />
to other sections of the mine. To do this<br />
necessitated the building of eight stoppings.<br />
Work was commenced at the first crosscut on the<br />
intake of the air, and continued without any serious<br />
trouble around until the last one was reached,<br />
which, of course, was the most difficult one to<br />
close. The stoppings were first built with canvas,<br />
quickly reinforced with wood and plaster and<br />
ac the same time a force of men was started to<br />
build substantial concrete stoppings against the<br />
wood. By this means the fire was<br />
CONFINED TO FOUR ROOMS<br />
on the heading mentioned, the rooms being Nos.<br />
5, 6, 7 and S.<br />
In sealing off the fire, it was necessary to enclose<br />
with it at least one large gas blower, and in<br />
all probability there were several others within<br />
the enclosed area. At first it appeared that it<br />
would be dangerous to enclose this gas with the<br />
nre, but since there were no effective means at<br />
hand with which to fight it, and nothing being<br />
known of conditions beyond to where it was rapidly<br />
spreading, there was no choice but to take<br />
chances and seal it off as quickly as possible.
64 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Immediately after sealing off the fire, it began to<br />
die and became quiet. The action within the<br />
enclosed area was noted by means of a piece of<br />
two-inch pipe inserted in one of the stoppings on<br />
the end of which pipe was a valve to permit its<br />
being opened and closed.<br />
From the initial point described, the explosion<br />
seemed to travel in a general course toward and<br />
to an airshaft located along the main face heading,<br />
about 300 feet beyond on third left butt. The<br />
greatest damage to the mine was done on second<br />
left butt off third face, and third and fourth right<br />
butts off the main heading. All of the places<br />
mentioned were in the direct path of the explosion<br />
from its point of origin to the airshaft. Nearly<br />
all stoppings and overcasts along the main heading<br />
were of brick or concrete construction, and<br />
were all destroyed in the section covered by the<br />
explosion. Electric wires were twisted and coiled<br />
into nearly every conceivable shape, mine cars<br />
were wrecked, some of them being blown from<br />
their position in the rooms up onto high piles of<br />
coal and roof falls, but little damage was done to<br />
any of the mine beyond the fourth left butt and<br />
the airshaft. Had it not been for this airshaft<br />
and the excellent condition of the mine relative<br />
to humidity, the dust being well saturated, the<br />
explosion would no doubt have traversed the entire<br />
main heading to the<br />
BACK END OF THE MINE.<br />
and the rebound or backlash from that point con<br />
tinned in all probability to the pitmouth, branching<br />
out on its way into the headings to the right<br />
and left, and wrecking the entire mine.<br />
In both mines careful attention had been given<br />
to the prevention of accumulation of dust. This<br />
was accomplished by the introduction of moisture<br />
in the mine air by means of steam, and in addition<br />
to that, the careful and systematic spraying<br />
with water of any part of the mine showing the<br />
least tendency to become dry. Had it not been for<br />
the good conditions resulting from such precautions,<br />
or had the mines not been wet or damp, it<br />
is believed the statement will not admit of doubt<br />
that the explosion of gas would have been propagated<br />
and reinforced by dust, with the result that<br />
both mines would have been completely wrecked<br />
as well as the mines connected with them.<br />
It was said in the beginning that the cause of<br />
the explosions described was a gas well located<br />
over and drilled through a barrier pillar in mine<br />
No. 47. The reasons for that conclusion are<br />
briefly as follows: First, both of the explosions<br />
were undoubtedly caused by gas; second, previous<br />
to December 19, 1910, no explosive gas had ever<br />
been detected in mine No. 47, even by chemical<br />
analysis of the air, during its entire history, and<br />
with the exception of the blower reported to have<br />
been ignited by the pumper on December 18, only<br />
a slight trace was ever detected in mine No. 49,<br />
this being liberated from clay veins at the face<br />
of the main heading, which is in a different section<br />
of the mine from where the explosion occurred,<br />
and which was not affected by it; third, the<br />
gas discovered had an odor resembling gasoline.<br />
nenzine or naphtha, which odor is not peculiar to<br />
marsh gas or methane as commonly met with in<br />
coal mines, but which odor is present in the case<br />
of gas produced from a gas well; fourth, samples<br />
of gas from the well and also samples from the<br />
blowers in both mines were analyzed, the analyses<br />
of the different samples having an uniformity and<br />
hearing a close relation to each other; also the<br />
ANALYSES OF THE SAMPLES<br />
taken from the blowers in the mines showed them<br />
to contain a percentage of ethane, an element<br />
which is rarely, if ever found in coal mines from<br />
natural causes; fifth, after the well had been<br />
opened up, and given free vent to the outside, the<br />
gas blowers in both mines began to diminish until<br />
the greater number of them entirely disappeared.<br />
The analyses of the samples mentioned above<br />
as as follows:<br />
Analyses by West Virginia Geological Survey:<br />
From From From<br />
Sturm Well Mine No. 49 Mine No. 49<br />
Dec. 23, 1910. Dec. 20,1910. Dec.22,'10.<br />
Carbon dioxide. . 0.00% 0.35% 0.70%<br />
Oxygen 0.00% 0.70% 5.90%<br />
Methane 86.90% 88.60'A 68.40%<br />
Ethane 12.70% 7.30% 2.76%<br />
Nitrogen 0.40% 3.05% 22.24%<br />
Analyses by Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory:<br />
From From From<br />
Sturm Well Mine No. 47 Mine No. 49<br />
Mar. 15, 1911. Mar.15.1911. Mar.15,'11.<br />
Carbon dioxide. . 0.30% 5.70% 1.60%<br />
Oxygen 0.20% 0.90% 1.10%<br />
Illuminants 0,20'/; 0.10% 0.10%<br />
Methane 86.05% 74.84% 74.97%<br />
Ethane 12.35% 9.00% 12.07%<br />
Nitrogen 0.90% 9.46% 10.16%<br />
The manner in which the well was closed, it is<br />
believed, was responsible for the gas escaping<br />
into the two mines. At its completion, two-inch<br />
mbing was inserted in the well with a wall packer<br />
placed above the Bayard sand; another packer<br />
was also placed around and near the bottom of the<br />
Sfirinch casing above the 50-foot sand. A braden<br />
head was used on the well, which was attached<br />
to the SVl-incn or outside string of casing, thus<br />
closing off any vent to the outside, and making<br />
impossible the escape of<br />
ANY LEAKAGE OF GAS<br />
outside of the inner strings of casing. Should<br />
anything have happened to the packer on the twoinch<br />
tubing, or to the tubing itself, causing it to
give way or leak, the gas would have escaped up<br />
around the outside of this tubing to the top of<br />
the hole or to the braden head, when it would<br />
pass over the top of the S^-ineh and 6%-inch casing<br />
and down along the inside of the Syi-inch or<br />
outside easing, to the bottom of the same, below<br />
which point the entire pressure of the well would<br />
be directed against the bare walls of the hole, and<br />
where there undoubtedly yvas an opening or<br />
crevice of some kind that allowed the gas to<br />
escape into the mines. On February 8, 1911, the<br />
two-inch tubing and the packer were removed<br />
from the well. No defects were found in the<br />
tubing, but the packer was entirely stripped of its<br />
rubber. As to whether the rubber was taken off<br />
in pulling the packer from the hole or not could<br />
not be determined.<br />
An injury to either the packer or tubing might<br />
result from any one of many possible causes. It<br />
might be due to the natural and constant rock<br />
pressure of the well, or to the settling of the<br />
block of coal around the well. Such settling<br />
could be caused by the disintegration of the fire<br />
clay beneath the coal on account of open entries<br />
and rooms surrounding the block, thus permitting<br />
the action of the air and water on the fire clay<br />
strata mentioned. It is not impossible that the<br />
mining of pillars in proximity to the block of coal<br />
would cause a settling or a disturbance of the<br />
same, although the block itself, which yvas 380<br />
by 135 feet in dimension, had not been touched<br />
since the well was drilled, which was March and<br />
April, 1910. The covering over the coal at this<br />
point is 176 feet, with a<br />
STRONG SAND ROCK<br />
immediately above the roof slate. On account<br />
of this heavy sand rock, roof breaks are sometimes<br />
difficult to make and the effects from mining<br />
may be seen a considerable distance away from<br />
where any coal is being removed. In this connection,<br />
it may be stated that a fresh break occurred<br />
in the surface near the well, at or near the<br />
time of the explosion. The break was over territory<br />
where the pillars had been drawn for some<br />
time, indicating that the strata over the coal<br />
was probably throwing an extra amount of weight<br />
on that particular block of coal before the break<br />
occurred.<br />
After the explosions, all of the two-inch tubing<br />
and the five-inch casing was pulled from the well<br />
and inspected. Tte well was then re-cased in<br />
the same manner as described above, new packers<br />
being used, but the braden head was placed on the<br />
five-inch casing, leaving an open vent for all gas<br />
that might escape around the five-inch casing between<br />
the five-inch packer and the top of the hole.<br />
The valves on both the two-inch tubing and the<br />
five-inch casing were closed in March 21, 1911,<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
hut no perceptible increase was found in the blowers<br />
inside the mines.<br />
The writer has attempted to give the principal<br />
facts in connection with the explosions described,<br />
and sufficient evidence to prove beyond any reasonable<br />
doubt that the cause was the gas well mentioned.<br />
If this paper tends to impress more for<br />
cibly upon mine operators, managers and engineers<br />
the importance of accurate location of all<br />
oil and gas wells, of protecting them by the best<br />
methods to be devised, and of employing the<br />
proper method in closing such wells, he will feel<br />
that he has contributed, at least in a small way,<br />
something toward the welfare of the men who<br />
toil underground.<br />
The Omaha Breaker of Order KoKoal celebrated<br />
its first anniversary August 25, the program including<br />
a banquet, business session and a koruskation.<br />
A. L. Havens, the retiring modoc, reviewed<br />
the practical work accomplished for its<br />
members by the breaker. Seven candidates were<br />
initiated. Sentries elected for the ensuing year<br />
consist of A. B. Cook, modoc; Ge<strong>org</strong>e P. Cronk,<br />
baron; Edw. E. Howell, baronel: Charles W. Gardner,<br />
baronet; Wood Allen, pictor; J. C. Weeth,<br />
mazuma; F. S. Martin, gazook; E. C. Lucas, pit<br />
boss; E. P. Boyer. acolyte: E. E. Beale, swatta,<br />
and Henry Foley, spotta.<br />
| SCHOOL OF MINES j<br />
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH. !<br />
I M. E. 'Wadsworth, A. M., Ph. D., Dean. \<br />
) Located in the midst of a great Mining<br />
5 and Metallurgical District. Under- J<br />
I graduate and graduate, elective, re- I<br />
\ quired, and practical (co-operative) <<br />
) work, leading to the degrees of E. M„ 5<br />
Met. E., G. E., E. C, B. S., A. M., M. S.,<br />
J or Ph. D. |<br />
j Special advantages for men of age and )<br />
j experience, graduates, and men preparing<br />
to be managers or operators. I<br />
> Courses also given in Paleontology, )<br />
) Paleobotany, Mineralogy, Geology, )<br />
] and Mining Geology. )<br />
New Building, Laboratories<br />
and Equipment. !<br />
s For Bulletin, address<br />
S. B. LINHART, Secretary,<br />
30 Grant Boulevard, Pittsburgh, Pa.
56 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
COAL PRODUCTION IN IOWA<br />
AND TENNESSEE DURING 1910.<br />
The total production of coal in Iowa in 1910 was<br />
7,928,120 short tons, valued at $13,903,913, an in<br />
crease of 170,358 tons in quantity and of $1,110,285<br />
in value over the figures for the preceding year,<br />
according to a statement just issued by E. W. Par<br />
ker, coal statistician of the United States Geologi<br />
cal Survey.<br />
Coal was mined in 22 counties of Iowa in 1909<br />
and 1910. The Iowa coal mines gave employment<br />
in 1910 to 16,666 men. who worked an average of<br />
218 days. Of these men 9,209 wi-ir on strike dur<br />
ing the year, the average period of idleness being<br />
If days. The average production per man was<br />
17li tons for the year. Most of the mines of the<br />
state are operated 8 horns a day.<br />
Iowa's total coal production to the close of 1910<br />
has amounted to nearly 164,500,000 short tons,<br />
which, including the estimated loss of half a ton<br />
for every ton recovered, represents an exhaustion<br />
of approximately 247,000,000 short tons. The<br />
original supply of coal in Iowa, as estimated by<br />
M. R. Campbell, of the l'uited States Geological<br />
Survey, was 29,160,000,000 short tons, from which<br />
it appears that at the close of 1910 over 28,900,-<br />
000,000 short tons, or a little over 99 per cent, of<br />
the original supply, was still available.<br />
The total production of coal in Tennessee in<br />
1910 was 7,121,380 shorl tons, valued at $7,925,350,<br />
an increase of 12 per cent, over Ihe production of<br />
1909, when the output amounted to 6,358,645 short<br />
tons, valued at $6,920,561.<br />
Tennessee's coal production in 1910 was the<br />
largest in the history of the state, and although in<br />
some districts the ability to absorb the increased<br />
output was somewhat overtaxed and prices suffered<br />
accordingly, the record for the slate as a whole<br />
w-as a decided improvement over 1909. In both<br />
1909 and 1910. however, prices were much lower<br />
than in any of the three preceding years. The<br />
highest prices attained for Tennessee coal in recent<br />
years were recorded in 1907, when the average<br />
YOU CAN'T !f :<br />
C A N get you a large<br />
clean core of all strata un<br />
der your land tc be ex<br />
amined in broad daylight.<br />
. No Guess Work. .<br />
A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
Field Office. House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING, OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING<br />
lor Ihe state was $1.25 a short ton. In 190S the<br />
average price dropped to $1.15 and in 1909 to $1.09.<br />
The returns for 1910 show a slight advance, to<br />
$1.11.<br />
The coal mines of Tennessee were practically<br />
free from labor troubles in 1910, there being but<br />
one mine at. which a strike occurred, and this<br />
mine was crippled hut not closed down. There<br />
were 11,930 men employed and the average num<br />
her of working days was 225. The average pro-<br />
duction for each employe was 597 short tons for<br />
the year, which is 2.65 ions for each working day.<br />
AIIDUl two-thirds of the mine employes in Ten<br />
nessee work 9 hours a day and slightly less than<br />
one-third work le bonis. Information received<br />
by tin' United States Bureau of .Mines from Ge<strong>org</strong>e<br />
E. Sylvester, chief mine inspector, shows that 38<br />
men were killed and 210 injured in the coal mines<br />
of Tennessee in 1910, an inciease over 1909 of 7<br />
in the number of fatal accidents and of 13 in the<br />
number of injuries. Tbe death rate per thousand<br />
in 1910 was 3.19 and Ihe quantity of coal produced<br />
for each life lost was 190,036 tons.<br />
Reports are to the effect that a coal field con<br />
taining 100,(100,000 tons of coal has been found<br />
in Leinster, Ireland. It is said to be of the same<br />
quality as the host Welsh steam coal.<br />
HOW TO KEEP IN<br />
TOUCH WITH<br />
AFFAIRS.<br />
Mines of information on every subject are at<br />
your disposal—Just say the word and we'll<br />
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Ask us for definite information<br />
and rates.<br />
The Central Press Bureau,<br />
906 4 908 WABASH BUILDING.<br />
l.l.phon. 2154 Court. PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK fi KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
FOB THI<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
PUBLISHERS OF<br />
The Coal Dealers' Blue Book<br />
Contains a Complete List for the United States and<br />
Canada of all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron<br />
Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coaland<br />
Coke in oar Room load lots, with capital and pay ratines.<br />
: 550 Monon Building, 440 Dearborn St.,<br />
.; CHICAGO.<br />
1438 SO. PENN SQUARE..<br />
PHILADELPHIA.<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coining to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, IVi tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909-10.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
F. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
FOR SALE-<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jer<br />
sey wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full par<br />
ticulars, analysis' of coal, name, location and out<br />
fit of mine, etc.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VEN-EER & LUMBER CO.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.
Development of Castle Valley Coal Field, Utah.<br />
(CONTINUED FROSl PAGE 50)<br />
capacity of 2,000 tons, and estimates are being<br />
made for increasing this to 3,000, to which capacity<br />
it is hoped to bring tbe mine by another<br />
winter.<br />
The writer wishes to acknowledge the courtesy<br />
of the officials of both companies operating in the<br />
Castle Valley field for extending every facility for<br />
an examination of the properties described.<br />
Buck Ridge Coal Mining Co., Summit, N. .J.;<br />
capital. $5ll0.iHMl; incorporators, Gardner Pattiso'n,<br />
Summit, N. .1.; Howard S. 3owns, New York,<br />
N. Y.; Telford Lewis, Johnstown, Pa.; .lames A.<br />
Hill, Woodmere. N. Y.<br />
Kentuck-Bi-Product Coking Coal Co., Williamson,<br />
W. Va.; capital, $25,000; incorporators, Ge<strong>org</strong>e<br />
H. Weise, I>ane Schonfield, E. A. Bartels, J. K.<br />
Anderson, of Williamson, and Claude L. Caujo, of<br />
Louisa, Ky.<br />
Elliott Splint Coal Co., Charleston, W. Va.; capi<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 59<br />
tal. $1,200,0(10; incorporators, W. B. Whiting, M.<br />
A. Hinshillwood, Ellis R. Diehm, C. C. Owens and<br />
H. .1. Crawford, all of Cleveland, O.<br />
Hall Coal Corporation, Big Stone Gap, Va.; capital,<br />
$30,000; incorporators, \V. S. Matthews, Big<br />
Stone Gap, Va.; H. L. Moore, Chattanooga, Tenn.;<br />
E. .1. Prescott, Big Stone Gap, Va.<br />
Virgin Coal Co., Coal wood. W. Va.; capital, $25,-<br />
000; incorporators, S. C. Minnich, W. C. Shrape,<br />
B. W. Mock, Dr. E. S. Carr and C. E. Bullard, all<br />
of Coalwood, W. Va.<br />
Shelby Coal Mining Co., Warren, O.; capital,<br />
$50,000; incorporators, .1. H. Price, Joseph M.<br />
Aubel, M. A. Pierce. Wm. A. Gebhart and T. H.<br />
Whitehouse.<br />
Coe Hill Coal Co., Nelsonville, O.; capital, $10,-<br />
000; incorporators, W. H. Bennett. P. D. Hill, H.<br />
A. Sines, C. .1. Saunders. Hugh Mallen and J. P.<br />
Cumiskey.<br />
Monday Creek Coal & Coke Co., Columbus, O.;<br />
capital, $30,000; incorporators, John T. Cording.<br />
John W. Moore, L. R. Smith, C. A. Gibson and D.<br />
W. Jones.<br />
J. H. SANFORD COAL COMPANY<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS<br />
HIGHEST GRADE PANHANDLE COAL<br />
ANALYSIS :<br />
Moisture - - - - - 153 BEST FOR STEAM AMD<br />
nScSSST -------- 56.34 " DOMESTIC USES<br />
Ash - - - - - - 6.17<br />
PTII " 'A #n"r i\«^ ° ffices: 1315 Park Building, PITTSBURGH.<br />
B. T. U. per pound of Dry Coal, 13544.3<br />
Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, Bell phoneS) Grant ,822-1823-1824<br />
Jas. Otis Handy, Chief Chemist.<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
, FAMOUS<br />
TT<br />
'ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
C O r^ A V<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
60<br />
Production of The Finer Metals For 1910.<br />
The total value of the mine output of gold, sil<br />
ver, copper, lead and zinc in the Eastern or Ap<br />
palachian States for the calendar year 1910, ac<br />
cording to H. I). McCaskey, of the United States<br />
Geological Survey, was $10,127,304, against $11,-<br />
818,531 in 1909. This represents the production<br />
of 100 mines, of which 61 were gold placer mines,<br />
many of them small. The total gold output from<br />
all mines was 8,974.03 fine ounces, valued at<br />
$185,522, an increase over 1909 of $29,582, and the<br />
silver iiroduction, recovered entirely in the re<br />
fining of the gold and copper produced, was 91.595<br />
fine ounces, valued at $49,461, an increase over<br />
1909 of $14,667.<br />
Of the gold output in 1910 the placers yielded<br />
1,524.54 fine ounces, or 17 per cent., the quartz<br />
ores 6,977.57 fine ounces, or 78 per cent., and the<br />
copper ores 472.52 fine ounces, or 5 per cent.<br />
This 5 per cent, was derived from 774.040 short<br />
tons of copper ore mined, with an average gold<br />
and silver value of $0,076 a ton. against 787,146<br />
tons in 1909, with a gold and silver value of $11.06<br />
a ton.<br />
There were 00,410 short tons of dry and siliceous<br />
ores mined in 191(1, with an average gold and<br />
silver value of $2.39, against 25.531 tons in 1909.<br />
with a value of $4.33.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
The copper production, from copper and iron<br />
ores, was 17,923,412 pounds, valued at $2,276,273,<br />
a decrease of 2,430,SI3 pounds in quantity and of<br />
$369,760 in value as compared with the 1909 figures.<br />
Most of the copper produced in these states<br />
comes from the Ducktown district of Tennessee,<br />
which contributed 94 per cent, of the output of<br />
both 1909 and 1910. The copper ores yielded an<br />
average of 23.2 pounds of copper to the ton of ore<br />
in 1910. against 2o.9 pounds in 1909.<br />
The production of lead all from lead-zinc ore<br />
was 198,850 pounds, valued at $8,750, in 1910. No<br />
mine production of lead was reported for 1909.<br />
The zinc output in 1910 was 140,875,886 pounds,<br />
figured as spelter, valued at $7,607,298, a decrease<br />
from the production in 1909 of 25,452,973 pounds<br />
and of $1,374,460. The output of zinc ore was 411,-<br />
381 short tons in 1910. with an average recoverable<br />
content of 342.4 pounds of zinc per ton, against<br />
510,172 tons in 1909, with an average zinc content<br />
of 326 pounds per ton, against 510,172 tons in 1909,<br />
In tbe Eastern States in 1910 over 97 per cent.<br />
came from New Jersey, the remainder being produced<br />
in the lead-zinc belt of Virginia and Ten<br />
nessee.<br />
Copies of Mr. McCaskey's report, which is now<br />
in press, can be had on application to the Director,<br />
United States Geological Survey, Washington, D. C.<br />
WESTMORELAND COAL CO.<br />
PRINCIPAL OFFICE,<br />
224 South Third Street, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
COLLIERY OWNERS, MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF<br />
THE STANDARD<br />
WESTMORELAND COAL<br />
MINES LOCATED IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA.<br />
This Coal is unexcelled for gas-making, both in illuminating and for producer work.<br />
For brick and terra cotta manufacture, locomotive use, steam threshers, high-pressure<br />
steaming, and in all places where a strong and pure fuel is required, it has no equal.
GOAL TRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, OCTOBER 2, 1911 No. 9<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TKADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STRAUE, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matters<br />
relating to coal or coal production are Invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PAKK BUILDING, PITTSBUBOH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mall Matter.]<br />
CONTINUED LARGE PRODUCTION OF COAT, IN HIE BITU<br />
MINOUS FIELDS marks the approach of the cooler<br />
weather, but despite this condition and a steady<br />
absorption of tonnage that has been going on,<br />
there is not the upward trend of prices the pro<br />
ducing companies would like to see. Operators,<br />
however, are standing pat, and are refusing to<br />
enter into contracts beyond the first of the year<br />
at present card prices, which is the most hopeful<br />
sign in the trade, indicative of an expectation that<br />
there will be a decided advance in prices about<br />
that time.<br />
From all sections of the country come the re<br />
ports of increased consumption of fuel as cold<br />
weather draws nearer. Some of these reports<br />
show the increase to be intermittent while others<br />
speak of a steady growth. One section reports<br />
the growth in steam coal, while another shows it<br />
to be wholly domestic fuel that has the call. Head<br />
of lake distributing points are away ahead of last<br />
year in tonnage figures, even if they do not report<br />
any betterment in the way of better price figures.<br />
With less than 2 per cent, of railroad equip<br />
ment idle and this amount steadily dwindling,<br />
the outlook for a shortage in the near future al<br />
most is one of certainty. Already railroads are<br />
notifying shippers that certain kinds of cars are<br />
"out of stock" and advising them to use other<br />
kinds. This is partly due to the gradual replace<br />
ment of the small wooden cars by the big steel<br />
ones, but as many of the roads still have thou<br />
sands of the wooden cars in service, the notifi<br />
cation that they cannot supply this class of equip<br />
ment certainly means growing scarcity of idle<br />
rolling stock<br />
Lake trade shows a steady movement, with pros<br />
pects, that, by the time navigation closes, a total<br />
tonnage in excess of 1910 will have gone forward<br />
to head of lake ports, thus in a manner bearing out<br />
the reports of a heavier demand in the Northwest.<br />
There has been some congestion of vessels at the<br />
head of the lakes during the fortnight, but this<br />
practically has disappeared and some coal in addi<br />
tion to contract tonnage is again on the move.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district mines are doing just<br />
about what they were at the opening of Septem<br />
ber save those shipping by river; they being more<br />
active due to the fact that empty craft have been<br />
brought into the Pittsburgh harbor and taken to<br />
the mines, thereby furnishing reason for more<br />
steady operation. In the all rail mines 80 per<br />
cent, of capacity is probably the extent of opera<br />
tion and this meets the demand. Here, like al<br />
most all other districts, if capacity tonnage was<br />
produced it would mean a piling up of coal in<br />
storage until demurrage would force its sale to<br />
prevent further loss. As it is with approximately<br />
four-fifths of capacity being produced, slack 'coal<br />
is somewhat of a drug on the market witli a con<br />
sequent shading in price on the part of the smaller<br />
companies who cannot afford to hold it for better<br />
figures. Pittsburgh operatois are to a certain<br />
extent among those who refuse to consider contracts<br />
beyond the end of the year at present prices, and<br />
are looking for better things. Prices are held<br />
generally firm at $1.25 to $1.35 for run-of-mine<br />
coal; $1.35 to $1.45 for three-quarter coal; $1.45 to<br />
$1.55 for inch and one-quarter coal; with 75 to 85<br />
cents prevailing figures for slack.<br />
After taking something of a slump during the<br />
middle of last month, the coke trade once more
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
is picking up again and tonnage once more has<br />
begun climbing toward the three hundred and fifty indicate we can see long-drawn out negotiations<br />
thousand ton per week mark, even if it is far<br />
from it now. The slump was altogether in the<br />
matter of tonnage as the number of ovens in blast<br />
.MINE SAFETY DEMONSTRATION to be held in this city<br />
continued to increase each week, and, at last re<br />
on the closing days of the month, if the program<br />
port, showed an active list that has not been sur<br />
appearing on another page is indicative of anypassed<br />
since early in the spring save the final<br />
thing. Operators and miners alike surely wili<br />
week of August. Manufacturers are holding their<br />
benefit by being in attendance.<br />
optimistic view of the situation with the result<br />
that the slump in tonnage has had no correspond<br />
ing effect on prices and these are maintained gen<br />
erally. Shipments are about on a parity with<br />
production, thus preventing accumulations of stock<br />
coke to any great extent. Prices are firm at $1.75<br />
to $1.85 for furnace coke and $2.00 to $2.25 for<br />
foundry coke.<br />
The anthracite trade seems to be in the best<br />
shape of any branch of the industry and the one<br />
size of coal—chestnut—that had been lagging is<br />
now in brisk demand, with the result that every<br />
size now is moving right along, with prospects of<br />
still better things when real cold weather strikes<br />
the country. There are the usual stoppages at<br />
the mines, but production is being kept up to<br />
record figures. Prices are held at regular win<br />
ter figures.<br />
* * *<br />
SOME PERTINENT FACTS ARE REVEALED in the ad<br />
vance sheets of the report of Chief of the Depart<br />
ment of Mines James E. Roderick of Pennsylvania,<br />
just made public. One that seems to have been<br />
overlooked in the general desire to create sensa<br />
tions is the< fact that the death rate in the mines<br />
of Pennsylvania, whether considered from a ton<br />
nage standpoint or the standpoint of fatalities per<br />
thousand men employed, was less than in every<br />
state where gas and dust explosions occur and for<br />
the period 1870 to 1908 seven times less than in<br />
British Columbia. In Great Britain the loss of<br />
life was two and seven-tenths times that of Penn<br />
sylvania. These things seem to indicate that<br />
Pennsylvania mines are among the safest in the<br />
country, notwithstanding the hue and cry to the<br />
contrary.<br />
* * *<br />
DEMANDS THAT WILL BE MADE ox IHE OPERATING<br />
COMPANIES practically have been agreed upon by<br />
the mine workers of the anthracite region of Penn<br />
sylvania, according to the reports emanating from<br />
that section. If all is asked for that the reports<br />
before a new wage contract is formulated.<br />
* * *<br />
SOME INTERESTING THINGS WILL HE SEEN AT THE<br />
Loss of life in the mines of Great Britain last<br />
year was 2.7 times greater than in Pennsylvania.<br />
And then they try to tell us the Pennsylvania<br />
"Coal Barons" (sic) make no effort to prevent<br />
accidents.<br />
* * *<br />
Iowa miners are said to be talking strike. The<br />
"kiddies" will have more food and warmer clothes<br />
if "daddy" keeps "digging coal."<br />
Illinois, Oklahoma and Arkansas production in<br />
1910 certainly showed wherein a prolonged strike<br />
hands the industry a jolt.<br />
* * *<br />
The number of idle cars is growing still smaller.<br />
That spells better days for the coal trade.<br />
* * *<br />
Last year was a half billion ton year. Looks<br />
as if 1911 will pass the same mark.<br />
Old Mr. Jack Frost will be welcomed by the<br />
coal man any day he comes around.<br />
And Car Shortage is just around the corner.<br />
The Interstate Commerce Commission has issued<br />
an order suspending until January 12 the proposed<br />
advance in the freight rate on coal from Southern<br />
Illinois mines to points in Kansas and Nebraska.<br />
Several roads are affected by the ruling. It was<br />
planned to put the higher rate into effect on the<br />
15th inst.<br />
An attempt on the part of the Zanesville Coal<br />
Co., in the Crooksville, O., field, to inaugurate a<br />
system of paying by check, instead of currency,<br />
called President Moore, of the Ohio Mine Workers,<br />
to that locality during the fortnight to aid in preventing<br />
a strike.
AMERICAN MINING CONGRESS<br />
POSTPONED UNTIL OCTOBER 24.<br />
The meeting of the American Mining Congress<br />
at Chicago has been postponed until the latter<br />
part of October. Owing to President Taft's engagements<br />
he could not be present in September,<br />
but has consented to speak to the congress October<br />
28. Secretary Fisher and Dr. Holmes will<br />
be engaged with the results of their Alaskan trip<br />
for some weeks, but they, too, can be in Chicago<br />
on the dates now selected. The presence of John<br />
Hays Hammond is also assured on the later dates,<br />
and a number of other especially desired participants<br />
in the program will also find it more convenient<br />
to come in October.<br />
The program is nearing completion and will be<br />
printed shortly. Tuesday afternoon, October 24.<br />
will be given over to welcoming addresses and<br />
preliminaries; Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.<br />
the 25th, 26th and 27th, to the business sessions;<br />
Saturday, October 28. there will be the address<br />
by President Taft, and the concluding business of<br />
the meeting.<br />
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH<br />
MINING SCHOOL STARTS TERM.<br />
The School of Mines of the University of Pittsbugh<br />
opened last Monday, September 25, with a<br />
large enrollment of new students. Dean M. E.<br />
Wadsworth announces that much new equipment<br />
has been added to the laboratories and collections<br />
and that the present year will undoubtedly be the<br />
most successful in the school's history. All of<br />
last year's graduates, IS in number, are now employed<br />
throughout the country with mining concerns.<br />
Two changes have been made in the faculty.<br />
E. N. Zern. who has been mine superintendent<br />
with the H. C. Frick Coke Co. and Jamison Coal<br />
& Coke Co. since 1908 and who has had six years'<br />
experience in practical coal and coke operations,<br />
has been appointed assistant professor of coal<br />
mining. Mr. Zern graduated from Pennsylvania<br />
State College in 1903, and served for several years<br />
as Instructor in Mineralogy and Mining in that<br />
institution under Dr. Wadsworth. He was employed<br />
with the Kentucky Coal Co.. at Sturgis,<br />
Ky., and the Pitcairn Coal Co., at Clarksburg, W.<br />
Va.<br />
H. B. Meller, a member of last year's faculty in<br />
the School of Mines, has been advanced from Instructor<br />
in Mining to Assistant Professor in Metal<br />
Mining. Mr. Meller graduated from the University<br />
of Pittsburgh in 1910, after pursuing studies<br />
at the University of Pennsylvania and Michigan<br />
College of Mines. He spent eight years as secretary<br />
of the University of Pennsylvania Medical<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
School, later being employed in practical mining<br />
work.<br />
ANTHRACITE CARRYING RAILROADS PLAN<br />
CHANGES IN COAL OWNERSHIP TO COM<br />
PLY WITH SUPREME COURT DECISION.<br />
The managers and counsel of the Lehigh Valley,<br />
Delaware & Hudson and New York, Ontario &<br />
Western Railroad companies are perfecting plans<br />
for re<strong>org</strong>anization of the companies in accordance<br />
with the decision of the United States Supreme<br />
Court a month ago upon the commodities clause<br />
of the Hepburn act. The proposed re<strong>org</strong>anization<br />
pertains to the relationship between railroad<br />
companies and the coal companies which they control<br />
and operate, and the design of the railroad<br />
managers is so to separate the coal business from<br />
the railroad' business that there can be no further<br />
complaint from Washington or elsewhere that the<br />
companies are not complying with the spirit of a<br />
law which was designed to separate the two forms<br />
of enterprise.<br />
The plan that is at present most favored by the<br />
Delaware & Hudson and the New York, Ontario<br />
& Western is similar in general outline to that<br />
made effective uy the Lackawanna two years ago.<br />
It provides for the sale at the mines of the coal<br />
mined by the company to an independent company<br />
<strong>org</strong>anized for the purpose of marketing the<br />
coal.<br />
An alternative plan, which up to tbe present<br />
bas met with greater favor from the more influential<br />
directors of Lehigh Valley, contemplates the<br />
sale of the company's coal land to a separate company<br />
to be <strong>org</strong>anized for the purpose of acquiring<br />
them and holding them in perpetuity with, of<br />
course, rights to railroad company stockholders<br />
to subscribe to the stock of the new coal company<br />
or distribution of the stock among them. The<br />
objection has been made that some of the company's<br />
coal lands are mortgaged under the railroad<br />
company's $30,000,000 consolidated mortgage<br />
bonds. The company will only convey, if the plan<br />
goes through, its equity or interest in the coal<br />
properties subject to the mortgage which secures<br />
the bonds.<br />
In the test ease the court decided in effect that<br />
ownership of stock in a coal company is a mere<br />
department of the railroad or a mere dummy to<br />
serve the purpose of the railroad in the coal mining<br />
and marketing business.<br />
Since that decision the department of justice<br />
has let it be known that it proposed a rigid investigation<br />
of the relations between the coal companies<br />
and the railroad companies and has promised<br />
that other suits would be instituted. It<br />
was the opinion of the Lehigh Valley managers at<br />
first that further litigation should be contested,
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
but though the matter has not been formally decided<br />
by the board it is understood that the majority<br />
are in favor of selling the coal lands to a<br />
new company to be <strong>org</strong>anized by Lehigh Valley<br />
stockholders.<br />
Since Delaware & Hudson owns all the stock of<br />
the coal companies in which it has an interest<br />
the case is identical with that of Lehigh Valley.<br />
Not so strong a case could be brought under the<br />
law against Ontario & Western for the reason that<br />
the company does not own all of the stock of its<br />
coal subsidiaries. It has. however, such a predominant<br />
interest that a prosecution might be<br />
successful.<br />
The iron ore shipments for the month aggregated<br />
5,341.626 long tons, compared with 6,S72,27S<br />
long tons shipped during August, 1910. Iron ore<br />
shipments for the year will probably not exceed<br />
30,000,000 long tons, compared with 41,500,000 for<br />
the preceding season.<br />
The August shipments of soft coal, 2,733,086<br />
short tons, exceeded the corresponding 1910 shipments,<br />
all the larger shipping ports such as Ashtabula.<br />
Toledo, Cleveland, Lorain and Sandusky<br />
showing considerable gains over the 1910 figures.<br />
Shipments for the S months, 10,509,026 short tons,<br />
were 730,958 tons less than in 1910, Cleveland,<br />
Lorain, Huron and Fairport showing the main<br />
losses for the season, while Toledo, Ashtabula and<br />
Sandusky report larger shipments than a year ago.<br />
About two-thirds of the coal received during the<br />
month was landed at Duluth. Superior and Milwaukee<br />
docks. Shipments of hard coal for the<br />
month and season, 633,440 and 2,807,164 short tons,<br />
respectively, mainly from Buffalo, Oswegon and<br />
Erie, were also heavier than the year before.<br />
The August freight traffic through the Sault Ste.<br />
Marie canals, 8,548,812 short tons, shows a considerable<br />
decline from the corresponding 1910 and<br />
1909 figures of 9,744,556 and 8.988.223 short tons.<br />
As against a heavy loss for the month in the eastbound<br />
iron ore movement, considerable gains in<br />
the westbound coal and eastbound grain movements<br />
are noted.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Farrell and Al Sarfon. miners, entered<br />
pleas of guilty before the Washington county, Pa.,<br />
court, to a violation of the mining laws. Farrell<br />
was alleged to have had a pipe and to have been<br />
smoking it in the mine past a danger board. Sarfon<br />
was alleged to have had in his possession smoking<br />
materials and an open light. Each was sentenced<br />
to pay the costs, fine of $10 or undergo imprisonment<br />
in the county jail for 60 days.<br />
LAKE COMMERCE DURING AUGUST, 1911.<br />
Demands whicli will be submitted to the anthra<br />
A loss of more than 10 per cent, in the domestic cite coal operators were framed at a meeting of<br />
freight tonnage shipped between ports on the Great three anthracite district boards of the Mine Work<br />
Lakes during August of the present year is shown ers' union at Hazleton, Pa.. Sept. 21. Recogni<br />
by the monthly figures of lake shipments, just<br />
made public by the Bureau of Statistics of the<br />
tion of the union, an increase in wages and a reduction<br />
in the price of powder are some of the<br />
Department of Commerce and Labor. These ship concessions asked by the workers. It is thought<br />
ments totaled 11.643.123 short tons, compared with<br />
13,066,118 short tons in August, 1910, and 12,543,-<br />
057 short tons in August, 1909. The total do<br />
a conference between the union men and operators<br />
will be held in Philadelphia next spring.<br />
mestic lake shipments for the S months of the At a joint meeting of the executive board of<br />
present year aggregated 45,584,360 short tons or the Iowa district of the United Mine Workers of<br />
about 19 per cent, less than in 1910. Of the total America and the Iowa Coal Operators' Associa<br />
loss of over 10.700,000 short tons, about 19,300,000 tion of the Thirteenth district at Des Moines, la..<br />
short tons represent the loss in iron ore shipments on Sept. 16, the operators refused to arbitrate the<br />
alone.<br />
Excelsior coal mine case. Miners say the operators,<br />
while operating their mines under closed<br />
shop rules, have discriminated against miners<br />
active in union work.<br />
One thousand miners of five mines of the Clinton<br />
Coal Co. at Clinton, Ind., returned to work<br />
Sept. IS, after a short strike, the company having<br />
withdrawn the list of questions of a personal nature<br />
the men were to answer, but the company retains<br />
the right to ask questions, though not requiring<br />
applicants to sign any pledge.<br />
The Fayette county. Pa., court has appointed<br />
the following men in the Twenty-third bituminous<br />
district of Pennsylvania to constitute the examining<br />
board for mine foremen and fire bosses: Edward<br />
E. Girod, inspector; David Twist, superintendent,<br />
and John Payton, miner.<br />
The executive board of the Ohio United Mine<br />
Workers went into session in state headquarters<br />
at Columbus, 0., Sept. 26, with State President<br />
John Moore presiding. The meeting is acting<br />
upon local matters in the sub-districts.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Baker, international Executive board,<br />
United Mine Workers, from Kentucky, has been<br />
nominated as a representative to the legislature<br />
of that state, which is equivalent to an election.
COAL IN PENNSYLVANIA, WEST VIRGINIA,<br />
ILLINOIS, OHIO, ALABAMA, KENTUCKY,<br />
NEW MEXICO, OKLAHOMA AND ARKAN<br />
SAS, DURING 1910.<br />
Pennsylvania's coal production in 1910 was<br />
235,006,762 short tons, valued at $313,301,812. Of<br />
this 84,485,236 short tons was anthracite, valued<br />
at $100,275,302, and 150,521,526 short tons was bituminous<br />
coal, valued at $153,029,510, at cording<br />
to E. W. Parker, statistician of the U. S. Geological<br />
Survey.<br />
Compared with 1909. when the total production<br />
of the state amounted to 219.037.150 short tons,<br />
valued at $279,266,824, the production in 1910<br />
shows an increase of 15,969,612 short tons, or 7<br />
per cent., in quantity, and of $34,037,988, or 12.2<br />
per cent., in value. Of tbe total increase 3,314.-<br />
877 short tons was in tlie iiroduction of anthracite<br />
and 12,554.735 short tons in the production<br />
of bituminous coal. The value of the anthracite<br />
production showed an increase of $11,093,713, or<br />
7.4 per cent., and that of bituminous coal increased<br />
$22,944,273, or 17.64 per cent. Although the<br />
quantity of bituminous coal produced exceeded<br />
that of anthracite by nearly SO per cent., the value<br />
of the anthracite product was larger than that of<br />
the bituminous output by nearly $7,250,000. Bituminous<br />
coal represented 63.6 per cent, of the<br />
total output and anthracite represented 51 per<br />
cent, of the total value.<br />
The anthracite mines of Pennsylvania gave employment<br />
to 169,497 men, who worked an average<br />
of 229 days. The bituminous mines employed<br />
175,403 men for an average of 238 days. The<br />
average production for each man employed in the<br />
anthracite region was 498 short tons during the<br />
year. In the bituminous mines<br />
THE MEN AVERAGED<br />
825 tons each. The daily average production for<br />
each employe in the anthracite region was 2.17<br />
short tons and in the bituminous districts it was<br />
3.61 tons.<br />
According to the Pennsylvania Department of<br />
Mines 601 men were killed and 1,050 were injured<br />
in the anthracite mines in 1910. The fatal accidents<br />
in the bituminous mines numbered 539 and<br />
the non-fatal accidents numbered 1.142.<br />
In the combined production of anthracite and<br />
bituminous coal Pennsylvania outranks any of the<br />
coal producing countries of the world except Great<br />
Britain and Germany, and in 1910 it came within<br />
10,000.000 short tons, or less than 5 per cent., of<br />
equaling tbe output of Germany, and was nearly<br />
20 per cent, of the total coal production of the<br />
world.<br />
West Virginia held second rank among the great<br />
coal producing states in 1910, being exceeded in<br />
output by Pennsylvania only. The total produc<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 25<br />
tion for West Virginia in 1910 was 61,671,019<br />
short tons.<br />
The production of West Virginia increased from<br />
51.849.220 short tons in 1909 to 61,671,019 tons in<br />
1910, a gain of 9,821,799 tons, or IS.9 per cent.<br />
The value of the West Virginia production increased<br />
from $44,661,716 in 1909 to $56,665,061, a<br />
gain of $12,003,345, or 26.88 per cent.<br />
In spite of the fact, however, that the output<br />
of West Virginia exceeded that of Illinois by 15,-<br />
772,173 tons, and of the further fact that West<br />
Virginia's gain in value was considerably more<br />
in proportion than the gain in tcnnage, the total<br />
value of the West Virginia product exceeded tbat<br />
of Illinois by only $4,261,434.<br />
The high quality coal of West Virginia is the<br />
lowest-prired coal in the United States. If the<br />
small mines are left out of consideration there<br />
were only three counties in the state in which the<br />
average price in 1910<br />
EXCEEDED $1 PER TON,<br />
and the aggregate output of these three counties<br />
was only a little over 1,000,000 tons—less than 2 per<br />
cent, of the total production. The general average<br />
for the state was 92 cents. In 1909 it was<br />
86 cents.<br />
The total production of coal in Illinois in 1910,<br />
amounts to 45,900,246 short tons, as against 50,-<br />
904.990 short tons in 1909.<br />
With the mines in most of the coal producing<br />
counties shut down for practically six months of<br />
tbe year, a decrease of from 20 to 30 per cent, in<br />
production might have been expected, but as a<br />
matter of fact the decrease was surprisingly small.<br />
Mining conditions in the state during 1910 showed<br />
a curious combination of periods of almost complete<br />
idleness and intense activity, the latter condition<br />
accounting for the comparatively slight decrease<br />
in output as compared with 1909. In 1909<br />
when the industry was practically free from labor<br />
troubles the production in Illinois amounted to<br />
50,904,990 short tons, whereas in 1910, with six<br />
months of idleness at the majority of the mines,<br />
tbe iiroduction amounted to nearly 46,000,000, less<br />
than 10 per cent, decrease.<br />
In 1910 out of a total of 72,645 men, 67,218 were<br />
idle for an average of 136 days and the total time<br />
lost was equivalent to 9,133,953 working days.<br />
The total time made by the 72,645 men employed<br />
was 11.612,966 days, or an average of 160 days<br />
each. The idle time in 1910 was nearly 80 per<br />
cent, of the working time made.<br />
The state bureau of labor statistics, Mr. David<br />
Ross, secretary, reports that in the fiscal year<br />
ended June 30, 1910. there were 390 fatal and 737<br />
non-fatal accidents in the coal mines of Illinois.<br />
In 1909 there were 213 fatal and 896 non-fatal<br />
accidents.<br />
Ohio's total production of coal in 1910 was 34,-
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
209.66S short tons, with a spot value of $35,932,2SS.<br />
Ai..iough more than half of the coal miners of<br />
Ohio were on strike in 1910 for a period equiva<br />
lent to 25 per cent, of the average number of days<br />
worked, the increase in production in 1910 over<br />
1909 was the largest gain ever<br />
MADE IN ONE YEAI;.<br />
In 1909 Ohio produced 27,939.641 short tons of<br />
coal, valued at $27,789,010. The increase in 1910<br />
was 6,270,027 short tons, or 22.41 per cent, in quan<br />
tity, and $8,143,278, or 29.3 per cent, in value.<br />
Production increased in 20 of the 28 counties<br />
in tbe state and decreased in 8. The most no<br />
table increase was made in Belmont county, whose<br />
output gained 2,203,446 short tons. Guernsey<br />
county ranked second in increased production,<br />
with a gain of 1,601,017 tons. Athens county<br />
showed an increase of 1.462,290 tons, and the Hock<br />
ing Valley district, comprising Athens, Hocking<br />
and Perry counties, showed a total gain of 2,052,-<br />
961 tons. One other county. Jefferson, added over<br />
a million tons to its output in 1909. with an in<br />
crease of 1,333.563 tons. The principal decrease<br />
was in Tuscarawas county, which fell off nearly<br />
50 per cent., from 1,577.303 tons in 1909 to 816,189<br />
tons in 1910.<br />
Ohio continues to lead in the percentage of the<br />
total production undercut by the use of machines,<br />
and in 1910 2S.SS7.241 short tons, or 84.44 per cent.<br />
of the total, was machine-mined.<br />
The number of men employed in the coal mines<br />
of Ohio in 1910 was 46,641, who averaged 203 working<br />
days. Had it not been for the time lost by<br />
strikes, the mine workers in Ohio would have<br />
averaged 230 working days. Tlie record for efficiency<br />
among the miners in Ohio is. however,<br />
high. In 1910 the average production by each<br />
man employed was 733 tons for the year and 3.61<br />
tons for each working day.<br />
Mr. Ge<strong>org</strong>e Harrison, the state mine inspector,<br />
reports that in 1910 there were 161 men killed and<br />
471 injured in the coal mines of Ohio. The death<br />
rate per thousand was 3.45 and there were 212.482<br />
tons of coal mined for each life lost, against a<br />
death rate per man of 2.45 and 241.358 short tons<br />
mined for each fatality in 1909.<br />
Alabama's coal production in 1910 was 16.091.979<br />
short tons, valued at $20,209,577, a large increase<br />
over the figures for the preceding year.<br />
In a preliminary review of the coal mining in<br />
dustry in 1910, published as a press bulletin early<br />
in January. 1911, it was stated that Alabama's<br />
Iiroduction had reached the unprecedented total of<br />
15,000,000 short tons. The<br />
STATISTICS FOR THE YEAR<br />
as collected by Edward W. Parker, of the r. S.<br />
Geological Survey, in co-operation with tbe Alabama<br />
Geological Survey, show that the preliminary<br />
figures were exceeded by a million tons, the actual<br />
output being 16,091,979 short tons. This unusu<br />
ally large tonnage (the largest previous produc<br />
tion being 14,250,454 short tons in 1907) was due<br />
primarily to the strike in Illinois and other West<br />
ern States, and secondarily to low water in the<br />
Ohio and Kanawha rivers which reduced ship<br />
ments from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to<br />
Mississippi river points.<br />
Compared with 1909, when the production<br />
amounted to 13,703,450 short tons, the output in<br />
1910 showed an increase of 2,388,529 short tons,<br />
or 17.43 per cent. The conditions in 1910 natur<br />
ally resulted in an advance in prices and the total<br />
value increased from $16,306,236 to $20,209,577, a<br />
gain of $3,903,341, or 23.94 per cent. The average<br />
price per ton in 1910 was $1.26 against $1.19 in<br />
1909.<br />
The coal mines of Alabama were practically free<br />
from strikes in 1910. there being only 25 men idle<br />
from that cause during the yeai'.<br />
The coal mining industry of Alabama was marred<br />
during 1910 by two bad disasters which to<br />
gether cost the lives of 131 men. The first occurred<br />
on April 20 at the Mulga mine and cost 40<br />
lives; the second was at the Palos mine on May 5<br />
and cost 91 lives. The number of fatalities in<br />
these two accidents was more than the total number<br />
of deaths from all causes in either 1908 or<br />
1909. According to the report of the chief mine<br />
inspector of the state, the total number of fatal<br />
accidents in 1910 was 238 against 129 in 1909, and<br />
108 in 1908.<br />
The number of men employed in the coal mines<br />
of Alabama in 1910 was 22,210, who worked an<br />
average of 249 days, chiefly of 10 hours. The<br />
average production per man was 725 short tons<br />
for the year and 2.91 tons for each working day.<br />
There was a notable activity in Kentucky's coal<br />
mining in 1910. The total<br />
PRODUCTION OF THE STATE<br />
was 14,623.319 short tons; valued at $14,405,887,<br />
as against 10,697,384 short tons, valued at $10,ii79,917.<br />
in 1909, a gain of 3.925,935 short tons, or<br />
30.7 per cent, in quantity, and of $4,325,970, c<br />
42.92 per cent., in value.<br />
The stoppage of work in the coal mines affected<br />
by the general strike of 1910 was of material<br />
benefit to the operators and miners in Kentucky,<br />
particularly in the western field. During the six<br />
months of idleness in the other states the shipments<br />
over the Louisville & Nashville railroad<br />
from tbe Western Kentucky coal field increased<br />
nearly 70 per cent, over the corresponding period<br />
in 1909.<br />
Notwithstanding the extraordinary demand upon<br />
the Kentucky mines, the labor supply was entirely<br />
adequate, as many of the miners who were thrown<br />
out of work by the strike in Illinois and tho<br />
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 45)
PENNSYLVANIA COAL PRODUCTION IN 1910<br />
EXCEEDED THAT OF ANY PREVIOUS<br />
YEAR SAVE 1907.<br />
Mr. James E. Roderick, Chief of the Department<br />
of Mines of Pennsylvania in his report on the coal<br />
production of the state for 1910, which has just<br />
been issued, declares that the output was 148,770,-<br />
S5S tons of bituminous coal, while the anthracite<br />
production amounted to 83,683,994 tons.<br />
The production of soft coal last year, aggregating<br />
148,770,858 tons, was the greatest of any<br />
year except 1907, when it reached 149,559,047.<br />
The number of employes last year was 193,488<br />
against 185,921 in the preceding year and 183,121<br />
in 1907. Fatal accidents numbered 539 against<br />
506 in 1909; 572 in 1908 and 806 in 1907. Thirty<br />
years ago porduction of bituminous coal was 15,-<br />
916,123 and 35,530 persons were employed, the<br />
number of fatal accidents being 57.<br />
An interesting study in methods is afforded by<br />
the statement that last year the production by<br />
pick mining was 79,332,300, or 53.32 per cent.,<br />
against 63.80 per cent. 10 years ago. The tonnage<br />
cut last year by compressed air machines<br />
vvas 30,910,161, or 20.78 per cent., against 21.19<br />
in 1901, while electric machinery cut 38,528,397<br />
tons, or 25.90 per cent. last year. Ten years ago<br />
it got out 15.01 per cent. The production in 1901<br />
was 80,914,236 tons.<br />
On the general subject of the bituminous coal<br />
industry last year Chief Roderick says:<br />
"The production of coal in Pennsylvania in<br />
1910 was remarkably heavy, notwithstanding the<br />
unsatisfactory conditions that existed in many<br />
other lines of business.<br />
"The different sections of the bituminous region<br />
were differently affected during the year. In the<br />
western fields, particularly in Allegheny and Washington<br />
counties, production was unduly stimulated<br />
by the enforced cessation of operations for about<br />
eight months in the Irwin field of this state, and<br />
for six months in the Mississippi valley states,<br />
caused by a strike, and by the unusually large<br />
amount of coal shipped to<br />
THE UPPER LAKE MARKETS<br />
during the summer. In the Connellsville coking<br />
coal district the production was about the same<br />
as in the preceding year, while in the Clearfield<br />
or Central Pennsylvania district the trade was<br />
decidedly unsatisfactory.<br />
"The car supply was generally adequate to the<br />
demands, the operators reporting that the situation<br />
was better in that respect than for several<br />
years. The labor supply was also fully up to the<br />
requirements.<br />
"During the latter part of the year there was a<br />
large falling off in the activity of the important<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. <strong>•</strong>ll<br />
industries that consume steel, and this condition<br />
was so reflected in the coal and coke markets that<br />
in the latter part of December the mines and ovens<br />
were operated at only 50 to 05 per cent, of their<br />
capacity.<br />
"The crying need of the coal trade to-day is no<br />
doubt proper regulation, but there are so many<br />
difficulties in the way of attaining this desired<br />
consummation, owing to the extent of the coal<br />
bearing area and the relative small cost of opening<br />
mines, that it seems almost futile to think of<br />
it. However, if the opening of new mines could<br />
be stopped and a check could be placed upon the<br />
unreasoning ambition of some of the producers to<br />
make a new tonnage record each year, two causes<br />
that operate against the success of the trade would<br />
be eliminated.<br />
"That present productive capacity of the mines<br />
is far beyond the capacity of the consumer, probably<br />
twice as great, and hence the opening of additional<br />
mines and the excessive production are<br />
things to be deprecated."<br />
Considering the reports of mine accidents on<br />
the North American continent and in Great Britain<br />
the loss of life in Pennsylvania "soft coal"<br />
mines is not as large as commonly supposed, he<br />
asserts. The chief takes pains to prove by statistics<br />
that the Keystone State has a lower general<br />
average of fatalities for each 1,000 persons<br />
employed and for each 1,000,000 tons produced<br />
than many other states or provinces.<br />
"A feature of the mining industry and the one<br />
that engages the most public attention and receives<br />
the most criticism is<br />
THE DEPLORABLE RECORD<br />
of fatalities that occur among the mine workers,"<br />
says he. "Those unacquainted with the facts cannot<br />
realize the conditions that exist at the present<br />
time, chiefly due to the prenomenal growth of<br />
the industry. In Pennsylvania alone the annual<br />
production is about 230,000,000 tons, requiring the<br />
efforts of 350,000 men in and about the mines<br />
With this vast production, the rapid methods of<br />
extracting the coal and the majority of the workmen<br />
foreigners who are ignorant of the rules of<br />
safety, the hazard of life is extremely great."<br />
On the subject of accidents he shows from national<br />
reports that for the 20 years. 18S9-1908.<br />
there were employed 9,422,902 miners in all North<br />
America and 29,293, or 3.11 per cent., were killed.<br />
In Pennsylvania for the same period there were<br />
2,257,204 employed and 6,114. or 2.71 per cent.<br />
killed. Chief Roderick adds:<br />
"If the fatalities in the bituminous mines of<br />
Pennsylvania for the 20 years had averaged 3.11<br />
for every 1,000 persons employed the number<br />
killed would have been 7,017 instead of 6,114. It<br />
is, therefore, manifestly unfair to include the fatalities<br />
in the Pennsylvania bituminous mines
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
with the total number of fatalities iu the mines<br />
of North America."<br />
A table of states and provinces shows that<br />
while the lives lost per 1,000,000 tons, 1870 to<br />
1908, in the bituminous mines of Pennsylvania<br />
was 3.83, the number in the anthracite region was<br />
8.21; Ohio. 3.95; West Virginia, 6.36; Kentucky,<br />
3.34; Maryland, 1.96; Illinois, 3.94; Indiana, 3.73;<br />
Michigan, 5.20, and Tennessee, 9.04, while Nova<br />
Scotia showed 7.95 and British Columbia 22.48.<br />
In this connection he states:<br />
"This table shows that all the states having a<br />
lower percentage of fatalities per 1,000 persons<br />
employed than Pennsylvania are states in which<br />
explosions of gas and dust do not occur. With<br />
such states Pennsylvania, after eliminating fatalities<br />
by gas and dust,<br />
COMPARES MOST FAVORABLY.<br />
The number of lives lost per 1,000,000 tons produced<br />
in Pennsylvania is 3.83, a smaller percentage<br />
than in any other state except the safe mining<br />
states of Maryland, Indiana and Kentucky. A<br />
general average of fatalities, including British<br />
Columbia and Nova Scotia, shows that 3.10 lives<br />
were lost for 1,000 persons employed and 5.83 for<br />
every 1,000,000 tons produced, which is a much<br />
higher percentage than in Pennsylvania with its<br />
2.54 and 3.83 respectively."<br />
The chief also presents a comparison of fatalities<br />
in bituminous mines of Pennsylvania and<br />
Great Britain. He says:<br />
"During the years 1908, 1909 and 1910 Great<br />
Britain produced 789,563,364 tons of coal with 3,-<br />
051,218 employes, and Pennsylvania produced 399,-<br />
913,928 tons with 561,249 employes, the number<br />
of employes in Great Britain being nearly five<br />
and a half times as large as the number in Pennsylvania<br />
to produce a tonnage about twice as large<br />
as that in Pennsylvania.<br />
"The number of lives lost in Great Britain was<br />
4.528, or 2.7 times as many as in Pennsylvania,<br />
where the loss was 1,617. The production foi<br />
each life lost in Great Britain was 174,373 tons;<br />
in Pennsylvania it was 247.318 tons. In Great<br />
Britain the number of lives lost for every 1,000,-<br />
000 tons was 5.73, in Pennsylvania only 4.04."<br />
Another fact to which the chief calls attention<br />
is the great waste and he makes some startling<br />
observations affecting Pittsburgh. He says:<br />
"It is a fact beyond dispute that there is tremendous<br />
waste of investment in<br />
I'HE COAL MINING<br />
property and that the business will never be as<br />
profitable or safe as it should be until some way<br />
is found to curtail production. The rapid growth<br />
of the industry has prevented systematic develop<br />
ment and to-day the operators constitute a great<br />
army of antagonistic elements and un<strong>org</strong>anized<br />
forces, and yet any attempt on their part to combine<br />
for the purpose of fixing the price of coal at<br />
the mine on an even and reasonable basis is looked<br />
upon as illegal and consequently they continue to<br />
indulge in cut-throat warfare.<br />
"In the opinion of many prominent mining men<br />
the problem is a serious one. It no doubt occasions<br />
a great deal of uneasiness and the solution<br />
of it would therefore be heartily welcomed. Some<br />
writers on the subject have suggested that a national<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization of operators be created, the<br />
primary object of which should be to prevent the<br />
indiscriminate coal land development and it seems<br />
to be the opinion of the advocates of this plan<br />
that Pennsylvania should take the lead in the<br />
movement for the reason that Western Pennsylvania<br />
produces more high grade coal than any<br />
other region in the United States and, on account<br />
of its great manufacturing interests, it should<br />
safeguard its coal supply.<br />
"Unless this is done and the wasteful methods<br />
discontinued it is feared by some persons that ultimately<br />
the effect may be disastrous to the commercial<br />
life of the city of Pittsburgh."<br />
LEHIGH & WILKES-BARRE COAL COMPANY<br />
REPORT SHOWS YEAR TO HAVE BEEN A<br />
GOOD ONE.<br />
The Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co. report for<br />
the year ended June 30, 1911. compared as follows:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
Gross receipts $16,879,575 $16,284,969<br />
Expenses, taxes, etc 13,406,193 13,294,420<br />
Net earnings $3,473,382 $2,990,550<br />
Interest, sinking fund and<br />
other deductions 1.291,583 1,573,816<br />
Surplus *$2,1S1,798 $1,416,734<br />
Dividends 1,197,625 1,197,625<br />
Surplus $984,173 $219,109<br />
*Equal to 23.68 per cent, on $9,212,500 outstanding<br />
capital stock.<br />
There were mined in 1911, 4,284,444 tons as compared<br />
with 4,021,772 tons during corresponding<br />
period last year, while 724,502 tons were purchased<br />
as compared with 815,868 tons last year. The<br />
tonnage sold was 5,024.767 tons, while 4,805,644<br />
tons were sold last year.<br />
Considerable improvement work has been done<br />
during the year.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
MARION COUNTY COAL COMPANY, CENTRALIA, ILLINOIS—A STRICTLY<br />
') GOODMAN MINE*<br />
Proof of ability comes from the overcoming of<br />
obstacles rather than from the traveling of an easy<br />
road. There are some coal mines which could<br />
hardly help making money, even with the worst<br />
of management and the poorest of equipment.<br />
There are other mines where the keenest of eyes<br />
and the best of brains and the most constant of<br />
efforts are necessary in order to make an even<br />
balance sheet, to say nothing of having a surplus<br />
to distribute in dividends.<br />
The Marion County Coal Co., whose mine is located<br />
three miles north of Centralia, 111., bas certainly<br />
had some obstacles to surmount, some of<br />
Fig. 1. Marion County Coal Company's Mine Plant.<br />
them encountered by all the operations in that<br />
district, others peculiar to this mine. The manner<br />
in which these difficulties have been overcome<br />
and the mine put on a profitable operating basis<br />
makes an interesting story.<br />
The mine was planned to have main entries east<br />
and west from the bottom of the shaft. After<br />
driving about 200 feet from the shaft the east<br />
entries ran into solid rock, showing a sharp and<br />
distinct fault in the seam and stopping further<br />
progress in that direction. Thus early development<br />
was hampered by making the mine a onesided<br />
proposition.<br />
<strong>•</strong>Reproduced from Electric Mining. July number, through<br />
courtesy ol Editor<br />
Next, the mine was set afire accidentally ana<br />
had to be sealed up to reduce the conflagration so<br />
that later the fire could be entirely quenched with<br />
water.<br />
After operation again was resumed, three successive<br />
explosions occurred as a result of shooting<br />
the coal from the solid. These explosions involved<br />
the customary fatalities, their violence<br />
showing itself also in stripping the corrugated<br />
steel sheathing off the upper portions of the tipple<br />
house, as shown in the view reproduced in Fig. 1.<br />
Shortage of railway cars while the mine was<br />
dependent only upon the Illinois Central railroad<br />
imposed a further<br />
burden.<br />
The combination of<br />
these particular impediments<br />
brought<br />
about a state of affairs<br />
far from enviable in<br />
tbe company's financial<br />
and commercial<br />
condition. Up to this<br />
time, E. E. Fyke, although<br />
a stockholder<br />
in the coal company.<br />
wast best known as a<br />
physician and surgeon<br />
who had been practicing<br />
for 20 years in<br />
Centralia and who<br />
was railway surgeon<br />
over about 100 miles<br />
of the Illinois Central<br />
lines.<br />
It was evident that<br />
some radical change in<br />
management and methods would have to be made.<br />
It seemed advisable that one of the heavy stockholders<br />
should give up his other business and divote<br />
his particular attention to this property—and<br />
Dr. Fyke was the man who drew the short straw.<br />
"Doc" is a better business man than the average<br />
sawbones is thought to be. This certainly must be<br />
so or he could not have turned the laugh back<br />
upon the "wise" coal men who thought he would<br />
be a joke as a mine manager, prescribing in illegible<br />
Latin hieroglyphics for all the bumps he was<br />
sure to encounter. He got the bumps, all right.<br />
and his prescriptions may or may not have been<br />
written in Latin, but anyhow they have been effec-
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
tive. He was a good physician and surgeon—now<br />
be is a good mine manager.<br />
Three years ago he was stockholder in a mine,<br />
but did not know, as he himself says, a pick<br />
handle from a panel system, a prop cap from a pit<br />
car, but he had good horse sense—though not a<br />
veterinary—and this good sense included the wisdom<br />
to employ men who did know the technical<br />
terms and the practical methods. He also knew better<br />
than to try to bluff these men with pretense of<br />
knowledge, instead of securing their loyalty and<br />
co-operation by frankly acknowledging his own<br />
techncal ignorance and putting up to them the<br />
work of making good in their lines—not dictating<br />
details himself, but reading results.<br />
Some people are mean enough to say that the<br />
doctor got his ability as a mine manager by marriage,<br />
his wife being<br />
the daughter of Col.<br />
N. B. Morrison, the<br />
veteran coal operator<br />
of Odin, 111.<br />
The present officers<br />
of the Marion<br />
County Coal Co. are<br />
Ferdinand Kohl,<br />
president; E. E.<br />
Fyke, vice president<br />
and general manager;<br />
F. F. Noleman,<br />
secretary; H a r r y<br />
Kohl, treasurer. Operation<br />
of the mine<br />
is in charge of<br />
James Bowie, mine<br />
manager; Edward<br />
Prudent, assistant<br />
mine manager; H.<br />
H. Warner, outside<br />
foreman; Ge<strong>org</strong>e<br />
Klein, electrician; J.<br />
W.Stedlin,chief clerk.<br />
The company was <strong>org</strong>anized in 1900, having acquired<br />
ownership of 3,000 acres of coal, with 500<br />
acres of surface land for the plan and town. The<br />
mine plant was located beside the tracks of the<br />
Illinois Central, with tbe expectation of shipping<br />
largely by that railroad, with tlie benefit of connections<br />
at Centralia for deliveries over tbe lines<br />
of the Southern railway, the Illinois Southern and<br />
the Burlington. The Burlington passes about 2%<br />
miles to the westward of the mine plant, and direct<br />
connection with its tracks has since been<br />
made by a private spur laid by the coal company<br />
at large expense. This connection has, however,<br />
afforded a direct outlet for shipments on some of<br />
its largest contracts, besides giving full benefit of<br />
that most valuable asset of any coal mine, the service<br />
of two competing roads.<br />
The product is a high grade steam fuel, used<br />
also to some extent for domestic purposes. The<br />
railroads like it particularly well for locomotives,<br />
and the greater part of the output is used in this<br />
way. The Burlington and the Chicago Great<br />
Western take large tonnages in mine-run and<br />
lump, respectively, the Burlington handling the<br />
shipments to the C. G. W., so that shipments over<br />
the Illinois Central are comparatively small and<br />
consist mainly of the fines sizes for the Chicago<br />
market.<br />
The company is fortunate in its selling connections,<br />
its entire output being marketed through the<br />
Glenridge Coal Co. of Chicago—E. Puttkamer &<br />
T. C- Loucks—who keep the mine constantly sold<br />
up to capacity. In this regard the mine is the<br />
envy of its neighbors, having worked full time<br />
Fig. 2. First Motion Hoist with Double Iron Drums.<br />
during the past year, except for the loss of two<br />
months during the strike period. From September<br />
1 to June 30, the mine worked 240 days.<br />
The company calls its town Junction City.<br />
While owning 500 acres, largely available for town<br />
site, the company has not made a practice of<br />
building houses to be rented to the miners. It<br />
has, on the contrary, always encouraged and assisted<br />
the miners to purchase lots and build their<br />
own homes, a policy which here as elsewhere has<br />
shown the usual good results in improvement of<br />
stability and dependability in the men. To this<br />
end the daily operation of the mine also contributes<br />
largely.<br />
The plant is designed for handling a daily output<br />
of 2,000 tons, though at present the capacity<br />
is only 1.500 tons, due to the one-sided develop-
ment. Drilling to the eastward having shown<br />
that the fault of the coal involves a drop of only<br />
11 feet and a continuance of the seam for a considerable<br />
distance, the east side of the mine is<br />
now to be opened up, so that within a few months<br />
the full capacity of 2,000 tons will be reached.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
Fig. 3. 7)»-Ton Goodman Single.Motor Locomotive and Trip ol" Empties<br />
The tipple is of frame construction, spanning<br />
three loading tracks and equipped with shaker<br />
screens for preparing the usual sizes. Separate<br />
tracks above and below the tipple are provided for<br />
empties brought in<br />
and loads to be Y~.,<br />
taken out by the two<br />
railroads, the Burlington<br />
coming in<br />
from the left and the<br />
Illinois Central from<br />
the right. This<br />
double trackage is<br />
of great convenience<br />
in the free and independent<br />
handling of<br />
cars for the two<br />
roads. As a result<br />
of this double service,<br />
the mine is<br />
never short of cars<br />
and enjoys particularly<br />
the excellent<br />
service of the Burlington,<br />
which road Fie "- 4 -<br />
is well known for its consistent co-operation in<br />
the matter of car supply to coal miners on its<br />
lines.<br />
The power department includes separate boiler<br />
and engine houses. In the former are four 150<br />
horsepower horizontal tubular boilers, set in two<br />
batteries and generating steam at 125 pounds pressure.<br />
Tlie building is arranged so that the front<br />
and sides may be entirely open during the summer<br />
months and closed during the winter.<br />
In the engine house is a Danville first-motion<br />
hoist. Fig. 2. with cylinders 24x36 inches and<br />
double iron drums<br />
8 feet in diameter.<br />
When the coal comes<br />
properly, this hoist<br />
brings up about 100<br />
cages per hour, the<br />
total hoist being<br />
640 feet. There are<br />
two generating units<br />
for supplying the<br />
ligbling, haulage and<br />
mining machine circuits.<br />
The older and<br />
smaller unit is in<br />
the main engine<br />
room alongside the<br />
hoist. This is a<br />
125-kw. Goodman<br />
mining generator, directly<br />
connected to<br />
a Ridgway centercrank<br />
engine. The<br />
speed is 250 r.p.m.<br />
In a newly built addition to the engine house<br />
is now being installed a 200-kw. unit. This entire<br />
unit, as also the engine of the older unit, was<br />
Mine Shop and Spare Mining Machine.<br />
built by the Ridgway (Pa.) Dynamo & Engine Co.<br />
Current is generated and used at 250 volts. To<br />
the old single-panel Goodman switchboard is being<br />
added a second panel to make a double switchboard,<br />
with one panel for the generators and the<br />
other for distribution. Separate distribution will
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
be provided for machine and haulage circuits troduce any serious grades.<br />
from a switchboard at the shaft bottom; this pro In'early days of development in this mine, disvision<br />
insuring that an overload of the machine tinct seepage of crude oil was noted, and to this<br />
circuit will" not cause stoppage of the haulage loco is directly attributable the development of the<br />
motives, or vice versa. It follows, therefore, that Centralia-Sanaoval oil field. The oil lies below<br />
separate circuits are provided throughout the mine the ccal and seeps in through the floor, making<br />
for the machines and . tbe haulage. The mine pools in places and saturating the roadways<br />
also is well lighted and the wiring throughout is throughout a considerable portion of the mine.<br />
put up in safe and substantial manner.<br />
The traveling of the mules spreads the oil, so that<br />
While the mine throughout is practically dry, yhe roadways throughout considerable portions of<br />
there is some water in the upper portion of the the mine are sufficiently oiled to be entirely dust-<br />
shaft. This water is allowed to drain to the less, so there is not the slightest need for sprink<br />
sump and is removed by a Deming triplex electric ling.<br />
pump of 1,000 gallons hourly capacity. This A sprinkling system for room and walls is pro<br />
pump has just been furnished by the Deming Co.. vided, however, by piping laid in the entries, with<br />
Salem, O.<br />
hose valves at intervals of about 100 feet. A<br />
Off the main west entries, side entries are driven night man with a 50-foot length of hose can there<br />
north and south at suitable intervals, and rooms fore readily wash down the roof and walls, and<br />
wet the roadway if<br />
desirable. as frequently<br />
as may be<br />
necessary.'<br />
Haulage distances<br />
at present are not<br />
great and the entire<br />
work of handling<br />
cars from the rooms<br />
to the shaft bottom<br />
is done by 18 mules<br />
for the gathering<br />
and a 7%-ton Goodman<br />
single motor<br />
locomotive, Fig. 3,<br />
for haulage. Just now<br />
the conditions are<br />
such that the locomotive<br />
is kept fairly<br />
busy serving the<br />
various partings,<br />
several of which<br />
must soon be moved<br />
farther in, so as to<br />
Ffg. 5. Goodman Electric Chain Machine at Work<br />
are turned east and west from the side entries.<br />
The rooms are spaced 60 feet on centers, and are<br />
driven 30 feet wide and 300 feet deep. Entries<br />
are driven 12 feet wide, with 60-foot pillars between.<br />
Passage of the fault on the east will be made<br />
by a rock cut on two per cent, slope for a distance<br />
of 600 feet, from which point the east portion<br />
of the mine will be opened up for working cn<br />
the panel system.<br />
The coal seam has an average thickness of 6<br />
feet and lies generally flat, but with some local<br />
variations, due possibly to nearness of the fault<br />
on the east. There is a general and gradual clip<br />
toward the east and north, but not such as to in<br />
reduce the distance<br />
of mule travel.<br />
To take care of the<br />
increase of haulage work due to greater distances<br />
to new partings, and also to provide for requirements<br />
of the east side as developed, a new locomotive<br />
has been ordered of the Goodman company.<br />
This is to be a 10-ton size of the singlemotor<br />
type and will, of course, become the main<br />
haulage locomotive, doing all the work on the<br />
east and having the present 7U,-ton locomotive<br />
for auxiliary work on the west.<br />
Tracks are laid to 36-inch gauge, using 30-pound<br />
steel for locomotive haulage on the entries and<br />
16-pound where only the mules travel. Cars<br />
weigh 1,500 pounds empty and carry about 5,000<br />
pounds of coal, making a gross weight of 6,500<br />
pounds per loaded car,
The 7 '/i:-ton single-motor locomotive easily handles<br />
trips of 20 to 25 of these loads, the haulage<br />
being generally quite flat, yet with slightly favorable<br />
grades prevailing and with short local grades<br />
as steep as four per cent.<br />
Haulage from the east will be generally adverse,<br />
not only by reason of the natural pitch ot<br />
the seam but also because of the long slope necessary<br />
to reach the coal beyond the fault.<br />
Physical conditions make this coal very difficult ><br />
to mine. A thin blue band in the coal a few<br />
inches from the bottom and the presence of sulphur<br />
balls and blackjack combine to make cutting<br />
very hard. While the coal is underlaid by fire<br />
clay, cutting in this clay is made impracticable<br />
by the presence of boulders and pebbles.<br />
The coal here, in accordance with quite general<br />
practice throughout the district, was originally<br />
shot from the solid. Three fatal and disastrous<br />
explosions from this dangerous practice made the<br />
operators feel that something must be done to<br />
stop the trouble. Hand mining is impracticable<br />
because of the hard cutting at the bottom of the<br />
seam. Machine mining was held by many to be<br />
equally impracticable, some operators in the same<br />
coal having tried machines and discarded them<br />
after an insufficiently supported trial of a few<br />
months, against the determined opposition not<br />
only of the miners themselves but of the foremen,<br />
accustomed for years to older methods.<br />
There are, however, other Goodman machines<br />
working in this coal, particularly in the driving<br />
of entries where rapid work is required.<br />
No other machine than the Goodman could possibly<br />
be thought of as able to stand up to such<br />
difficult work. The Goodman company showed<br />
its willingness to back up its machines for a fair<br />
trial by guaranteeing to<br />
MAKE THEM SHOW A PROFIT<br />
in operation or take them out of the mine without<br />
cost to the Marion company. Several machines<br />
were, therefore, put in and operated by competent<br />
machine men, under the direction of a Goodman<br />
representative. Opposition of the familiar<br />
sort was not allowed to interfere, and the discouraging<br />
talk of other operators who had tried<br />
machines and abandoned them was not permitted<br />
to change the determination to make this trial<br />
perfectly conclusive and to bring it to a successful<br />
issue if possible.<br />
The machines enter beneath the blue-band,<br />
where the cutting is fairly easy unless sulphur<br />
balls or blackjack are encountered, or unless the<br />
bitts run into the blueband clue to variation in the<br />
band itself.<br />
The machines have long since proved themselves<br />
profitably successful, although working<br />
against the most serious difficulties imaginable.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
What would the operator who gels' 20 or more<br />
runs of a breast machine with one set of bitts<br />
think of having to change bitts after every run,<br />
and sometimes during a run? Of having his<br />
machine bitts strike fire as the cutter head enters<br />
the face? Of seeing smoke issue from the kerf<br />
along the cuttings? Of having the machine stall<br />
and require backing away a little so as to make a<br />
new attack?<br />
These things are regular items of the day's work<br />
in this mine, the only variation being from<br />
"worse" to "some better." Yet the Goodman<br />
machines, plus good management, have made a<br />
profitable net result; and if Goodman machines<br />
can be made to work at all under the conditions<br />
encountered in this mine, is it any wonder they<br />
make excellent showing elsewhere?<br />
Success for machine mining here is a triumph<br />
for the Goodman Manufacturing Co.—nothing less.<br />
And a success for the machines also means, in this<br />
case,<br />
SUCCESS FOR THE MINE.<br />
They have made the mine a paying proposition,<br />
as the doctor-manager frankly says.<br />
There are eight machines in the mine, seven in<br />
continuous service and the eighth always on spare<br />
in the shop, as shown in Fig. 4. A ninth machine<br />
has been ordered, so there will soon be eight<br />
in service. Fig. 5 shows one of the present machines<br />
at their regular work. The blueband may<br />
be seen indistinctly across the face of the coal<br />
just above the cutter head of the machine. Just<br />
above the blueband is a natural parting in the<br />
coal, which fortunately makes very easy the removal<br />
of the blueband and its separation from<br />
the good coal, so that none of it is loaded out.<br />
Before the machines were installed, the Goodman<br />
company stated the belief that even under<br />
these adverse conditions the machines would produce<br />
about 100 tons per shift. This expectation<br />
has been more than realized, as the average tonnage<br />
is in excess of 100 tons per shift. All machines<br />
are operated on double shift and all the<br />
coal produced is cut by machines. Th Ir average<br />
tonnage is therefore shown by the fact that seven<br />
machines on double shift are responsible for a<br />
regular output of 1.500 tons per day.<br />
For the success and profitable operation of the<br />
machines in this work Manager Fyke gives full<br />
credit to the Goodman company and the Goodman<br />
machine. But "Doc" is to be credited with a lot<br />
himself. He has proved himself to be pretty<br />
much of a coal man. Those who predicted and<br />
anticipated failure for him now see he runs every<br />
day, while they are idle part time. They do not,<br />
however, quite know the true extent of his real<br />
success as a manager, nor the color of the ink<br />
in which he writes the net figures at the lower<br />
righthand corner of his monthly balance sheet.
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Mr. H. A. Cochran, assistant coal and coke agent<br />
of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, with headquarters<br />
at Cleveland, has been promoted to the position<br />
of coal freight agent and will make his future<br />
home in this city. Mr. Cochran will be succeeded<br />
by Mr. C. R. Wright, who has been holding<br />
the position of chief clerk to the coal and coke<br />
agent, and Mr. J. H. Baker, traveling coal freight<br />
agent, has been made chief clerk to the coal and<br />
coke agent of the road at Cleveland.<br />
Mr. Francis H. Shepherd, of Nanaimo, B. C,<br />
chief inspector of mines for British Columbia, recently<br />
took the prescribed course at the United<br />
States Mine Rescue training station, at Seattle.<br />
Wash. The station has been closed for some time.<br />
but the director of the U. S. Bureau of Mines ordered<br />
the necessary arrangements made to allow<br />
Mr. Shepherd to take the regulation training<br />
course.<br />
Mr. J. R. Roaf. who has been in charge of the<br />
Crow's Nest Pass Coal Co.'s engineering department<br />
at the Coal Creek and Michel collieries, and<br />
coke ovens at Fernie and Michel. British Columbia,<br />
has resigned, and gone to one of the new coal<br />
districts near Edmonton. Alberta.<br />
Mr. O. P. Hood, head of the department of mechanical<br />
and electrical engineering at the Michigan<br />
College of Mines, has been appointed chief<br />
mechanical engineer of the United States Bureau<br />
of Mines. He took up his headquarters in Pittsburgh<br />
in September.<br />
Mi. J. H. Moran. of the O'Gara Coal Co., Chicago,<br />
has been assigned to the Chicago office as<br />
assistant general sales manager. For the last<br />
nine years he has been in charge of the Illinois<br />
territory for the same corporation.<br />
Mr. R. L. Green, who has been connected for<br />
the last seven years with the Chicago office of the<br />
Sunday Creek Co., leaves that concern this date<br />
to manage the new Detroit office of the Lackawanna<br />
Coal & Lumber Co.<br />
Mr. Thomas Hall, aged 63 years, a wealthy coal<br />
operator at Chandler, Ind., was adjudged insane<br />
by a commission Sept. 22. Hall has a delusion<br />
that he is to be executed for the commission of<br />
some imaginary crime.<br />
Mr. D. T. Price, general manager of the Brothers<br />
Valley Coal Co., has moved his family from<br />
Baltimore to Berlin, Pa., taking apartments at<br />
the Hotel Berlin.<br />
AUGUST LAKE LEVELS.<br />
The United States Lake Survey reports the<br />
stages of the Great Lakes for the month of August,<br />
1911, as follows:<br />
Feet Above<br />
Lakes. Tidewater, New York.<br />
Superior 602.15<br />
Michigan-Huron 579.83<br />
Erie 571.62<br />
Ontario 245.19<br />
Lake Superior is 0.51 feet higher than last<br />
month, 0.18 feet higher than a year ago, 0.71 feet<br />
below the average stage of August of the last 10<br />
years, 1.78 feet below the high stage of August,<br />
1876, and 0.55 feet above the low stage of August,<br />
1879. It will probably rise 0.1 feet during September.<br />
Lakes Michigan-Huron are O.05 feet lower than<br />
last month, 0.49 feet lower than a year ago, 1.33<br />
feet below the average stage of August of the last<br />
10 years, 3.68 feet below the high stage of August,<br />
1S76, and 0.05 feet below the low stage of August,<br />
1S96. They will probably fall 0.2 feet during September.<br />
Lake Erie is 0.13 feet lower than last month, 0.60<br />
feet lower than a year ago. 1.08 feet below the<br />
average stage of August of the last 10 years, 2.49<br />
feet below the high stage of August. 1876. and<br />
0.24 feet above the low stage of August, 1895. It<br />
will probably fall 0.3 feet during September.<br />
Lake Ontario is 0.35 feet lower than last month,<br />
0.86 feet lower than a year ago, 1.45 feet lower<br />
than the average stage of August of the last 10<br />
years, 3.07 feet below the high stage of August,<br />
1862, and 0.84 feet above the low stage of August,<br />
1895. It will probably fall 0.4 feet during September.<br />
The O'Gara Coal Co., Chicago, has put into operation<br />
its No. 11 mine at El Dorado, 111., which has<br />
a producing capacity of 1,200 tons daily, and No.<br />
3. at Harrisburg, which can hoist 2,500 tons. It<br />
has in contemplation the early starting of three<br />
more operations. The present output is about<br />
20.000 tons per day. with mines running nearly<br />
full time. It has purchased two more M<strong>org</strong>an-<br />
Gardner motors, six and 10 tons respectively, and<br />
the same firm is installing electric haulage at one<br />
of the company's large operations at Harrisburg,<br />
111.<br />
A petition in bankruptcy has been filed by H.<br />
P. Dilworth, of Pittsburgh, who was the <strong>org</strong>anizer<br />
and chief owner of the Dilworth Coal Co., with<br />
mines and acreage near Rice's Landing, Pa., on<br />
the Monongahela river. Liabilities are given as<br />
$713,047, and assets as $205,401, mostly in notes<br />
of the coal company.
The Indiana field, in which we are now holding<br />
session, and of which we are at the geographical,<br />
governmental and geological center, is not very<br />
generally known and appreciated. It is remarkable,<br />
that owing to adverse conditions, a county<br />
so wealthy in carboniferous content as Indiana<br />
should have remained for years wholly, or almost<br />
wholly, unknown to the mining industry.<br />
The field lies at the northern edge of the Pittsburgh<br />
measures; there is, however, but little<br />
Pittsburgh coal in Indiana and, of course, still<br />
less Redstone or Sewickley, these last two beingvalueless<br />
in this field, nor are any more recent<br />
measures represented.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
GEOLOGY OF INDIANA COUNTY 1<br />
But the lower measures are near or below the<br />
water level throughout the county. This makes<br />
their area less broken and very nearly coextensive<br />
with the district. To-day no better word<br />
than this could be spoken regarding a field, unless<br />
one would speak of quality or possibly of absence<br />
of folding ir faulting, but in the early days, when<br />
pumping was expensive and more rare, a field that<br />
manifested itself only at its anticlinals and that<br />
gave small show for gravity drainage, had to wait<br />
on fields which dipped conveniently at all points,<br />
toward an extended crop line. When diamond<br />
drills were unknown, a field that revealed itself<br />
but rarely was subject to justifiable suspicion, for<br />
PROOF WAS WANTING<br />
that the field was continuous under heavy cover.<br />
A field like that which we are considering, which<br />
under conditions then obtaining, could only be<br />
mined locally, did not suggest the construction of<br />
railroads and the feasible locations, as far as the<br />
geological and geographical conditions constitute<br />
feasibility, were left untouched or barely scratched<br />
for lack of transporting facilities.<br />
It will be observed that nearly all the valleys<br />
of this field open towards the Allegheny river<br />
waterways and consequently they were face to<br />
face from the first with the competition of Pittsburgh<br />
coal at its best. It could not be expected<br />
that Indiana would come to its own, until large<br />
plants were the rule and not the exception, until<br />
strong "coal barons" could be found to make the<br />
necessary investment, and until it became customary<br />
to build roads like the Buffalo, Rochester &<br />
Pittsburgh and Buffalo & Susquehanna railroads,<br />
for the express purpose of obtaining a coal tonnage<br />
to be sold away from Pittsburgh. Indiana<br />
is a big man's field both by character and practice.<br />
It does not fit the small purse. But if<br />
you put a mine in Indiana west of Chestnut ridge,<br />
<strong>•</strong>Paper read before the Summer Meeting of the Coal Mining<br />
Institute of America. June 28 and 29. 1911.<br />
By R. Dawson Norris Hall, Du Bois. Pa.<br />
even one of drift workings, you can direct your<br />
headings North, South, East and West. If you<br />
are justified in expending $300,000 in a plant on<br />
the bank of a river, where<br />
THE COAL AVAILABLE<br />
within the radius of three miles is represented<br />
by a semi-circle enclosing 9,049 acres, you are<br />
justified in expending $600,000—twice as much—<br />
where the plant is penned in by the hills and the<br />
coal available within the same radius, is represented<br />
by a full circular disk of 18,098 acres.<br />
The conditions in such a case are favorable for<br />
a mammoth construction and large output especially,<br />
seeing that not only in primary development<br />
but in all later stages, the area is right at hand,<br />
not divided by ravines, which not only reduce tonnage<br />
but involve manifold expense.<br />
A mine that just touches water level, that gives<br />
the right, left, forward and backward development<br />
of a shaft, without its disadvantages is an ideal<br />
mine. It endures longer than any other and it<br />
starts development at mushroom rapidity.<br />
It has been suggested that we term coal, sur<br />
rounded by crops on every side, a coal island or<br />
carbon-insula. Similarly the coal of the Indiana<br />
field may be comparably termed a carbo-continent.<br />
The lower series XIII, or Allegheny formation,<br />
is an area of coal, broken not so much by large<br />
gulfs of erosion from its outer margins but by<br />
erosions within these margins, forming what we<br />
may compare to lakes rather than to arms of a<br />
sea and the areas covered by the "coal-less lakes"<br />
are small and narrow and render the<br />
APPROACH TO THE MAIN BODY<br />
the more available. The Chestnut ridge erosion<br />
is, however, somewhat more extensive. The croppings<br />
of the Indiana field are clearly assets and<br />
not debits. Were it not for them, Indiana county<br />
might still pride itself solely on being one of the<br />
premier farming counties of the state, but it<br />
would suffer grievously from the lack of a home<br />
market and of adequate transportation to more<br />
distant marts<br />
I have said enough to convince you, I trust,<br />
tnat Indiana is the place for large plants and to<br />
show you that hard-headed reason is back of this<br />
method of development, not merely corporation<br />
pride or reckless extravagance.<br />
A map of Indiana county, with the various summit<br />
and depression lines of the folding, and with<br />
the contours of the upper Freeport seam showing<br />
the elevation of that seam above sea level, would<br />
indicate what I mean.<br />
These summit and depression lines are quite usually<br />
termed "axes" though a better name is needed
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
as the folds do not revolve about them, seeing<br />
that they are on the outsides of those folds. Nor<br />
are the true axes immediately under them for if<br />
the fold is unsymmetrical the axis lies on one<br />
side of the summit or depression line. However,<br />
the name will pass, if used with regard to folds<br />
as regular as are those of the bituminous region<br />
of Pennsylvania. Still it is well to remember that<br />
THE TRUE AXIS<br />
may lie considerably on one side of the summit<br />
or depression line and the strike of the center<br />
line of the curvature well on the other side. This<br />
can well be seen by holding a piece of paper in<br />
two hands, and curving the same by the process<br />
of pushing the ends together. By holding one<br />
end a little higher than the other, the fold will<br />
lop over toward the lower hand and the line of<br />
the axis will be found nearer the higher hand<br />
than is the locus line of maximum elevation.<br />
* * * * * * * * * *<br />
The folds of Indiana county travel roughly<br />
Northeast and Southwest in tolerably straight<br />
lines, more regular in direction than in Armstrong<br />
or Clarion counties adjoining. But the severity<br />
of the folds is very unequal from fold to fold and<br />
some folds fail to extend across the county, especially<br />
in the Northwestern part.<br />
The influence of the celebrated Laurel ridge<br />
anticline, the first axis of the first State Geological<br />
Survey, is felt in the extreme Southwest.<br />
This important anticline towers 2.000 feet above<br />
the adjacent Barnsboro synclinal, having slopes<br />
of 22 degrees for distances of over a mile and a<br />
half. But as measures when they are not too<br />
severely stressed, bend in the elastic curves assumed<br />
by any elastic body such as steel and rubber,<br />
the law of the calculus for all curves is usually<br />
followed, that is, there is a minimum of<br />
INCREASE OF ELEVATION<br />
or depression at the extremes, thus the summits<br />
of the anticlines and the depths of the synclines<br />
are reasonably flat whilst intermediately tne measures<br />
rise very steeply. The Barnsboro syncline,<br />
which has been mentioned, lying about 3% miles<br />
to the Northwest of the Laurel hill axis is fairly<br />
gentle at its greater depths and in it lie Wehrum<br />
and Rexis, two important mining towns. Then<br />
follows an anticline of no great severity of outline,<br />
which W. G. Pratt of the Second State Geological<br />
Survey has termed the Nolo axis. The<br />
measures easily descend to the Brush Valley syncline<br />
from this sub-axis.<br />
The Barnsboro syncline has laid bare the Upper<br />
Freeport coal because that concavity has been<br />
deeply eroded by the Blacklick creek. The<br />
Brush valley syncline is as deep and as deeply<br />
eroded by Yellow creek but it does not expose<br />
the Upper Freeport either because the solid measures<br />
are not sufficiently eroded or because the<br />
quaternary alluvium has covered what the waters<br />
once exposed.<br />
The Chestnut ridge anticline, the second axis<br />
of the first Geological Survey, 600 feet above the<br />
Brush valley syncline on the East and over 1,100<br />
feet above the Latrobe syncline on the West,<br />
derives its importance from two causes, its own<br />
severity of outline and the coincidental depth of<br />
erosion.<br />
When an anticline corresponds to a great surface<br />
elevation, and generally speaking this is the<br />
case, it does not give much evidence of its<br />
SEVERITY OF OUTLINE,<br />
the measures exposed being much the same as in<br />
the syncline adjoining, but where, eoincidently,<br />
erosion has taken place, the anticline lays bare<br />
measures which cannot be seen in any other<br />
nearby region. The Chestnut ridge in Indiana<br />
county is deeply eroded where it is intersected by<br />
Yellow creek. Moose hill, for example, is over<br />
1,848 feet high; Evans hill, 1,842; Strongs hill,<br />
1,860 feet, but at the footings of these hills is the<br />
creek just mentioned at a level of 1,120 feet, over<br />
700 feet below. Thus eoincidently occur an erosion<br />
of 700 feet and a fold upward of 1,100 feet<br />
and in this manner are laid bare all the Allegheny<br />
formation, including the Freeport and Kittanning<br />
coals, all the Pottsville conglomerate and in one<br />
place, a mile or so of Mauch Chunk shale, a member<br />
of the so-called Mississippian series of the<br />
Carboniferous system. Two Lick creek, which<br />
erodes as deeply as Yellow creek, but is not as<br />
near the mid line of the fold nor as near its<br />
greater elevations, uncovers for the most part only<br />
the Allegheny formation, though in one place the<br />
Pottsville conglomerate comes to light.<br />
By drawing a line on a section joining the probable<br />
original elevation of the Upper Freeport bed<br />
on the Laurel hill and the Chestnut hill axes, it<br />
will be observed that the Nolo axis is inferior to<br />
either as a<br />
CORRUGATION OF THE EARTH.<br />
Moreover it must be remembered that the section<br />
is not typical, as has been said, both the first<br />
mentioned axes being of greater height nearby.<br />
The Nolo anticline is entirely an occurrence of<br />
second rate imporance. intruding itself in the<br />
heart of the extension of the celebrated Ligonier<br />
basin but extending with persistence from South<br />
of the Conemaugh river into Clearfield county.<br />
It might be well to point out that the free surface<br />
of an anticline during folding is subjected to<br />
tension and tends to draw apart and the cracks,<br />
thus created, aid later erosion, otherwise anticlines<br />
would be invariably unbroken by eroding<br />
influences. On the other hand, the upper measures<br />
in a syncline are in compression and erode<br />
with more difficulty than the anticlines, and this<br />
fact has made some synclines in other regions
(where the folding has been more violent), lines<br />
of surface depression.<br />
The Chestnut ridge axis appears to have a weak<br />
spot on its western flank, where is drawn the 1,500<br />
foot contour. Two Lick does not drain very<br />
much of the land along its course from Dixon run<br />
to Ramsey run and it follows along the side slope<br />
of the anticlinal in a line on the whole not far<br />
from straight, neither receding from the anticlinal<br />
nor approaching it materially. The water<br />
you would expect to<br />
DRAIN TO IT,<br />
is directed another way. The cause of the existence<br />
of this stream would appear to be a fracture<br />
line which furnishes a locus of low resistance<br />
along which the stream travels. It is probably<br />
an instance of erosion along a line of much tensional<br />
stress or along a line of resistance inadequate<br />
to such stress.<br />
It is well to note that the fall from the Chestnut<br />
hill anticline to the accompanying syncline<br />
to the Northwest, known as the Latrobe basin is<br />
so rapid that it overtakes the fall of Yellow creek<br />
and even of Tearing run. This run (entering<br />
Two Lick creek a half mile below Homer), falls<br />
no less than 400 feet in a mile or about eight feet<br />
in a hundred, yet the descent of the fold is even<br />
more rapid and the measures plunge themselves<br />
beneath its speedy waters.<br />
Leaving the influence of the Chestnut ridge<br />
anticline, we reach a district of very gentle geologic<br />
slope very favorable to mining. The Latrobe<br />
syncline. known to the State Geologists as<br />
that of Blairsville, is not important in Indiana<br />
county and it dies out entirely a mile south of the<br />
town; it is apparently recreated in the Tanoma<br />
basin, which develops seven and a half miles<br />
Northeast near Grove Chapel, but this basin is<br />
both narrower and shallower than that of Latrobe.<br />
Indiana town, in which we hold session, lies on<br />
the great level in the common line, connecting the<br />
Tanoma and Latrobe synclines, but<br />
UNAFFECTED IIY EITHER.<br />
The region is remarkably flat; the McKee anticlinal<br />
elevation io the Northwest being extremely<br />
gentle. The Richmond anticline is exceptionally<br />
mild in outline.<br />
It is by the disappearance of the Latrobe syncline<br />
on the Northward journey that we explain<br />
the fact that Indiana town has no Pittsburgh coal.<br />
It doubtless stands where that bed once stood but<br />
the measures lie probably at a level no less than<br />
1,000 feet higher than on the Youghiogheny river<br />
(where it is about 650 feet above tide).<br />
This basin, which fosters Latrobe. Mount Pleasant.<br />
Connellsville and Uniontown, does indeed<br />
retain sufficient strength to put a trifling archipelago<br />
of coal islands across the Conemaugh into<br />
Indiana county in Burrell and Black Lick townships<br />
near Blairsville, but they are merely memen<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
toes of a field of renowned richness farther south.<br />
The Richmond anticline is the same as was<br />
named the Blairsville or Indiana anticline, or<br />
Third axis of the State Survey. Infelicitously<br />
was it named indeed, because, as has always been<br />
well known, it avoids Blairsville, the acknowledged<br />
seat of the Latrobe or Blairsville basin. Moreover<br />
as it dies out North and South of Indiana,<br />
there is no propriety in calling it after that town.<br />
The manifestation of measural convexity on the<br />
Conemaugh river and south of it, must be regarded<br />
as part of the<br />
SAME CLINAL SYSTEM.<br />
rather than the same anticline, for the Third anticlinal<br />
system undoubtedly reappears at the Conemaugh<br />
river to the south of the county and it is<br />
certainly a factor of force in Westmoreland, where<br />
the United States Geological Survey has termed<br />
it the Fayette anticline. Between it and the<br />
Jacksonville anticline, in the latter county, lies<br />
Greensburg, a trough field with Pittsburgh coal<br />
measures.<br />
The gap between the Latrobe and the Tanoma<br />
synclines and the yet longer gap between the Fayette<br />
and Richmond anticlines, is duplicated in the<br />
gap separating the Greensburg from the Marion<br />
syncline. From the Conemaugh river almost to<br />
the Indiana Purchase line, there is no sign of the<br />
latter system of depression. Leaving this basin<br />
we come to the Jacksonville anticline with its offsetted<br />
extension, the McKee anticline.<br />
The Jacksonville anticline was once called the<br />
Saltsburg sub-axis, a fold within the Westmoreland<br />
gas coal basin, yet it is as much as 550 feet<br />
high. It is no dwarf among sub-axes. Being<br />
eroded freely it exposes both Upper and Lower<br />
Freeport on Reeds run and Coal run.<br />
We now approach the Armstrong county line<br />
but before reaching it we pass perhaps<br />
THE .MOST INTERESTING FOLD<br />
in Indiana county, the Elders ridge syncline.<br />
This synclinal fold was formerly known as the<br />
Lisbon-West Lebanon basin, and it is an extension<br />
of the Westmoreland gas coal field. Its greatest<br />
depths are on the Indiana side of the county line<br />
and in its northern extension it leads more and<br />
more east leaving room to the west for the Dutch<br />
hill or Perrysville anticline. Measured from the<br />
Jacksonville anticline to the southeast its depth<br />
is S50 feet; measured on the basis of the Roaring<br />
Run anticline it is no less than 900 feet deep.<br />
This syncline marks the ultimate northern limit<br />
of the Monongahela formation at the base of<br />
which is the Pittsburgh coal. Negligible worthless<br />
areas of the Pittsburgh bed do lie on the topmost<br />
summits of hills as far north (and farther<br />
west) but there is no other commercial exhibit<br />
of Pittsburgh coal as far north as here exhibited.<br />
Broken into carbon-insulas by Beaver run (in<br />
Westmoreland county), Kiskiminetas river. Big
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
run and Whisky run, this lentil of Pittsburgh<br />
coal is, nevertheless, an integral part of that peninsula<br />
of coal joining the continental bed on the<br />
far side of the Monongahela river. Near Elders<br />
Ridge and West Lebanon the cover of the Pittsburgh<br />
bed is no less than 210 feet, though<br />
THE AVERAGE COVER<br />
is about 100 feet. The area in Indiana county<br />
is roughly 14 square miles.<br />
The northern extension of this syncline is unimportant,<br />
'ihe basin is canoe shaped, that is,<br />
at the center it is deep with steep sides, at the<br />
ends it is shallow with easier side grades. The<br />
State Geological Survey, which plotted no measural<br />
hypsographs, gave the ready-made geologists<br />
some highly erroneous ideas, and, in fact, as might<br />
be expected, some of the deductions of that survey<br />
have not proved correct. The average local expert<br />
imagines a series of folds of equal depth<br />
throughout their length following lines approximately<br />
N. 45 degrees E., running almost without<br />
discontinuance from county to county, even from<br />
state to state. The more correct view pictures a<br />
series of more or less disconnected canoe shaped<br />
depressions twisting from due north to due east<br />
but averaging northeast, together with a series of<br />
anticlinal folds like the same canoes turned over<br />
on the beach to drain. The study of these folds<br />
is complicated and the truth is less easy to bear<br />
in mind than the fallacy, but, if the maps of the<br />
U. S. Geological Survey are kept in ready access,<br />
a scientific determination of probable clips can be<br />
more accurately obtained than from the more<br />
simple maps of the State survey. There is<br />
ONE DIFFICULTY<br />
to be borne in mind. The geologic contours are<br />
not based on the same bed in all publications of<br />
the Federal survey; one map will be based upon<br />
the Ferriferous (Vanport) limestone, the neighboring<br />
map on the Upper Freeport, whilst another,<br />
still neighboring, will have the contours of the<br />
Lower Kittanning displayed. Furthermore care<br />
must be taken to see whether the vertical elevations<br />
of the contours are separated b.v 50 or 100<br />
feet. Comparing two maps, that of the Elders<br />
ridge and that of the Indiana quadrangle, one will<br />
naturally conclude by the closeness of the contour<br />
lines of the Jacksonville anticline and the<br />
sparseness of those of the Chestnut ridge fold, that<br />
the Chestnut ridge anticline is a very gentle fold<br />
and the Elders ridge is very steep, but on the<br />
whole there is little difference between them and<br />
the western slope of the former fold is as deep<br />
as either fold of the latter. The difference is in<br />
appearance only, the Elders ridge map sheet having<br />
50 feet contours whereas the Chestnut ridge<br />
chart is transcribed with geologic lines representing<br />
lifts of 100 feet.<br />
A paper like this appears incomplete without<br />
reference to coal thickness. Roughly the Pittsburgh<br />
coal is 7 feet thick.<br />
It is not the intention of this address to declare<br />
what is the<br />
MEASURE COMMONLY WORKED<br />
in Indiana county, because there is so much controversy.<br />
The United States Geological Survey<br />
says that the Lower Freeport "is not persistent<br />
nor often very thick" in the Indiana quadrangle.<br />
The operators, who have extended their operations<br />
from Clearfield and Jefferson counties into this<br />
field have found much excellent Lower Freeport<br />
coal and little Upper Freeport. On the other<br />
hand, the operators from the southern counties<br />
have the reverse experience. Somewhere in Inoiana<br />
county is a line, very crooked or reasonably<br />
straight, (who shall say?) where the Lower Freeport<br />
thins and probably another line where the<br />
binders thicken and get troublesome. The author<br />
would not be bold enough to draw either of these<br />
lines, in view of so much opposition and without<br />
an intenser knowledge of the field. Would the<br />
Indiana Purchase line serve roughly the purpose<br />
of such delimitations?<br />
It is lamentable that all the structure lines ever<br />
drawn have been based largely on what happened<br />
long after the coal was formed. The contour<br />
lines show what happened after the coal was laid<br />
down.<br />
There is wanted a geologist who will put lines<br />
on a map of Western Pennsylvania running a<br />
little north of west and showing<br />
THE OLD TIME BASINS,<br />
in which the coal was laid down. The Kinzua-<br />
Emporium anticline, the rollings of the axes up<br />
and down along their lines of strike, the variant<br />
intervals between beds, the lay of individual beds,<br />
where the newer structural disfigurations are not<br />
marked, all these will furnish him with material.<br />
He will be able to draw lines which will roughly<br />
demark the areas of thick from thinner coal, the<br />
areas originally covered by various beds, the areas<br />
of split and unsplit coals and give us an economic<br />
sense of coal values, such as we have not yet<br />
known.<br />
Much as the work should be done, the author<br />
has not been bold enough to attempt it. The task<br />
awaits and will reward a master hand guided by a<br />
strong analytic brain. Nearly all the data are or<br />
will be soon available.<br />
Meantime, unscientifically, I make the statement,<br />
that the Freeport measures from 44 inches to 72<br />
inches along the lines of the Buffalo, Rochester &<br />
Pittsburgh. More easterly the Freeport is lower<br />
and runs from 30 inches to 60 inches. The Lower<br />
Kittanning is workable in the eastern portion and<br />
runs from 36 inches to 42 inches.
THE UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA<br />
INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE BOARD<br />
RENDERS DECISION IN PITTSBURGH<br />
DISTRICT CONTROVERSY.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
MARYLAND'S COAL TRADE DURING 1910<br />
MADE BIG GAIN ACCORDING TO REPORT<br />
OF STATE MINE INSPECTOR JOHN H.<br />
DONAHUE.<br />
After remaining in session in Pittsburgh State from Mine Inspector John H. Donahue of Mary<br />
August 24 to September 19, the International land, in his annual report, just issued says:<br />
Executive Board of the United Mine Workers of The year 1910, while showing no phenomenal or<br />
America, sustained the contentions of Francis unprecedented features, was on the whole, or at<br />
Feehan in his struggle with Robert Gibbons for least for the miners, a much more prosperous one<br />
the presidency of the Pittsburgh district. This than the year preceding it. The total production<br />
factional fight had its inception at the last annual of coal mined for the year was 4,716,382 long tons<br />
election of national and district officers and has showing an increase of 677,096 tons over the year<br />
been continued up to the present time.<br />
1909, and an aggregate production of 798 tons for<br />
A committee composed of Frank Farrington of each employe in and outside of the mine.<br />
Illinois, William Diamond of Michigan, and Wil The production by counties for the year 1910<br />
liam Harrison of Alabama, submitted the follow was: Allegany county, 3,S14,510 tons, mined by<br />
ing recommendations, which were accepted by the pick, and 124.399 tons by machine, and increasing<br />
board. The tally is said to have stood 15 to S the production 423,627 tons over the year 1909.<br />
in favor of adoption.<br />
Garrett county produced 777,473 tons by pick, and<br />
First.—That Francis Feehan is completely vindicated<br />
of the charges lodged against him by<br />
Robert Gibbons and associate officers and others.<br />
Second.—That Francis Feehan, Van Bittuer, Tim<br />
Donovan, Ge<strong>org</strong>e Dagger and their official associates<br />
are the legitimate officers of District No. 5.<br />
gave the large increase of 253,369 tons over 1909.<br />
Allegany county employed 3,726 miners, 371<br />
drivers, 390 inside labor, 555 outside laborers,<br />
making a total of 5,042 men employed, an increase<br />
of 157 men over the year 1909. Garrett county<br />
employed 645 miners, 74 drivers, 47 inside labor<br />
and 97 outside labor, showing an increase of 87<br />
Third.—That all moneys and property belong men employed over the year 1909.<br />
ing to the district <strong>org</strong>anization must be turned The only place machines are used for mining<br />
over to the above officers.<br />
is in Allegany county. The number of machines<br />
Fourth.—That all local unions in District No. used during the year was 47 against 41 of 1909.<br />
5 must support the regular <strong>org</strong>anization or have During the fiscal year ending April 30. 1911, there<br />
their charters revoked.<br />
were 17 fatal and 125 non-fatal accidents. For<br />
Fifth.—That those local unions which have not the calendar year ending December 21. 1910, there<br />
<strong>•</strong>been paying per capita tax to either faction dur were IS fatal accidents, showing a production of<br />
ing this controversy must pay their arrearages 262,021 tons for each life lost and 3.28 per thou<br />
to Tim Donovan, secretary-treasurer of District sand employed. The fatal accidents occurring<br />
No. 5.<br />
during the fiscal year were 17, a decrease of two<br />
Sixth.—That the local unions which have been<br />
contributing to the Gibbons' faction shall be reinstated<br />
to good standing upon the payment of the<br />
district and national per capita tax and assessments<br />
for the month of August, and that the question<br />
of further exactions from these locals shall<br />
be left to Presidents White and Feehan to decide.<br />
Seventh.—That where the check-off is held up<br />
by the coal companies it must be released and paid<br />
over to the officers of the regular <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
under the year 1909. Of the 17 fatal accidents<br />
for the fiscal year ending April 30, 1910, 11 were<br />
caused by falling top and breast coal, four by<br />
cars, one by explosion of powder, and one fell while<br />
carrying props on outside.<br />
I again respectfully recommend that reasonable<br />
discipline be impartially enforced by the mine<br />
officials, willingly submitted to by all mine workers,<br />
and that the mine foreman, or some other<br />
careful and competent person, designated by him,<br />
be required to inspect all working faces of mines<br />
Eighth.—That the resident officers of the na at least once a day, and observe particularly the<br />
tional union shall cause to be printed and circu conditions surrounding the place, roof and timberlated<br />
to all our local unions your committee's ing.<br />
findings and your decision thereon, in order that Among changes I would recommend in our min<br />
some of the injury done Francis Feehan may be ing law, in order to keep up with the progress of<br />
in a measure undone.<br />
mining, are:<br />
Ninth.—That President White be instructed to First.—All mines employing 10 men or more,<br />
employ legal talent, if necessary, to clear up any where a fan is required, to keep it running all the<br />
further complications in connection with this con time, whether the mine is running or not.<br />
troversy.<br />
Second.—To prevent the solid shooting of coal.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Third.—The amount of powder, not to exceed<br />
five pounds, to be taken into the mines by one person.<br />
Fourth.—A better grade of oil for illuminating<br />
purposes.<br />
Fifth.—A miners' hospital—something that is<br />
needed badly in the mining region.<br />
"Trt<br />
<strong>•</strong><br />
~~~~~~~~—_—————-<br />
PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS <strong>•</strong><br />
The Watt Mining Car Wheel Co., of Barnesville,<br />
O.. has just issued catalogs "G" and "H," entitled<br />
"Ore Buckets and Skips" and "Mine Car Wheels<br />
and Axles." The Watt Ore Bucket, which is described<br />
and illustrated in the first of these pamphlets,<br />
is made of four steel staves pressed to shape<br />
hot. The design is suitable for quick operation<br />
and efficiency. Self-dumping buckets with bails<br />
hinged below the center and catches which can be<br />
released with a line, buckets for bailing water<br />
with bottom trap valve, straight sided buckets and<br />
bucket trucks and cars of every description, also<br />
come in for mention. Their skip cars can be<br />
built in any capacity and weight and for transporting<br />
most any material. They also have a<br />
combination skip and self-dumping cage on the<br />
market. Catalog "H" treats of the Watt patent<br />
self-oiling car wheel and Watt-Hyatt Roller Bearing<br />
Wheels and Axles. Data of an interesting<br />
test is given where a Watt wheel weighing 150<br />
pounds on a 2%-inch axle equipped with a. Hyatt<br />
bushing, was driven at a speed equivalent to 10<br />
miles per hour with a belt consisting of one<br />
strand of carpet thread. One-half horse power<br />
motor and 2 1 'L,-ineh pulley on motor. The thread<br />
started the wheel from rest, unaided.<br />
Governor Judson Harmon of Ohio has appointed<br />
the following delegates to the 14th annual session<br />
of the American Mining Congress, to be held in<br />
Chicago Sept. 26-29. 1911: C. L. Cassingham,<br />
Cleveland; C. E. Maurer. Cleveland: G. C. Weitzell,<br />
Columbus; H. A. Laning, Jobes; James Allen,<br />
Nelsonville; Percy Titlow, Washingtonville; Sanford<br />
B. Belden, Columbus; Ernest M. Lied, Columbus.<br />
The Westmoreland Coal Co., Philadelphia, has<br />
declared a semi-annual dividend of 3 1 ANNOUNCEMENT OF KOKAL SKOUTS.<br />
The Kokoal Skouts, with the territory assigned<br />
to them, have been announced by Imperial Modoc<br />
Arthur M. Hull, as follows:<br />
Arkansas J. C. Luitweiler.Ft. Smith, Ark.<br />
Connecticut ....F. H. Johnston. New Britain,Conn.<br />
Delaware Edw. R. Pusey..Wilmington, Del.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>ia Thos. F. Stocks. Atlanta, Ga.<br />
Illinois(Central) W. R. Coleman.Peoria, 111.<br />
Illinois ( North.).Paul F. Irwin. .Chicago, 111.<br />
Indiana! North.).!. J. Glasscott. .Michigan City,Ind.<br />
Indiana (South.) Arch. Grossman.Indianapolis, Ind.<br />
Iowat Southern ) W. A. Linton .. .Ottumwa, la.<br />
Iowa ( So'wes'n I.L. M. Schubert.Council Bluffs, la.<br />
IowalNo'wes'n) A. V. Beck Sioux City, la.<br />
Iowa( Nor'eas'n) A.W.McFarlane. Waterloo, la.<br />
Iowa( Sou'eas'n)C. E. Smith ... .Marshalltown, la.<br />
Kentucky (Cen. I R. C. Fitzgerald.Danville, Ky.<br />
Kentucky (Ea'n) A. C. Blower. .. Pineville, Ky.<br />
Kentucky ( W'n ).F. P. Wright... Bevier, Ky.<br />
Louisville, Ky..Chas. L. Crush. Louisville. Ky.<br />
Louisiana E. J. Atherton. .Vinton, La.<br />
Maine Lyman K. Lee. .Foxcroft, Me.<br />
Mass. ( Eastern ) E. A. Wilson. .. Lowell, Mass.<br />
Boston W. C. Carter. . .141 Milk St.,Bostn.<br />
Mass. (Western (Geo. H. Cooper. Pittsfield, Mass.<br />
Maryland & D.C.Balto. Breaker..<br />
Mich. (Eastern).J. A. Ballard. .. Detroit. Mich.<br />
Mich. (Western) H.A.Banknecht. Muskegon, Mich.<br />
Minnesota Twin City Bkr.<br />
Mississippi I. D. Barkdull.. Natchez, Miss.<br />
Missouri St. Louis Bkr..<br />
Montana S. W. Fernald. .Missoula, Mont.<br />
Neb. (Eastern). H. G. Trester. .Omaha, Neb.<br />
Neb. (Western). W. R. Brooks. . Lincoln. Neb.<br />
Penna. ( Eastern ) Phila. Breaker..<br />
Penna. (N.-W.).E. F. Smith Erie, Pa.<br />
New Hampshire.F. E. Blodgett. . Suncook. N. H.<br />
New Jersey.... H. A. Freeman.. Haddonfield N. J.<br />
New York City. J. D. Van Pelt..l Broadway, N. Y.<br />
N. York(East'n)E. B. Ashton. . .Saratoga Sps..N.Y.<br />
N. York( Wes'nlJ. B. Harris Buffalo, N. Y.<br />
North Carolina.J. S. Poythress..Henderson, N. C.<br />
North Dakota. ..Maynard Crane.Cooperstown, N.D.<br />
Ohio (Southern)F. B. Stewart. . .Cincinnati, 0.<br />
Ohio (Central) .J. A. Teegardin.Columbus, O.<br />
-, per cent. Oklahoma W. L. Dennis. . .McAlester, Okla.<br />
on the common stock, payable October 1. On Ontario R. J. Webster. .London, Ont.<br />
April 5 last, the dividend rate was cut from 10 South Carolina. .E. P. Avent Spartanburg, S. C.<br />
per. cent, per annum to 5 per cent., due largely to Tenn. ( Eastern) F. F. Floyd Knoxville, Tenn.<br />
the reduced output during the strike. Now that Tenn. (Western)L. S. Lawo Memphis. Tenn.<br />
the strike has been settled, it is likely that the Texas D. B. Mikesell. .Ft. Worth. Tex.<br />
dividend rate will soon be restored to its old basis. Utah H. L. Spalding.Green River.Utah.<br />
The Metropolitan Coal Co.. of Boston, has acquired<br />
a tract of land on the water front at Chelsea<br />
which it is understood will form the site of a<br />
new yard, the contemplated improvements including^<br />
wharf and a concrete pocket.<br />
Vermont Geo. C. Shedd. . Springfield, Vt.<br />
Virginia Otis Mouser. . . .Stonega. Va.<br />
Wash. (Eastern)W. D. Crane. ...Spokane, Wash.<br />
Wash. (Western) C. E. Houston. .Seattle, Wash.<br />
Wisconsin E. T. McDonald.Milwaukee, Wis.
PRELIMINARY PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL<br />
MINE SAFETY DEMONSTRATION, PITTS<br />
BURGH, OCTOBER 30 AND 31.<br />
The following is the program of the National<br />
Mine Safety Demonstration to be held in Pitts<br />
burgh October 30 and 31:<br />
OCTOBER 30.<br />
Address of Welcome, 9:00 A. M.—Director J. A.<br />
Holmes, Bureau of Mines.<br />
Event No. 1 (Continuous from 9:15 A. M. to<br />
12 M., with interruption for Events 2 to 6).<br />
Building No. 10.—Electrical Laboratory, showing<br />
the effect of breaking lighted incandescent<br />
lamps which are surrounded by an explosive mixture<br />
of gas and air.<br />
Building No. 13.—The foundry cupola in operation<br />
and method of securing gas samples and taking<br />
temperature measurements from different<br />
zones in the coke bed for the purpose of studying<br />
the fundamentals of the process and possible improvements<br />
therein.<br />
The operation of a gas producer when burning<br />
coke at high temperature, at high capacity and<br />
eliminating ash and clinker by slagging.<br />
The smokeless combustion of low-grade fuel in<br />
boilers when using mechanical stokers.<br />
Operation of the long combustion chamber, designed<br />
to make a comprehensive investigation of<br />
the processes of combustion in boiler furnaces and<br />
the conditions requisite for complete combustion<br />
with coals of varying volatile matter, with various<br />
rates of firing and heating of coal with variations<br />
in the amount of air supply and in the rate<br />
of mixing of air with the volatile combustible.<br />
Building No. 17.—Demonstration of the relative<br />
safety of single gauze and double gauze bonnetted<br />
safety lamps when subjected to a current of gas<br />
and air containing eight per cent, of methane and<br />
ethane at a known velocity.<br />
The training in a noxious atmosphere of men<br />
wearing different types of rescue apparatus.<br />
Exhibition of apparatus for the physical testing<br />
of explosives, including the ballistic pendulum,<br />
pressure gauge, calorimeter detonation apparatus,<br />
large and small impact machines, friction<br />
devices, and Trauzl and small lead blocks.<br />
Building No. 32.—Demonstration of lignite and<br />
coal briquetting plant, making briquets from California<br />
lignite.<br />
Gas and Dust Gallery No. 2.—Test of an electric<br />
mine motor surrounded by explosive mixture of<br />
gas and air, and provided with explosive proof<br />
protection device.<br />
Event II. 9:30 A. M.—Gas and Dust Gallery No.<br />
1..—To determine the effect of a charge of a permissible<br />
explosive, equivalent in disruptive force<br />
to one-half pound of 40 per cent, nitroglycerine<br />
dynamite, tamped with one pound of dry fire clay<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
when fired into a mixture of gas and air containing<br />
7 per cent, of methane and ethane.<br />
Event III. 10:00 A. M.—Gas and Dust Gallery<br />
No. 1.—To determine the effect of a charge of FFF<br />
black blasting powder, equivalent in disruptive<br />
force to one-half pound of 40 per cent, nitroglycerine<br />
dynamite, tamped with two pounds of dry<br />
fire clay, when fired into a mixture of gas and air<br />
containing 7 per cent, of methane and ethane.<br />
Event IV. 10:30 A. M— Near Gas and Dust Gallery<br />
No. 1.—Illustrating the ignition of coal dust<br />
by means of the laboratory coal dust ignition apparatus<br />
devised and used by the Bureau of Mines.<br />
Event V. 11:00 A. M.—Gas and Dust Gallery<br />
No. 2.—Illustrating the effect of removing the explosion<br />
proof protective devices from an electric<br />
mine motor operating in an explosive mixture of<br />
gas and air.<br />
Event VI. 11:10 A. M.—Building No. 21.—Chemical<br />
and Physical Laboratories: Inspection of<br />
fuel, oil, explosives, gas and other laboratories.<br />
2:00 P. M.—Leave Pittsburgh on special train<br />
over the Wheeling branch of the Baltimore & Ohio<br />
railroad.<br />
2:30 P. M.—Arrive at Experimental mine, Bruceton,<br />
Pa,<br />
2:30 to 3:30 P. M— Inspection of experimental<br />
mine.<br />
3:45 P. M.—Explosion in experimental mine.<br />
4:00 to 4:45 P. M.—Inspection after explosion.<br />
5:00 P. M.—Return to Pittsburgh by special<br />
train.<br />
OCTOBER 31, FORBES FIELD.<br />
Event I. 9:00 to 10:30 A. M— Demonstration of<br />
first aid to the injured by teams of men representing<br />
mining companies from all sections of the<br />
United States of America.<br />
Five problems to be solved, these problems to<br />
be announced later.<br />
RULES.<br />
1. The officers shall be as follows: A manager<br />
of events, a secretary and assistants, a field<br />
marshal and assistants, and a chief usher and<br />
assistants.<br />
2. Each team may be identified by the number<br />
worn by the captain, the same corresponding to<br />
the number on the printed list of teams on the<br />
final program.<br />
3. Each team shall perform according to the<br />
numbers assigned; all holding odd numbers performing<br />
together; subsequently, those holding<br />
even numbers, together.<br />
4. All patients must be placed on stretcher<br />
after each treatment. All artificial respiration<br />
must be given for one minute.<br />
5. No practicing shall be permitted on the day<br />
of the demonstrations, nor shall the patient assist<br />
in any treatment.
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
6. As soon as an event has been completed, the<br />
team shall stand at position and the captain shall<br />
raise his hand.<br />
7. The number of each event will be displayed,<br />
as performed upon the bulletin board.<br />
8. The beginning and closing of each event will<br />
be designated by the sounding of a gong. Two<br />
signals will be given for removal of bandages.<br />
Event II. 10:30 to 11:30 A. M — Part I.—A permissible<br />
explosive, equal in disruptive force to<br />
one-half pound of 40 per cent, nitroglycerine dynamite,<br />
tamped with one pound of dry fire clay, will<br />
be fired into the gallery.<br />
No explosion of the coal dust is expected.<br />
The Forbes Field Dust Gallery is cylindrical,<br />
133 feet long, and an internal diameter of six<br />
feet four inches, and represents an underground<br />
tunnel or part of a coal mine. The explosive<br />
is fired into the end of the gallery. Within the<br />
gallery are 133 pounds of fine coal dust from the<br />
Pittsburgh seam, distributed uniformly throughout,<br />
and 20 pounds on a wooden bench 20 feet<br />
long near the mouth of the cannon, making a total<br />
of 153 pounds of coal dust.<br />
Part II.—Demonstration of the use of birds in<br />
exploring mines after explosions or mine fires, at<br />
which carbon monoxide causes a large percentage<br />
of the fatalities. A few birds, which are much<br />
more sensitive to the effect of poisonous gas than<br />
men, can be taken into a mine with a rescue<br />
party, and as soon as they show signs of distress,<br />
the party can retreat to safety. In the demonstrations<br />
a man will enter a glass box, the atmosphere<br />
of which contains 0.25 of 1 per cent, of carbon<br />
monoxide gas and remain there for some time<br />
after the birds have collapsed.<br />
Part III.—A charge of FFF black blasting powder,<br />
equal in disruptive force to one-half pound<br />
of 40 per cent, nitroglycerine tamped with dry<br />
fire clay, will be fitted into the gallery containing<br />
153 pounds bituminous coal dust, being the same<br />
dust as that used in event II, Part I.<br />
An explosion of coal dust is anticipated.<br />
Part IV.—Foremen miners of the Bureau of<br />
Mines, equipped with various types of artificial<br />
breathing apparatus, will enter the gallery immediately<br />
after the coal dust explosion and recover<br />
supposed victims of mine explosion. First aid<br />
miners of the Bureau of Mines will resuscitate<br />
those overcome by noxious gases, using artificial<br />
respiration and oxygen respirating apparatus.<br />
They will administer first aid to the injured, using<br />
in this demonstration only the pocket first aid<br />
packet and those things which might be near after<br />
an explosion in a mine.<br />
Event III. 11:30 to 12:00 Noon.—Introduction<br />
of President Taft by Joseph A. Holmes. Director,<br />
United States Bureau of Mines.<br />
Presentation of Medals, William H. Taft, President<br />
of the United States.<br />
Address, John K. Tener, Governor of the Commonwealth<br />
of Pennsylvania.<br />
Address, Walter L. Fisher, Secretary of the Interior.<br />
Address, Miss Mabel Boardman, American National<br />
Red Cross Society.<br />
Event IV.—Parade of 19,927 miners, each of<br />
whom in his person represents one of the 19,927<br />
men killed in the coal mines of the United States<br />
in the last 20 years.<br />
Miners to march in review before the President's<br />
stand, and then to special cars on Forbes street,<br />
which will carry them to the river front, where<br />
they will witness the marine parade commemorative<br />
of the Centenary of the Opening of Steam<br />
Navigation on the Ohio River.<br />
ENTRANCE RULES.<br />
The following rules, with suggestions, are sent<br />
mine operators who expect to enter first aid teams<br />
in the National Mine Safety Demonstration.<br />
Rule 1.—The National Mine Safety Demonstration<br />
will be a non-competitive exhibition of skill<br />
in first aid to the injured in mines.<br />
Rule 2.—Not more than one team of five (5)<br />
men to represent any one coal mine, or the U. S.<br />
Bureau of Mines, or state mine departments, except<br />
that coal mining companies operating more<br />
than one mine may enter additional teams representative<br />
of groups of miners, helpers, trapper<br />
boys, or other mine workers.<br />
Rule 3.—All persons entering to submit certificates<br />
showing that they are. or have been, bona<br />
fide mine workers.<br />
Suggestions: Submit a brief statement signed<br />
by one of the state mine inspectors to the effect<br />
that Messrs. John Doe, Richard Roe. etc., have<br />
worked in and around coal mines (give minimum<br />
length of time). (Signed and dated—Inspector).<br />
Rule 4.—All entries to close one (1) month<br />
prior to date finally selected foi' 1 the meet (viz:<br />
Sept. 30, Midnight).<br />
Suggestion: The entries, like the certificates,<br />
need not follow any particular form, being merely<br />
a letter stating that you enter the following team,<br />
giving the full name of all entrants with the company<br />
name and official in charge.<br />
Positively no entries will be accepted after October<br />
1. since names are to appear on souvenir program,<br />
which will go to press that day.<br />
Rule 5.—Coal companies entering teams to be<br />
invited to present, not later than one (1) month<br />
in advance of the meet, viz: Sept. 30, a list of<br />
five (5) events as their choice, these to be submitted<br />
to the managers, who will select five (5)<br />
for adoption from the various events suggested,<br />
each entering team to exhibit in these events sug-
gested by them and such others of the five as they<br />
may elect.<br />
Suggestion: The five events you prefer will,<br />
with others, be submitted to the committee of<br />
managers who will select for the public exhibit<br />
from all these suggestions, the five which have<br />
the majority of recommendations. No suggestions<br />
will be received after October 1, on which<br />
date the five events selected will go to press. You<br />
will be notified promptly of the events decided<br />
upon so that your team may practice them. It is<br />
essential that you do this in order to assure that<br />
your team can perform within the time limit fixed<br />
for each event. The program must be run off<br />
with snap and speed, since the time of President<br />
Taft is limited.<br />
Rule 10.—Souvenir badges of the American Red<br />
Cross, souvenir buttons of the U. S. Bureau of<br />
Mines, and souvenir programs will be presented<br />
to individual entrants; a souvenir first aid box<br />
to each team entering; a souvenir pennant with<br />
the name of the company sending entrant, and<br />
to be used on the field as a marker, to be presented<br />
to the company represented.<br />
Rule 13.—Each team will select its own subject<br />
in addition to the five operating members<br />
thereof, or will have a miner present, selected<br />
for them.<br />
Rule 14.—In this exhibition, the correct use of<br />
the roller bandage or the triangular bandage will<br />
be given the same credit. In dressing wounds,<br />
the first aid packet only will be used. There will<br />
be no restrictions as to the make of the first aid<br />
packet. Teams are to bring their own material,<br />
consisting of splints, cotton, bandages, first aid<br />
packets, picric acid gauze tourniquets, stretchers,<br />
and at least two woolen blankets.<br />
The demonstration is in charge of the following<br />
Board of Managers:<br />
H. M. Wilson, representing United States Bureau<br />
of Mines; Dr. M. J. Shields, representing<br />
American National Red Cross Society; S. A. Taylor,<br />
representing coal operators of the United<br />
States; Francis Feehan, representing United<br />
Mine Workers of America; John Laing, representing<br />
the State Mine Inspectors; Thomas B. Dilts.<br />
representing Industrial Department of International<br />
Y. M. C. A.<br />
The General Committee is composed of:<br />
Chairman, H. M. Wilson; Mine Rescue and<br />
First Aid, J. W. Paul; Arsenal Demonstration,<br />
Clarence Hall; Experimental Mine, L. M. Jones;<br />
Program, Lauson Stone; Reception. J. C. Roberts;<br />
Ushering. J. K. Clement; Secretary. C. S. Stevenson.<br />
At Forbes Field the events will be in charge<br />
of J. W. Paul, manager of Field Events; Francis<br />
Feehan, field marshal, and J. K. Clement, chief<br />
usher.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
fl CONSTRUCTION and DEVELOPMENT<br />
A corps of engineers has been at work running<br />
a line from the terminus of the New York Central<br />
and Pennsylvania railroads above Idamar, Pa., to<br />
what is known as the Lowry coal three miles east<br />
of Marion Center. Altoona parties own the coal<br />
under the old Samuel Lowry place and they are<br />
anxious to operate it. The line would also open<br />
up the coal between the bowman school house and<br />
Idamar, most of which has been purchased by<br />
large coal interests.<br />
A new mine is being opened a short distance<br />
west of Bay City, Mich., by the Royal Coal Co.,<br />
recently <strong>org</strong>anized at that place. Work was<br />
started on a shaft last week and it is expected<br />
that the seam will be reached by November 1.<br />
The officers of the new company are: President.<br />
Leonard Eichorn; vice president, Samuel Meister;<br />
secretary, J. A. Bierd; treasurer, W. P. Kavanagh,<br />
all of Bay City.<br />
The Moffat Coal Co. has been <strong>org</strong>anized at Denver,<br />
Col., by men identified with the Denver,<br />
Northwestern & Pacific railway. It is planned to<br />
develop property in Routt county, where it is reported<br />
that anthracite deposits exist, as well as<br />
extensive bituminous areas.<br />
L. S. Colyer, Chattanooga, Tenn., and associates<br />
have acquired large acreage of iron and coal property<br />
near Chattanooga, and are planning to <strong>org</strong>anize<br />
a $15,000,000 corporation to develop it and<br />
build iron and steel plant.<br />
T. P. Swayze, of Berwick, Pa., discovered an outcrop<br />
of coal on a hillside on the farm of D. W.<br />
Robbins at Iola, Pa., on Sept. 14. Men are now<br />
at work uncovering the vein to ascertain its size.<br />
Kenneth Maguire of Louisville, Ky., and L. W.<br />
Farmer of Barbourville, Ky., will develop 10,000<br />
acres of coal in Harlan county, Ky., which they<br />
recently leased from F. J. Asher.<br />
F. E. Harris, of Madisonville, Ky., has purchased<br />
700 acres of coal rights and announced that he<br />
would begin operations to open up a mine on the<br />
Louisville & Nashville road.<br />
The Bear Creek Coal Mining Co., Warren, O.,<br />
will develop 3,000 acres of coal in Pike county,<br />
Ky. C. B. Loveless, Warren, O.. is largely interested.<br />
The Lilley Coal Co., Charleroi, Pa., will develop<br />
700 acres of coal on the Lilley farm, near California,<br />
Pa.<br />
The Luton Coal Co., Providence, Ky.. will install<br />
an air compressor at its new mine.
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
LEHIGH VALLEY COAL COMPANY ANNUAL<br />
REPORT MAKES EXCELLENT SHOWING.<br />
The report of the Lehigh Valley Coal Co. was<br />
made public at a meeting of the board of directors<br />
in Philadelphia, on Sept. 20, and shows:<br />
The net income of the company amounted to the<br />
sum of $1,512,844.40, an increase of $376,301.42,<br />
as compared with the previous year.<br />
The total production of anthracite coal from<br />
lands owned, leased and controlled by the Lehigh<br />
Valley Coal Co. and affiliated companies, including<br />
that mined by tenants, was 9,021,206 gross tons,<br />
an increase of 928,266 tons, or 11.47 per cent., as<br />
compared with the preceding year.<br />
The percentage of sizes above pea produced by<br />
the mining operations of the company was 65.57<br />
per cent., an increase of 1.03 per cent.<br />
The operations conducted on the Snow Shoe<br />
lands produced 236,930 gross tons of bituminous<br />
coal, an increase of 1,952 tons.<br />
The total expenditures for improvements and<br />
betterments to the property deducted from income<br />
during the year amounted to tbe sum of $444,677.<br />
The new breaker at Mineral Spring, referred to<br />
in the last annual report as being in process of<br />
construction, was completed and is now in operation.<br />
An additional breaker is in course of erection<br />
at Buck Mountain No. 3 slope, and, upon completion,<br />
will have a capacity sufficient to prepare the<br />
coal from the old breaker at that point and from<br />
Vulcan colliery as well. This breaker, as has<br />
been the practice of the company in other cases<br />
in recent years, will be constructed as nearly fireproof<br />
as possible. The utmost concentration will<br />
also be effected in the layout of pumping, ventilating<br />
and haulage plants, which Is of material<br />
benefit in curtailing those overhead expenses that<br />
must go on not only while the mine is in operation,<br />
but when mining is suspended as well.<br />
The construction of a new washery at Spring<br />
Brook has been authorized and the work is now<br />
under way.<br />
At Henry colliery the haulage system has been<br />
concentrated. A central pumping plant has been<br />
installed, dispensing with four pumps at Malt by<br />
and 13 at Henry.<br />
A new pumping plant has been installed at<br />
Hazleton shaft and an electric hoist and haulage<br />
system at Dorrance.<br />
Additions have been made to the pumping plants<br />
at Seneca and Centralia collieries. A repair shop<br />
has been built and electric haulage installed at<br />
Prospect colliery.<br />
At Centralia colliery a central electric power<br />
plant, with the necessary boilers, is being erected.<br />
Coal pockets with the necessary handling machinery<br />
have been erected at Riverside. New Jersey,<br />
on the Passaic river, and enable the company<br />
to serve a territory which it has been difficult to<br />
satisfactorily reach heretofore.<br />
The report of the Lehigh Valley railroad, also<br />
made public, shows a notable increase in revenue<br />
from the transportation of coal. Excluding that<br />
used by the company itself, the coal and coke<br />
transported amounted to 15.589,750 tons; this was<br />
an increase of 1,555,354 or 11.08 per cent, over the<br />
preceding year. The revenue from this class of<br />
freight was $17,155,534, an increase of 8.43 per<br />
cent. Coal supplied 54.68 per cent, of the total<br />
tonnage.<br />
The report of John H. Donahue, state mining<br />
inspector of Maryland, for the year ended May 1,<br />
1911, has just been issued. The total production<br />
of coal for the year was 4,716,382 long tons, showing<br />
an increase of 677,094 tons over the year 1909,<br />
and an aggregate production of 798 tons for each<br />
employe in and outside of the mines. The production<br />
by counties for the year 1910 was Allegany<br />
county 3,938,909 tons, and Garrett county produced<br />
777,473 tons. During the fiscal year ended May 1,<br />
1911, there were 17 fatal and 125 non-fatal accidents.<br />
Governor Charles S. Deneen of Illinois has appointed<br />
the members of the new Illinois state mining<br />
board. They are: Richard Newsani of<br />
Peoria, reappointed; Evan D. John of Carbondale,<br />
reappointed; M. H. Linskey of Streator, reappointed;<br />
William Spenney of Canton, vice Henry<br />
Terriff of Colchester. S. M. Duggan of Girard,<br />
vice Matt Davison of DuQuoin, deceased.<br />
Contractors have just started work on a new<br />
coal dock and freight terminal for the Canadian<br />
Pacific railway at Fort William, Ont., which will<br />
greatly increase the coal handling facilities of that<br />
port. It is stated that $2,000,000 will be spent on<br />
the improvements and that they will require five<br />
years to complete.<br />
President Wheelwright, of the Consolidation Coal<br />
Co.. states that during the first week of September<br />
the company mined 233.000 tons of coal. A<br />
shortage of cars is the only trouble now experienced,<br />
Mr. Wheelwright says.<br />
It is reported that W. H. Piper & Co. have<br />
awarded a contract for the opening of a new slope<br />
at Lilly, Pa. This will be joined to the present<br />
opening by a long trestle, which will permit of<br />
dumping coal out of both slopes from one tipple.<br />
For the year ended June 30 the Virginia Coal &<br />
Coke Co. reports a decrease of $324,402 in gross<br />
and $181,644 in net earnings, while the deficit expanded<br />
$132,859.
Coal in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, Etc.<br />
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26)<br />
Southwestern States sought employment in Kentucky<br />
and in other states not affected by the<br />
strike order. By thus making up the deficiency<br />
caused by the idleness in the competitive states<br />
the miners aided materially in securing their demands.<br />
During 1910 the coal mines of Kentucky gave<br />
employment to 20.316 men, who worked an average<br />
of 221 days. Labor disaffections in the Kentucky<br />
mines were limited to short strikes in 14<br />
mines.<br />
Kentucky is one of the leading states in mining<br />
coal by the use of machines and ranks next to<br />
Ohio in the percentage of machine-mined output<br />
to the total production. In 1910 out of a total<br />
of 14,623.319 short tons, 9,362,851 tons, or 64 per<br />
cent., were machine-mined.<br />
New Mexico's production of coal for last year<br />
showed a notable increase over that of former<br />
years. The output for 1910 was 3,508,321 short<br />
tons, with a value of $4,877,151, as against 2,801,-<br />
128 tons in 1909. a gain of 707.193 short tons, or<br />
25.25 per cent. The value of the product increased<br />
from $3,619,744 to $4,877,151, a gain of<br />
$1,257,407, or nearly 35 per cent.<br />
The increased production is attributed to the<br />
strike in the coal mines of the Middle States and<br />
the Northern (Boulder) district of Colorado, and<br />
partly to the growth of population and the settlement<br />
of new lands in New Mexico, Arizona and<br />
California—settlement that is<br />
CREATING A DEMAND<br />
which will be permanent and growing. Both the<br />
bituminous and the sub-bituminous coals of New<br />
Mexico are rapidly growing in favor for domestic<br />
purposes, the bituminous coal being shipped from<br />
the Raton field to markets in Kansas, Oklahoma,<br />
and even farther east, and the sub-bituminous coal<br />
of the Gallup district supplying the markets of<br />
the Southwest and the Pacific coast. The domestic<br />
demand for New Mexico coal in 1910 was so<br />
great that the operators were unable to fill orders<br />
promptly.<br />
One of the benefits accruing to the coal mining<br />
industry of New Mexico in 1910 was the reduction<br />
in the freight rates on foreign coals by the Mexican<br />
railroads. When the Mexican government<br />
took over the control of the railroads of that country<br />
it increased the freight rates on foreign coals<br />
in the hope of encouraging the development of the<br />
Mexican mines. As the railroads had considerable<br />
coal on hand they were able to furnish a<br />
sufficient supply of fuel during 1909, but with the<br />
depletion of the reserves it was found that the<br />
Mexican mines could not supply the demands of<br />
the railways and the other industries. In order<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
to meet this deficiency with New Mexican coal.<br />
the Mexican government reduced the freight on<br />
coal to the old rate, and it is not probable that<br />
any further attempt will be made to exclude foreign<br />
coals from that republic.<br />
During 1910 great improvements were made in<br />
the methods of operating the mines.<br />
Colfax county, which contains the New Mexican<br />
portion of the Raton (New Mexico (-Trinidad<br />
(Colorado) field, is by far the most important<br />
coal producing county of the territory, contributing<br />
over 75 per cent, of the total production and<br />
more than 90 per cent, of the total increase in<br />
1910. All the other counties except Rio Arriba<br />
increased their output in 1910.<br />
Oklahoma's coal production in 1910 was 2,646,-<br />
226 short tons. Oklahoma was one of the states<br />
most seriously affected by the prolonged strike of<br />
1910. Naturally, in anticipation of the suspension<br />
of operations, the mines of the Mississippi<br />
Valley region were<br />
OPERATED WITH UNUSUAL ACTIVITY<br />
during the first three months of the year and about<br />
50 per cent, increase over the normal tonnage was<br />
won during that time. After mining was generally<br />
resumed in September there was a strong<br />
effort made by both operators and miners to make<br />
up for lost time. Thus although the strike lasted<br />
for 5rt months and considerable additional time<br />
was required to put the mines into working order,<br />
the actual loss in production was not in proportion<br />
to the time lost by the strike. In Oklahoma<br />
the production decreased from 3,119,377 short tons,<br />
valued at $6,253,367 in 1909 to 2,646,226 tons, valued<br />
at $5,867,947 in 1910, a difference against 1910<br />
of 473,151 short tons or 15.17 per cent, in quantity,<br />
and of $385,420 or 6.16 per cent, in value.<br />
Because of the shortage caused by the strike the<br />
average price per ton advanced from $2 in 1909 to<br />
$2.22 in 1910.<br />
The industry in Arkansas and Oklahoma has<br />
suffered from other troubles than the strike.<br />
There has been a strong tendency on the part of<br />
the miners to use increased quantities of powder,<br />
and it is also stated that dynamite is frequently<br />
used. Moreover, it is the practice in nearly all<br />
the mines to "shoot off the solid." This has increased<br />
the quantity of slack so that it is now<br />
double what it was 15 years ago. This results in<br />
the complaint by purchasers that coal which appears<br />
to be lump coal on arrival easily disintegrates<br />
as a result of the crushing strain to which<br />
it has been subjected by the mining methods employed.<br />
The number of men reported as employed in the<br />
coal mines of Oklahoma in 1910 was 8,657, who<br />
worked an average of 144 days. The number of<br />
men on strike was S.213 and the average time lost
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
by each man was 152 days, so that the idleness<br />
was equivalent to 99 per cent, of the time worked.<br />
The quantity of coal produced for each man employed<br />
in 1910 was 306 short tons for the year<br />
and 2.13 tons for each working day.<br />
Arkansas's production of coal in 1910 was 1 ,-<br />
905.958 short tons, with a value at the mines of<br />
$2,979,213, a decrease of nearly one-fifth from the<br />
tonnage of 1909.<br />
The coal mining industry of Arkansas, like<br />
that of the other states of the Western Interior region<br />
except Iowa, was practically out of business<br />
for six months in 1910. The coal strike which<br />
began on April 1 and lasted until September 15<br />
affected nearly 90 per cent, of all the coal mine<br />
employes in Arkansas and<br />
THE TOTAL TIME LOST<br />
was wthin 1 per cent, of the total time made during<br />
the year. The total working time amounted<br />
to 713,794 days and the time lost was 713.210<br />
clays. Efforts to make provision against the strike<br />
were made during January, February and March.<br />
in all the states affected by it, the operators being<br />
inspired by a desire to accumulate stocks of coal<br />
and the miners by the necessity for increasing<br />
their earnings in order to tide over the period<br />
of idleness. The struggle was evidently to be<br />
bitter and prolonged, and both sides made preparation<br />
for it.<br />
After operations were resumed, about October 1,<br />
every ton of coal which it was possible to mine<br />
with the available labor was mined. The activity<br />
before and after the strike made up for a part<br />
of the loss in tonnage during the summer, so that<br />
instead of a decrease in production of 50 per cent.,<br />
proportionate to the loss in time, the output decreased<br />
only 471.199 short tons, or 19.8 per cent.,<br />
from 2,377,157 short tons in 1909 to 1,905,958 tons<br />
in 1910. The value decreased from $3,523,139 to<br />
$2,979,213, a loss of $543,926, or 15.44 per cent.<br />
The most serious effects of this strike and of<br />
the regularly recurrent difficulties every two years<br />
are the loss of markets through the invasion of<br />
coals from other states and the encouragement<br />
given to large consumers to substitute oil or natural<br />
gas for fuel, to the displacement of coal.<br />
Many such changes have already been made. Another<br />
evil effect is the migration of miners to<br />
other fields, and in Arkansas and the adjoining<br />
state of Oklahoma this is particularly serious,<br />
for mining conditions in these states are not so<br />
attractive as in some others, and miners once<br />
leaving seldom return. The mining force has<br />
therefore to be recruited from inexperienced labor,<br />
which is always unsatisfactory and. in the long<br />
run, expensive. The conditions in this respect<br />
in Arkansas and Oklahoma are much the same.<br />
There were 5,568 men employed in the coal<br />
mines of Arkansas in 1910, and they averaged<br />
128 working days each; there were 4,873 men on<br />
strike, and the average time lost by each of these<br />
was 146 days. The total working time made by<br />
the 5,568 men was 713,794 days, and the total time<br />
lost by the 4,873 men was 713,210 days.<br />
A joint convention of the Kansas, Missouri and<br />
Oklahoma Coal Dealers' Association and the Wisconsin<br />
and Illinois associations was held at Cape<br />
Girardeau. Mo., recently. President T. Percy<br />
Bryan of Kansas City presided. The principal<br />
speakers were H. G. McKinney, Kansas City; Secretary<br />
F. E. Lukens, Chicago; Secretary John T.<br />
Powers, St. Louis, and Robert G. Gannon of Cairo,<br />
111. The chief topic for discussion was the demanding<br />
of destination instead of mine weights<br />
for coal shipments.<br />
The retail coal dealers of Peoria, 111., have established<br />
a credit department in the Merchants' Exchange<br />
of that city and hereafter the ratings of all<br />
people desiring credit will be looked up before<br />
the coal is delivered. The dealers complain of<br />
considerable loss through their credit sales during<br />
the past year and hereafter no customer who has<br />
been unusually slow in paying one dealer will receive<br />
credit from the others.<br />
A new law regulating weights became effective<br />
in Wisconsin Sept. 1. It is drawn along lines<br />
somewhat similar to the law which went into effect<br />
in New York State on the same date, as it provides<br />
that coal must invariably be sold by weight<br />
and authorizes sealers to inspect scales and weigh<br />
loads at any time.<br />
The dealers of Lestershire, N. Y., as well as those<br />
located in the nearby towns of Endicott and Union,<br />
have agreed to do business on a strictly bash basis<br />
after the first of October.<br />
President Jere H. Wheelwright, Vice Presidents<br />
G. W. Fleming and F. S. Landstreet, together with<br />
several directors of the Consolidation Coal Co.,<br />
Baltimore, Md., will make a thorough inspection<br />
of the progress of the work being done in developing<br />
the Elkhorn district of the company in Kentucky,<br />
early in October. It is stated by a director<br />
of the company that practically all of the work<br />
being clone in the Consolidation's Elkhorn field,<br />
including the building of the Sandy Valley and<br />
Elkhorn railroad, is two months ahead of schedule<br />
time.<br />
What was probably the record coal cargo of the<br />
season on the Great Lakes was unloaded at Escaaaba,<br />
Mich., recently, from the steamer Shenango.<br />
It consisted of 11,963 tons of bituminous.
(CONTINUED FROM ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 15)<br />
Sec. 12. Top Man and Bottom Man. (a) At<br />
every shaft where men are hoisted or lowered by<br />
machinery, the operator shall station at the top<br />
and at the bottom of such shaft a competent man<br />
who shall be and is hereby charged with the duty<br />
of attending to signals, and is empowered to preserve<br />
order and enforce the rules governing the<br />
carriage of men on cages. Said top men and<br />
bottom man shall be at their respective posts of<br />
duty at least half an hour before the hoisting of<br />
coal begins in the morning, and remain for half<br />
an hour after the hoisting ceases for the day.<br />
Speed of Cages and Other Regulations, (b) Cages<br />
on which men are riding shall not be lifted nor<br />
lowered at a rate of speed greater than 600 feet<br />
per minute, except with the written consent of the<br />
inspector. No person shall carry any tools, timber<br />
or other materials with him on any cage in<br />
motion, except for use in repairing the shaft, and<br />
no one shall ride on a cage containing either a<br />
loaded or empty car. No cage having an unstable<br />
or self-dumping platform shall be used for<br />
the carriage of men or materials, unless the same<br />
is provided with some device by which said platform<br />
can be securely locked, and unless it is so<br />
locked whenever men or materials are being conveyed<br />
thereon. No coal shall be hoisted in any<br />
shaft while men are being lowered therein.<br />
Rights of Men to Come Out. (c) Whenever men<br />
who have finished their day's work, or have been<br />
prevented from further work, shall come to the<br />
bottom to be hoisted out, an empty cage shall be<br />
given them for that purpose, unless there is an<br />
available exit by slope or stairway in an escapement<br />
shaft, and providing there is no coal at the<br />
bottom ready to be hoisted. In case of injury<br />
or bona fide illness, a man shall be given a cage<br />
at once<br />
Sec. 13. Safety Lamps, (a) At every mine in<br />
this state, the operator shall provide and keep in<br />
condition for use not less than<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
ILLINOIS NEW MINING LAW<br />
TWO SAFETY LAMPS<br />
and shall provide and keep as many more as may<br />
be required in writing by the state mine inspector.<br />
Davy lamps shall not be used for any purpose<br />
except testing.<br />
(b) All safety lamps shall be the property of<br />
the operator and when not in use shall remain in<br />
the custody of the mine manager or other competent<br />
person designated by him, who shall clean,<br />
fill, trim, examine and deliver same locked and<br />
in safe condition to the men when they enter the<br />
mine, or at some underground station designated<br />
by the mine manager for that purpose. He shall<br />
also receive the lamps from the men when they<br />
leave the mine or as they pass the underground<br />
lamp station at the end of their shift.<br />
The person to whom lamps are thus given shall<br />
be responsible for the condition and proper use<br />
of the safety lamps while in their possession, and<br />
their return to the lamp station.<br />
No safety lamps shall be given to any person for<br />
use in a mine nor shall any person use a safety<br />
lamp in a mine until said person has given evidence<br />
satisfactory to the mine manager that he<br />
understands the proper use thereof and the danger<br />
of tampering with the same.<br />
(c) No person except one duly authorized by<br />
the mine manager shall have in his possession in<br />
any part of the mine where locked safety lamps<br />
are used any matches or other means of producing<br />
fire, or any lamp-key or other instrument usable<br />
for the opening of a locked safety lamp. Any<br />
person violating the provisions of this section shall<br />
be guilty of a misdemeanor and punishable as<br />
hereinafter provided relating to misdemeanors<br />
under this act.<br />
(cl) Electric lamps which will not ignite explosive<br />
gases may be used instead of safety lamps<br />
for purposes for which safety lamps are required<br />
in this act except for testing for explosive gas.<br />
Sec. 14. Ventilation, (a) At every coal mine<br />
there shall be provided and maintained artificial<br />
means for supplying an amount of air which shall<br />
be not less than 100 cubic feet per minute for each<br />
person, and not less than 500 cubic feet per minute<br />
for each animal in the mine, measured at<br />
the foot of the downcast and of the upcast; except<br />
that in gaseous mines there shall be not less than<br />
150 cubic feet of air per minute<br />
FOR EACH PERSON<br />
in the mine. The inspector shall have power by<br />
order in writing to require these quantities to be<br />
increased.<br />
(b) The main current of air shall be so split<br />
or subdivided as to give a separate current of reasonably<br />
pure air to every 100 men at work, and<br />
the inspector shall have authority to order, in writing,<br />
separate currents for smaller groups of men,<br />
if. in his judgment, special conditions render it<br />
necessary.<br />
(c) Doors, curtains or brattices shall be placed<br />
at such places as may be designated by the mine<br />
manager, subject to the approval of the state inspector<br />
for conducting the required amount of air<br />
into the working places. Curtains shall not be<br />
permanently used in main entries without the<br />
written consent of the state mine inspector.<br />
(cl) Away from the pillar for the mine bottom,<br />
crosscuts between entries shall be made not more<br />
than 60 feet apart without permission of the state
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
inspector of the district and then only in case of<br />
"faults." When such consent is given, brattice<br />
or other means must be provided within 60 feet<br />
of the face to convey the air to the working place<br />
until a cross-cut is opened up.<br />
When undercut or sheared, the entry, cross-cut<br />
and room-neck may be advanced concurrently, but<br />
not more than one cutting shall be shot in the<br />
room-neck until the cross-cut is finished; and<br />
after the entry has advanced 15 feet beyond the<br />
location of the new cross-cut, only one shot shall<br />
be fired in the entry to two in either or both the<br />
cross-cut and room-neck at the same shooting time.<br />
When not undercut or sheared, the entry and<br />
cross-cut may be advanced concurrently, but no<br />
room shall be opened in advance of the last open<br />
cross-cut, and after the entry has advanced 15<br />
feet beyond the location of a new cross-cut only<br />
one shot shall be fired in the entry to two in the<br />
cross-cut at tne same shooting time.<br />
Not more than thrse shots shall be exploded at<br />
one shooting time ahead of the last open cross-cut.<br />
(e) After the taking effect of this act, the first<br />
cross-cut in the first room off an entry shall not<br />
be more than 50 feet from the rib of the entry,<br />
and the first cross-cut in the second room shall<br />
not be more than 80 feet from the<br />
RIB OF THE ENTRV.<br />
subsequently first cross-cuts in all the rooms shall<br />
be not more than 50 and 80 feet respectively from<br />
the rib of the entry. Additional cross-cuts shall<br />
not be more than 60 feet apart<br />
(f) All cross-cuts connecting inlet and outlet<br />
air courses, except the last one nearest the face.<br />
shall be closed with substantial stoppings, to be<br />
made as nearly air-tight as possible. In the<br />
making of the air-tight partitions or stoppings.<br />
no loose material or refuse shall be used.<br />
Cross-cuts between rooms, except the one nearest<br />
the face, shall be closed sufficiently to carry to<br />
the working places the amount of air required by<br />
law.<br />
(g) When explosive gas in dangerous quantity<br />
is discovered in working places before the men<br />
go into the mine in the morning, such gas shall<br />
be removed by a special current of air produced<br />
by bratticing or from a pipe, before men are permitted<br />
to work in such places with other lights<br />
than safety lamps.<br />
(h) If, in any mine, the conditions are such<br />
that in the judgment of the mine manager or the<br />
judgment of the state mine inspector expressed<br />
in writing, it is necessary to use safety lamps only<br />
in working said mine, other lights shall not be<br />
used therein.<br />
11) The air from the outlet of the stable shall<br />
not pass into the intake air current used for ventilating<br />
the working parts of the mine.<br />
(j) All doors in mines, used in guiding and<br />
directing the ventilating currents shall be hung<br />
and adjusted so as to close automatically.<br />
(k) At all doors through which three or more<br />
drivers are hauling coal on any one shift, an attendant<br />
shall be employed on said shift for the<br />
purpose of opening and closing said doors when<br />
trips of cars are passing to and from the workings:<br />
Provided, the mine inspector, in case of<br />
specially dangerous conditions, shall have power<br />
to require in writing that an attendant be placed<br />
at doors through which less than three drivers<br />
pass. Places for shelter shall be provided at such<br />
doorways to protect the attendants from being injured<br />
by the cars while attending to their duties:<br />
Provided, that in any or all mines, where doors are<br />
constructed in such a manner as to<br />
OPEN AND CLOSE<br />
automatically, attendants and places for shelter<br />
shall not be required.<br />
(1) If the inspector shall find men working<br />
without the amount of air required by law, he<br />
snail at once notify the mine manager to increase<br />
the amount of air in accordance with the law.<br />
Upon the failure or refusal of the manager to act<br />
promptly, and in all cases where men are endangered<br />
by such lack of air, the inspector shall at<br />
once order the men affected out of the mine.<br />
(m) In case the passageways, roadways or entries<br />
of any mine are so dry that the air becomes<br />
charged with dust, the operator of such mine must<br />
have such roadways regularly and thoroughly<br />
sprayed, sprinkled or cleaned.<br />
Sec. 15. Refuse Places, Power Haulage Roads.<br />
(a) On all single-track haulage roads where hauling<br />
is done by machinery, which roads the persons<br />
employed in the mine must use while performing<br />
their work or travel on foot to and from their<br />
work, there shall be places of refuge on one side<br />
not less than 3 feet in depth from the side of the<br />
car, and not less than 4 feet long and 5 feet in<br />
height and not more than 60 feet apart. On ropehaulage<br />
roads, means of signaling shall be established<br />
between the haulage engineer and all points<br />
on the road. A conspicuous white light must be<br />
carried on the front, and a conspicuous red light<br />
or white signal board on the rear of every trip or<br />
train of pit cars moved by machinery.<br />
Refuge Places—Mule Roads, (b) On all haulage<br />
roads on which the hauling is done by draft animals,<br />
whereon men are obliged to be in the performance<br />
of their duties or have to pass to and<br />
from their work, there shall be places of refuge<br />
not less than 2% feet in width from the side of<br />
the car, and not less than 4 long feet and 5 feet<br />
in height and not more than 60 feet apart.<br />
Room-necks as Refuge Places, (c) Refuge places<br />
shall not be required in entries on which roomnecks<br />
at regular intervals not exceeding 60 feet<br />
furnish the required refuge places.
Keeping Refuge Places Clear, (d) All places of<br />
refuge must be kept clear of obstructions and no<br />
material shall be stored nor be allowed to accumulate<br />
therein. They shall also be whitewashed<br />
not less than once in six months.<br />
Gob on Haulage Roads, (e) One side of all haulage<br />
roads shall be kept clear of<br />
REFUSE OR MATERIALS,<br />
except timbering, unless the rib or timbering on<br />
such side shall be 2rt feet or more from the rail,<br />
but in such case materials or refuse shall not be<br />
permitted within 2 ] _. feet of the rail.<br />
Sec. 16. Cars. When there is more than one<br />
link on either end of car, no swinging open-hook<br />
coupling shall be used on mine cars installed after<br />
this act shall be in force.<br />
Mine cars in use when this act shall become in<br />
force and effect shall be made to comply with this<br />
provision within one year thereafter.<br />
Sec. 17. Voltage, (a) Trolley wires or other exposed<br />
electrical wires shall not carry a voltage<br />
above 275 volts.<br />
Wires Crossing Haulage Ways, (b) All trolley<br />
and positive feed wires crossing places where<br />
persons or animals are required to travel shall be<br />
guarded or protected from such persons or animals<br />
coming in contact therewith.<br />
(c) All terminal ends of positive wires shall<br />
be guarded so as to prevent persons inadvertently<br />
coming in contact therewith.<br />
Sec. 18. Oil Standard, (a) All illuminating oils<br />
used in coal mines shall conform to such specifications<br />
as shall be prescribed by the State Mining<br />
Board.<br />
Brands of Oil. (b) All oils sold or offered for<br />
sale to be used for illuminating purposes in coal<br />
mines shall be stamped or branded upon the original<br />
barrel or package in which said oil is furnished<br />
to the person, firm or corporation selling<br />
or furnishing such oil to show that such oil has<br />
been tested and found to conform to the specifications<br />
prescribed by the State Mining Board.<br />
Penalty, (c) Any person, firm or corporation.<br />
either by themselves, agents or employes, selling<br />
or offering to sell for illuminating purposes in any<br />
mine in this state any oil not complying with the<br />
specifications of the State Mining Board as suitable<br />
for illuminating purposes as contemplated in<br />
this act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor,<br />
and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less<br />
than $25, nor more than $100 for each offense;<br />
and any mine owner or operator or employe of<br />
such owner or operator who shall knowingly use,<br />
or any mine operator who shall knowingly permit<br />
to be used, for illuminating purposes in any<br />
mine in this state any oil the use of which is forbidden<br />
by this act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor,<br />
and shall be fined not less than $5 nor<br />
more than $25.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
Sampling and Testing, (d) The state mine inspectors<br />
shall have authority to<br />
SAMPLE ALL OIL<br />
used for illuminating purposes in the mines of<br />
this state, or kept on hand for use or for sale at<br />
such mines, and for such purpose they may enter<br />
upon the premises of any person. It shall be their<br />
duty to send to the State Milling Board to be<br />
tested a sample of any oil they have reason to<br />
suspect does not comply with the specifications of<br />
the State Mining Board in regard to illuminating<br />
oil for use in mines; and if the said sample of<br />
oil is found after suitable tests not to comply with<br />
the provisions of this act, the person using said<br />
oil or selling or offering the same for sale, shall<br />
be prosecuted in accordance with the provisions<br />
of this act.<br />
Sec. 19. Amount of Powder Kept in Mine, (a)<br />
No blasting powder, or other explosives, shall be<br />
stored in any coal mine, and no workman shall<br />
have at any time in the mine more than 35 pounds<br />
of black powder nor more than 25 pounds of permissible<br />
explosives, nor more than 3 pounds of<br />
other high explosives: Provided, that nothing in<br />
this section shall be construed to prevent the oper.ator<br />
of any mine from taking into the mine, when<br />
miners are not therein, and in electrically equipped<br />
mines, while the current is turned off on roadways<br />
thiough which it is transported, a sufficient quantity<br />
of powder for the reasonable requirements of<br />
such mine for the next succeeding working day,<br />
but in the interim before such powder is delivered<br />
to the men, it shall be kept in a closed receptacle.<br />
Explosives shall not be carried in the same car<br />
with tools or other materials.<br />
Place and Manner of Keeping in the Mine, (b)<br />
Every person who has powder or other explosives<br />
in a mine shall keep the same in a wooden box.<br />
securely locked, with hinged lid. and said box<br />
shall be kept as far as practicable from the track;<br />
and all powder boxes shall be kept as far as practicable<br />
from each other and each in a secluded<br />
place. Black powder and high explosives or caps<br />
shall not be kept in the same box. Detonating<br />
explosives and detonators shall not be kept in the<br />
same box.<br />
Manner of Handling, (c) Whenever a workman<br />
is about to open a box or keg containing powder<br />
or other explosive, and while handling the same,<br />
he shall place and keep his lamp at least five feet<br />
distant from said explosive, and in such position<br />
that the air current cannot convey sparks to it,<br />
and no person shall approach nearer than five feet<br />
to any open box containing an open keg of powder<br />
or other explosive with a lighted lamp, lighted<br />
pipe or other thing containing fire. No miner,<br />
workman or other person shall<br />
OPEN ANY RECEPTACLE<br />
containing an explosive except by the means of
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
opening the same provided by the manufacturer<br />
thereof, and it shall be unlawful for any person<br />
to have in his possession in any mine any receptacle<br />
containing explosive which has been opened<br />
in violation of this act.<br />
Quantity of Powder in One Charge. (d I The<br />
quantity of powder to be used in the preparation<br />
of shots shall not, in any case, exceed five (5)<br />
standard chargers full of powder in coal seams<br />
five and one-half (5%) feet or over in thickness;<br />
and shall not, in any case, exceed four (4) standard<br />
chargers full of powder in coal seams under<br />
five and one-half (5%) feet in thickness.<br />
Standard Charger, (e) For the purpose of determining<br />
the quantity of powder to be used in the<br />
preparation of any given shot, a standard charger<br />
is defined and prescribed to be a cylindrical metallic<br />
charger not to exceed twelve (12) inches in<br />
length and not to exceed one and one-half (1%)<br />
inches in diameter.<br />
Dead Holes, (f) No person shall drill or shoot<br />
a dead bole as hereinafter defined. A "dead<br />
hole" is a hole where the width of the shot at the<br />
point measured at right angles to the line of the<br />
hole is so great that the heel is not of sufficient<br />
strength to at least balance the resistance at the<br />
point. The heel means that part of the shot<br />
which lies outside of the powder.<br />
In solid shooting, the width of the shot at the<br />
point, in seams of coal 6 feet or less in height,<br />
shall not be greater than the height of the coal,<br />
and in seams of coal more than 6 feet in thickness,<br />
the width of the shot at the point shall, in no case<br />
be more than 6 feet.<br />
In undercut coal, no hole shall be drilled "on<br />
the solid" for any part of its length.<br />
Mixed Shots, (g) In no case shall more than one<br />
kind of explosive be used in the same drill hole.<br />
Copper Tools, (h) The needle used in preparing<br />
a blast shall be made of copper, and any metallic<br />
tamping-bar or scraper shall be tipped with at<br />
least five (5) inches of copper. A scraper shall<br />
not be used for tamping.<br />
Tamping. (i) Every blasting hole shall be<br />
tamped full from the explosive to the<br />
MOUTH OF THE HOLE,<br />
and no coal dust or any material that is<br />
inflammable or that may create a spark, whether<br />
the same shall be wet or dry, shall be used for<br />
tamping.<br />
Use of Squibs. (j) When a squib is used to fire<br />
a shot it shall be unlawful to shorten or oil the<br />
match of the squib or to ignite it except at the end.<br />
Warning Before Firing. (k) Before firing a<br />
shot, the person firing the same shall see that all<br />
persons are out of danger from the probable effects<br />
of such shot, and shall take measures to prevent<br />
anyone approaching by shouting "fire" before lighting<br />
the same.<br />
Not More than One Shot at a Time. (1) Not<br />
more than one shot shall be lighted at the same<br />
time in any working place unless the firing is<br />
done b.v electricity or by fuses of such length that<br />
the interval between the explosions of any two<br />
shots shall be not less than one minute, and in no<br />
case shall any shot or shots be fired or lighted<br />
which are termed depending or dependent shots,<br />
until after the expiration of 10 minutes from the<br />
successful firing of the relieving shot or shots.<br />
When successive shots are to be fired in any working<br />
place in which the roof is broken or faulty, the<br />
smoke shall be allowed to clear away and the roof<br />
examined and made secure between shots.<br />
Missed Shots. (m) No person shall return to a<br />
missed shot, if lighted with a squib, until five (5)<br />
minutes have elapsed from the time of lighting<br />
the same, or, if, lighted with fuse, until the following<br />
day; and no person shall return to a missed<br />
shot when the firing is done by electricity unless<br />
the wires are disconnected from the battery.<br />
(n) No missed shot shall be withdrawn excepting<br />
by the use of copper-tipped or wooden tools.<br />
Sec. 20. (a) It shall be the duty of the mine<br />
manager:<br />
1. To visit each working place in the mine at<br />
least once in two weeks.<br />
2. To provide a suitable checking system<br />
whereby the entrance into and departure from the<br />
mine of each employe shall be indicated.<br />
3. To have the underground workings of the<br />
mine examined by a<br />
CERTIFICATED MINE EXAMINER<br />
within 12 hours preceding every day upon which<br />
the mine is to be operated. Such a mine examiner<br />
shall make the examination as provided in<br />
this act, and he shall enter his report thereof before<br />
the men are permitted to enter the mine in<br />
the morning in a book provided for that purpose,<br />
which book shall be kept in some convenient place<br />
on top, but not in the engine room or office, for<br />
the information of the inspector and other persons<br />
interested therein.<br />
4. To examine the mine examiner's report in<br />
the morning, and if the working places are reported<br />
dangerous, he shall withhold the entrance<br />
checks of men working in such places until he<br />
has advised such men of the danger and instructed<br />
them not to work in such places until the reported<br />
danger has been removed, except for the<br />
purpose of removing same.<br />
5. When there is to be a night shift mining<br />
coai, the mine manager shall require the places<br />
in which such night shift are expected to work<br />
to be examined for gas, or falls or dangerous roof,<br />
by the person in charge of such night shift or<br />
some competent person duly authorized by him<br />
before the men enter such places for work. The<br />
night shift may go into the mine while the night
examiner is in the mine, excepting in mines where<br />
marsh gas has been detected in dangerous quantities,<br />
provided they do not go into the working<br />
places until the required examination is made.<br />
Certificated mine examiners shall not be required<br />
for the examination preceding the night shift,<br />
excepting in mines where marsh gas is detected<br />
in dangerous quantities. The night examiner,<br />
or examiners, shall make a record of their examination<br />
in a special book kept for that purpose.<br />
\ rich shall be kept in some convenient place on<br />
top when not in use by the examiner.<br />
6. He shall provide a sufficient number of props,<br />
caps and timbers, when demanded, delivered on<br />
the miners' cars at the usual place, in suitable<br />
lengths and dimensions for the securing of the<br />
roof by the miners.<br />
7. He shall see that the cross-cuts are made at<br />
proper distances apart, and that the necessary<br />
doors, curtains, and brattices are provided to secure<br />
the men in the mine the volume of air required<br />
by this act, or by the written demands of<br />
the mine inspector; also, that all stoppings along<br />
air-ways are properly and promptly built.<br />
8. He shall keep careful watch over all ventilating<br />
apparatus and the air currents in the<br />
mine, and in case of accident to<br />
FAN OR MACHINERY<br />
by which the air currents are stopped or materially<br />
obstructed, he shall at once order the withdrawal<br />
of the men from the mine and prohibit<br />
their return until the required ventilation bas<br />
been re-established.<br />
9. He shall measure the air current or cause<br />
the same to be measured at least once each week<br />
at the inlet and outlet, and shall keep a record of<br />
such measurements for the information of the<br />
mine inspector.<br />
10. He or his assistant shall, at least once a<br />
week, examine the roadways leading to the escapement<br />
shaft or other openings for the safe exit of<br />
men to the surface; and shall make a record of<br />
any obstructions to travel he may encounter<br />
therein, together with the date of their removal.<br />
11. He shall examine or designate a competent<br />
person to examine the hoisting ropes, cages and<br />
safety catches every morning, and shall require<br />
the ropes to be tested by hoisting the cages before<br />
the men are lowered.<br />
12. He must see that the top man and bottom<br />
man are on duty and that sufficient lights are<br />
maintained at the top and bottom landings when<br />
the miners are being hoisted and lowered.<br />
13. The mine manager or his assistant shall<br />
be at his post at the mine when the men are lowered<br />
into the mine in the morning for work, and<br />
shall remain at night until all the men employed<br />
during the day shall have been hoisted out.<br />
14. He shall give special attention to and in<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
structions concerning the proper storage and handling<br />
of explosives in the mines.<br />
15. He shall see that all dusty haulage roads<br />
are thoroughly sprinkled at regular intervals designated<br />
by the mine inspector.<br />
(b) The mine manager shall have power:<br />
1. To instruct employes as to their respective<br />
duties and to require of all employes obedience<br />
to the provisions ot the mining law.<br />
2. To prescribe special rules concerning the<br />
proper storage and handling of explosives in the<br />
mine and concerning the time and<br />
MANNER OF PLACING<br />
and discharging the blasting shots, and it shall be<br />
unlawful for any miner to fire shots except according<br />
to such rules.<br />
3. In mines in which the works are so extensive<br />
that all the duties devolving upon the mine manager<br />
cannot be discharged by one man, competent<br />
persons may be designated and appointed as<br />
assistants to the mine manager, who shall exercise<br />
his functions under the mine manager's instructions.<br />
Sec. 21. Certificated Mine Examiners, (a) A<br />
certificated mine examiner shall be required at all<br />
coal mines. There shall be one or more additional<br />
certificated mine examiners whenever required<br />
in writing by the state mine inspectors<br />
when the conditions are such as to make the employment<br />
of such additional mine examiners necessary.<br />
(b) It shall be the duty of the mine examiner:<br />
1. To examine the underground workings of the<br />
mine within 12 hours preceding every clay upon<br />
which the mine is to be operated.<br />
2. When in the performance of his duties, to<br />
carry with him a safety lamp in proper order and<br />
condition and a rod or bar for sounding the roof.<br />
3. To see that the air current is traveling in<br />
its proper course and in proper quantity; and to<br />
measure with an anemometer the amount of air<br />
passing in the last cross-cut or break-through of<br />
each pair of entries, or in the last room of each<br />
division in long-wall mines, and at all other points<br />
where he may deem it necessary; and to note the<br />
results of such measurements in the mine examiner's<br />
book kept for that purpose.<br />
4. To inspect all places where men are required<br />
in the performance of their duties to pass or to<br />
work, and to observe whether there are any recent<br />
falls or dangerous roof or accumulations of gas or<br />
dangerous obstructions in rooms or roadways;<br />
and to examine especially the edges and accessible<br />
parts of recent falls and old gobs and air courses.<br />
5. As evidence of his examination of said<br />
rooms and roadways, to inscribe in some suitable<br />
place on the walls of each, not on the face of the<br />
coal, with chalk, the month and the day of the<br />
month of his visit.
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
6. When working places are discovered in<br />
which there are recent falls or dangerous roof or<br />
dangerous obstruction, to place<br />
A CONSPICUOUS MARK.<br />
or sign thereat as notice to all men to keep<br />
out; and in case of accumulation of gas, to place<br />
at least two conspicuous obstructions across the<br />
roadway not less than 20 feet apart, one of which<br />
shall be outside the last open cross-cut.<br />
7. Upon completing his examination, to make a<br />
daily record of the same in a book kept for that<br />
purpose for the information of the company, the<br />
inspector and all other persons interested; and this<br />
record shall be made each morning before the<br />
miners are permitted to enter the mine.<br />
8. To take into his possession the entrance<br />
checks of all men whose working places have been<br />
shown by his examination and record to be dangerous,<br />
and to give such entrance checks to the<br />
mine manager before tbe men are permitted to<br />
enter the mine in the morning.<br />
Sec. 22. It shall be the duty of the hoisting engineer:<br />
1. To be in constant attendance at his engine<br />
or boilers at all times when there are workmen<br />
underground. Whenever it is the duty of the engineer<br />
to attend to the boilers, means for signaling<br />
from the shaft bottom to the boiler room shall be<br />
provided.<br />
2. He shall not permit any one except persons<br />
duly authorized to enter the engine room, and he<br />
shall hold no communication with any officer of<br />
the company or other person while the engine is<br />
in motion or while his attention is occupied with<br />
the signals.<br />
3. The engineer or some other properly authorized<br />
employe shall:<br />
(a) Keep a careful watch over the engines.<br />
boilers, pumps, ropes and winding apparatus under<br />
his jurisdiction.<br />
(b) See that the boilers under his care are<br />
properly supplied with water, cleaned and inspected<br />
at frequent intervals.<br />
(c) See that the steam pressure does not exceed<br />
the limit established by the boiler inspector,<br />
and frequently try the try cocks and the safety<br />
valves and shall not increase the weights on the<br />
same.<br />
(d) See that the steam and water gauges are<br />
kept in good order, and if any of the pumps, valves<br />
or gauges become deranged or fail to act promptly<br />
report the fact to the proper authority.<br />
4. He shall thoroughly understand the established<br />
code of signals, and when he has the signal<br />
that men are on the cage, he must operate his engine<br />
at not to exceed the rate of speed permitted<br />
by this act.<br />
5. He shall permit no one to handle, except in<br />
the discharge of duty, or meddle with any ma<br />
chinery under his charge or suffer any one who<br />
is not a certificated engineer to<br />
OPERATE HIS ENGINE<br />
except for the purpose of learning to operate it,<br />
and then only in the presence of the engineer in<br />
charge and when men are not on the cage.<br />
Sec. 23. Special Rules, (a) It shall be unlawful<br />
for any person knowingly or negligently:<br />
1. To injure or tamper with any appliance or<br />
machinery.<br />
2. To carry an open light, pipe or fire in any<br />
form into any place worked by the light of safety<br />
lamps, or within five feet of an open package of<br />
explosive.<br />
3. To open any locked safety lamp without permission<br />
from the proper authority.<br />
4. To handle or disturb any part of the hoisting<br />
machinery without proper authority.<br />
5. To obstruct or cause any obstruction in any<br />
air current or to leave open any door or other<br />
means provided to control the air current or to<br />
perform any act that will interfere with the ventilating<br />
current of the mine without permission<br />
to do the same from the mine manager.<br />
6. To deface, pull down or destroy any notice<br />
board, danger signal, special rule or record book.<br />
(b) No person shall be permitted to or shall<br />
enter work in or about a mine or mine buildings,<br />
tracks or machinery connected therewith while<br />
under the influence of intoxicants.<br />
(c) Every miner shall sound and thoroughly<br />
examine the roof of his working place before commencing<br />
work, and if he finds loose rock or other<br />
dangerous conditions, he shall not work in such<br />
dangerous place except to make such dangerous<br />
conditions safe. It shall be the duty of the miner<br />
to properly prop and secure his place for his own<br />
safety with materials provided therefor.<br />
(d) It shall be the duty of every operator to<br />
post at some conspicuous point at the entrance to<br />
the mine, in such manner that the employes of the<br />
mine can read them, rules not inconsistent with<br />
this act, plainly printed in the English language,<br />
which shall govern all persons working in the<br />
mine. And the posting of such notice, as provided,<br />
shall charge all employes of such mine<br />
witn legal notice of the contents thereof.<br />
(e) It shall be unlawful for any person to disobey<br />
any order given in pursuance of this act, or<br />
to enter any place against a danger signal without<br />
permission from the mine manager, or to do any<br />
wilful act whereby the<br />
LIVES OR HEALTH OF PERSONS<br />
working in mines or the security of the mine or<br />
the machinery thereof are endangered.<br />
(f) No mine employe shall enter or leave a<br />
mine without indicating the fact of entering or<br />
leaving said mine by some suitable checking sys-
tern provided by and under the control of the mine<br />
manager.<br />
(g) No person, except the persons necessary to<br />
operate the trip or car, shall ride on any loaded<br />
car or on the outside of any car, or get on or off<br />
a car while in motion.<br />
(h) It shall be unlawful to change, exchange,<br />
substitute, alter or remove any number or check<br />
or other device or sign used to indicate or identify<br />
the person or persons to whom credit or pay is<br />
clue for the mining of coal in any car or appliance<br />
containing the same, with intent to cheat or defraud<br />
any other person of the value of his services<br />
for mining the coal contained in such car or appliance;<br />
and it shall be unlawful for a person with<br />
intent to cheat or defraud any other to place<br />
any number, check or other device or sign upon<br />
any car or other appliance loaded by any other<br />
person in or about the mine. Any violation of<br />
this provision shall be deemed a larceny, and upon<br />
conviction thereof shall be punishable as provided<br />
in the general statutes of Illinois with respect to<br />
larceny.<br />
Sec. 24. Ten-Foot Limit, (a) In no case shall<br />
the workings of any mine be driven nearer than<br />
10 feet to the boundary line of the coal rights<br />
pertaining to said mine, except for the purpose of<br />
establishing an underground communication between<br />
contiguous mines, as provided for elsewhere<br />
in this act, or except by mutual agreement in writing<br />
between the adjoining owners.<br />
Approaching Abandoned Workings. ( b) Whenever<br />
any working place approaches within 50 feet<br />
of abandoned working's of which there is a map<br />
prepared as required by law and which may contain<br />
dangerous accumulations of water or of gas,<br />
the operator of said mine shall advance by workings<br />
not more than 20 feet wide and maintain in<br />
advance of the face a bore hole<br />
NOT LESS THAN 10 FEET<br />
in depth and one hole in each rib of the working<br />
place, 10 feet in depth, which side holes shall<br />
be drilled so as to make an angle of not less than<br />
45 degrees with the direction of the rib. If there<br />
is not a map of the abandoned workings, the holes<br />
heretofore provided for shall be drilled when the<br />
new workings are within 100 feet of where the old<br />
workings are supposed to be.<br />
Sec. 25. Duty of Inspector, (a) Any loss of<br />
life or personal injury in or about any coal mine<br />
shall be reported without delay by the person having<br />
charge of said mine to the state mine inspector<br />
of the district in which the mine is located, and<br />
the said inspector, in case of injury, if he deem<br />
necessary from the facts reported, and in all cases<br />
of loss of life, shall go immediately to the scene<br />
of said accident and render every possible assistance<br />
to those in need.<br />
Every operator of a coal mine shall make or<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 53<br />
cause to be made and preserve for the information<br />
of the state mine inspector, upon uniform blanks<br />
furnished by said inspector, a record ot all deaths<br />
and all injuries sustained by any of bis employes<br />
in the pursuance of their regular occupations.<br />
Coroner's Inquest, (b) If any person is killed<br />
in or about a mine, the operator shall also notify<br />
the coroner of the county, or in his absence or inability<br />
to act, any justice of the peace of said<br />
county, who shall hold an inquest concerning the<br />
cause of such death. The state mine inspector<br />
may question or cross-question any witness testifying<br />
at the inquest.<br />
Investigation by Inspection, (c) The state mine<br />
inspector shall make a personal investigation as<br />
to the nature and cause of all serious accidents<br />
within his jurisdiction. He shall make a record<br />
of the circumstances attending the same, as developed<br />
by the coroner's inquest and his own personal<br />
investigation, which record shall be preserved<br />
in the files of his office, and a copy thereof<br />
filed with the State Mining Board. To enable<br />
him to make such investigation he shall have<br />
power to compel the attendance of witnesses and<br />
to administer oaths or affirmations to them, and<br />
the cost of such investigations shall have power<br />
to compel the attendance of witnesses and to administer<br />
oaths or affirmations to them, and the<br />
cost of such investigations shall be paid by the<br />
county in which such accident lias occurred, in<br />
the same manner as the costs of coroner's inquests<br />
are paid.<br />
Sec. 26. Stretchers and Blankets. At every<br />
mine it shall be the duty of the operator thereof<br />
to keep always on hand, and at some readily accessible<br />
place, a properly constructed stretcher, a<br />
woolen and waterproof blanket, and a roll of bandages<br />
in good condition and ready for immediate<br />
use for binding, covering and<br />
CARRYING ANY ONE<br />
who may be injured at the mine. When 100 or<br />
more men are employed at any mine, two stretchers<br />
and two woolen and two waterproof blankets,<br />
with a corresponding number of bandages, shall<br />
be provided and kept on hand. At mines where<br />
firedamp is generated, there shall also be provided<br />
and kept in store a suitable supply of linseed or<br />
olive oil, for use in case where men are burned<br />
by an explosion.<br />
Sec. 27. Scales, (a) The operator of every<br />
coal mine where miners are paid by the weight<br />
of their output, shall provide at such mine suitable<br />
and accurate scales for the weighing of such<br />
coal, and a correct record shall be kept of all coal<br />
so weighed, and said record shall be open at all<br />
reasonable hours to the inspection of miners and<br />
others interested in the product of said mine.<br />
Weighman. (b) The person authorized to weigh<br />
the coal and keep the record as aforesaid shall,
64 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
before entering upon his duties, make and subscribe<br />
to an oath before some person duly author<br />
ized to administer oaths, that he will accurately<br />
weigh and carefully keep a true record of all coal<br />
weighed, and such affidavit shall be kept conspicu<br />
ously posted at the place of weighing.<br />
Check Weighman. (c) The miners at work in<br />
any coal mine may employ a check weighman at<br />
their option and at their own expense, whose duty<br />
it shall be to balance the scales and see that the<br />
coal is properly weighed, and that a correct account<br />
of the same is kept, and for this purpose he<br />
shall have access al all times to the beam box of<br />
said scales, and be afforded every facility for verifying<br />
the weights while the weighing is being<br />
clone. The check weighman so employed by the<br />
miners, before entering upon his duties, shall make<br />
and subscribe to an oath before some person duly<br />
authorized to administer oaths, that he will faith<br />
fully discharge his duties as checkweighman, and<br />
such oath shall be kept conspicuously posted at the<br />
place of weighing.<br />
Sec. 28. Boys and Women. No boy under the<br />
other official or religious<br />
RECORD OF THE BOY'S AGE<br />
shall be permitted to do any manual labor in or<br />
about any mine, and before any boy can be permitted<br />
to work in any mine he must produce to<br />
the mine manager or operator thereof an affidavit<br />
from his parent or guardian or next of kin, sworn<br />
and subscribed to before a justice of the peace<br />
or notary public, that he, tbe said boy, is 16 years<br />
of age.<br />
The parent, guardian or next of kin shall submit<br />
in connection with said affidavit, a certificate<br />
of birth, a baptismal certificate, a passport or<br />
other official or religious record ol' the boy's age<br />
or duly attested transcript thereof, which certificate<br />
or transcript thereof shall, for the purposes<br />
of this act, establish the age of said boy.<br />
Any person swearing falsely in regard to the<br />
age of a boy shall be guilty of perjury, and shall<br />
be punished as provided in the general statutes<br />
of the state pertaining to perjury.<br />
Sec. 29. Penalties, (a) Any wilful neglect, refusal<br />
or failure to do the things required to be<br />
done by any section, clause or provision of this<br />
act. on the part of the person or persons herein<br />
required to do them, or any violation of any of<br />
the provisions or requirements hereof, or any attempt<br />
to obstruct or interfere with any inspector<br />
in the discharge of the duties herein imposed upon<br />
him, or any refusal to comply with the instructions<br />
of an inspector given by authority of this act shall<br />
be deemed a misdemeanor punishable by a fine<br />
not exceeding $500, or b.v imprisonment in the<br />
county jail for a period not exceeding six months,<br />
or both, at the discretion of the court: Provided,<br />
that in addition to the above penalties, in case of<br />
the failure of any operator to comply with the<br />
provisions of this act in relation to the sinking<br />
of escapement shafts and the ventilation of mines,<br />
the state's attorney for the county in which sucb<br />
failure occurs, or any other attorney, in case of<br />
his neglect to act promptly, shall proceed against<br />
such operator by injunction without bond, to restrain<br />
him from continuing to operate such mine<br />
until all legal requirements shall have been fully<br />
complied with.<br />
(b) Any inspector who shall discover that any<br />
section of this act, or part thereof, is being neglected<br />
or violated, shall order immediate com<br />
pliance therewith, and, in case of continued failure<br />
to comply, shall have power to stop the operation<br />
of tiie mine, or remove any offending person or<br />
persons from the mine until the law is complied<br />
with.<br />
(c) For any injury to person or property, occasioned<br />
by any wilful violation of this act. or wilful<br />
failure to comply with any of its provisions, a<br />
right of action shall accrue to the party injured.<br />
for any direct damages sustained thereby; and<br />
in case of loss of life by reason of such wilful vio<br />
lation or wilful failure as aforesaid, a right of<br />
action shall accrue to the<br />
PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVES<br />
of the person so killed for the exclusive benefit of<br />
the widow and next of kin of such person and<br />
to any other person or persons who were, before<br />
such loss of life, dependent for support on the<br />
person or persons so killed, for a like recovery of<br />
damages for the injuries sustained by reason of<br />
such loss of life or lives not to exceed the sum of<br />
$10,000; provided, that every such action for damages<br />
in sase of death shall be commenced within<br />
one year after the death of such person; And,<br />
provided further, that the amount recovered by<br />
the personal representative of the person so killed<br />
shall be distributed to the widow and next of kin<br />
of such person iu the proportion provided by law<br />
in relation to the distribution of personal property<br />
left by persons dying intestate. Provided, that if<br />
and whenever there shall be in force in this state.<br />
a statute or statutes providing for compensation<br />
to workmen for all injuries received in the course<br />
of their employment, the provisions thereof shall<br />
apply in lieu of the right of action for damages<br />
provided in this act.<br />
Sec. 30. Definitions of Terms. Mine, (a) Where<br />
used in this act, the words "mine" and "coal mine"<br />
are intended to signify any and all parts of the<br />
property of a mining plant, on the surface or underground,<br />
which contribute, directly or indirectly,<br />
under one management, to the mining or handling<br />
of coal.<br />
Excavation of Workings, (b) The words "excavation"<br />
and "workings" signify any or all parts<br />
of a mine excavated or being excavated, including
shafts, slopes, tunnels, entries, looms and working<br />
place, whether abandoned or in use.<br />
Shaft, (c) The term "shaft" means any vertical<br />
opening through the strata which is or may be<br />
used for purposes of<br />
VENTILATION OR ESCAPEMENT,<br />
or for the hoisting or lowering of men and material<br />
in connection with the mining of coal.<br />
Slope, (d) The term "slope" means any inclined<br />
way in or to a seam of coal to be used for<br />
the same purposes as a shaft.<br />
Drift, (e) The term "drift" means any practically<br />
horizontal way in or to a seam of coal to<br />
be used for the same purpose as a shaft.<br />
Operator, (f) The term "operator" as applied<br />
to the party in control of a mine in this act, signifies<br />
the person, firm or body corporate who is the<br />
immediate proprietor as owner or lessee of the<br />
plant, and, as such, responsible for the condition<br />
and management thereof.<br />
Mine Manager, (g) The "mine manager" is the<br />
person who is charged with the general direction<br />
of the underground work.<br />
Mine Examiner, (i) The "mine examiner" is<br />
the person charged with the examination of the<br />
underground workings of the mine before the miners<br />
are permitted to enter it in the morning.<br />
Sec. 31. That an act entitled, "An act to revise<br />
the laws in relation to coal mines and subjects relating<br />
thereto, and providing for the health and<br />
safety of persons employed therein, approved April<br />
18, 1899, and in force July 1, 1S99," with amendments<br />
to July 1. 1910; also<br />
An act entitled. "An act to prohibit the use of<br />
certain oils in coal mines and penalties for infraction<br />
of same," approved April 30, 1895, in force<br />
July 1. 1895; also<br />
An act entitled, "An act concerning the use of<br />
powder in coal mines, approved and in force May<br />
14, 1903, as amended by an act approved May 24,<br />
1907, in force July 1, 1907"; also<br />
An act entitled, "An act to provide for the<br />
weighing of coal at the mines, and to repeal a<br />
certain act therein named," approved June 17.<br />
1887, in force July 1, 1887, be and each of said acts<br />
is hereby repealed.<br />
Approved June 6, 1911.<br />
Mr. B. Dawson Coleman of Lebanon, Pa., president<br />
of the Ebensburg Coal Co., Ebensburg. Pa.,<br />
has let to the South Fork Lumber & Construction<br />
Co. the contract for 106 more houses at the corporation's<br />
new coal town of Colver, Pa. Six of<br />
these houses are for foremen and other responsible<br />
employes, while the remaining 100 are ordinary<br />
miners' houses. This makes the second 100<br />
houses to be ordered b.v the company. Mr. Miller<br />
now having the first 100 in the various stages of<br />
completion.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
COMMERCE OF LAKE SUPERIOR.<br />
The commerce of Lake Superior as measured by<br />
the canals at Sault Ste. Marie reached 8.548,812<br />
tons during August, being 2,993 tons in excess of<br />
the July movement, when 8,515,819 tons were<br />
moved. The movement to Sept. 1 was 31,488,323<br />
tons as against 40,046,800 tons for the corresponding<br />
period last year. The falling off of course is<br />
in the ore movement, coal showing a respectable<br />
gain over the figures for 1910. Following are some<br />
of the figures:<br />
EAST BOUND.<br />
To Sept. 1, To Sept. 1,<br />
1910. 1911.<br />
Iron ore, net tons 28.055,531 IS,683,240<br />
Pig iron, net tons 19,331 17,784<br />
Lumber, M. ft., B. M 374,379 328,329<br />
Wheat, bu 32,695.234 34,078,649<br />
WEST BOUND.<br />
Coal, anthracite, net tons.. 1.060,259 1,226,515<br />
Coal, bituminous, net tons. . 7.297.7S8 8,116,034<br />
TOTAL MOVEMENT.<br />
East bound, net tons 30,657,557 21,100,586<br />
West bound, net tons 9,389.243 10,387,737<br />
IRON ORE SHIPMENTS.<br />
40,046,800 31.488,323<br />
Ore shipments during August were 5,548.311 tons<br />
as against 6,964,381 tons for the corresponding<br />
month last year, a decrease of 1.416,070 tons. The<br />
movement to Sept. 1. 1911, was 19,606,068 tons, as<br />
against 28,827,029 tons for the corresponding period<br />
last year, a decrease of 9,220,961 tons. The August<br />
movement of the present year exhibits a<br />
slight gain over July of the present year, when<br />
5,221,373 tons were moved, an increase of 326,938<br />
tons. August will undoubtedly be the record<br />
month of the present year.<br />
The fleet last year moved 6,273,832 tons in September,<br />
4.877,441 tons in October and 2,641,886<br />
tons in November, which marked the close of the<br />
iron ore reason on the lakes. Were the fleet to<br />
move this year an equivalent amount during the<br />
remainder of the season, the total shipments for<br />
the year would be 33,399,227 tons. The fleet of<br />
course will not move anything like that amount<br />
during the remaining months of the year. It is<br />
doubtful if the September movement will reach<br />
5,000,000 tons, as heavy weather may be expected<br />
at any time during the month and, moreover, ore<br />
sales have not been such as to justify a heavy<br />
movement under adverse weather conditions; and<br />
as shippers expect to be through with outside ships<br />
in October, the October and November movements<br />
will be light. It is likely that the movement for<br />
the entire season will not be much in excess of<br />
31,000,000 tons.
56<br />
PITTSBURGH DISTRICT CONSUMED<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
15,000,000 TONS OF COAL IN 1910.<br />
The city of Pittsburgh with a population in<br />
1910 of 533,905, consumes practically as much coal<br />
as the city of Greater New York wdth a population<br />
of 4,766,S83, according to a statement which will<br />
appear in the chapter on "Coal" from Mineral<br />
Resources of the United States, by E. W. Parker,<br />
statistician of the United States Geological Sur<br />
vey. The total shipments of coal to and through<br />
Pittsburgh exceed the movement in New York<br />
harbor including the local consumption by nearly<br />
50 per cent. As near as can be ascertained, there<br />
were 15,600,654 tons of coal consumed in the Pitts<br />
burgh district in 1910. The consumption of coal<br />
in the city of New York is estimated at 17,500,000<br />
short tons. The total movement of coal to and<br />
from the Pittsburgh district in 1910 was nearly<br />
51,000,000 short tons. The total movement of<br />
coal in New York harbor including the consump<br />
tion of the city, was about 33,500,000 tons.<br />
In the total movement of coal to Pittsburgh and<br />
points west thereof, there is an increase in 1910<br />
over 1906 of 4,217.101 short tons, most of which<br />
was in the movement of coal by rail to points west<br />
of Pittsburgh. The rail shipments to the Pitts<br />
burgh district increased about 1,500,000 tons, while<br />
the water shipments fell off about 275.000 short<br />
tons. The water shipments to western points<br />
were cut down by low water in the Monongahela<br />
and Ohio rivers and tbe rail shipments to western<br />
points were increased by the strike in the Illinois<br />
and southwestern fields. The total shipments to<br />
the Pittsburgh district by rail and water increased<br />
from 14,391,754 short tons in 1909, to 15,600,654 in<br />
1910. The shipments to points west of Pittsburgh<br />
increased from 21.445,380 short tons to 24,-<br />
453,581. The total shipments by rail to Pitts<br />
burgh and to points west increased 5,186,991 tons<br />
in 1910 over 1909. while the total water shipments<br />
decreased nearly 1,000,000 tons. These figures<br />
do not include any coal mined in the Pittsburgh<br />
district and shipped to eastern points nor do they<br />
include any shipments of coke. The quantity of<br />
CAN get you a large )<br />
clean core of all strata un- 5<br />
der your land tc be ex- ;<br />
amined in broad daylight.<br />
. No Guess Work. .<br />
STheJ. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
\ Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
? Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA. )<br />
, Contractor! for DIAMOND DRILLING. OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING ;<br />
coal shipped to eastern points during 1910<br />
amounted to 10,781,544 short tons, against 11,300,-<br />
162 short tons in 1909.<br />
The rail and water shipments to and from the<br />
Pittsburgh district during the last five years have<br />
been as shown in the following table:<br />
Year. Short tons.<br />
1906 37,251,690<br />
1907 36.408,049<br />
1908 30,643,943<br />
1909 35,837,134<br />
1910 40,054,235<br />
The following table shows in detail the ship<br />
ments to the Pittsburgh district and to points<br />
west of Pittsburgh, by rail and by water, in 1910,<br />
in short tons:<br />
To Pittsburgh (By rail, 6,139,959 (<br />
district ) By water, 9,460,695 \ 15,600,654<br />
To west of | By rail, 22,683,276 f<br />
Pittsburgh ) By water, 1,770,305 \ 24,453,581<br />
Total 40,054,235<br />
The large dam recently constructed by the<br />
Brothers Valley Coal Co., at Macdonaldton, Pa.,<br />
broke Sept. 16, and the water rushed down the<br />
valley. Failure to put the foundation on bed rock<br />
is said to have caused the trouble.<br />
':<br />
HOW TO KEEP IN<br />
TOUCH WITH<br />
AFFAIRS.<br />
Mines of information on every subject are at \<br />
your disposal—Just say the word and we'll )<br />
drive an entry for you<br />
USE OUR |<br />
PRESS CLIPPINGS. |<br />
Ours is the only Clipping Bureau in the greatest j<br />
Industrial Center of the World. ><br />
We have two branches— j<br />
A LOCAL SERVICE—AND—A GENERAL SERVICE.<br />
Both are splendid aids to busy men.<br />
Ask us for definite information<br />
and rates.<br />
The Central Press Bureau,<br />
806 & 908 WABASH BUILDING<br />
T.l.phon. 2164 Court. PITTSBURGH, PA.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK & KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H W. HENRY, V. Pres. 6k Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
58<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
FQN 1MI<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
PUBLISHERS OF<br />
The Coal Dealers' Blue Book<br />
Contains a Complete List for the United States and<br />
Canada ot all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron<br />
C<br />
Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coal and<br />
Coke in oar Room load lots, with capital 1438 and SO. pay PENN ratines. SQUARE,C<br />
: 550 Monon Building, 440 Deaiborn St.,<br />
CHICAGO.<br />
PHILADELPHIA. i<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres ot virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, IY tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909—IO.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
P. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jer<br />
sey wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full par<br />
ticulars, analysis' of coal, name, location and out<br />
fit of mine, etc.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VENEER & LUMBER Co.,<br />
817 N Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.
ILLINOIS COAL TONNAGE GROWS ACCORD<br />
ING TO REPORT OF THE STATE MINING<br />
BOARD.<br />
There were 150 persons killed accidentally, of<br />
which 139 were inside the mines and 11 were outside.<br />
The average days of active labor for all<br />
mines was 171, as against 165 for the preceding<br />
12 months. Out of the 881 mines in the state 114<br />
use machines for mining their coal.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 59<br />
RECENT COAL TRADE PATENTS.<br />
The following recently granted patents of interest<br />
to the coal trade, are reported expressly for<br />
THE In spite of the dull condition of the coal indus COAL TRADE BULLETIN by Mr. J. M. Nesbit.<br />
try last winter, due particularly to mild weather, Patent Attorney, Park Building, Pittsburgh, from<br />
there was more coal mined in Illinois during the<br />
year ending June 30, 1911, than during the preceding<br />
12 months.<br />
The report of the Illinois State Mining Board<br />
shows that during the year ending June 30 last,<br />
50,165,099 tons of coal were mined, as against<br />
48,717,853 tons during the preceding year ending<br />
the same time in 1910.<br />
During the year more mines were abandoned<br />
than re-opened. The average number of miners<br />
employed during the year was 39.6S9, as against<br />
39,913 for the preceding year.<br />
whom printed copies may be procured for 15 cents<br />
each:<br />
Elevator for mines, Wm. Channon, Des Moines,<br />
la.; 1,001,S18.<br />
Dumping apparatus for coal cars, H. H. Bennett,<br />
Morley, Tenn.; 1,002,628.<br />
Coal separator and grader. J. L. Cox, Murphysboro.<br />
111.; 1.002,967.<br />
Coal loading apparatus, H. J. Gilmore, Carterville,<br />
Mo.; 1,002,984.<br />
Mine car and the like, W. B. Lloyd, Yankee, N.<br />
Mex.; 1,003,477.<br />
Coking furnace and conveyer therefor. L. L. Summers,<br />
Chicago, 111., assignor to Continuous Process<br />
Coke Co., same place; 1,003,544.<br />
WJfcs&j?m£M0/c£srMmji^^<br />
The Maxler-Rodgers Coal & Limestone Co., Kittanning,<br />
Pa., has been placed in the hands of J. D.<br />
Daugherty, referee in bankruptcy.<br />
£\~ Y Y;..v;:--.<br />
TIMBER ANY SIZE FOR TIPPLES AND TRESTLES,<br />
LINING, LAGGING, BRATTICE BOARDS<br />
TERHUNE LUMBER CO.-Pittsburgh<br />
I House Building, No. 4 Smithfield St. 'Phone—Court 3457<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
FAMOUS<br />
SOUTH FORK, "ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS r<br />
O A *<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
60 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
J. H. SANFORD COAL COMPANY<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS<br />
HIGHEST GRADE PANHANDLE COAL<br />
Moisture<br />
Volatile Matter<br />
Fixed Carbon<br />
Ash<br />
Sulphur<br />
ANALYSIS :<br />
1.53<br />
- 35.96<br />
56.34<br />
- 6.17<br />
1.79<br />
B. T. U. per pound of Dry Coal, 13544.3<br />
Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory,<br />
Jas. Otis Handy, Chief Chemist.<br />
PROMPT<br />
SHIPMENTS<br />
GUARANTEED.<br />
BEST FOR STEAM AITO<br />
DOMESTIC USES<br />
Offices : 1315 Park Building, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Bell Phones, Grant 1822—1823—1824<br />
DERRY GLASS SAND COMPANY<br />
MANUFACTURERS AND SHIPPERS<br />
HIGH GRADE CRUSHED ROCKSAND<br />
For Motor, Engine and Building Purposes.<br />
GENERAL OFFICES: LATROBE, PA.<br />
PHONE 200.<br />
WESTMORELAND COAL CO.<br />
PRINCIPAL OFFICE,<br />
224 South Third Street, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
COLLIERY OWNERS. MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF<br />
H STANDARD<br />
WESTMORELAND COAL<br />
MINES LOCATED IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY. PENNSYLVANIA.<br />
This Coal is unexcelled for gas-making, both in illuminating and for producer work.<br />
For brick and terra cotta manufacture, locomotive use, steam threshers, high-pressure<br />
steaming, and in all places where a strong and pure fuel is required, it has no equal.
GOAL TRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, OCTOBER 16, 1911 No. 10<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher.<br />
H. J. STRAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matters<br />
relating to coal or coal production are invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDING, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
SEASONABLE WEATHER HAS HELPED THE COAL TKADK<br />
during the past fortnight, and in consequence a<br />
better tone of the market is noticed from various<br />
producing and distributing centers, with the fact<br />
brought to light that fuel supply in storage is<br />
not so large at many plants as has been the gen<br />
eral impression. Reports from all over the coun<br />
try show a slightly better demand, and. conse<br />
quently some slight increase in the number of<br />
working days at the mines and better tonnage<br />
figures. Operations just now are perhaps at the<br />
maximum attained thus far during the year, but<br />
indications point to further activity when the<br />
real cold weather comes along to make consump<br />
tion of fuel heavier. The decrease in idle cars to<br />
the lowest figures since the latter part of last year<br />
is a sign that cannot be mistaken, as it means in<br />
creased calls for motive power and more fuel con<br />
sumption.<br />
Buying by railroads of iron and steel for their<br />
own use has been somewhat more active during<br />
the fortnight, and this, coupled with large car<br />
orders being placed, is indicative of a more active<br />
fall and winter.<br />
Reports from the head of the lakes point to a<br />
record breaking year at the ports there, and the<br />
prospects now are that all tonnage figures will<br />
have gone by the board when ice closes the har<br />
bors and brings navigation to an end. Of course,<br />
the strike in the Canadian Northwest has had<br />
much to do with this condition, but enlarged docks<br />
and better handling facilities are not being pro<br />
vided for any other reason than that they are<br />
needed, hence the demand created by tbe strike<br />
may lie taken as an incidental foretaste of whal<br />
is to come. Shipments from lower lake ports are<br />
being sent forward as fast as bottoms are obtain<br />
able, and some boats are making record time in<br />
order to get another cargo to the upper lakes be<br />
fore navigation closes.<br />
There seems to lie little of moment in the labor<br />
situation, the matter of most interest being the<br />
efforts now put forth to strengthen the miners'<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization, and the coming election of officers<br />
in that <strong>org</strong>anization. The threatened strike in<br />
Iowa is off; Indiana troubles seem adjusted and<br />
there remains only the Canadian and Colorado<br />
stoppage of large import, although there are some<br />
small strikes in different parts of the country.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district from four days per<br />
week to full six days (according as the mine finds<br />
a market or has contracts to fulfill) is tbe rule in<br />
operations. Like other districts shipping the<br />
same way, the lake tonnage is heavy and during<br />
the last half of the month probably will break<br />
some more records. Because of good boating<br />
stages in the rivers those companies shipping that<br />
way have had an exceedingly good month and have<br />
plenty of empty craft on band, as well as little<br />
loaded coal awaiting shipment. Of course, the<br />
news of most interest in the district was the mer<br />
ger of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. and the Mononga<br />
hela River Consolidated Coal & Coke Co.. but as<br />
this was more momentous in a financial way than<br />
in an operating way it had little if any bearing<br />
on conditions other than prices of stocks. With<br />
heavy lake shipments and a good river trade, along<br />
with a somewhat better demand locally, it would<br />
be exiiected, as a natural consequence that prices<br />
would be inclined to firmness, but such does not<br />
seem to be the case and there have been soft spots
22 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
noticeable, and a recurrence of rumors of price<br />
shading in order to effect sales. These have not<br />
Deen general, however, and it safely can be said<br />
that prices generally are held to card rates, which<br />
are: $1,25 to $1.35 for run-of-mine coal; $1.35 to ably will be equaled during the present year. The<br />
$1.45 for three-quarter coal; $1.45 to $1.55 for inch<br />
and one-quarter coal, and 75 to S5 cents for slack.<br />
Tlie coke trade after a slump for a few weeks<br />
once more is on the upgrade, and although the<br />
increase, during the last week for which reports FIRST UD TU INJURED MINERS now engages atten<br />
are available, was slight, it at least holds out a tion everywhere and no better attestation of this<br />
ray of hope to the manufacturers. Figures for fact can be found than the entry in the mine<br />
the three-quarters of the year are now available safety demonstration in Pittsburgh this month of<br />
and they show that the production during the nine first aid teams from a majority of the coal min<br />
months was approximately 4,300,000 tons less ing states of the 1'nion. When a team comes from<br />
than for the same period in 1910. or a drop of over New Mexico to participate it shows to what ex<br />
25 per cent. The tonnage for the nine months<br />
was 314,679 tons less than for the same period<br />
in 1909. During the fortnight the rumors of<br />
price shading in the coal trade had their counter<br />
government's stand relative to federal coal lands.<br />
part in tbe coke trade and some sales are said<br />
as will be seen on another page of THE COAL TRADE<br />
to have been made at a reduction in price. But<br />
BULLETIN. We have no intention, at this time,<br />
in the main the producers maintained their rates<br />
of entering into any discussion of the right or<br />
and quotations were at $1.75 to $1.85 for furnace<br />
wrong of his contention, but reproduce his address<br />
coke and $2.00 to $2.25 for foundry coke.<br />
because we believe he has a right to be heard, and<br />
Anthracite continues to enjoy a heavy tonnage<br />
should be given an opportunity to state the rea<br />
with a rather sharp increase in demand because<br />
sons which led to action on the part of the Interior<br />
of the cooler weatner and the proximity of Jack<br />
Department, of which be is the responsible head.<br />
Frost. Domestic grades show more effect of the<br />
weather than does the steam coal, and the conse<br />
quent demand has been greater for the larger sizes<br />
such as stove coal. September production figures<br />
now are available and they show a heavy increase<br />
over those of the same month last year, hence pro<br />
ducers begin to see visions of a new record for<br />
the year when January 1 rolls around. Condi<br />
tions throughout this branch of the trade are satisfactory<br />
in every way.<br />
* * *<br />
ABSORPTION OF THE MONONGAHELA RIVER CONSOLI<br />
DATED COAI. & COKE CO. by the Pittsburgh Coal Co.<br />
now is practically assured. This movement has<br />
been rumored for a long time and now that it lias<br />
taken place, one of the biggest coal deals of years<br />
has been put through. Tlie passing of "River<br />
Coal" is a consequent happening following the<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization of the two companies and the ac<br />
quirement of a majority of "River Coal" stock by<br />
the Pittsburgh Coal Co. The merger strengthens<br />
Pittsburgh Coal financially and in an operating<br />
sense and makes it the largest going coal concern<br />
in the world. The tonnage of the two companies<br />
in 1910 was 22,026,238 tons and this amount prob<br />
disposal of coking coal lands to the H. C. Frick<br />
Coke Co., previous to the merger but added<br />
strength to the company in a financial way.<br />
tent this phase of mining has taken hold of tbe<br />
industry.<br />
* * *<br />
SECRETARY FISHER ENTERS INTO A DEFENSE of the<br />
"Connellsville coke goes to Canadian Northwest"<br />
is a newspaper headline. Well, it's good enough<br />
to go anywhere.<br />
* * *<br />
Mr. Coal Man, you can afford to take a day off<br />
and see those first aid teams at work.<br />
* * *<br />
Iowa miners decided to arbitrate rather than<br />
strike. They're "Wise old owls."<br />
* * *<br />
Mr. Jack Frost is due to pay his annual visit<br />
to the coal man's sanctum.<br />
* * *<br />
Government still is trying to take a fall out of<br />
tbe Coal Trust (sic).<br />
* * *<br />
Just watch the miners' politics get warm.<br />
* * *<br />
Pittsburgh Coal now is "Big Coal" indeed.
PITTSBURGH COAL COMPANY ABSORBS THE<br />
MONONGAHELA RIVER CONSOLIDATED<br />
COAL AND COKE COMPANY, DEAL BEING<br />
EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 10.<br />
The Pittsburgh Coal Co. has elected to take<br />
such shares of the common and preferred stocks<br />
of the Monongahela Consolidated Coal & Coke Co..<br />
as having been deposited under the tender of<br />
July 12, last. The company took this action Oct.<br />
9, effective at the close of business Oct. 10, and<br />
the transaction is therefore practically closed.<br />
Receipts for River Coal common and preferred<br />
are now exchangeable, respectively, for Pittsburgh<br />
Coal common and Pittsburgh Coal debenture 5<br />
per cent, bonds. The L'nion Trust Co. Oct. 10 delivered<br />
many of the Pittsburgh Coal debentures<br />
and the bonds are now a regularly listed security<br />
on the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange. Incidentally,<br />
the price of the bonds rose to 88%, while River<br />
Coal preferred stock sold up from 33 >L. to 35 by<br />
noon.<br />
The Union Trust Co. as depository has sent the<br />
following self-explanatory letter to River Coal<br />
stockholders.<br />
The undersigned as depository under the agreement<br />
between it and the Pittsburgh Coal Co..<br />
dated July 12, 1911, relating to the deposit of<br />
shares of the preferred and common stock of the<br />
Monongahela River Consolidated Coal & Coke Co..<br />
and the supplementary agreement dated September<br />
30, 1911, extending to October 10, 1911, the<br />
time for such deposit, has been advised by the<br />
Pittsburgh Coal Co. of its decision to take such<br />
preferred and common shares as sliall have been<br />
deposited at the close of business October 10, 1911,<br />
and make payment therefor as set out in the<br />
agreements referred to, and the Pittsburgh Coal<br />
Co. has deposited with the undersigned the<br />
amount of debenture bonds and the shares of its<br />
common stock required to make payment for all<br />
of the shares which have been deposited under<br />
said agreements.<br />
Notice is hereby given that the undersigned<br />
is prepared to deliver to the holders of the receipts<br />
issued by it under said agreements, the<br />
debenture bonds and the shpres of common stock<br />
of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. in exchange for the<br />
preferred and common shares respectively of the<br />
Monongahela River Consolidated Coal & Coke Co.,<br />
as provided in said agreements, upon surrender<br />
of its receipts properly endorsed, on or after October<br />
10, 1911, at its office, 337 Fourth avenue,<br />
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.<br />
At the option of the depositor, for fi actional<br />
parts of bonds or shares, scrip will be issued redeemable<br />
as follows: for bonds at par upon presentation<br />
of sufficient amount of such scrip to<br />
entitle the party to a bond or bonds; and for<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 23<br />
stock, upon presentation of sufficient amount of<br />
such scrip to entitle the party to a share or<br />
shares; or the undersigned, acting for the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co., will either buy from or sell to<br />
the depositor sufficient debenture bond value at<br />
90 cents on the dollar, and Pittsburgh Coal Co.<br />
common stock value at $20 per share to make an<br />
even share or bonds as the case may be.<br />
Tin: UNION TRUST CO. OF PITTSBURGH,<br />
Depository.<br />
The completion of the deal virtually means the<br />
absorption of the River Coal Co. by the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co., which will own practically all of tht<br />
outstanding River Coal stock.<br />
No large transactions, involving so many different<br />
interests, has been consummated in Pittsburgh<br />
in many years, which has been productive<br />
of so little criticism. While some River Coal<br />
preferred stockholders were inclined to hold out<br />
at par. the fact that about 95 per cent, of the stock<br />
in the hands of the public was deposited for exchange<br />
is ample testimony of the popuarity of the<br />
transaction. Both companies should profit by<br />
the consolidation. The moving spirit in the negotiations<br />
for the River Coal stockholders was<br />
J. B. Finley. the <strong>org</strong>anizer and first president of<br />
the company. By the exchange of preferred<br />
stock for the debenture bonds, molders are assured<br />
of a fixed income, whereas the dividend record of<br />
the River Coal Co. has been decidedly erratic the<br />
past seven years.<br />
SURPLUS OF CARS SHRINKS.<br />
The report of the American Railway Association<br />
shows that the total number of surplus freight cars<br />
on the roads in the United States, Canada and<br />
Mexico on September 13 was 70,722, and that at<br />
the same time there was a shortage of 6,430 cars,<br />
making the net surplus 64,283. This is a decrease<br />
in the net surplus of 20,000 cars during the previous<br />
two weeks.<br />
The following statement shows the condition of<br />
the car supply since March 15:<br />
1911. Surplus. Shortage. Net Surp.<br />
September 13 70,722 6,439 64,283<br />
August 30 88,866 4,325 84,541<br />
August 16 108.000 3,830 104,170<br />
August 2 130,136 2,045 128,091<br />
July 19 150,433 1,361 149,072<br />
JulyS 165.508 1,887 163,621<br />
June 21 165,934 2,764 163,170<br />
June 7 169.006 2,204 166.802<br />
May 24 168,233 S35 167,398<br />
May 10 188,847 1,569 187.278<br />
April 26 189,524 2,518 187,006<br />
April 12 187,219 1,166 186,053<br />
March 29 196,217 1,330 194,887<br />
March 15 208,527 1,266 207,261
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
T. L. LEWIS ANNOUNCES HIS CANDIDACY<br />
FOR PRESIDENCY OF UNITED MINE<br />
WORKERS OF AMERICA AT COMING<br />
ELECTION.<br />
T. L. Lewis, former head of the United Mine<br />
Workers of America, has announced his candidacy<br />
for election as president of the <strong>org</strong>anization at the<br />
coming election, in the following letter:<br />
"To the Officers anil Members 1'nited Mine Workers<br />
of America:<br />
"Fellow Mine Workers:<br />
"Every mine worker in the country should be a<br />
member of the United Mine Workers' <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
Permit me to say now, that as far as I am concerned,<br />
there will be no reduction in your wages<br />
at the end of our present wage agreement. Many<br />
rules in our present contracts which deprive you<br />
of your rights must be abolished. We can win if<br />
we keep our forces united and renieniber 'that an<br />
injury to one is the concern of all.'<br />
"For the first time since tbe year 1900, wage<br />
contracts in tbe anthracite and bituminous districts<br />
expire on the same date. April 1, 1912. We<br />
will have an opportunity to act as a unit in defense<br />
of our right. It is for you to decide what to do.<br />
"You will soon nominate and elect men to defend<br />
our interests. A large number of members<br />
in different districts have requested me to be a<br />
candidate for international president. If it is<br />
your wish that I be a candidate you can indicate<br />
the fact when you make nominations. Thanking<br />
you for the honors shown me in tbe past, and with<br />
the hope that the mine workers will be prepared<br />
for any emergency next year and that I may hear<br />
from you. 1 remain, fraternally and truly yours.<br />
"T. L. LEWIS."<br />
LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD WILL<br />
SEGREGATE ITS COAL LANDS.<br />
Since the return of President Thomas of the<br />
Lehigh Valley Railroad Company from Europe,<br />
more active work bas been taken up with a view<br />
to formulating a plan for the segregation of the<br />
railroad proper from the company's coal lands.<br />
While much yet remains to lie done in the way of<br />
details, it is learned from a trustworthy source<br />
that the management has definitely decided to<br />
divorce the coal lands from thn railroad company.<br />
Officials of tbe corporation and its attorneys<br />
now have under consideration tiie proposition.<br />
but have not yet reached a final conclusion as to<br />
the exact method of procedure to accomplish the<br />
desired pufpose. It is understood that some interests<br />
in the comiiany are not entirely favorable<br />
to the adoption of the plan similar to that put<br />
into effect by the Delaware, Lackawanna and<br />
Western Railroad Company, by which a selling<br />
agency was formed to purchase the coal at the<br />
mines, and the stock of this company distributed<br />
among the railroad shareholders. Another plan<br />
suggested is the distribution of the stock of the<br />
company, which is now held in the Lehigh Valley<br />
treasury, to the stockholders of the road. Both<br />
of these propositions have been discussed, but it<br />
is possible that some still different device may be<br />
hit upon for carrying out the idea of the management.<br />
Irrespective of the ruling which may be made<br />
by the United States Supreme Court in the suit<br />
now pending against the company, under the commodities<br />
clause of the Hepburn Act, it is said<br />
tbat the road will carry out its purpose of separating<br />
the coal business from the railroad company.<br />
The management is convinced that the interests<br />
of the shareholders would be just as well served<br />
b.v segregation, and is willing to concede that<br />
much to public opinion, whether or not the present<br />
status of the comiiany may be declared illegal.<br />
From present indications, however, it seems hardly<br />
likely tbat a definite plan of segregation will be<br />
finally adopted in the near future. It is said,<br />
however, that such a readjustment is only a<br />
question of time.<br />
COAL MINING REFUSE UTILIZATION.<br />
At the Dalzell and Broomside collieries, Motherwell,<br />
Scotland, a new process for the utilization<br />
of refuse is now in full operation. The refuse<br />
is carried by an endless belt to 2-inch mesh gratings,<br />
through which it falls into a hopper. Thence<br />
the material falls slowly on an inclined sluice on<br />
which a stream of water is poured. The mixture<br />
next passes into a 6-inch pipe, which takes<br />
it at different gradients through a special borehole<br />
to underground percolators 200 feet long by<br />
12 to IS feet wide. Here the water is drained<br />
off and is pumped back to the surface for use<br />
again. The residuum sets into a hard mass,<br />
which is broken up for building into the face workings<br />
of the pit as required. When the pipes become<br />
choked with mud there is some difficulty in<br />
locating the fault, but, nevertheless, the arrangement<br />
has proved satisfactory and economical, and<br />
further additions are to be made to the plant.<br />
Similar installations are proposed for other Scotch<br />
collieries.<br />
The Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co. has<br />
just completed a huge storage reservoir near<br />
Ensley, Ala., to insure at all times an adequate<br />
supply of water for its plants in that vicinity. A<br />
feature of the new water system is a mile-long<br />
tunnel connecting the reservoir with a pumping<br />
station.
PROGRAM OF EVENTS AND LIST OF COM<br />
PETING TEAMS THAT WILL PARTICIPATE<br />
IN NATIONAL FIRST AID MEET, OCTOBER<br />
30 AND 31.<br />
The officials of the Bureau of Mines have completed<br />
arrangements for the national mine safety<br />
demonstration, to be held at Forbes Field. Pittsburgh,<br />
on October 30-31. Forty-one mining companies<br />
from all sections of the country will be represented<br />
in the demonstration and two sets of<br />
problems of five each will be given for the competing<br />
teams. Each set will be similar to the<br />
other, so that the efficiency of the teams will be<br />
tested along tbe same lines.<br />
This plan was adopted because it was decided<br />
there would be greater interest to the spectators<br />
and greater instruction to the participants than to<br />
have the teams repeating in two halves the performance<br />
of tbe same five problems, as was originally<br />
planned. The names of the entering teams<br />
have been arranged numerically. Odd numbered<br />
teams will perform together the odd numbered<br />
problems, even numbered teams alternately performing<br />
tbe even numbered events.<br />
Each team will bring stretchers, splints, cotton<br />
bandages, first aid packets, picric acid gauze, tour<br />
niquets and two woolen blankets. The demonstration<br />
will lie held from 9 to 10:30 o'clock on<br />
the morning of October 31 and will be witnessed<br />
by President Taft.<br />
The problems to be performed by the entering<br />
teams are as follows:<br />
1. Treat a lacerated wound on the right side<br />
of the head (temple) and a lacerated wound on<br />
the top of right shoulder. One man event, four<br />
minutes.<br />
2. Treat a punctured wound over the left eye<br />
and lacerated wound of palm of right hand. One<br />
man event, four minutes.<br />
3. Treat a simple fracture of left collar bone<br />
and simple fracture of jaw. Two men event, two<br />
minutes.<br />
4. Treat a dislocated right shoulder and simple<br />
fracture of right knee. Two men event, two minutes.<br />
5. Treat conditions of a man who has fallen<br />
on an electric wire back down, clothing burning;<br />
rescue, extinguish fire, treat back and upper arms.<br />
Team event, 10 minutes.<br />
6. Treat conditions of a man who has fallen on<br />
an electric wire face down; rescue and extinguish<br />
fire, treat chest and upper arms. Team event, 10<br />
minutes.<br />
7. Treat gas burns of face, neck, ears and<br />
hands. Team event, 10 minutes,<br />
8. Treat gas burns of hands, right arm and<br />
shoulder. Team event, 10 minutes.<br />
9. Treat a broken back and simple fracture of<br />
right forearm. Team event, 12 minutes.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 25<br />
10. Treat a dislocated hip and simple fracture<br />
of collar bone. Team event, 10 minutes.<br />
The following companies will be represented in<br />
the contest:<br />
Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., Windber. Pa..<br />
W. R. Calverley, General Superintendent—1, Squad<br />
No. 1. Captain. William Brownlee; 2. Squad No. 2,<br />
Captain, Ge<strong>org</strong>e Grove; 3, Squad No. 3. Captain,<br />
J. C. Nedrow; 4. Junior Squad. Captain, Ed. Greyback.<br />
Cabin Creek V. M. C. A. Team, Charleston, W.<br />
Va.—5, T. J. Robson, in charge.<br />
Consolidation Coal Co.—6, H. V. Hesse. Superintendent<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>es Creek Division. Frostburg, Md.;<br />
7, E. B. Moore, Superintendent Fairmont Division.<br />
Fairmont, W. Va.<br />
Tlie Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad<br />
Co.. Scranton, Pa., R. A. Phillips, Superintendent<br />
Coal Mining Department—S, Brisbin Colliery<br />
Team, Captain, John Pierce; 9, Woodward Collier.v<br />
Team, Captain, Benjamin Lewis.<br />
Dunbar Furnace Co.. Dunbar, Pa.—10, Stewart<br />
B. Marshall, General Superintendent.<br />
Ellsworth Collieries Co., Ellsworth, Pa., W. A.<br />
Luce, Assistant General Manager—11, Squad No.<br />
1. Captain. K. C. Roberts; 12, Squad No. 2, Captain,<br />
Fred Gulick; 13. Squad No. 3, Captain, Ge<strong>org</strong>e<br />
Lindsay.<br />
Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coai Co., Wilkes-Barre,<br />
Pa.—14, C. F. Huber, Vice President and General<br />
Manager.<br />
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co.. Lansford. Pa.—<br />
15, Board Snyder, Jr.. General Superintendent.<br />
Lehigh Valley Coal Co.. Wilkes-Barre, Pa.— 16,<br />
W. H. Davies, Superintendent, Deringer Colliery;<br />
17, J. M. Humphrey, Superintendent. Centralia<br />
Mines.<br />
Miller Coal Co., Portage. Pa.—IS, J. H. Buckwaiter,<br />
Superintendent.<br />
Northwestern Improvement Co., Roslyn, Washington—19,<br />
C. R. Clagborn. General Manager.<br />
Oliver & Snyder Steel Co., Uniontown, Pa.—20,<br />
F. C. Keighley, General Superintendent.<br />
Pennsylvania Coal Co., Scranton, Pa.—21, Captain<br />
W. A. May. General Manager.<br />
Parrish Coal Co., Plymouth. Pa.—22. W. G.<br />
Thomas, General Manager.<br />
Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co.. Pottsville,<br />
Pa.—23, Ge<strong>org</strong>e Richards, General Manager.<br />
Pittsburg-Buffalo Co., Marianna, Pa.—24, S. C.<br />
Reynolds, Superintendent.<br />
Pittsburgh Coal Co., Pittsburgh. Pa.. G. W.<br />
Schluederberg, General Manager—25, McDonald<br />
District, Superintendent, L. C. Sarver; 26. Finleyville<br />
District, Superintendent, James Porter: 27.<br />
West Newton District, Superintendent, John Hauser;<br />
28, Carnegie District, Superintendent, H. Cattley;<br />
29, Whitsett District, Superintendent, W. Kelvington.
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad & Coal Co., Pittsburgh,<br />
,Pa.—30, W. W. Keefer, President.<br />
Portage Coal Mine Co., Portage, Pa.— 31, H. A.<br />
Tompkins, Superintendent.<br />
Republic iron & Steel Co., Republic, Pa.—32, W.<br />
H. E. Royce, General Superintendent.<br />
The Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & lion Co..<br />
Punxsutawney, Pa.—33, A. W. Calloway, General<br />
Superintendent.<br />
Spring Valley Coal Co.. Spring Valley, 111.—34,<br />
J. M. Luther, Assistant to General Manager.<br />
Stearns Coal & Lumber Co., Stearns, Ky.—35.<br />
J. C. Butler. Manager.<br />
Sunday Creek Mining Co., Poston, Ohio—36, Edward<br />
Coll, President.<br />
Susquehanna Coal Co., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.—37.<br />
R. A. Quin. Manager.<br />
Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., Birmingham.<br />
Ala.—38, Edward ( oxe. General Superintendent.<br />
Tower-Hill Connellsville Coke Co.. Uniontown,<br />
Pa.—39, L. W. Fogg, General Manager.<br />
Victor American Fuel Co., Trinidad. Col.—40.<br />
Stag Canon Fuel Co., Dawson, New Mexico—41.<br />
NET EARNINGS OF PITTSBURGH COAL COM<br />
PANY FOR EIGHT MONTHS PLACED AT<br />
$484,889.<br />
In its listing application to the New York Stock<br />
Exchange the Pittsburgh Coal Co. submitted the<br />
following statement of earnings from mining and<br />
marketing operations of the main and subsidiary<br />
companies during eight months ended August 31.<br />
1911, after deduction of all expenses of operation,<br />
taxes and interest on bonds of subsidiary com<br />
panies, $2,225,089; less, reseive for depletion of<br />
coal lands, sinking fund, $460,652; reserve for<br />
depreciation of plants and equipments, $595,949;<br />
interest on first mortgage bonds, $683,598; total,<br />
$1,740,200; net earnings eight months ended<br />
August 31. 1911, $484,889: undivided earnings at<br />
December 31. 1910, $8,443,193; total, $S.928,082;<br />
less, dividends paid on preferred stock, $1,015,192;<br />
undivided earnings at August 31, 1911, $7,912,890.<br />
The balance sheet as of August 31, 1911. follows:<br />
Assets—Coal lands and real estate, $62,-<br />
886,755; plants and equipments, $16,764,621; advance<br />
royalties, $643,070; total properties, $80,-<br />
294,447: treasury stock, par value shares prefer<br />
red, 49,282, shares common, 38,954, $8,823,600; investments<br />
in bonds and stocks—110 first mort<br />
gage bonds of Pittsburgh Coal Co. of Pennsylva<br />
nia, $118,286; 32 bonds of Northwestern Coal Railway<br />
Co.. $26.5211; !)5 bonds of Pittsburgh Coal Dock<br />
& Wharf Co.. $96,306; 50.000 shares preferred. 300,-<br />
000 shares common capital stock of the Mononga<br />
hela River Consolidated Coal & Coke Co., $6,756,-<br />
750; 7S9 bonds, 7,409,941 shares capital stock Illi<br />
nois Collieries Co.. $403,999; 49 bonds Chicago<br />
Virden Coal Co., $49,000; sundry other bonds and<br />
stocks, $205,083; total, $7,655,945; deposited with<br />
bond trustee for reinvestment in new property,<br />
$26,208; pension fund investment, $86,243. Inventories—Coal<br />
on docks and in transit, $3,64S,256;<br />
supplies at mines. $722,621; supplies at shops,<br />
$277,694; total. $4,648,571; accounts and bills receivable,<br />
$5,169,523; cash, $1,523,510; total assets,<br />
$108,228,049. Liabilities—To stockholders, pre<br />
lerred stock, $32,000,000; common stock, $32,000,oon;<br />
stock purchase surplus, difference between<br />
cost, and par values of treasury stocks, $3,733,621 ;<br />
insurance funds, $219,829; coal sales contingent<br />
fund, $58,747; depreciation reserve fund, $1,961,-<br />
188; undivided earnings, $7,912,S90; total to stock<br />
holders, $77,886,275. To other than stockholders:<br />
First mortgage bonds. $18,879,000; Shaw Coal Co.<br />
tract purchase bonds. $1,410,000; bonds of sub<br />
sidiary companies as per schedule appended. $2,-<br />
224.06i;; mortgage payable, $184,338; car trust<br />
notes, $416,000; pension fund, $87,556; bills pay<br />
able, $3,757,067; accounts payable, $3,383,744: total<br />
to other than stockholders, $30,341,773; grand<br />
total. $108,2,28,049.<br />
The income account of the Monongahela River<br />
Consolidated Coal & Coke Co. and branches for<br />
nine months ended July 31, 1911, after deduction<br />
of all expenses, shows. $1,245,782; less, reserve for<br />
depletion of coal lands, sinking fund, $383,808;<br />
reserve for depreciation of plants and equipments.<br />
$288,430; interest on first mortgage bonds, $340,-<br />
807; total, $1,013,047; net earnings nine months<br />
ended July 31, 1911, $232,735; undivided earnings<br />
at October 31, 1910, $1,631,774; undivided earnings<br />
at July 31. 1911, $1,864,510.<br />
PROMOTIONS ANNOUNCED.<br />
Vice President Ge<strong>org</strong>e T. Watson, of the Con<br />
solidation Coal Co., has announced the following<br />
promotions:<br />
John G. Smyth is appointed manager of the Elkhorn<br />
division, with offices at Jenkins. Letcher<br />
county, Ky.. mail to be addressed via Hellier, Ky.,<br />
and C. F. Ice is appointed manager Millers Creek<br />
division, with offices at Van Lear, Johnson county,<br />
Ky., vice John G. Smyth, transferred.<br />
Manager H. H. Watson, of the West Virginia<br />
division, announced that T. S. Haymond has been<br />
appointed general coal inspector, vice C. F. Ice.<br />
Mr. John Boyd Atkinson, of Earlington, Ky.,<br />
president of the St. Bernard Mining Co., the largest<br />
mining company in Kentucky, died recently at his<br />
summer home near Wrightston, N. J. He had<br />
been in ill health for 18 months. Mr. Atkinson<br />
was 71 years old and a pioneer operator in the<br />
Western Kentucky coal fields.
BANKING FIRM GIVES CONSOLIDATION COAL<br />
COMPANY A BOOST IN PAMPHLET—<br />
ALMOST A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE<br />
COMPANY BEING GIVEN.<br />
The banking house of Hambleton & Co. of Baltimore<br />
has printed and circulated a very interesting<br />
article on the Consolidation Coal Co. It is:<br />
Although many Baltimore investors are interested<br />
in the bonds and stock of the Consolidation<br />
Coal Co., probably few realize the vast extent and<br />
value of its coal fields and operations or the wonderful<br />
growth and expansion of the company during<br />
recent years.<br />
By far the most important chapter in the history<br />
of the Consolidation Coal Co.—or. in fact, in<br />
the history of the soft coal industry—is now in<br />
tne making. We refer specially to tbe work in<br />
progiess in the great "Elkhorn field" in the state<br />
of Kentucky.<br />
The Elkhorn tract comprises 100,000 acres of<br />
coking coal and land which the Consolidation Co.<br />
acquired about a year ago at a cost of approximately<br />
$5,000,000. The coal is of a most superior<br />
quality, the purest and highest grade by-product<br />
coal that exists probably anywhere in the world.<br />
It averages only three-fourths of one per cent, sulphur,<br />
has practically but a trace of phosphorus and<br />
averages only 4 per cent. ash.<br />
These qualities make it exceedingly desirable<br />
for use in the manufacture of high grade steel.<br />
As is well known, a heavy percentage of sulphur<br />
and phosphorous in coal used makes a rail brittle<br />
while a coal which has a minimum content of these<br />
elements makes a rail that will better withstand<br />
climatic changes or pressure of trainload, and is<br />
thus a highly important factor in the manufacture<br />
of rails and other steel products.<br />
There is no known coal, not even in the famous<br />
Connellsville region, that equals in analysis the<br />
Elkhorn product in point of purity and freedom<br />
from objectionable qualities. It was the remarkable<br />
quality of these deposits and the<br />
ADVANTAGEOUS MINING CONDITIONS<br />
obtaining that furnished the incentive for the Consolidation<br />
Co. to acquire the Elkhorn property,<br />
inasmuch as the company was already operating<br />
200,000 acres in the states of Maryland, West Virginia<br />
and Pennsylvania.<br />
With the extension of the Louisville & Nashville,<br />
the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton and the<br />
Chesapeake & Ohio railroads into the Elkhorn<br />
field unequalled transportation facilities will be<br />
provided. Connection with the Chesapeake &<br />
Ohio will be made via the Sandy Valley & Elkhorn<br />
railway at its northeastern terminus, and<br />
this road will connect with the extension of the<br />
Louisville & Nashville on the southwestern or Kentucky<br />
river side of the Elkhorn property.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
The Sandy Valley & Elkhorn is constructing a<br />
road—approaching this field from the Big Sandy<br />
river and penetrating the heart of the property—<br />
30 miles in length, witli grade all in favor of the<br />
load, laid with 85-pound rails, and having 4o steel<br />
bridges and two tunnels. Eight mines are now<br />
being opened by the Consolidation Co. on this line,<br />
all drift or near-surface mines, and practically<br />
self-draining; the coal vein at these openings being<br />
from seven to nine feet thick, covering thousands<br />
of acres. Next year the road will be ready to<br />
handle the output of the mines; about 2,000 cars<br />
will be built and as the tonnage increases the<br />
equipment will be increased to 4,500 cars.<br />
The Consolidation Co. is also openings up six<br />
mines on the Louisville & Nashville extension from<br />
Jackson, Ky., a distance of about 100 miles, into<br />
the southwestern side of the Elkhorn field. The<br />
Louisville & Nashville railroad is spending,<br />
roundly, $15,000,000 in building and equipping<br />
this line. A large part of the<br />
GRADING IS NEARING COMPLETION<br />
and the tunnels and track laying will be completed<br />
b.v August of next, year.<br />
In addition to the immense sums to be expended<br />
by the railroads piercing this property, the Consolidation<br />
Co. itself will spend millions of dollars<br />
for improvements on the 100,000 acres, including<br />
2,000 houses for the miners who will work in the<br />
14 mines that have been laid out on the railroads<br />
mentioned, mining equipment, machinery, cars,<br />
tipples, etc., and the building of a central electric<br />
power plant which, when in full operation, will<br />
have 10,000 kilowatt capacity.<br />
The aggregate outlay for the construction and<br />
equipment of the railroads entering the Elkhorn<br />
field, together with the improvement of the connections<br />
necessary, will be about $30,000,000.<br />
It is significant of the estimate placed upon the<br />
Elkhorn output by prominent railroad interests<br />
that they are willing to embark upon such a big<br />
outlay of capital, in order to get into a new coal<br />
field, at a time when there is really an overproduction,<br />
generally speaking, of coal on account of<br />
the slackening up of the country's manufacturing<br />
industries since the 1907 panic. It can only be<br />
because of the recognized superiority of the Elkhorn<br />
coal that the transportation companies regard<br />
it as most desirable to have these fields tributary<br />
to their lines.<br />
From the foregoing statement some idea may be<br />
had of the reach and scope of the Elkhorn proposition<br />
which may safely be said to be the most important<br />
coal development that has ever been undertaken<br />
at one time in this country.<br />
While the Consolidation Coal Co. has been in<br />
continuous operation for a half century, and<br />
HAS PAID DIVIDENDS<br />
for upwards of 30 years, the actual noteworthy
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
development of the company has taken place<br />
within the last eight years.<br />
Incorporated in 1860 under the laws of Maryland,<br />
the company originally was composed of a num<br />
ber of properties in the Ge<strong>org</strong>e's Creek, Cumber<br />
land region, in this state, and its operations for a<br />
long period of time were confined to about 12,000<br />
acres. The first year's production, in 1864. to<br />
taled 33,641 tons, and the annual output during<br />
the succeeding" 38 years had grown to but 1,753,783<br />
tons in 1902.<br />
The company was greatly enlarged in 1903 by<br />
tbe purchase of the majority stock of the Fair<br />
mont Coal Co. and of the Somerset Coal Co. and<br />
later the Consolidation took in all the lands and<br />
stocks entire of its subsidiary companies in order<br />
to secure greater efficiency and economy of operation.<br />
B.v the acquisition of these properties the<br />
yearly production was increased four-fold and it<br />
has continued to expand until in 1910 the optput<br />
reached 9,370,633 tons, or an increase of 437 per<br />
cent., since 1902, making the Consolidation Co.<br />
one of the largest producers of bituminous coal in<br />
America.<br />
The market for its output extends from the<br />
head of the Great Lakes to the northeast Atlantic<br />
seaboard, south as far as the Gulf of Mexico, and<br />
west to St. Louis, and by water transportation to<br />
various points on the Pacific coast. Coal is exported<br />
to Canada, Mexico and the Central Ameri<br />
can countries. Storage plants are located at the<br />
head of the Great Lakes and the New England<br />
seaports. From the port of Baltimore, the Consolidation<br />
Co.<br />
HAS A FLEET<br />
of four ocean-going tugs, 20 ocean-going barges and<br />
one steamer engaged in carrying its coal to New-<br />
England ports.<br />
The Consolidation Coal Co. owns the entire capital<br />
stock of the Cumberland & Pennsylvania railroad,<br />
and a majority of the capital stock of the<br />
Metropolitan Coal Co. of Boston. Mass. The com<br />
iiany also owns the entire capital stocks of the<br />
Somerset Coal Co. and the Fairmont Coal Co., and<br />
through the latter, owns tlie Clarksburg Fuel Co.,<br />
the Southern Coal & Transportation Co., the Pittsburgh<br />
& Fairmont Fuel Co., and a majority of the<br />
capital stock of the Northwestern Fuel Co. of St.<br />
Paul, Minn. The above holdings aggregate $24,-<br />
871,100 par value.<br />
The Consolidation Co.'s capital stock is $25,000,-<br />
000 and its bonds outstanding amount to $22,500,-<br />
000. Dividends on the stork have been paid without<br />
interruption during the last 28 years, the pres<br />
ent 6 per cent, rate having been established in<br />
1906. The securities of this great corporation<br />
stand deservedly high in the esteem of investors.<br />
The Consolidation Coal Co. operates 70 bitu<br />
minous coal mines, situated in the states of Penn<br />
sylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky.<br />
The far-reaching importance of its assets in natural<br />
resources may be appreciated when it is<br />
stated that the Elkhorn field alone is estimated<br />
to contain from 800,000,000 to 900,000.000 tons of<br />
minable coal, and<br />
THE TOTAL HOLDINGS<br />
of the Consolidation Co. are put at 150,000,000<br />
gross tons, or a reserve of coal ample to last for<br />
two centuries.<br />
The company's latest report for the year 1910<br />
shows gross earnings amounting to $12,712,255—<br />
which compares with $3,659,146 in 1902—or an<br />
increase of $9,000,000 over the earnings shown at<br />
the beginning of the eight-year period 1903-1910.<br />
The industrial and commercial supremacy of the<br />
United States is in large measure due to the ex<br />
cellence and abundance of its coal supplies. The<br />
widened domain and extensive operations of the<br />
Consolidation Coal Co. have made it a great factor<br />
in the industrial life of the country. The marvelous<br />
growth of this company during the last<br />
eight years furnishes a splendid example of what<br />
may be accomplished by a vital, enterprising, aggressive<br />
business policy, combined with large capital<br />
expenditure.<br />
The Consolidation Co.'s control and management<br />
are in the hands of men with lifelong experience<br />
in tbe coal mining industry and a thorough-going<br />
practical knowledge of modern methods of distribution<br />
and sale of the commodity. It naturally<br />
follows that the company's outlook is for endur<br />
ing prosperity, and under normal business conditions<br />
its productive capacity and earning power<br />
should be materially enhanced through its recent<br />
exceedingly valuable and well-placed investment<br />
in the Kentucky coal fields.<br />
Following the discovery of alleged omissions<br />
in 27 groups of property of the Pennsylvania Coal<br />
& Coke Co. sold at Ebensburg, Pa., recently, a<br />
second sale was held at the same place. The<br />
sale was made by Clarence Valentine, appointed<br />
receiver for the company some time ago by the<br />
courts of Lackawanna county and the property<br />
was bought by an attorney for a committee of<br />
bondholders for the company. It is the inten<br />
tion of the committee of bondholders to convey<br />
this property to the Clearfield Bituminous Coal<br />
Corporation. It is understood a new corporation<br />
will be formed, which will lease portions of<br />
the property from the Clearfield company.<br />
Stockholders of the St. Clair Coal Co., Scranton,<br />
Pa., will meet on Nov. 2S, to vote on a propo<br />
sition to increase the indebtedness of the company<br />
to $300,000.
COAL PRODUCTION IN WYOMING, KANSAS,<br />
TEXAS, NORTH DAKOTA AND OREGON<br />
IN 1910.<br />
Wyoming, like most of the states in the Rocky<br />
Mountain section, exceeded in 1910 all previous<br />
records in the quantity and value of coal produced.<br />
From an output of 6,393,109 short tons, valued at<br />
$9,896,S48, in 1909, the production increased to<br />
7,533,088 short tons, valued at $11,706,187. accord<br />
ing to a statement just made public by E. W.<br />
Parker, coal statistician of the United States Geo<br />
logical Survey. The increase in 1910 was 1,139,-<br />
979 short tons, or 17.S3 per cent., in quantity, and<br />
$1,809,339, or 18.28 per cent., in value. The gain<br />
in output, and the advance in price in Wyoming,<br />
as in Colorado and New Mexico, were due to the<br />
shortage of coal for railroad, manufacturing and<br />
domestic use in the states to the east, caused by<br />
the six months' strike among the miners in the<br />
Central and Southwestern States.<br />
With the exception of Converse county, whose<br />
production at best is relatively small, and tbe out<br />
put reported from coal banks, the increase in pro<br />
duction in 1910 was general throughout the state.<br />
The most important increases were in Sheridan.<br />
Sweetwater and Uinta counties, whose gains were,<br />
respectively, 333,189 tons, 233,589 tons, and 374,-<br />
351 tons.<br />
The number of men reported as engaged in the<br />
production of coal in Wyoming in 1910 was 7,771.<br />
There were 1,196 men on strike, but as they lost<br />
only an average of 11 days each, the idleness did<br />
not affect the production.<br />
The first production of coal in Wyoming was<br />
reported in 1865, one year later than the first re<br />
ported output of coal in Colorado. This pioneer<br />
coal mining was probably carried on in connec<br />
tion with the construction of the Union Pacific<br />
railroad. The total output in that year amounted<br />
to 800 tons. Five years later, when the railroad<br />
was completed, the production amounted to about<br />
50,000 tons.<br />
The coal fields in Wyoming which have not been<br />
reached by the railroads are the Henry's Fork-<br />
field in southern Sweetwater county; the Rattlesnake<br />
field in Natrona and Freemont counties:<br />
the Owl Creek Mountain field in the Shoshone In<br />
dian Reservation in Fremont county, the Fall<br />
River basin and Upper Green river field in Uinta<br />
and Fremont counties: the Mount Leidy field, and<br />
the Lander Peak field, and the Grays River field<br />
in Uinta county.<br />
The estimate of the original coal supply of Wyoming,<br />
as made by M. R. Campbell, of the United<br />
States Geological Survey credited that state with<br />
the largest original supply, with the single exception<br />
of North Dakota, which is estimated to have<br />
contained originally 500,000,000.000 short tons of<br />
coal. The areas of North Dakota are. however.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
entirely of lignite, while in Wyoming the coal is<br />
either ot bituminous or semi-bituminous character.<br />
Wyoming's supply is estimated to have been 424,-<br />
085,000,000 short tons, compared with which the<br />
aggregate iiroduction to the close of 1910 (97,234,-<br />
864 short tons appears insignificant. The total<br />
exhaustion of the beds up to the close of 1910<br />
amounted to 146,000,000 short tons, or 0.34 of 1<br />
per cent, of the total estimated supply.<br />
Tbe total coal production of Kansas in 1910<br />
amounted to 4,921,451 short tons, valued at $7-,<br />
914,709.<br />
Kansas lost heavily in coal iiroduction in 1910<br />
by reason of the coal strike. In 1909, when in<br />
dustrial peace reigned throughout the coal mining<br />
states, Kansas produced 6,986,478 short tons, and<br />
in the boom year 1907 the output amounted to<br />
7,322,449 tons, the maximum for the state. In<br />
1910, when SO per cent, of the men were on strike<br />
and the period of idleness exceeded that of activity,<br />
the production decreased to 4,921,451 short<br />
tons. Compared with 1909 this shows a loss of<br />
2.065.027 short tons, or 29.56 per cent. As in the<br />
other states Kansas prices were naturally ad<br />
vanced by the shortage in fuel and the decrease<br />
in value was relatively less than the decrease in<br />
quantity. The value of the Kansas product decreased<br />
from $10,083,384 in 1909 to $7,914,709, in<br />
1910. a loss of $2,168,765, or 21.5 per cent. The<br />
average price per ton advanced from $1.44 to $1.61.<br />
The number of men employed in the coal mines<br />
of Kansas in 1910 was 12,870, of whom 10,346 were<br />
idle during the strike. The average number of<br />
days worked was 148 and the average number of<br />
days idle was 153. The total working time was<br />
1,906,151 days and the total idleness was 1,578,027<br />
days. The average production per man was 382<br />
tons annually and 2.58 tons for each working day.<br />
In 1908, when 13.916 men were employed for an<br />
average of 1S1 days in the production of 0,245,508<br />
tons, the average output per man was 449 tons<br />
for tlie year and 2.48 tons for each working day.<br />
The value at the mines of Utah's coal produc<br />
tion in 1910 was $4,224,556, with an output of 2,-<br />
517.S09 short tons.<br />
Compared with 1909, when the coal production<br />
of Utah amounted to 2,266,899 short tons, valued<br />
at $3,751,810, the output in 1910 showed an in<br />
crease of 250.910 short tons, or 11.07 per cent, in<br />
quantity and of $472,746, or 12.6 per cent, in value.<br />
Utah's production in 1910 was affected only in<br />
directly, if at all. by the coal strikes in tbe Middle<br />
west—that is, by the demand created on the mines<br />
of Colorado and New Mexico, which possibly re<br />
duced the competition of coals from those states<br />
in markets to the west and southwest reached<br />
jointly by them and the coal from Utah mines.<br />
This increased production of Utah coals is looked<br />
upon as only an indication of normal growth that
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
may be expected to continue as the country de<br />
velops in population and industrial enterprises.<br />
The year was one of general prosperity, says<br />
Mr. Parker, to both operators and miners. Pro<br />
duction increased, prices advanced, and although<br />
there wei e no strikes for higher wages or changed<br />
conditions, some of the coal mining companies<br />
voluntarily gave an advance of 5 per cent, in<br />
the wages of their employes. During August and<br />
September, when the crops were being moved,<br />
there was a shortage in car supply, but as a general<br />
thing throughout the year transportation fa<br />
cilities were adequate.<br />
The number of men employed in the coal mines<br />
of Utah in 1910 was 3,053, and that they were kept<br />
steadily employed is shown by the fact that each<br />
man averaged 260 working days. The average<br />
quantity of coal mined by each man was 824.7<br />
tons for tbe year, or 3.17 tons for each working<br />
day.<br />
The production of coal in Texas in 1910 was 1,-<br />
S92.176 short tons, with a value, at the mines, of<br />
$3,160,965, a slight increase over the figures for<br />
1909.<br />
The total production of coal and ignite in the<br />
state increased from 1,824,440 short tons, valued<br />
at $3,141,945, in 1909, to 1,892,176 tons, valued at<br />
$3,160,965. in 1910, a gain of 67,736 short tons, or<br />
3.71 per cent., in quantity and of $19,020, or 0.6<br />
of 1 per cent., in value. The average price per<br />
ton for the state declined from $1.72 to $1.67. The<br />
relatively smaller increase in value, says Mr. Parker,<br />
and the apparent decline in prices are not,<br />
however, indicative of an actual falling off in<br />
values. The fact is that tbere was in reality a<br />
general advance in prices, and the seeming inconsistency<br />
was due to an increase in the production<br />
of the cheaper lignite and a decrease in the production<br />
of the higher priced bituminous output.<br />
Both grades showed advances in price, the average<br />
for lignite being 87 cents per ton in 1910 against<br />
85 cents in 1909, and that of the bituminous coal<br />
$2.37 against $2.2S.<br />
The influence of the coal strike in the Southwestern<br />
States extended into the bituminous coal<br />
fields of northern Texas, and the production for<br />
the state decreased from 1,112,228 short tons, valued<br />
at $2,539,064, in 1909 to 1,010,944 tons, valued<br />
at $2,397,858, in 1910. Lignite production, stimulated<br />
by the scarcity of coal caused by the strike,<br />
increased from 712,212 tons, valued at $602,881,<br />
to 881,232 tons, valued at $763,107. The decrease<br />
in the production of bituminous coal was 101,284<br />
tons; the increase in lignite production was 169,-<br />
020 tons. One county, Van Zandt, was added to<br />
the lignite producing localities in 1910, otherwise<br />
the counties producing both bituminous coal and<br />
lignite were the same in 1910 as in 1909.<br />
The coal and lignite mines of Texas gave em<br />
ployment in 1910 to a total of 4,197 men for an<br />
average of 234 days. The lignite mines employed<br />
1,131 men for an average of 210 days and the bituminous<br />
mines employed 3,066 men for an average<br />
of 242 days, the working time in the bituminous<br />
mines, notwithstanding the time lost by the strike<br />
exceeded that made in the lignite districts. Tbe<br />
strike in the bituminous mines of Texas lasted<br />
fi om April 1 to June 1, and involved a total of<br />
1,776 men or 58 per cent, of all the employes in<br />
the bituminous mines.<br />
The value at the mines of North Dakota's coal<br />
production in 1910 was $595,139 with a total output<br />
of 399,041 short tons.<br />
All the coal produced in this state is lignite<br />
and does not enter into competition with the coals<br />
of other states except as these coals are brought<br />
into North Dakota markets. Lignite does not<br />
bear long transportation nor does it stand long<br />
exposure, and the output of North Dakota is re<br />
stricted to relatively local markets. It is not a<br />
high-grade fuel and requires special furnaces with<br />
large grate areas when used for steam making,<br />
but will serve for domestic use when other fuels<br />
are not available or are obtainable only at a high<br />
price. But although lignite is not a fuel of high<br />
calorific values it is well adapted for certain pur<br />
poses and is used satisfactorily for burning brick<br />
because it is smokeless and sootless and relatively<br />
cheap. It is used in considerable quantities for<br />
burning bricks at Dickinson, Scranton and Kenmare,<br />
where experience has shown that one ton<br />
of lignite is equal in efficiency to one cord of such<br />
wood as is available.<br />
Lignite is also an excellent fuel for generating<br />
producer gas, and with the development of manufacturing<br />
industries in the state and the extensive<br />
lignite deposits of North Dakota will doubtless<br />
receive more attention as a source of power. One<br />
ton of lignite in the gas producer will yield as<br />
much horsepower in internal combustion engines<br />
as one ton of the best bituminous coal will yield<br />
underboilers .<br />
The production of lignite in North Dakota in<br />
1910 compared with that of 1909 showed a decrease<br />
of 23,006 short tons, or 5.45 per cent, in<br />
quantity, and of $50,003, or 7.75 per cent, in value.<br />
According to the reports of the North Dakota<br />
Geological Survey, 97 townships contain in some<br />
part of their area at least one bed of lignite 7<br />
feet or more in thickness, and at least 100 other<br />
townships contain beds from 4 to 7 feet thick.<br />
The lignite is generally well exposed along such<br />
streams as the Missouri, the Little Missouri, Knife,<br />
Heart and Mouse rivers. The total area under<br />
lain by lignite-bearing beds is estimated to be 35.-<br />
000 square miles.<br />
The coal mining industry of Oregon is suffering<br />
from the great increase in the production of
petroleum in California and its use as fuel, for<br />
domestic needs as well as for railroads and for<br />
manufacturing. The production of coal in Oregon<br />
decreased from 87,276 short tons in 1909 to<br />
63,241 tons in 1910, a loss of 24,035 tons, or 27.54<br />
per cent. The value decreased $10,966, or 1.66<br />
per cent., from $235,085 in 1909, to $224,119 in<br />
1910. Only two mines, the Newport and the<br />
Beaver Hill, both in Coos county, ship coal in<br />
large quantity, the shipments being made almost<br />
entirely by sea to San Francisco.<br />
SALE OF COKING COAL LANDS TO H. C. FRICK<br />
COKE COMPANY BY PITTSBURGH COAL<br />
COMPANY AND MONONGAHELA RIVER<br />
CONSOLIDATED COAL AND COKE COM<br />
PANY COMPLETED.<br />
Announcement was made October 2 of the completion<br />
of the deal whereby coking coal lands belonging<br />
to the Pittsburgh Coal and Monongahela<br />
River Consolidated Coal & Coke Co. become the<br />
property of the H. C. Frick Coke Co.. a subsidiary<br />
of the United States Steel Corporation. The deal<br />
was agreed upon some few months ago, but final<br />
transfer of titles was held up by various considerations,<br />
among them a Federal investigation into<br />
the various aspects of the sale. All adverse factors<br />
gave way finally and the deal became fact on<br />
September 30, announcement being made October 2.<br />
The price consideration was $17,000,000, the<br />
Frick Co. paying $1,450 per acre for about 7,000<br />
acres of Pittsburgh Coal Co. lands and $850 for<br />
about 9.000 in River Coal Co. lands. Payment<br />
has been made in the bonds of the Frick Coke Co.<br />
and the coal companies have turned them over<br />
to the Union Trust Co. They will use the proceeds<br />
of this sale to retire their own bonds, reducing<br />
their bonded debt and annual interest<br />
charges materially. The Pittsburgh Coal Co. has<br />
outstanding $19,337,000 in bonds and this will be<br />
reduced by $9,000,000. Outstanding bonds of the<br />
River Coal Co. amount to $7,538,000 and this debt<br />
will be nearly eliminated. The trust company<br />
has not yet made any plans in regard to the distribution<br />
of the Frick bonds.<br />
It was quite generally expected that the Union<br />
Trust Co. would announce the ratification of the<br />
plan leading to a merger of the two coal companies<br />
at the close of business October 2. Instead<br />
of this an extension of time within which deposits<br />
of River Coal Co. stock will be received was announced<br />
and such deposits may now be made until<br />
October 10 under the new ruling. No doubt is<br />
entertained but that the deal will be ratified at<br />
last and the leaders in the movement are optimistic<br />
to a degree, although deposits of shares was<br />
slower than they expected. It was said that sufficient<br />
preferred stock had been deposited but that<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
the deposits of common were not up to the 90 per<br />
cent, required by some thousands of shares.<br />
SEPTEMBER ANTHRACITE SHIPMENTS.<br />
The shipments of anthracite coal for September,<br />
as compared with 1910, were:<br />
Companies. 1911. 1910.<br />
Philadelphia & Reading 1,056,542 973,429<br />
Lehigh Valley 1,064.704 697,153<br />
Jersey Central 760,329 661,252<br />
Delaware, Lacka. & Western S49.444 723,749<br />
Delaware & Hudson 616,169 601,765<br />
Pennsylvania R. R 459.763 413.456<br />
Erie 730.130 652,972<br />
New York, Ontario & West. 193,854 243,740<br />
Total 5,730,935 4,967,516<br />
The shipments for the year by months were:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
January 5,904,117 5,306,618<br />
February 5,070,948 5,031,784<br />
March 5,996,894 5,174,166<br />
April 5,804,915 6,224,396<br />
May 6.317,352 5,679,601<br />
June 6,215,357 5,398,123<br />
July 4,804,065 4,202,059<br />
August 5,531,790 4,990,044<br />
September 5,730,935 4,967,516<br />
October 5,622,095<br />
November 6,071.746<br />
December 6,231,578<br />
Totals 51,376,379 64,905,786<br />
COAL MINING INSTITUTE<br />
MEETINGS ARE ANNOUNCED.<br />
The regular fall meeting of the board of directors<br />
of the Coal Mining Institute of America will<br />
be held in the office of the president. S. A. Taylor.<br />
Lewis block, Pittsburgh, Wednesday morning, November<br />
1, at 10 o'clock.<br />
The winter meeting of the Institute will be held<br />
in the Engineers' Society rooms. Pittsburgh, December<br />
19, 20 and 21.<br />
The Institute will meet in joint session with the<br />
Engineers' society one day or evening as the guests<br />
of the Engineers' society.<br />
The H. C. Frick Coke Co. has engaged Dr. M. J.<br />
Shields, of the American Red Cross Society, to<br />
deliver a series of lectures to its employes on firstaid<br />
to the injured. The first lecture was delivered<br />
at Latrobe Sept. 26, with others on successive<br />
dates at Uniontown, Brownsville, Connellsville,<br />
Mt. Pleasant. Scottdale, and other towns in<br />
the coking region. Exemplifications of first-aid<br />
treatment are features of each of the lectures.
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
j MINING COAL AT COLLINSVILLE, ILLINOIS*<br />
\ MINING MACHINES AND THE PANEL SYSTEM SECURE ECONOMICAL PRODUCTION<br />
) AND SAFETY.<br />
( By M. C. Mitchell. St. Louis. Mo.<br />
Coal has been mined in and about CoIIinsville,<br />
in Madison county, Illinois, since 1870. In tbe<br />
early days it was produced by hand pick, and later<br />
some machines were employed. But as the demand<br />
for coal and the shortage of labor increased,<br />
the practice of shooting from tbe solid became<br />
general. While this increased the output per<br />
man it was found to be dangerous and destructive,<br />
decreasing the percentage of lump coal and raising<br />
mining costs.<br />
About 1900, the Lumaghi Coal Co..<br />
whose main offices are in the Equitable<br />
building, St. Louis, tested and finally<br />
purchased about 16,000 acres of coal<br />
land on Cantine creek, two miles east<br />
of CoIIinsville, on a spur of the Vandalia<br />
railroad.<br />
DIAMOND DRILL TESTS.<br />
Borings made with a Sullivan diamond<br />
drill, removing a two-inch core.<br />
proved the existence of an eight-foot<br />
seam, 20o feet from the surface. In<br />
this seam, geologically known as No.<br />
6, the coal is hard and firm, with a<br />
black slate roof six feet thick and a<br />
fire-clay bottom. It lies practically<br />
level, and is uniform in quality<br />
throughout the area tested. It is used<br />
for both steam and domestic purposes.<br />
A hoisting shaft, 8 x 17 feet in tbe<br />
clear, and an air shaft containing a<br />
6 x 6-foot air compartment and a<br />
4 x 6-foot stairway, were next sunk.<br />
with Sullivan "UB" 2%-inch steam<br />
drills. The large shaft required 60<br />
days and the air shaft 47 days to<br />
reach the coal at a depth of 200 feet.<br />
It was decided to open up the mine<br />
to a capacity of 1,000 tons per day<br />
with machines, and then use the machines<br />
for entry work only, shooting<br />
from the solid in the rooms. The cross entry<br />
system was adopted and a plant installed which<br />
included 10 Sullivan class 5 pick machines of the<br />
piston valve pattern, and a duplex single stage<br />
compressor. These punchers weigh 825 pounds<br />
and cut to a depth of 5% feet tinder the coal. The<br />
main east and west entries were driven 10 feet<br />
wide with these machines at an average speed of<br />
18 feet per day of two shifts, for each entry.<br />
^Reproduced from "Mine and Quai<br />
Sullivan Machinery Company.<br />
Sullivan Diamond Drill Used<br />
in Testing the No. 6 Seam.<br />
Lumauhi Mines.<br />
by permission<br />
Shooting was allowed at any time of the day, to<br />
permit rapid progress.<br />
After the mine had reached the capacity above<br />
named, the question of shooting from the solid<br />
in rooms was raised. The grade of coal produced<br />
by the machines had proved so much better than<br />
that secured b.v band work that the management<br />
decided to continue the entire mine on a machine<br />
basis. Accordingly a second air compressor was<br />
installed, of the Sullivan "WB-2" straight line,<br />
two-stage pattern, together with additional<br />
Sullivan pick machines, of<br />
which 26 are now in use. The Sullivan<br />
compressor, which has a simple<br />
steam cylinder, with balanced valves<br />
and hand adjusted cut-off. proved so<br />
much more economical of steam than<br />
their old duplex compressor, that it is<br />
kept running constantly, the smaller<br />
machine being operated from time to<br />
time to handle the peak load.<br />
In 1910. this mine produced 461,103<br />
tons, in 217 working days, making an<br />
average of 2.124 tons per day. Each<br />
machine of tbe 29 in operation that<br />
year cut an average of 15,900 Ions, or<br />
about 73 tons per machine per day.<br />
It is leasonable to assume that all of<br />
these machines did not work every<br />
working day; therefore the actual production<br />
per machine per day is in excess<br />
of the above.<br />
It may be noted that 4,054 kegs of<br />
powder were required to shoot this<br />
tonnage, or 114 tons per keg of 25<br />
pounds. In a neighboring mine,<br />
where solid shooting was in vogue,<br />
and the tonnage nearly the same, only<br />
26 tons were produced by one keg of<br />
powder. The fact that the coal seam<br />
in the second mine was one foot thin<br />
ner than at the Lumaghi property does not explain<br />
the tremendous difference (more than four<br />
to one) in the amount of powder needed when<br />
the coal was mined on the solid and when undercut.<br />
The price which the coal from this mine<br />
brought during the above year was on an average<br />
of 10 cents a ton higher than that secured for<br />
coal in neighboring mines on a "solid" basis, indicating<br />
the superior character of the coal produced<br />
by machines.<br />
About two years ago the company changed its
plan of operation in this mine, known as the No. 2,<br />
to the panel system. The main entries are driven<br />
10 feet wide and the air courses 20 feet, with a<br />
50-foot pillar between. Panel entries and air<br />
courses, also 10 and 20 feet wide, are turned at<br />
right angles to the main entry, on 2.500 foot cen<br />
ters. The unusual width of the air courses permits<br />
the roof slate to be dropped, leaving a rock<br />
top 45 feet in thickness. The pillar between the<br />
panel entry and air course is 45 feet thick; stub<br />
entries are driven 20 feet wide, with a 40-foot<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
barrier pillar, and are 1,200 feet, center to center.<br />
They are 1.200 feet deep, leaving a pillar 80 feet<br />
thick between the two halves of the panel. A<br />
protection pillar, 60 feet thick, is left on each side<br />
of the main and panel entry systems. Rooms<br />
are turned on 65-foot centers from the stub en<br />
tries, so that there are 18 rooms on each half of<br />
the double entry, or 36 in the panel. The rooms<br />
are carried 40 feet wide, leaving a 25-foot pillar,<br />
and are 200 feet deep. A 10-foot pillar is left between<br />
butting room faces, as each panel is kept in-
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
dependent, and no rooms or entries are broken to<br />
gether. The first room turned from each stub<br />
entry is placed so as to leave a 60-foot pillar be<br />
tween the rib and the panel entry, and on the<br />
stub entries turned first on the panel entry 60<br />
Sullivan Electric Continuous Coal Cutter Crossing<br />
the Face in Lumaghi No. 2 Mine.<br />
feet of coal is left between the room face and the<br />
main entry for protection.<br />
Last January a chain mining machine of the<br />
Sullivan continuous cutting type was placed in<br />
the mine for a trial, and given an independent<br />
territory to cut,<br />
to determine its<br />
capacity. After<br />
squaring up the<br />
places assigned to<br />
it, this machine<br />
was more than<br />
able to cover tbe<br />
ground, and is<br />
now producing<br />
250 tons per day<br />
in a running time<br />
of six to seven<br />
hours.<br />
In blasting out<br />
the coal after this<br />
machine it was<br />
found at first that<br />
the face was not<br />
left square. Tbe<br />
kerf or height of<br />
mining is six<br />
inches, the depth<br />
of the cut 6'._,<br />
feet. and the<br />
height of coal 7 1 ':<br />
to 8 feet, by 40<br />
feet in width.<br />
The first practice<br />
was to shoot the<br />
room "double" with four holes. This method pro<br />
duced only as much coal per keg of powder as<br />
could be secured after the pick machine, mining<br />
to 5'j feet. A new system of shooting was then<br />
tried, employing three holes, one in the center<br />
and one on each rib; the holes are three feet from<br />
the bottom and drilled level to the back of the<br />
mining. This brings the coal down in such shape<br />
that all impurities are taken from it in loading,<br />
making the coal clean. Three holes are then<br />
drilled in the top coal; this takes a very small<br />
amount of powder, and the coal thus shot is easy<br />
to load, as almost all of it passes over a six-inch<br />
screen. This system of shooting leaves the rib<br />
and face perfectly square, and it is also found<br />
that one-half the amount of roof timbers are<br />
needed, as compared with those formerly neces<br />
sary when shooting four holes and using a considerably<br />
larger amount of powder.<br />
The first fan installed in this mine was a Cham<br />
pion ventilator with reversible wooden hood. This<br />
fan had a capacity of 60,000 cubic feet of air per<br />
minute against a two-inch water gauge, and provided<br />
good ventilation until the mine reached a<br />
capacity of about 1,800 tons per day. When the<br />
present tonnage of about 2,500 tons per day was<br />
reached, it was found that a larger fan was needed.<br />
Owing to the size of the air shaft it was neces<br />
sary to provide a fan of large capacity to work<br />
against high pressure. A Sullivan 10-foot, all<br />
steel, reversible fan was therefore installed, with<br />
a capacity of 250,000 cubic feet of air against a<br />
six-inch water gauge. The fan is housed in a<br />
brick building, with a tunnel of brick and con-
erete to the shaft, making it entirely fireproof.<br />
As yet, it has been necessary to run at only half<br />
speed, and the fan is uroduoing 125,000 cubic feet<br />
against a water gauge of 2.1 inches. There are<br />
four splits in the air, about 30,000 cubic feet per<br />
split. All overcasts are built of concrete and<br />
steel.<br />
The sketch shows the arrangement of the shaft<br />
bottom. The mine is divided, half of the work<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
ings on the west side and half on the east side.<br />
There are three tracks to the bottom of the shaft;<br />
one a passing track, and two for loads and empties,<br />
with a diamond on the loaded car side and a<br />
diamond on the empty car side. All coal is<br />
caged on the east side of the shaft. Two 13-ton<br />
electric locomotives haul the coal and distribute<br />
the empty cars. The motor from the east side<br />
pulls in on the straight track, and thence into the<br />
empty car track, getting the empties and returning<br />
to the east workings. The motor from the<br />
west side comes in to the bottom over the passing<br />
track, crosses the east load track and leaves<br />
its cars on an elevated load track on the south<br />
side. The elevated track is so arranged that<br />
the cars will drop by gravity into the bottom.<br />
This track to tbe bottom bas a capacity of 70<br />
loaded cars. The motor then returns to the passing<br />
track, and the west end of the bottom, taking<br />
its cars from either of the "empty" tracks.<br />
The empty cars can be taken from either end<br />
of the tracks, so that motors will not conflict<br />
with one another. A waiting room is provided<br />
for the miners, so that when it is time for them<br />
to go on top they come in turns and go up 10<br />
men on a cage. This waiting room is arranged<br />
so that the east and west men come to it in turn<br />
and pass out the same way; seats are provided<br />
for 300 men. The room is lighted with electric<br />
lights and is well ventilated. A car repair shop<br />
and a concrete and steel stable for the mules are<br />
also on the bottom. The stable is between the<br />
intake and exhaust of the air, to secure proper<br />
ventilation.<br />
The cars used have a capacity of 2V, tons each<br />
and are made of wood. The equipment is being<br />
changed as rapidly as possible to consist of steel<br />
3'2-ton cars with brass bearings, which are more<br />
easily handled. This change, when completed,<br />
will mean an increase in production from 2,500<br />
to 3,000 tons per day, as the territory is now<br />
developed for that tonnage and all the other<br />
equipment is of ample capacity.<br />
The cars are hoisted in self-dumping cages by<br />
a 20 x 36-inch slide valve hoist, with a six-foot<br />
drum. The tipple has four tracks. The coal<br />
is dumped onto shaker screens, with a compressed<br />
air apron for handling the lump coal. By this<br />
means the coal is very thoroughly screened and<br />
sized to suit market conditions. All the fine coal<br />
is sent to tbe washer, and sized from No. 1 to<br />
No. 5. inclusive.<br />
The power plant contains the hoist mentioned.<br />
the two air compressors, and a 150-K. W. direct<br />
connected generator, driven by a battery of eight<br />
72-inch by 18-foot return fire tubular boilers. A<br />
new power plant, now in course of construction,<br />
will contain alternating current generators to provide<br />
2,000 K. W. at 2,200 volts. This plant will
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
be used to light the city of CoIIinsville as well<br />
as for power at the washer and mine. The 150-<br />
K. W. generator is being replaced by a 500-K. W.<br />
motor generator set, for supplying direct current<br />
to the locomotives<br />
and continuous electric<br />
coal cutters, of<br />
which more are to<br />
be installed. A well<br />
equipped machine<br />
shop takes care of<br />
all repairs.<br />
The No. 3 mine of<br />
this company, oper<br />
ating in the same<br />
seam at CoIIinsville,<br />
is equipped with a<br />
steel tipple, selfdumping<br />
cages and<br />
shaker screens. The<br />
coal from this opening<br />
is sold chiefly to<br />
large steam plants<br />
on contract. It is<br />
mined by 13 Sullivan<br />
S25-pound pick machines<br />
driven by a Sullivan "WB-2" straight-line.<br />
two-stage air compressor with a 22 x 24-inch steam<br />
cylinder and 24 and 14V, x 24-inch air cylinders.<br />
A motor generator set is now being installed. The<br />
present output is about 950 tons per day.<br />
Messrs. Louis F. Lumaghi, president; Joseph D.<br />
Lumaghi, secretary and treasurer; W. T. Scully,<br />
superintendent, and Mr. Wandless, master me<br />
chanic.<br />
The Fan House, Showing the Simplicity of the Structure Necessary for tlie Sullivan Fan.<br />
Data and photographs for this article were ob<br />
tained through the courtesy and assistance of<br />
James B. Clark of Baltimore has filed suit<br />
to compel L. T.<br />
Brandenburg to<br />
create a voting<br />
trust of 2,993<br />
shares of an en<br />
tire issue of 3,000<br />
shares of the<br />
Brandenburg Coal<br />
Mining Co., a<br />
Pennsylvania cor<br />
poration. It is re<br />
cited that the<br />
two agreed to buy<br />
the property of<br />
the Penwood Coal<br />
Co., in receiver<br />
ship, and the pe-<br />
tiononer says that<br />
he and others en<br />
dorsed a $25,000<br />
note to pay off<br />
the receivership,<br />
and give the new<br />
Lumaghi No. 2 Mine, the Bot ° m - company a work<br />
ing capital. It is claimed that all but seven<br />
shares of stock were to be transferred to voting<br />
trustees, but that Mr. Brandenburg now refuses<br />
to do this.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
CHEAP COAL<br />
By Thomas L. Lewis. Ex-President United Mine Workers of America.<br />
The onward march of civilization has brought<br />
with it wonderful changes in life, and is continually<br />
changing the commercial and political relation<br />
of all nations. Within those countries where<br />
the people have the greatest measure of liberty,<br />
they have the highest standard of education. The<br />
developed intellect of the human being is solving<br />
many of the big problems of our agricultural, commercial,<br />
industrial, educatiiual and Christian development.<br />
The great problem of how to abolish<br />
poverty seems to receive very little attention, even<br />
from the progressive men and women of the present<br />
day.<br />
It is remarkable how distance has been annihilated<br />
by modern methods of travel. It is wonderful<br />
how quickly our thoughts can be flashed<br />
around the world. It is marvelous, that with all<br />
the tremendous physical and mental forces at<br />
work in every country, no definite plan has yet<br />
been devised to abolish the unjust conditions that<br />
surround the masses of the people. The nations<br />
of the earth are becoming better educated and<br />
more enlightened. As this condition of our existence<br />
gathers force there will be a more united<br />
and determined effort made to remedy the evils<br />
that now exist and afflict the human family.<br />
The country in which we live is comparatively<br />
new. Our commercial and industrial development<br />
has become the envy of nearly all the nations<br />
of the world. In connection with our industrial<br />
and commercial progress, both can be traced directly<br />
to the natural resources of our country.<br />
This applies especially to coal and our ability to<br />
produce cheap fuel. There is no commodity as<br />
important as coal. There is no commodity more<br />
valuable than coal. There is no commodity produced<br />
as cheap as coal, that is commercially cheap.<br />
Cheap fuel is only cheap as a commercial proposition.<br />
There is no occupation as dangerous as<br />
mining. There is no industry in which there is<br />
such a reckless disregard of human life as in coal<br />
mining. There is no industry in which there is<br />
such a useless waste of one of the most valuable<br />
of our natural resources. There is a cause for<br />
this condition and there must be a remedy.<br />
The importance of the mining industry is not<br />
generally realized, and a few facts are herewith<br />
given as a matter of information. In the year<br />
1910. there were directly employed in and around<br />
the coal mines of the country, over 700,000 mine<br />
workers. Add to this large number the hundreds<br />
of thousands of people employed in the mills and<br />
factories and on our railroads, and we quickly<br />
realize that the number of people depending on<br />
the mining industry for employment numbers mil<br />
lions. As an industrial proposition, coal mining<br />
is a big problem. When you attempt to consider<br />
what coal is to the comforts of home life there<br />
is no means of calculating its value.<br />
A miners' occupation is dangerous under the<br />
most favorable conditions of employment. When<br />
we stop to think that in hundreds of mines, in<br />
addition to the danger constantly surrounding the<br />
individual miner, the lives of several hundred<br />
men in one mine depend entirely on the care of<br />
any single individual working in the mines. The<br />
dangerous gases encountered in coal mines make<br />
this condition possible. It is not generally understood<br />
that more than three out of every one<br />
thousand persons employed in the mine lose their<br />
lives annually, as a result of what is known as<br />
accidents. Few people seem to realize that the<br />
lives of 20,000 mine workers have been hurled into<br />
eternity within a 10-year period. This terrible<br />
loss of life is charged to "accidents," but in reality<br />
a majority of the lives sacrificed can be prevented.<br />
In fact, the deplorable condition in the coal mining<br />
industry can be traced to cheap fuel, or modern<br />
commercialism, which plates a higher value<br />
on wealth than on human life.<br />
It is not generally known that in many of the<br />
bituminous mining districts, fully 50 per cent, of<br />
the coal in an acre is left in the ground, with no<br />
possible hope of every being recovered. Coal is<br />
a commodity that cannot be replaced when it is<br />
once exhausted. It is too valuable a commodity<br />
to waste one-half of it in the development of any<br />
mine. To permanently lose one-half of one of our<br />
most valuable natural resources, is a reckless disregard<br />
for the welfare of future generations of<br />
people.<br />
The willful destruction of life and the unnecessary<br />
waste of our fuel resources can be traced directly<br />
to the "cheap" standard which the mining<br />
industry occupies in the commercial world. Competition<br />
for trade has reduced the celling price of<br />
coal to such a point that the miner does not receive<br />
the wages to which he is entitled in following<br />
the most dangerous and disagreeable occupation<br />
in the country. The price received for a ton<br />
of coal compels the mine owner to use the most<br />
rigid methods of economy in the production of<br />
coal.<br />
Cheap fuel means opposition to the enactment<br />
of laws for the safety of the lives of the miners.<br />
Cheap fuel means neglect to provide such safeguards<br />
as will protect the health of the mine<br />
workers. Cheap fuel means that the highest<br />
standard of efficiency is not used in the protection<br />
of human life. Cheap fuel means the pro-
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
duction of coal at the least possible cost in order<br />
that profit on investment may lie assured. Cheap<br />
fuel means that millions of tons of coal are wasted<br />
annually by being left in tbe ground with no way<br />
to recover it in the future. Cheap fuel means<br />
that as a nation we are lending our aid to the<br />
reckless sacrifice of human life and a foolish waste<br />
of our fuel resources.<br />
There is a remedy, but people must first understand<br />
the necessity for doing something to pro<br />
tect the lives of the miners and conserve the re<br />
sources of tbe country. Those who are connected<br />
with the mining industry should work for the<br />
establishment of a minimum standard in the sell<br />
ing price of coal. This may be construed to be<br />
a movement in restraint of trade, but what is for<br />
the good of the nation should receive the encouragement<br />
of all the people. In a future article I<br />
shall have something to say about the remedy.<br />
GERMAN COAL INVADES CARDIFF MARKETS<br />
IN EUROPE AND SOUTH AMERICA.<br />
U. S. Consul Lorin A. Lathrop. stationed at Cardiff,<br />
Wales, reports the increasing loss of markets<br />
to Cardiff through the incessant labor troubles in<br />
South Wales coal fields.<br />
Eager agents of the Westphalian Coal Syndicate<br />
have been pushing German coals in every port in<br />
the Mediterranean, and have even succeeded in getting<br />
one cargo at least into Buenos Aires. These<br />
are markets which have been exclusively supplied<br />
from Britain and principally from South Wales.<br />
The Germans have now. however, secured so firm<br />
a foothold that a Cardiff journal admits that "years<br />
of commercial nursing" will be necessary to re<br />
cover the lost ground. "In a number of cases."<br />
continues the journal, "the trade will never be regained."<br />
The half year 1911, as compared with the first<br />
six months of 1910, shows thus an increase of<br />
considerably over 1,500,000 tons. Almost all of<br />
this increase represents a displacement of British<br />
coal. Unofficial estimates of German shipments<br />
for July, 1911, indicate the enormous increase<br />
over the corresponding month of 1910 of nearly<br />
800,000 tons. Nothing could more clearly illustrate<br />
the extraordinary energy and quickness of<br />
the Germans in taking advantage of an opening.<br />
The question of freight is doubtless a handicap to<br />
the United States, but it is bard to understand<br />
why the favorable conditions should not have been<br />
taken advantage of by American exporters. German<br />
coal, too, has had to surmount an obstacle<br />
thought usually to be fatal to coal shipments—distance<br />
from tidewater. Their port of shipment is<br />
Rotterdam.<br />
<strong>•</strong> PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS <strong>•</strong><br />
The sales department of the O'Gara Coal Co..<br />
Chicago, has been redistributing the work of its<br />
selling force owing to the constantly growing<br />
pressure upon it. Thomas S. Jones has, in addi<br />
tion to his duties as treasurer, taken charge of<br />
the general sales end, J. R. McFarland, assistant<br />
sales manager, now devoting his entire time to<br />
the disposal of the output of the Harrisburg<br />
mines. J. H. Moran is in charge of the sales<br />
force in the balance of the Illinois field. E. H.<br />
Irwin, well known to the trade, has been placed<br />
in charge of the detail work of the selling department.<br />
Effective October 15 a radical change will be<br />
made in the freight depot <strong>org</strong>anization of the Baltimore<br />
& Ohio railroad in Connellsville. Pa. A<br />
separate coal and coke billing agency will be estab<br />
lished, with offices at the scales, in the upper yards.<br />
The local agency and the coal and coke shipments<br />
both have been in charge of W. H. Towzey.<br />
It is reported that the Reading, which for some<br />
time past has been drilling near its West Shenandoah<br />
colliery, trying to locate the Mammoth vein<br />
and the Seven-foot vein, has been successful in<br />
both instances. The Mammoth vein was found to<br />
be 25 feet thick at that point, while the Seven-foot<br />
vein proved to be full size.<br />
The coal rate for the last trip and winter storage<br />
from Cleveland, O., to the Canadian head of<br />
the lakes has been fixed at 60 cents and a number<br />
of big carriers have been chartered at that<br />
figure. More capacity is wanted and some more<br />
tonnage will probably be lined up before the close<br />
of navigation.<br />
The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co. has ben at<br />
work laying a branch road to an immense culm<br />
bank in the very heart of Lansford, Pa., and it is<br />
the intention of the company to remove it as<br />
soon as possible. The ground is valuable and<br />
will give room for scores of dwellings.<br />
Chief of the Department of Mines J. E. Roderick<br />
of Pennsylvania held a conference ou Oct. 4 at<br />
Altoona, Pa., with the mine inspectors of the<br />
bituminous district of Central Pennsylvania. The<br />
inspectors took up and discussed matters pertinent<br />
to their work in this field.<br />
The annual meeting of the New York State retailers<br />
usually held in Albany in October is being<br />
looked forward to with pleasant anticipation by<br />
the members who had such a fine time last year<br />
under the auspices of the Schenectady coal dealers.
The Jeffrey Manufacturing company, of Colum<br />
bus, Ohio, will have a very elaborate exhibit at<br />
the American Mining Congress which meets in<br />
Chicago the latter part of ibis month. Headquarters<br />
will be at the La Salle Hotel, and tbe<br />
eighteenth floor will be set aside for exhibits.<br />
Several rooms have been procured for Ihe Jeffreydisplay<br />
and will be in charge of Mr. S. B. Belden,<br />
Manager of the Mining Department, and Mr.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e C. Herst. Manager of tbe Elevating and<br />
Conveying Department. There will be on ex<br />
hibition several hundred large photographs show<br />
ing installations of coal mining machinery, lie-<br />
ginning with the handling of coal from the vein,<br />
loading it in cars and underground systems of<br />
haulage, including various designs of Jeffrey locomotives,<br />
coal cutters and coal drills. Systems of<br />
car haulage with chain and (able and other types<br />
of car dumps for handling the coal at the tipple<br />
and breaker, and methods of screening and loading,<br />
including various types of elevating systems<br />
around coal pockets and tbe interior of metal<br />
mines, will also be shown. Visitors to the Con<br />
gress will do well to pay a visit to this exhibit.<br />
The Ingersoll-Rand Co. of New York have is<br />
sued a pamphlet describing their class "PB" Du<br />
plex Power-driven Air Compressors, one of tlie<br />
four types developed b.v them. This compressor<br />
is designed for rope or belt drive and is of the<br />
familiar duplex type, with the air cylinders close<br />
coupled to the frame and a central driving wheel.<br />
It is marked by rugged strength, ample reserve<br />
power and unlimited capacity for hard work. All<br />
the recognized advantages of the duplex construc<br />
tion are embodied in it, the balanced construction<br />
with quartered cranks effecting an equalization of<br />
impulses; the reduction of operation stresses by<br />
this balanced construction; the ease with which<br />
the air cylinders can be compounded, securing the<br />
attendant compound economies without an in<br />
creased number of parts. The choking intake<br />
controller is furnished on "PB" compressors on<br />
order. This is a throttling or choking valve<br />
placed on the compressor intake, furnishing regulation<br />
under changing load by varying the volume<br />
of air admitted and compressed.<br />
The Ottumwa Box Car Loader Co. report sales<br />
during a week past of an electric box car loader<br />
to Marvin Ebersbach of Pomeroy, 0., and of a<br />
steam-driven loader to the Peabody Coal Co.. of<br />
Chicago and Marion. 111. They have also made<br />
shipments of loaders within the past two weeks<br />
to the Chinook Coal Co. of Lethbridge, Alberta,<br />
the Diamond Coal Co.. of Diamond City. Alberta,<br />
and of a steam-driven cradle loader to tbe Leth<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
bridge Collieries Co., of Kipp, Alberta. Within<br />
a few days previous to tbe shipments mentioned.<br />
the company furnished a steam-driven Ottumwa<br />
loader to the McGigillivary Creek Coal Co., of<br />
Cob-man, Alberta, and are installing at this time<br />
a loader for the Cardiff Collieries at Edmonton,<br />
Alberta.<br />
The Ingersoll-Rand Co., 11 Broadway, New York<br />
City, has issued form 3109, a bulletin of 12 pages,<br />
descriptive of Class NF-1, steam driven, single-<br />
stage, straight line air compressors; equipped<br />
with twin fly wheel, center crank, enclosed type,<br />
with the steam and air cylinders arranged in tan<br />
dem. Catalog shows several views of the ma<br />
chine in section and also gives tables of cylinder<br />
dimensions, diameters and capacities. The air<br />
inlet valves on the smaller machines are of the<br />
"Direct Lift" type; on the larger machines "Hurricane<br />
Inlet" valves are standard. "Cushioned<br />
Direct Lift" discharge valves are standard on all<br />
sizes.<br />
The Dravo-Doyle Company of Pittsburgh, has<br />
taken the agency of the American Steam Pump<br />
Company. Battle Creek, Michigan. Mr. Edward<br />
F. Austin ot the Dravo-Doyle Comiiany will have<br />
charge ot this end of the business in his com<br />
mercial territory. Mr. Austin says that they have<br />
made a ten-strike in securing" this agency. He is<br />
an expert in pump practice and fully qualified to<br />
judge. Te is fully familiar with the requirements<br />
of coal mining and the other trades in his commercial<br />
territory which are interested in this line,<br />
his experience having run over a long term of<br />
years.<br />
Roberts & Schaf'er Co., Chicago, 111., have issued<br />
Bulletin No. 22, on "Modern Coal Mining Plants."<br />
The bulletin is devoted to beautiful half-tone illus<br />
trations and brief descriptions of plants built by<br />
the firm in the United States and Canada. The<br />
bulletin is an attractive piece of typographical art<br />
as well as a convincing argument showing the<br />
successful work of the company.<br />
The reduction of rates on coal from the anthra<br />
cite regions of Pennsylvania to tidewater, made by<br />
order of the Interstate Commerce Commission in<br />
the case of Meeker & Co., of Pennsylvania, against<br />
the Lehigh Valley railroad, was sustained Oct. 10<br />
by the United States court of commerce at Wash<br />
ington, D. C, which denied an application of the<br />
railroad for a temporary injunction against the<br />
enforcement of the order.<br />
The Pittsburgh Coal Co. has declared the regu<br />
lar quarterly dividend of 1 \\ per cent, on the<br />
preferred stock, payable October 25 to stock of<br />
record October 12.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
DISTRICT MINING INSTITUTE HOLDS INTERESTING SESSION<br />
AT WILKES-BARRE.<br />
Over 200 men attended the opening meeting of<br />
the Wilkes-Barre District Alining Institute held<br />
in the Y. M. C. A. auditorium on October 7. Re<br />
tiring I'resident Thomas introduced II. G. Davis<br />
of the II., L. ii W. Co.. the newly elected president,<br />
who in accepting the office said in part:<br />
"It is with a great deal of pleasure and some<br />
fear that I stand before you to-night in the position<br />
of president of this institute. | know that<br />
you bear with me that I have succeeded a most<br />
worthy person in this position. Mr. Thomas, our<br />
retiring president, took bold of this institute<br />
when it was in a tottering condition and built it<br />
up as he has already told you, to be the greatest<br />
mining institute of its kind in America. It has<br />
reached a total membership of over 1,400 men and<br />
boys in the city of Wilkes-Barre who are anxious,<br />
I believe, and expect to improve their condition.<br />
The object of this institute is my subject tonight.<br />
Contrary to perhaps most <strong>org</strong>anizations or societies<br />
we have no declaration of purpose. It is<br />
simply an <strong>org</strong>anization that has been built up<br />
like a mushroom, spreading itself in lifting up men<br />
and boys of our mines.<br />
"It is the aim of the institute to be just as<br />
helpful as possible to every mining employee who<br />
comes within the range of its activities. The<br />
object of the institute is to discuss perplexing<br />
problems with a view to being mentally helpful<br />
to conduct classes in mining and for the men of<br />
foreign speech, thus helping students of the<br />
schools and members of the institute to develop<br />
their latent abilities. The institute aims to promote<br />
good fellowship and friendliness among its<br />
members and between employees of the various<br />
companies. In the institute the members are on<br />
an equality regardless of position or office held<br />
and the discussions are frank and free. Every<br />
official of this institute is determined to do all<br />
he can to help the young men and boys who have<br />
the ambition and stamina to advance themselves<br />
in the world.<br />
"In reading the program for the year you will<br />
note that the slogan of this institute has been<br />
placed at 2,500, and let me tell you, my friends,<br />
it is not an impossibility for us to secure 2,500<br />
men and boys in this neighborhood who are willing<br />
to come, provided AVC make these institutes<br />
interesting and instructive to them. Here is the<br />
opportunity of a lifetime. Men of years of experience<br />
talking on practical questions give rare opportunity<br />
to younger men who wish to learn. I<br />
want to ask you to help to make these meetings<br />
entertaining. It is our desire to start at 8 o'clock<br />
and close at 9:30. One hour and a half is not too<br />
long to sit here in these meetings. We will have<br />
a question box, but we can not help the young<br />
man or boy who has no desire to help himself,<br />
but we are ready to assist those who have the<br />
necessary ambition to better themselves. I shall<br />
not dwell on this matter other than to say we<br />
will if possible prove that we are here for the<br />
benefit of the mining men and the men who wish<br />
to help themselves.<br />
1 know I have the support of the institute in<br />
this regard. I had intended to dwell further along<br />
these lines, but on account of the young man who<br />
is going to entertain us having another engagement.<br />
1 shall give my other ideas at another time.<br />
You know I talk on the installment plan."<br />
Thomas H. Williams, of the Kingston Coal Co.,<br />
who has been one of the most loyal members of<br />
the institution since its inception, and whose deep<br />
interest in the welfare of men and boys has been<br />
shown in the many welfare undertakings supported<br />
by the Kingston Co., in speaking on the<br />
topic, "How Can We Help the Non-English Speak<br />
ing Mine Employees," said:<br />
"This is a question that demands considerable<br />
attention, first, in the lessons that we can teach<br />
them practically in mining; second, the aid we<br />
can give them intellectually; third, the examples<br />
we can show them morally.<br />
"One of the most important factors, that applies<br />
to officials and workmen alike, is discipline.<br />
It compels closer attention to duty, and a more<br />
strict compliance to the anthracite mine law.<br />
There is more danger in the mining of coal than<br />
any other occupation, hence the necessity to teach<br />
all beginners the proper methods of mining. It is<br />
surprising how soon they will copy from the experienced<br />
man the improper method of doing<br />
things in all the different occupations of mining.<br />
It is necessary that the door-boy, driver, company<br />
hand, miner and all the officials do their duty in a<br />
workmanlike manner. Better work could be ae<br />
complished and possibly many accidents avoided<br />
if every man and boy impressed the other that<br />
the mine law must be observed, and that to be<br />
careless as a driver or a miner is an infraction<br />
of the mine law. It is a well known fact that<br />
the proper cutting of coal is really a lost art,<br />
for it is left entirely to the action of the powder<br />
and not the ingenuity of the man. How important<br />
then that the miners use their best judgment<br />
in cutting coal and caring for their places, and<br />
traveling in and out from their work, so that the<br />
laborer may have a good example to copy from.<br />
This also applies in a great measure to the officials,<br />
for they run unnecessary risks, and are reckless
in a great many cases, where if the workman<br />
would do such he would be censured severely for<br />
it. The old excuse is that he is in a hurry, and<br />
will do a thing any old way, regardless of the<br />
impressions given to others. It is really very<br />
important and essential that all men, young and<br />
old, do their wink correctly and at all times be<br />
thorough, prompt and reliable. That is the way<br />
we can help make our foreign brethren competent<br />
and industrious mining men.<br />
"At present great interest is manifested in the<br />
education of persons employed in and around the<br />
mines, and special attention is given in some<br />
places to the teaching of English to foreigners.<br />
At present in this section this is being done by<br />
the Y. M. C. A. and the Kingston Coal Co. with<br />
great success. It is absolutely necessary that the<br />
non-English speaking should understand the Eng<br />
lish language. They cannot comply with the or<br />
ders given nor understand the Fhiglish terms used<br />
in mining, unless they partly understand the Eng<br />
lish language. Courses of lectures accompanied<br />
by stereopticon views on how to do things prop<br />
erly will be of great help to them. A great deal<br />
of good is being done in this direction by the dif<br />
ferent correspondence schools. It is necessary that<br />
we have night schools established in every town.<br />
And very important, in order to be successful with<br />
such schools is that the officials take an interest<br />
in this work, and see that attention is being given<br />
by the different employees under their charge,<br />
for it is evident that very little can be accomplished<br />
in this direction unless some one with<br />
influence will encourage them forward.<br />
"Webster said: 'If we work upon marble it<br />
will perish; if we work upon brass time will efface;<br />
if we rear temples they will crumble into<br />
dust, but if we work upon immortal minds, if we<br />
imbue them with right principles, with the just<br />
fear of God and of their fellow men, we engrave<br />
upon these tablets something which no time can<br />
efface, but which will brighten to all eternity.'<br />
"The world calls for gentlemen in deed as well<br />
as in name. We should cultivate all those sterling<br />
qualities of mind and heart, which united with<br />
the graces of action, form the highest ideal of<br />
manhood. Personal influence has a great deal to<br />
do in helping our fellow beings for good or evil.<br />
Xo man can live wholly to himself, for our morals<br />
and actions are in many ways directing, shaping<br />
and controlling other men, then it behooves us<br />
to consider well what manner of men we ought to<br />
be. The quiet influence of being right and do<br />
ing right is powerful beyond all estimate. To<br />
use the proper methods of speech, of dress and<br />
of bearing will call the attention of many from<br />
their departure from the right and excite in them<br />
the desire to be the same. Let us not f<strong>org</strong>et<br />
the little things that mean so much to us in ac<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
quiring a good reputation. These are the qualifi<br />
cations that are necessary in all men in order to<br />
be of help to our non-English speaking people."<br />
Thomas Thomas, in speaking of the mining<br />
school which begins its second year next Tues<br />
day evening, said:<br />
"I was invited to make a few remarks to-night<br />
on the 'Mining School and Its Advantages.' A<br />
school, as defined in our dictionaries, is a place<br />
of instruction and under the direction and dis<br />
cipline of one or more teachers. It is an insti<br />
tution for tlie cultivation of the mind. To culti<br />
vate anything, be it a plant, animal, a mind, is<br />
to make it grow; growth, expansion, is the end.<br />
"Prior to the formation of the International<br />
Correspondence School of Scranton and tlie in<br />
auguration of the mining school b.v the Young<br />
Men's Christian Association, theoretical mining<br />
knowledge was difficult to acquire, due to the<br />
lack of opportunity. In those days, while there<br />
were a great many text books on the subject of<br />
mining, it could be mastered only by the indi<br />
vidual effort of each young man who had been<br />
loused sufficiently to do this. While we had night<br />
schools, as a rule they were held in public school<br />
rooms and taught by public school teachers. The<br />
work taken up in these schools was part of that<br />
taught in the regular day school, principally the<br />
subjects were confined to arithmetic, spelling and<br />
writing. While this afforded a good foundation<br />
it did not, however, supply the young man with<br />
what be needed. In order to successfully cope<br />
with mining problems some knowledge of algebra,<br />
trigonometry and geometry was necessary. To<br />
acquire this he must depend on text books and<br />
personal effort. Here and there, however, would<br />
be found a man who would volunteer to teach<br />
these subjects, but this scheme as a whole was<br />
not at all satisfactory and no doubt had a depressing<br />
effect on the young men in whom ambition<br />
was budding. You will find that the height of<br />
this ambition did not reach further than to acquire<br />
sufficient knowledge to successfully pass an<br />
examination that would qualify him as a mine<br />
foreman.<br />
"The opening of the schools mentioned above;<br />
that is, the I. C. S. and the Y. M. C. A., has<br />
changed all this. The young man of ambition<br />
now has an opportunity to acquire that education<br />
so necessary at the present time. Mining knowl<br />
edge is now within the reach of all who may be<br />
willing to sacrifice the time that otherwise may<br />
be wasted. The mining school being conducted by<br />
the Wilkes-Barre branch of the Y. M. C. A. is so<br />
conducted that interest on the part of the pupil<br />
should not wane. He is taught the truth that<br />
the acquisition of a certificate that qualifies him as<br />
an eligible candidate for mine foremanship does
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
not by any means give him the education neces<br />
sary.<br />
"The subjects taught in this school are so arranged<br />
that the first year's work will prepare men<br />
for the position of fire boss and assistant fore<br />
man. The instructions that are given during the<br />
second year will prepare the student for the posi<br />
tion of mine foreman. The third year's course of<br />
study is arranged to meet the needs of mine fore<br />
men, assistant mine foremen and men who are<br />
well advanced in the study of mining. It is felt<br />
that the young man having ambition sufficient to<br />
graduate from this course will not stop here but<br />
will have become a student and will remain so.<br />
It is a fact that while the young man who has<br />
delved in the breaker and mines from early youth<br />
until he reaches the age of maturity, has un<br />
consciously acquired an assurance and skill in<br />
the work of the different departments that enables<br />
him to perform his duty with an ease that is<br />
remarkable. It has been the habit of a great<br />
number of these young men to give no thought<br />
to the future. The successful accomplishment of<br />
his daily labor seems to be the whole of his ambition.<br />
"The task of acquiring an education in the past<br />
was so great that it tended to put the young man<br />
in this state of mind. There was nothing to<br />
appeal to his manhood, he thought the sacrifice<br />
too great. The examples of educated mine men<br />
were so few, and the work done by them in<br />
becoming educated was so great that the ambition<br />
of the young man was rather depressed than appealed<br />
to. Of course there were exceptions, some<br />
who looked into the future realized that to reach<br />
a higher plane of usefulness they must turn from<br />
this rut of indifference; that they must apply<br />
themselves to the study of mining. The result of<br />
the work done by these men has been very gratifying.<br />
Today a great many of them are holding<br />
positions requiring good judgment and executive<br />
ability. They are looked upon by our managers<br />
as our ablest foremen. The habit of acquiring<br />
knowledge has become a part of themselves, and<br />
I feel that it is from among these young men<br />
the superintendents of the future will be supplied.<br />
"The showing of the Y. M. C. A. mining school<br />
in Wilkes-Barre last year was very gratifying. We<br />
had a total membership of eighty-six and they<br />
were taught by men well qualified to teach in the<br />
several branches, as they are graduates of some<br />
of our prominent technical colleges and men who<br />
have made the study of mining a specialty. I<br />
will say that my opinion of the teaching and the<br />
interest taken in the young pupil is of the highest<br />
order, and I will be very much surprised indeed<br />
if our membership for this year does not grow<br />
very rapidly.<br />
"Young man, your opportunity is very great,<br />
grasp it! Do not be indifferent, you should con<br />
template, resolve and determine that you will<br />
hereafter avail yourself of every opportunity to<br />
increase your store of knowledge. Do what you<br />
can to draw the attention of your friends to this<br />
opportunity, cultivate a spirit of loyalty fo your<br />
school, thus will you and your school be benefited,<br />
and upon graduation you will be proud of<br />
your alma mater."<br />
Secretary Charles F. Johnson was introduced<br />
and after calling attention to the day class in min<br />
ing to be taught by Edward Roberts. Mondays and<br />
Thursdays at 1:30 p. m., said "we have as our<br />
retiring president a man whom we all highly<br />
respect and love to honor. His fidelity and un<br />
tiring zeal in developing the Institute are worthy<br />
of recognition and at the directors' meeting held<br />
in May a resolution reading as follows was ordered<br />
spread upon our minutes:<br />
" 'In accepting Thomas Thomas' desire to be relieved<br />
from further service as president the board<br />
of directors of the Wilkes-Barre District Mining<br />
Institute deem it proper to place upon their<br />
minutes an expression of appreciation of the loyalty,<br />
fidelity and integrity with which he has dis<br />
patched the duties entrusted to him during his<br />
three years' faithful service.' "<br />
"In order that Mr. Thomas may be able to read<br />
this even when eyesight may grow dim we have<br />
had the resolution engrossed and framed and it<br />
gives us more than usual pleasure to be the ones<br />
selected to present this to our past president,<br />
Thomas Thomas."<br />
The next meeting of the Institute will occur<br />
Xovember 11 and James B. Davis of Plymouth<br />
will read a paper on flushing silt into the mines.<br />
Music was furnished by the Y. M. C. A. or<br />
chestra, and the Institute Glee Club. Alfred Kierle<br />
of Edwardsville pleased the audience with a recitation.<br />
The Marmet Coal Co., of Cincinnati, has filed a<br />
mortgage to the Ohio Savings & Trust Co., of<br />
Toledo, to secure an issue not exceeding $1,500,-<br />
000 of first mortgage 6 per cent, sinking fund<br />
gold bonds. The amount to be issued is $650,000.<br />
The Mosgrove mine, Mosgrove, Pa., owned by<br />
the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., bas been closed<br />
and will be dismantled. The coal was used<br />
chiefly at the Ford City plant of the company,<br />
south of Mosgrove, the surplus being marketed.<br />
Tbe Union Trust Co. of Pittsburgh, as trustees<br />
under the mortgage, is asking for tenders of<br />
Pittsburgh Coal Co. first mortgage bonds to the<br />
amount of $8,817,576, to be purchased with the<br />
reinvestment fund in its possession.
SECRETARY OF INTERIOR FISHER DEFENDS<br />
GOVERNMENT IN REGARDS TO FEDERAL<br />
COAL LANDS.<br />
Maintaining that the policy of the United States<br />
government with regard to the valuation of coal<br />
lands is not open to the criticisms against it. and<br />
that it is designated to prevent monopolization<br />
and to encourage development, Walter L. Fisher,<br />
secretary of the interior, recently made public his<br />
reply to protests against that policy submitted to<br />
him last June by Representative Frank Mondell,<br />
of Wyoming.<br />
Representative Mondell charged that prices<br />
fixed by the government were prohibitive, that<br />
they paralyzed the coal industry in the West, re<br />
sulted in increasing the cost of coal to the con<br />
sumer from 50 cents to $1 a ton and created a<br />
monopoly.<br />
Mr. Mondell also said that prices for coal lands<br />
in all the working fields run from $150 to $500<br />
an acre; that millions of acres are rated at values<br />
above $180 an acre; that prices in the better fields<br />
are in excess of those charged in commercial prac<br />
tice in the same fields for better grade coals in<br />
Eastern fields.<br />
All these allegations Secretary Fisher, after<br />
thorough study, submits as "apparently based on<br />
misapprehension as to the basis on which valua<br />
tion is made as to the prices placed on coal lands<br />
and as to the effect which the classifications have<br />
had on the sale of public lands."<br />
"There are estimated to be west of the 100th<br />
meridian 620,000,000,000 tons of anthracite and<br />
bituminous coal, 650,000,000,000 tons of sub-bitum<br />
inous and 720,000,000,000 tons of lignite," says Sec<br />
retary Fisher. "The valuation which the depart<br />
ment under the present scheme of classification<br />
places on any given tract of coal land is based<br />
primarily upon the tonnage and quality of coal<br />
which underlies that tract so that the purchaser,<br />
instead of paying a flat rate per acre, pays by the<br />
ton for the coal which he buys, at values graded<br />
according to the character of the coal. Thus prices<br />
of lands underlain b.v anthracite and high-grade<br />
bituminous coals are computed at a maximum of<br />
3 cents a ton, whereas, sub-bituminous coals of<br />
only moderate fuel value are rated at one-half a<br />
cent a ton. An exception to the tonnage basis is<br />
made in the case of lignites and the lower grades<br />
of sub-bituminous coals. These are valued at the<br />
prices fixed by law as the minimum prices of coal<br />
land. No lignites are given values of hundreds<br />
of dollars an acre, nor any value greater than the<br />
minimum of $20 if within fifteen miles of a rail<br />
road, or $10 if at a greater distance.<br />
"The tonnage values placed on coals are con<br />
sidered by no means unreasonable. The tonnage<br />
value for coal sold in the ground should be in<br />
general from one-fifth to one-half the royalty value<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
of the same coal if paid for as mined, since the<br />
free buyer has large risks and interest charges<br />
which a lessee has not. The price fixed under<br />
present regulations for a single bed of high-grade<br />
bituminous coal represents about one-fifth the<br />
computed royalty value of that bed, while values<br />
of additional beds, if more than one is present,<br />
are computed at much smaller fractions. Fol<br />
lower grade coals the ratio of the government sale<br />
price to the royalty values charged for the same<br />
coals in the same general region is still lower,<br />
being in some cases only one-fortieth and even<br />
less.<br />
"The government's price is in no case higher<br />
than 3 cents per ton, and the great majority of<br />
the Western fields are being classified at from y2<br />
cent to 2 cents a ton. No land is classified as coal<br />
land which is not underlain by a bed of a thickness<br />
and quality which has been commercially demonstrated<br />
to be workable in the United States.<br />
"This system of valuation results in prices of<br />
which only a comparatively small part are $150 or<br />
niore. Great areas are valued at the minimum and<br />
other great areas at comparatively low figures.<br />
There can not be millions of acres of classified<br />
lands rated above the figure you quote ($1S0) as<br />
'the highest juice paid' by coal purchasers, since<br />
only 16,000,000 acres of coal land have been priced<br />
to date. Values running into hundreds of dollars<br />
will be found only in the anthracite, bituminous<br />
and very high-grade sub-bituminous fields, and<br />
in these only where the tonnage of coal is large.<br />
"In many, if not in most cases, the prices fixed<br />
are less than the actual market price of private<br />
lands of the same character in the same fields.<br />
For example, coal lands in private ownership in<br />
the Rock Springs field, Wyoming, are reported to<br />
have been sold at from $180 to $430 per acre. The<br />
government's prices in this field are from $20<br />
to $465, the $465 being for land with a greater<br />
tonnage than that covered by the land for which<br />
the $430 sale is reported. In the Colorado Springs<br />
district, of Colorado, sales of private land are re<br />
ported at from $100 to $500. The classified prices<br />
in this district range from $20 to $50.<br />
"It is true that some of the prices fixed by the<br />
government are higher acre for acre than the<br />
prices asked for some of the highest grade coals<br />
of the Eastern fields, but the greater tonnage per<br />
acre in the Western fields makes the value per<br />
ton asked by the government considerably less<br />
than that asked for even the low priced Eastern<br />
lands. It must be remembered, moreover, that<br />
some Eastern fields are more remote from de<br />
velopment or are subject to greater competition<br />
than many of the Western fields. The prices fixed<br />
in the most accessible and most active Western<br />
fields should not be compared with the lowest<br />
Eastern values, but with Eastern fields of the
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
same accessibility. Lands in certain of the Pennsylvania<br />
fields are selling at $2,000 an acre,<br />
whereas the highest price fixed by the government<br />
on any of its lands is $608 an acre. The<br />
difference in quality between the coking bituminous<br />
coal of Pennsylvania and the non-coking bituminous<br />
coal of Colorado is more than compensated<br />
for by the fact that the Pennsylvania<br />
land in private ownership is sold on the basis of<br />
one bed of coal, and that less than ten feet in<br />
thickness, whereas government prices for Colorado<br />
land refer to tracts underlain by four beds, aggregating<br />
twenty-three feet in thickness. The value<br />
for privately owned lands in the Connellsville,<br />
Pennsylvania, district, run as high as $500 an<br />
acre foot. The highest government price is $30<br />
an acre foot.<br />
"It is plainly impossible that the net result of<br />
the classification policy has been to increase the<br />
cost of coal to the consumer from 50 cents to $1<br />
a ton, since the maximum government price is<br />
only 3 cents a ton.<br />
"The prices now fixed are designed not to<br />
create monopoly in the hands of present owners<br />
of coal land, but to prevent monopoly by making<br />
it unprofitable to purchase large tracts for indefinite<br />
holding without development.<br />
"ln view of all the facts, however, I am convinced<br />
that the prices that are now being placed<br />
on the public coal lands are neither unreasonable<br />
nor exorbitant, and that the increase in the sale<br />
of coal lands for the four-year fiseal period subsequent<br />
to July 1, 1907, in comparison with the preceding<br />
four-year period, together with the present<br />
condition of the Western coal industry, demonstrates<br />
conclusively that the present classification<br />
policy is not open to the criticism you make.<br />
"It may well be that a liberal but wisely protected<br />
leasing law would be found to promote<br />
development more vigorously than any system of<br />
outright purchase. Such has been the case in<br />
Australia and New Zealand; and Canada has<br />
adopted the leasing system in its Yukon territory.<br />
It relieves the coal operator from the large capital<br />
expenditure of which you complain, and absolutely<br />
requires development as a condition of the lease."<br />
It is stated that the British Board of Trade<br />
proposes to establish a board of commissioners<br />
with power to deal with and arbitrate in all labor<br />
disputes. The board will consist of 12 commissioners<br />
representing in equal parts the interests<br />
of employers and employes, with Sir Ge<strong>org</strong>e Askwith<br />
as permanent chairman. There are two<br />
causes which will entitle the board to intervene:<br />
(a) Injury to trade; (b) public inconvenience.<br />
The whole scheme is experimental, and the first<br />
appointments are to be for 12 months only.<br />
The official call for the tri-district convention<br />
of the United Mine Workers of America for three<br />
anthracite districts, Nos. 1, 7 and 9, to be held at<br />
Pottsville, Pa., Oct. 31, was issued Oct. 5. The<br />
call says: "The object of the convention will be<br />
to consider and take action concerning conditions<br />
of employment to become effective after<br />
March 31, 1912, and such other matters as may<br />
properly be brought before the convention. Inasmuch<br />
as this will be a most important convention,<br />
it is to be hoped that local unions will use<br />
great care in selecting as delegates members who<br />
are well known as best fitted to represent the<br />
local union."<br />
Candidates for office in the United Mine Workers<br />
are coming to the front rapidly. Among those<br />
announced are: Michael Comer, Baird, Pa.; Patrick<br />
Callighon, Rossiter, Pa.; Arthur Blakely, Hartford,<br />
Ark., and David Noble of Jackson Center.<br />
Pa., for international auditor; John Zalenka of<br />
Bridgeport, O.. for vice president of the Ohio district;<br />
Alva -May of Cambridge. O., for the same<br />
office; Alex Susnar of Ellsworth, Pa., for international<br />
board member from the Pittsburgh district,<br />
and Charles Prichard of Monongahela City, Pa.,<br />
for vice president of the Pittsburgh district.<br />
Complaints have been received by Labor Commissioner<br />
Edwin Brake of Colorado that the coal<br />
miners in various parts of the state are being<br />
grafted by mine foremen. Two Italians appeared<br />
at the office recently and declared they had<br />
been forced to pay their foreman $10 a month on<br />
the threat that they would lose their work if they<br />
did not. Brake announces he will investigate<br />
this and other cases that have been reported to<br />
him.<br />
Because their union was not recognized by the<br />
P. D. Sherwin interests. 3o0 miners employed at<br />
that company's Enterprise mine at Karns City.<br />
Pa., walked out. The Sherwin mines have for a<br />
number of years been operated on the open-shop<br />
basis, and only recently the union accomplished<br />
an <strong>org</strong>anization against the operator's wishes.<br />
Later the differences were adjusted and the men<br />
returned to work.<br />
For their work during the month of September,<br />
1911, the mine workers in the anthracite re<br />
gion of Pennsylvania receive an increase of 6 per<br />
cent, on the rate of wages fixed by the anthracite<br />
strike commission of 1902. As the average price<br />
of coal at tidewater was $4.84 in September this<br />
entitles the mine workers to 6 per cent, more pay<br />
for the month.<br />
The threatened strike in Iowa coal mines has
een averted. At a meeting held Oct. 6, at Oska-<br />
loosa, it was agreed to submit all the differences<br />
to arbitration. The operators are to select an ar<br />
bitrator, the miners another and these two a third<br />
man. The mines that were closed down have re<br />
sumed work.<br />
First aid teams from Colorado, Wyoming, Ari<br />
zona, Utah and New Mexico were represented in<br />
a first aid contest at Trinidad, Col., recently. It<br />
is reported the winning team will come to Pitts<br />
burgh this month to compete in the national first<br />
aid meet.<br />
Officials of the United Mine Workers of America<br />
in the anthracite fields have requested permission<br />
to reduce the initiation fee for the purpose of in<br />
creasing the membership before next spring.<br />
The Fifth sub-district of Ohio, United Mine<br />
Workers of America, will hold a special conven<br />
tion at Wheeling, W. Va., on Oct. 18.<br />
Mr. Harry E. Zaring, formerly assistant secre<br />
tary of the Crucible Steel Co. of America, has<br />
been elected secretary of the Crucible Coal Co.,<br />
one of the subsidiaries of the former coinpany.<br />
Mr. P. C. Williams, formerly assistant secretary<br />
of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, has been<br />
elected assistant secretary of the Crucible Steel<br />
Co. of America, succeeding Mr. Zaring.<br />
Mr. E. D. Davis, foreman of the United States<br />
Rescue Car No. 1, located at Wilkes-Barre. Pa..<br />
has been temporarily transferred to Pittsburgh for<br />
field duty. His place at Wilkes-Barre has been<br />
taken by Walter D. Roberts, of Ashley, who has<br />
been in charge of the instruction department at<br />
Pittsburgh.<br />
Mr. Robert M. Black, formerly mining engineer<br />
with the New River & Pocahontas Consolidated<br />
Coal Co., and other companies in West Virginia.<br />
has been appointed instructor in civil and mining<br />
engineering in the State University of Iowa at<br />
Iowa City.<br />
Mr. August Naderhoff. of Dusseldorf, Germany,<br />
an inspector of mines for the German government,<br />
was a recent visitor at Los Angeles. He has been<br />
visiting the coal fields of Pennsylvania, Virginia,<br />
Michigan and Colorado.<br />
Mr. Fred M. Chase, heretofore assistant gen<br />
eral manager of the Lehigh Valley Coal Co., has<br />
been appointed general superintendent, with head<br />
quarters at Wilkes-Barre. Pa., as previously.<br />
Mr. F. S. Landstreet. vice president of the Con<br />
solidation Coal Co., Baltimore, has been elected a<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
director of the Atlantic Fruit & Steamship Co.,<br />
vice J. S. W. Holton, resigned.<br />
Mr. James D. Barkdull, agent for the Pitts<br />
burgh Coal Co. at Natchez, Miss., suffered a par<br />
alytic stroke recently and at latest reports was in<br />
a critical condition.<br />
PRODUCTION OF COAL IN CONNELLSVILLE<br />
REGION FOR NINE MONTHS OF 1911.<br />
The production of coke in tbe Connellsville re<br />
gion for the nine months ending Sept. 30, accord<br />
ing to figures gathered by the Connellsville Cou<br />
rier, was 11,981,499 tons, as compared with 16,-<br />
294,223 tons in 1910. The statistics for the nine<br />
months follow:<br />
Week Ovens in Ovens<br />
Ending. Ovens. Blast. Idle. Tons.<br />
Jan. 7 39,336 22,540 16.796 281.885<br />
Jan. 14 39,474 22,630 16,842 280,320<br />
Jan. 21 39,423 22,633 16,760 287,475<br />
Jan. 28 39,431 23,832 15,509 291.705<br />
Feb. 4 39,605 24,741 14,804 302,275<br />
Feb. 11 39,617 25,873 13.744 323,333<br />
Feb. IS 39,617 26,231 13.3S6 322,756<br />
Feb. 25 39,617 26,160 13,457 339,388<br />
Mar. 4 39,617 26,541 13,076 352,077<br />
Mar. 11 39,617 27.14S 12,469 357,471<br />
Mar. IS 39,617 2S,115 11,502 364,590<br />
Mar. 25 39,617 28,337 1U2S0 371,255<br />
April 1 39,617 28,385 11,232 368,029<br />
April 8 39,399 28.514 10,885 362,769<br />
April 15 39,399 28,427 10,972 349,475<br />
April 22 39,399 26,297 13,102 312,942<br />
April 29 39,399 26,130 13,269 300.540<br />
May 6 39,399 25,180 14,219 280,367<br />
May 13 39,399 24,612 14,787 278,037<br />
May 20 39,399 24.332 15.067 273.10S<br />
May 27 39.399 24,214 15,185 270.749<br />
June 3 39,399 24,080 15,319 269,256<br />
June 10 39,399 23,754 15,645 266,646<br />
June 17 39,399 23,604 15,795 271,088<br />
June 24 39.399 23,616 15.783 273,422<br />
July 1 39,399 23,876 15,523 275,950<br />
July 8 39,399 23,933 15,466 267,122<br />
July 15 39.399 23,714 15.685 270,700<br />
July 22 39,399 23,757 15,642 282,633<br />
July 29 39,399 23.S11 15.58S 2S4.297<br />
Aug. 5 39,165 24,377 14.7SS 290,767<br />
Aug. 12 39,165 25,823 13,342 304,044<br />
Aug. 19 39,165 25,887 13,278 313.722<br />
Aug. 26 39,165 26,143 13,022 322,157<br />
Sept. 2 39,165 25,992 13,172 347,284<br />
Sept. 9 38,872 25.964 12,903 329,759<br />
Sept. 16 3S.872 25,997 12,875 310,743<br />
Sept. 23 3S.872 26,017 12,855 317,035<br />
Sept. 30 3S.902 26,034 12.S60 313,652
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
MINE INSPECTORS OF PENNSYLVANIA.<br />
In compliance with the provisions of the new<br />
mining law. tiie Chiel of the Dapartment of .Mines.<br />
<strong>•</strong> lames T. Roderick, lias assigned inspectors to<br />
newly defined districts as follows:<br />
The districts, and the name and headquarters<br />
of the inspectors are:<br />
1. Part of Washington and Allegheny counties,<br />
Alexander McCanch, Monongahela.<br />
2. Par! of Westmoreland county; C. B. Ross,<br />
Greensburg.<br />
3. Lawrence and Mercer counties, and parts of<br />
Armstrong. Beaver, butler and Clarion counties;<br />
Thomas A. Adams, inspector, Mercer.<br />
4. Elk. McKean, Cameron counties, and parts<br />
of Clearfield, Clarion, Jefferson, Armstrong and<br />
Clinton counties; Elias Phillips, DuBois.<br />
5. Part of Fayette county; Isaac G. Roby, Uniontown.<br />
6. Pari of Cambria county; Thomas D. Williams.<br />
Johnstown.<br />
7. Part of Washington, Allegheny and Beaver<br />
counties; Charles P. McGregor, Carnegie.<br />
8. Bradford, Lycoming and Tioga counties, and<br />
parts of Clearfield, Center and Clinton counties;<br />
Joseph Knapper, Philipsburg.<br />
9. Part of Fayette county; I>. J. Walsh, Connellsville.<br />
In. Blair county, and parts of Cambria and<br />
Clearfield counties; Joseph Williams, Altoona.<br />
11. Parts of Fayette and Westmoreland counties;<br />
D. R. Blower, Scottdale.<br />
12. Parts of Armstrong, Clearfield, Indiana and<br />
Jefferson counties: Thomas A. Furniss, Punxsutawney.<br />
13. Parts ol Allegheny. Washington and Westmoreland<br />
counties; John F. Bell. Monongahela.<br />
14. Parts of Allegheny, Armstrong. Butler. In<br />
diana and Westmoreland counties; David Young,<br />
Freeport.<br />
15. Parts of Cambria, Clearfield and Indiana<br />
counties: Alexander Monteitb, Patton.<br />
16. Greene county, and parts of Fayette and<br />
Washington counties; W. H. Howarth, Brownsville.<br />
17. Parts of Allegheny and Washington counties;<br />
John I. Piatt. 7740 Bennett street. Pittsburgh.<br />
18. Bedford and Huntingdon counties and parts<br />
of Clearfield ami Center counties; Thomas A.<br />
Mather, Tyrone.<br />
19. Parts of Allegheny and Westmoreland counties;<br />
Arthur Neale, Irwin.<br />
20. Parts of Somerset county; Richard Maize,<br />
Somerset.<br />
21. Parts of Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland<br />
counties; F. W. Cunningham. Charleroi.<br />
-s-<br />
22. Parts of Allegheny, Fayette and Westmore<br />
land counties; Charles P. Byrne, 3023 Versailles<br />
avenue, McKeesport.<br />
23. Part of Fayette county; Edward E. Girod,<br />
Masontown.<br />
24. Parts ot Cambria, Indiana, Somerset and<br />
Westmoreland counties; Nicholas Evans, Johnstown.<br />
25. Parts of Armstrong, Clarion, Indiana and<br />
Jefferson counties; Thomas S. Lowther, Punxsutawney.<br />
The anthracite region is divided into twentyone<br />
flistiicls. the boundaries of which, and the<br />
names and addresses of tlie inspectors, are:<br />
1. Part of Lackawanna county; P. J. Moore,<br />
Carbondale.<br />
2. Part of Lackawanna county; L. H. Evans,<br />
Scranton.<br />
3. Part of Lackawanna county; D. T. Williams,<br />
Scranton.<br />
4. Part of Lackawanna county; H. C. Prytherch,<br />
Scranton; S. .1. Phillips, acting inspector.<br />
5. Parts of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties;<br />
Augustus McDabe, Rendhan.<br />
ii. Part of Luzerne county; Hugh McDonald,<br />
Pittston.<br />
7. Part ol' Luzerne county; Thomas H. Price,<br />
Wilkes-Barre.<br />
8. Parts of Lackawanna and Luzerne counties,'<br />
T. .1. Williams, Kingston.<br />
9. Part of Luzerne county; D. T. Davis, Wilkes-<br />
Barre.<br />
10. Part of Luzerne county; Joseph J. Walsh.<br />
Nanticoke.<br />
11. Parts of Carbon and Luzerne counties;<br />
David J. Roderick, Hazleton.<br />
12. Part of Schuylkill county, P. C. Fenton,<br />
Mahanoy City.<br />
13. Part of Schuylkill county; A. B. Lamb,<br />
Shenandoah.<br />
14. Columbia and part of Schuylkill counties;<br />
James A. O'Donnell, Centralia.<br />
15. Part of Northumberland county; Benjamin<br />
I. Evans. Mount Cannel.<br />
16. Part of Northumberland county; Martin<br />
McLaughlin. Shamokin.<br />
17. Parts of Carbon and Schuylkill counties;<br />
Isaac M. Davis, Lansford.<br />
IS. Part of Schuylkill county; John Curran,<br />
Pottsville.<br />
19. Part of Schuylkill county; M. .1. Brennan.<br />
Pottsville.<br />
20. Dauphin county and part of Schuylkill<br />
county; Charles J. Price, Lykens.<br />
21. Sullivan. Susquehanna and Wayne counties;<br />
Benjamin Maxey, Forest City.<br />
David Crawford, president of the David Crawford<br />
Coal Co., with office in the Monadnock block,<br />
Chicago, died in that city recently.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
THE COAL MINES OF DAWSON, NEW MEXICO"<br />
By Jo. E. Sheridan, Silver City. New Mexico. Territorial Mine Inspector.<br />
The Dawson coal mines are owned and operated<br />
by the Stag Canon Fuel Co., of which Dr. James<br />
Douglas is president and E. L. Carpenter general<br />
manager. The mines are in the southern end<br />
of the Raton coal field, which extends north from<br />
Colfax county. N. Mex., into Colorado and embraces<br />
the coal mines of the Trinidad section.<br />
The coal measures, known as the Laramie series<br />
of the Cretaceous system, have a thickness of about<br />
SOO feet in the vicinity of Dawson.<br />
The coal makes an excellent coke. There are<br />
but few dikes in the southern portion of the field<br />
and little or no faulting along the dikes. There<br />
is but little disturbance of the strata throughout<br />
the Raton coal field in as far as it extends into<br />
New Mexico.<br />
There are two workable seams in the coal measures,<br />
and two or three smaller coal seams, ranging<br />
from 1 to 2.5 feet in thickness. The Dawson<br />
mines are located upon the lower of the two workable<br />
seams, which is known as the Raton or Blossburg<br />
seam.<br />
The Stag Canon Fuel Co. owns about 38.300 acres<br />
of land underlain by this great coal seam. In<br />
the Dawson mines the thickness of the developed<br />
seam varies from 6 to 11 feet, with an average of<br />
at least 7 feet. Computing the tonnage which<br />
may be recovered upon the usual basis of 100 tons<br />
per inch of thickness per acre, there are 321.720,-<br />
000 tons of coal in the property, and deducting 20<br />
per cent., or 64,344,000 tons, for eroded gulches<br />
and insurance against unforeseen losses, such as<br />
mine fires, squeezes, and other unfortunate conditions,<br />
there remain 257,376,000 tons to be recovered.<br />
The topography of tbe field favors the economical<br />
and rapid development of the coal. The<br />
eastern projection of the elevated table land has<br />
been eroded, exposing the green shales<br />
BELOW THE COAL MEASURES,<br />
and leaving a bold escarpment along the entire<br />
side, whereon each stratum and coal seam is distinctly<br />
identified. The Vermejo river and a few<br />
small canons or gulches intersect the land in such<br />
manner as to expose a crop line which aggregates<br />
a length of about 40 miles. From these exposures<br />
the coal seam may be developed by as many<br />
openings as are necessary to supply the demand<br />
for the product. At present five openings are in<br />
operation, known as mines Nos. 1, 2. 4, 5 and 6.<br />
Mines Nos. 3 and 5 were connected by entries<br />
more than a mile long, between Rail canon and<br />
the Vermejo river. Mines Nos. 1 and 2, located<br />
<strong>•</strong>Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers.<br />
in Rail canon, have entries driven into the coal<br />
for more than a mile; the coal at the faces shows<br />
a thickness of 8 feet 4 inches, and is apparently<br />
cleaner than that near the outcrop. All of the<br />
mines are opened by drifts, which are rendered<br />
practicable owing to the continuous outcrop of<br />
the coal and the easy and constant dip of the<br />
seam, from N 10° W to N 30° W.<br />
The system of mining is by triple main entries,<br />
double cross-entries, room and pillar, and robbing<br />
on retreat, when the district becomes exhausted.<br />
The width of main entries and cross-entries and<br />
air-courses is 9 feet; the height of air-courses, 6<br />
feet 6 inches; the height of roads, 6 feet; room<br />
necks are 20 feet long; average width of rooms,<br />
24 feet; average length of rooms, 350 feet; distance<br />
between room centers, 50 feet. The coal<br />
is hauled by mules from the rooms to the partings<br />
within the mine, whence it is brought to the outside<br />
yards by electric locomotives, of which there<br />
are 10, of the Jeffrey. Westinghouse and Goodman<br />
types. A system of electric signal lights is used,<br />
a red light hanging beside the regular mine light.<br />
As the motor enters each block a red light is<br />
turned on automatically to give warning that a<br />
car is coming on that block. Mines Nos. 1 and 2<br />
are ventilated by two Vulcan fans, 24 feet by S<br />
feet, exhausting, but reversible. These fans are<br />
driven by two 50-horsepower alternating current<br />
induction motors of slip ring, variable speed type.<br />
There are also auxiliary, direct current 50-horsepower<br />
motors, which<br />
CAN' HE RUN INDEPENDENTLY<br />
in case of emergency. Each fan, operating at 60<br />
revolutions per minute, and a pressure of 1.2<br />
inches water gauge, produces an intake ventilating<br />
current of about 80.000 cubic feet per minute.<br />
Mines Nos. 4 and 5 are ventilated by two Cole<br />
15-foot diameter straight-vane fans.<br />
The following data, pertaining to the operation<br />
of mines Nos. 1, 2, 4 and 5, are of interest:<br />
Average number of miners on the pay roll, 70O;<br />
average number in the mines each day, 620; number<br />
of company men constantly employed underground,<br />
including drivers, trappers, timber men,<br />
fire bosses, motor men, and pit bosses, 115; the<br />
total air-intake averages 260,558 cubic feet per<br />
minute; 59 mules are used for gathering the coal<br />
from rooms to the partings; and allowing 600<br />
cubic feet of air per minute for each mule, or<br />
35,400 cubic feet for 59 mules, there remains for<br />
the use of the 735 men underground 225,158 cubic<br />
feet of air per minute or 306 cubic feet<br />
per minute for each man employed. The
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
water gauge varies from .8 inch in No. 4<br />
mine, with the shortest pull, to 1.2 inches at No.<br />
2 mine, the longest pull. The air measurement<br />
is given in the aggregate, for brevity, but each<br />
mine has its proportionate share for persons underground,<br />
which amounts to three times the<br />
quantity required under the United States law<br />
governing the operation of mines in the territory.<br />
From mines Nos. 1 and 2 the coal is conveyed<br />
to the tipple in mine cars over a tramway 6.60o<br />
feet long, which has a rise of 112 feet from the<br />
tipple to the mines. Six locomotives haul these<br />
cars, as follows: Two 28-ton Porters, one 20-ton<br />
Vulcan, one 18-ton Lima, and two 6-ton Porters.<br />
The tipple contains a double Phillips dumper, with<br />
two chutes for loading railroad cars; the tipple<br />
equipment also includes stationary and shaking<br />
screens, for sizing coal for various purposes, also<br />
a moving slate-picking table.<br />
The coal from mine No. 4, which is located immediately<br />
opposite the tipple of mines Nos. 1 and<br />
2, is delivered over a steel Phillips tipple abutting<br />
the tipple of mines Nos. 1 and 2. At mines Nos.<br />
5 and 6, the<br />
COAL IS SCREENED<br />
as it is dumped on to railroad cars, the slack being<br />
hauled to the slack bin, whence it is elevated to a<br />
belt traveling to the washery storage bins.<br />
A complete telephone system, having stations at<br />
the most convenient points within the mine, affords<br />
communication with every important place<br />
in the camp, and through the central station with<br />
Santa Fe, Albuquerque. Denver, and other cities.<br />
The mines are sprinkled by water cars to lay<br />
the coal dust, which is removed from the roadways,<br />
as far as practicable, and taken out of the<br />
mine. Extra fire bosses have recently been employed<br />
at each of the mines to instruct the men<br />
in regard to timbering and to see that every precaution<br />
is taken to guard against accident from careless<br />
work by the miners.<br />
The following rules and regulations have been<br />
adopted by the Stag Canon Fuel Co. for the government<br />
and operation of its mines, and distributed<br />
to the employes in convenient pamphlet form.<br />
1. It shall be the duty of each and every employe<br />
of this company to injorm himself in reference<br />
to his duties under the mining laws of this<br />
territory and to comply strictly therewith.<br />
2. No person in a state of intoxication shall<br />
be allowed on any of the works, or allowed to enter<br />
any of the mines, under penalty of prosecution<br />
for trespass under the law.<br />
3. No person or persons shall be allowed to<br />
enter any mine except he be a regular employe of<br />
that mine, or unless he has a permit from the<br />
mine foreman or superintendent.<br />
4. Persons seeking employment shall procure<br />
it outside of mine. No boy under 12 years of<br />
age shall be permitted to work in any mine.<br />
5. If any person rides upon or in the mine<br />
cars going in or out of the mine or on the tram<br />
road, he does so at his own risk.<br />
6. All persons, except those duly authorized,<br />
are forbidden to meddle or tamper in any way<br />
with any electric lights, switches, signal wires,<br />
or shooting wires in or about the mines.<br />
7. No person or persons shall go into abandoned<br />
parts of any mine unless permission be<br />
granted by the mine foreman.<br />
8. All persons before entering the mine must<br />
deposit a check at check house, and get the same<br />
when they come out of the mine.<br />
9. The fire boss shall make, before any person<br />
is allowed to enter the mine,<br />
A CAREFUL INSPECTION,<br />
with a safety lamp, of every working place in the<br />
mine, marking the day of the month on the face<br />
of the coal in each working place where it can be<br />
readily seen. If dangerous gases are found in<br />
any working place be will mark on a cap piece<br />
or shovel two large crosses with the day of the<br />
month between them, thus: X27X, and will place<br />
these marks so that it will be impossible for any<br />
one to pass them without seeing them.<br />
If a quantity of gas is found, which, in the<br />
opinion of the fire boss, would endanger the operation<br />
of the mine, he is authorized to close the<br />
mine or any part of it he thinks endangered. The<br />
fire boss must always be on the safe side. The<br />
fire boss must not allow gas to be moved where<br />
men are working in the return air from it.<br />
After complete examination of the mine has<br />
been made the fire boss shall come out of the mine<br />
and make a report in Report Book of all dangerous<br />
conditions found, which report must be read<br />
b.v the mine foreman before any men are allowed<br />
fo enter the mine. The fire boss shall remain at<br />
mouth of mine, or some convenient place, until<br />
all the men have entered the mine, instructing<br />
each man as to the condition of his working place.<br />
The fire boss must make an inspection at least<br />
once a week of all old or abandoned parts of the<br />
mine and report conditions of same in Report<br />
Book.<br />
10. The mine foremen shall familiarize themselves<br />
with the mining laws of the territory, and<br />
shall comply with the requirements thereof by<br />
discharging every duty imposed upon them by<br />
law and by the rules of the corporation.<br />
11. They shall visit each working place at<br />
least once every week and direct the miners and<br />
all other employes in their work, and see that<br />
their instructions are complied with. They shall<br />
direct the miners to securely prop their working<br />
places and see that break-throughs are driven at<br />
proper distances. They shall see that the ven-
tilation of the mine is kept in good condition and<br />
that all dangerous conditions are removed as soon<br />
as possible. They shall<br />
HAVE ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY<br />
over all underground employes, and shall see that<br />
all the rules and regulations are carefully carried<br />
out.<br />
12. All employes shall use every precaution to<br />
prevent accidents in or about the mine; they shall<br />
not work in an unsafe place when timber would<br />
remedy the danger. If timber is not at hand they<br />
must stop work and report the fact to the mine<br />
foreman. The miner shall each day. before beginning<br />
work, examine his working place and<br />
take down all dangerous rock, or otherwise make<br />
it safe by properly timbering, and shall carefully<br />
sprag the coal when undermining.<br />
13. No miner or other employe shall be permitted<br />
to burn kerosene, black strap, or machine<br />
oil in his lamp.<br />
14. It shall be the duty of every miner to ascertain<br />
from the fire boss the condition of his working<br />
place before entering the mine.<br />
15. It shall be the duty of the wireman to see<br />
that all the employes are out of the mine and the<br />
power cut off the mine before he enters the mine<br />
to connect up shooting circuits, and to see that all<br />
shooting circuits are disconnected from power<br />
lines after shots have been fired; also to see that<br />
shooting lines are kept up in good shape and that<br />
miners are furnished wire for extensions, and to<br />
see that all wire is removed from pillars and<br />
abandoned places.<br />
He shall make daily report in Record Book of<br />
the cutting out and cutting in of shooting circuits.<br />
SHOOTING REGULATIONS.<br />
The following regulations for drilling and charging<br />
shot holes, mining and cutting the coal, will<br />
hereafter be in effect at Dawson mines, and must<br />
be strictly carried out by all parties:<br />
1. The mining or cutting must extend at least<br />
6 inches beyond back of holes in all cases.<br />
2. All holes must be at least 2% feet in length;<br />
no shorter holes will be fired.<br />
3. All coal dust must be extracted from holes<br />
before they are charged.<br />
4. No holes must be charged with more than<br />
five (5) sticks of powder.<br />
5. Standing holes, or parts of standing holes.<br />
must not be recharged.<br />
6. The hole in a tight corner must be at least<br />
1 foot from rib at back end of hole.<br />
7. In solid faces, holes must not be more than<br />
six (6) feet apart horizontally, and not less than<br />
two such holes shall be fired.<br />
8. The object of these rules is to prevent and<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
REMOVE THE DANGER<br />
from blown-out or windy shots, and it shall be<br />
the duty of the shot inspectors, in addition to the<br />
above rules, to refuse to shoot any holes which,<br />
in their judgment, may be dangerous, whether<br />
the circumstances are fully covered by the rules<br />
or not.<br />
9. When giant powder is used in mines not<br />
more than fifteen (15) sticks must be taken in<br />
the mine for any one working place for any one<br />
shift, and in no place must there be more than<br />
twenty (20) sticks at any one time.<br />
10. No giant powder must be taken in the mine<br />
in a frozen condition, and any attempt to thaw<br />
it out in the mine is strictly prohibited. Miners<br />
must have their powder supplied to them at the<br />
proper temperature to be exploded. Miners are<br />
prohibited from accepting, and powder men forbidden<br />
from giving out, powder in a frozen condition,<br />
and shot inspectors are hereby made responsible<br />
for the strict carrying out of this rule.<br />
11. Giant caps must not be kept in the mine;<br />
the shot inspectors will give them out to the men<br />
one for each shot, as they are needed, and personally<br />
supervise the placing of them in the hole<br />
with the powder. Under no condition must they<br />
be kept with the giant powder.<br />
12. The powder man will not give giant powder<br />
to any person not supplied with a canvas bag<br />
in which to carry it.<br />
13. Mine foremen, shot inspectors, powder men,<br />
and all others connected with the handling of<br />
giant powder going into the mine, must personally<br />
see that the above rules are carried out, as<br />
far as their supervision in the matter extends.<br />
14. No intemperate man or habitual smoker<br />
must be employed as powder man, and when on<br />
duty at the powder magazine, the powder man<br />
must not have on or about his person, in the<br />
magazine, any pipe, tobacco in any form, or<br />
matches, nor any tools or materials from which<br />
a spark might be emitted or a light created.<br />
15. When powder is being given out to the<br />
miners no one but the powder man must be inside<br />
the magazine, and no person must be allowed<br />
around the door of the magazine with a light or<br />
while smoking.<br />
16. The presence of women, children, or any<br />
person under 18 years of age<br />
IX OR AROUND THE MAGAZINE<br />
is prohibited at all times; also their employment<br />
in handling powder, and no powder shall be given<br />
out to them.<br />
The shooting is done by electricity after all the<br />
men are checked out of the mine. As the men<br />
enter the mine they are required to deposit a<br />
metal check at the shot firing house outside, near<br />
the entrance to the mine. These checks are
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
placed on a check board and returned to the men<br />
as they come from the mine. A record of the<br />
working place of each check number is kept in<br />
the shot firing house, and in case any check is<br />
uncalled for, the shot firer makes a search for the<br />
man until he is found. No shots are fired until<br />
it is known positively that no one is in the mine.<br />
To insure safety against accidental discharge<br />
of the shots by electricity, there are two or more<br />
locked switch boxes in each mine, with throw-off<br />
switches, one at the mouth of the mine and at<br />
one or more stations inside the mine. After inspecting<br />
the inside connections with the shots to<br />
be fired, the shot firer en route from the mine<br />
makes connection at each of the switches mentioned.<br />
He then goes to the shot firing cabin<br />
to turn on the electric current, but before doing<br />
so he turns on an electric signal light in a red<br />
globe, to warn all persons to remain away from<br />
the vicinity of the mouth of the mine; so that<br />
should an explosion occur within the mine, no<br />
one outside could be injured by flying debris. Tbe<br />
shot firing system has proved a success; the safety<br />
of the men from disastrous dust explosions due<br />
to blown-out shots is assured: miners make better<br />
wages, and the production of coal is proportionately<br />
greater per man employed. A record is<br />
kept of the number of shots fired, showing less<br />
than 2 per cent, of missed shots. The missed<br />
shots are left for the next day's shooting, and<br />
are either reprimed or a new hole drilled to perform<br />
the work intended for the original shot.<br />
Very little firedamp has been encountered thus<br />
far in the mines; but a supply of safety lamps is<br />
kept ready for use.<br />
A Babcock two-cylinder chemical fire engine is<br />
kept on a side track, under cover, ready for instant<br />
use; also portable chemical fire extinguishers,<br />
and helmets of various types to supply means<br />
of respiration in any vitiated atmosphere. Hose<br />
reels, each carrying 500 feet of<br />
REST GRADE OF FIRE HOSE.<br />
are kept at stations throughout the camp, and a<br />
man is employed to inspect daily the hose and<br />
fire fighting appliances.<br />
An <strong>org</strong>anized first aid corps has had regular<br />
practice and competitive drills during the past<br />
year, for which the company contributed appropriate<br />
prizes and medals for the most efficient<br />
team work.<br />
A large building is being erected for a rescue station<br />
in which the first aid corps and others may<br />
practice and exercise while wearing the helmets<br />
in a chamber filled with vitiated gases. An instructor<br />
watches the men, and on showing any<br />
signs of exhaustion they will be quickly removed<br />
and the gases dispelled from the chamber by<br />
suitable outlets. After sufficient experimental<br />
work to demonstrate which type of helmet is best<br />
adapted to the needs of the mines, a supply will<br />
be purchased for use in cases of emergency.<br />
The rescue station is designed after plans of the<br />
one in use at the mine of the Dominion Coal Co.,<br />
MOVEMENT OF COAL AND COKE OVER VARIOUS RAILROADS, RIVERS, AND CANALS<br />
FOR SEVEN MONTHS AND JULY, 1910 AND 1911.<br />
RAILROADS.<br />
Baltimore and Ohio*<br />
Buffalo. Rochester and Pittsburgh<br />
Buffalo and Susquehanna<br />
Chesapeake and Ohiot<br />
Huntingdon and Broadtop Mountain* ...<br />
New York Central and Hudson River <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Norfolk and Western*<br />
Pennsylvania (east of Pittsburg and Erie)* <strong>•</strong><br />
Pittsburg and Lake Erie <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Pittsburg, Shawmut and Northern<br />
Southern Railwayt<br />
Virginian Railway<br />
Western Maryland Railway<br />
RIVERS AND CANALS.<br />
Barren River. Lock No. 1<br />
Black Warrior River. Lock No. 12 <strong>•</strong> ...<br />
Canal and Falls at Louisville<br />
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal<br />
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal<br />
Davis Island Dam<br />
Green River. Lock No. 1<br />
Great Kanawha River<br />
Kentucky River. Lock No. 1<br />
Monongahela River<br />
MONTH OF JULY-<br />
Tons<br />
2.855.774<br />
618.142<br />
164.549<br />
1.250.406<br />
80.791<br />
548.815<br />
1.692.031<br />
4.771.937<br />
428.209<br />
103.662<br />
363.670<br />
123,644<br />
232,587<br />
168<br />
1.225<br />
35.285<br />
10.711<br />
20.648<br />
80.520<br />
1.960<br />
114,720<br />
9.075<br />
866.504<br />
Tons.<br />
2.836,929<br />
672,786<br />
144.706<br />
1.312.697<br />
72.345<br />
609.744<br />
1.776.383<br />
5.011,599<br />
1.530,094<br />
99.006<br />
287.913<br />
220.900<br />
184.743<br />
232<br />
158<br />
6.484<br />
5.759<br />
13.687<br />
27.865<br />
384<br />
36.880<br />
10.900<br />
485.792<br />
SEVEN MONTHS—<br />
1910<br />
Tons.<br />
20.781.773<br />
4.482.346<br />
941.182<br />
7.916.074<br />
732.391<br />
3.602.843<br />
11.537,764<br />
38.028.476<br />
3.880.078<br />
658.117<br />
2.120.934<br />
687.610<br />
1.946.419<br />
1.538<br />
3.880<br />
863.926<br />
58.581<br />
88.134<br />
1.458.205<br />
19.634<br />
850,520<br />
43.675<br />
5.802.968<br />
"Includes coal received from connecting lines. tjune and six months figures-<br />
1911<br />
Tons<br />
18,977.604<br />
4,537.567<br />
1,122.144<br />
7.411.090<br />
629.433<br />
4,638,927<br />
11.146.791<br />
36.044.761<br />
8.650.403<br />
814.731<br />
1.850.329<br />
1.436,582<br />
1,534,533<br />
1.230<br />
2.281<br />
974.746<br />
59.781<br />
82.181<br />
1,908.855<br />
16.186<br />
763.800<br />
58.600<br />
5.593.754
in Nova Scotia, modified to some extent. In the<br />
upper story of this building there will be a technical<br />
library on coal mining, and a "School of<br />
Mines" will be conducted by a competent instructor.<br />
The superintendents, pit bosses, fire bosses.<br />
and others occupying responsible positions in the<br />
mines will be required to pass an examination, and<br />
if not proficient in tbe technical and theoretical<br />
studies pertaining to their respective positions, as<br />
well as in the practical application of these studies,<br />
they will be given G months in which to perfect<br />
themselves. If after this time, they are still deficient,<br />
they will be reduced in rank or discharged.<br />
It is the aim of the company to introduce and<br />
maintain such an excellent standard that a certificate<br />
to a graduate of the Dawson School of Mines<br />
will be recognized as a guarantee of competency.<br />
The powder magazines at the mines, built of<br />
stone, iron and cement, are absolutely fiieproof.<br />
The heat is supplied by electric radiators, which<br />
maintain a constant temperature within the magazine;<br />
the electric stove or radiator and all wires<br />
are at a considerable distance from the stored powder,<br />
and out of reach of anything combustible or<br />
explosive.<br />
The main building of the coal washing plant is<br />
112 feet long, 70 feet wide, and 70 feet high, and<br />
the<br />
LABORATORY AMI CRUSHER BUILDING,<br />
are absolutely fireproof, being built throughout of<br />
reinforced concrete and structural steel.<br />
Starting at the tipple, the undersize coal from<br />
the Nos. 1 and 2 tipple screens is delivered on a<br />
28-inch cross-belt conveyor, running at right<br />
angles to the main belt, and carried to a 36-inch<br />
belt conveyor. Another 2S-inch belt conveyor<br />
delivers the slack from the screens of No. 4 tipple<br />
to the same 36-inch belt conveyor, and an elevator<br />
carries the slack from mine No. 5 slack bin to<br />
join the undersize from the other mines on the<br />
36-inch belt conveyor, which conveys tlie whole<br />
to the two 1,000-ton storage tanks, each 40 feet in<br />
diameter and 40 feet high. These storage tanks<br />
guarantee a constant supply to the crusher house<br />
and washery. so that they are not dependent upon<br />
the work of the tipples.<br />
Under the storage tanks are two 28-inch parallel<br />
belts, upon which the slack coal is delivered from<br />
the storage atnks, through eight rocker-gate, adjustable<br />
automatic feeders, and conveyed by these<br />
belts to the crusher house, where it drops from<br />
the belts upon two 6'X12' shaking screens, about<br />
1.5 inches slope to the foot, .5-inch plate, with 1.5inch<br />
round perforations. The oversize is delivered<br />
to two 32-inch toothed rolls, making 125 revolutions<br />
per minute and having 100 tons per hour<br />
capacity, which reduce the material to 1.25-inch<br />
size to correspond to the sizing of the shaking<br />
screen above. The two 28-inch belts and the<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
screens and rolls are driven by an 85-horsepower<br />
General Electric motor. The product from the<br />
screens and rolls is deposited upon a 30-inch belt<br />
conveyor, which carries it to the dust-proof room<br />
on the third floor of the washery. As this belt<br />
with its load of slack leaves the crusher house en<br />
route to dust-proof room, each 25-foot section is<br />
automatically weighed and recorded by a Blake-<br />
Dennison automatic and continuous weighing machine.<br />
Thus the data of results are based upon<br />
accurate figures. This belt is 278 feet long, center<br />
to center, 76 feet 8 inches rise, has a capacity<br />
of 250 tons per hour, and is driven by a 5o-horse<br />
power Western Electric motor.<br />
In the dust-proof room water is added by two<br />
5-inch centrifugal pumps to the crushed coal, and<br />
the whole is carried in launders to eight jigs of<br />
the Stewart type, two double jigs on each side of<br />
jig floor. The jig and water-supply tanks are of<br />
steel plate, concrete lined. Tbe pumps which<br />
supply water to these jigs are driven by two 50horsepower<br />
Western Electric motors.<br />
From the dust-proof room onward the washery<br />
plant is built in two units on the east and west<br />
sections of the building, and<br />
OPERATED INDEPENDENTLY<br />
or together, so that an accident on one side offers<br />
no hindrance to the continued operation of the<br />
other half of the plant.<br />
The hutches of the jigs taper downward, and<br />
are connected with two Luhrig elevators by 8-inch<br />
pipes. These elevators discharge the refuse into<br />
launders, which deliver it to two refuse trommels<br />
4 feet by 8 feet. All trommels have iVinch perforations,<br />
[Vinch plate, 1.5-inch slope to tbe foot,<br />
and are operated at a speed of 17 revolutions per<br />
minute.<br />
The oversize from the refuse trommels passes to<br />
rewash jigs of the Stewart type; the undersize is<br />
rewashed in four Luhrig jigs, two on each side;<br />
the recovery from these jigs joins the washed<br />
coal from the primary Stewart jigs, and is conveyed<br />
by launders under the jig floor to four<br />
dewatering trommels, two on each side, the oversize<br />
from which is spouted into two 60-inch Steadman<br />
disintegrators, operated at 325 revolutions<br />
per minute, where it is crushed to desired size<br />
for coke ovens. The east and west side sections<br />
of tbe jigs are each driven by an 85-horsepower<br />
General Electric motor.<br />
The undersize from the trommels is recovered<br />
from settling tanks beneath by perforated-bucket<br />
elevators running 15 feet per minute; and, together<br />
with the washed coal from the Stewart and<br />
Luhrig jigs, is delivered to a conveyor belt traveling<br />
287 feet 3 inches, to seven 300-ton cylindrical<br />
storage tanks, each 20 feet in diameter, 40 feet<br />
high, and distributed by two drag conveyors operating<br />
above the bins, whence it is taken by elec-
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
trie larries to the coke ovens. The rejected<br />
material from the various washings and rewashings<br />
is picked up by elevators and discharged into<br />
the waste tank at the south end of the washery<br />
building", whence it is taken by electric trolley<br />
cars to tbe waste dump.<br />
The recovery from the oversize from the refuse<br />
trommels carried to Stewart rewash jigs, is a product<br />
equal in fuel value to the unwashed mine<br />
product, and is<br />
USED AS NUT COAL<br />
for domestic or steam purposes. This material is<br />
carried by belt conveyor to a circular steel storage<br />
bin.<br />
Twenty-seven electric motors, having an aggregate<br />
capacity of 1,159 horsepower, are operated in<br />
conveying the coal from the tipple and through<br />
the crusher house and washery until delivered in<br />
the washed coal storage bins. All motors on the<br />
alternation current are three-phase, 25-cycle, 220volts.<br />
An adjunct common to the mine tipple of mines<br />
Nos. f and 2 and to the washery is the "run-ofmine"<br />
crusher situated at the tipple. The crusher<br />
is a McCully gyratory, with a capacity of 200 tons<br />
per hour. Should there be any temporary cessation<br />
of orders for screened coal for commercial<br />
purposes, the whole product of these mines could<br />
be crushed and conveyed to the storage bins to be<br />
washed and made into coke.<br />
The washery has proved an eminent success.<br />
Even in the experimental stage the fuel value of<br />
the waste was as low as 8 per cent., and the average<br />
loss of fuel values in the waste from the washery<br />
now and hereafter will probably be below 5<br />
per cent. The capacity of the plant is 2.500 tons<br />
per day of 10 hours, but as there are not a sufficient<br />
number of coke ovens erected to utilize this<br />
tonnage, the plant has never exceeded 8 hours in<br />
constant operation. The washery is located in<br />
Rail canon, at a common center to the greatest<br />
area of the coal lands of the company.<br />
A complete laboratory is in a two-story concrete<br />
and iron fireproof building, 38 feet by 26 feet 6<br />
inches, opening into the main washery building.<br />
The lower story is used for grinding and preparing<br />
for analysis samples of coal, coke, bone and<br />
waste; the upper story contains the laboratory<br />
proper, which is fully equipped with every modern<br />
appliance necessary for the work at hand.<br />
All of the machinery for handling the unwashed<br />
coal, jigs, and other appliances used in the washing,<br />
as well as machinery for handling the washed<br />
coal, was manufactured by the Jeffrey Manufacturing<br />
Co.<br />
The membership of the Retail Coal Dealers' Association<br />
of the New England States has been increased<br />
by 65 since the first of the present year.<br />
Tbe association was formerly composed mainly<br />
of dealers receiving coal all-rail, but those receiving<br />
supplied by water are now enrolling, a considerable<br />
number of the new members handling<br />
only water-borne coal.<br />
The East Boston breaker of the Payne Coal Co.<br />
at Luzerne. Pa., was destroyed by fire Oct. 3. The<br />
loss is placed at $100,000. The smoke fielled the<br />
passageway of the mine and at first it was thought<br />
four pumpmen had been suffocated. The men,<br />
however, made their way out of the underground<br />
workings by a second opening. Twelve hundred<br />
men and boys are thrown out of work.<br />
Announcement is made that the Pennsylvania<br />
Railroad Co. has taken over the transfer chutes<br />
of the Susquehanna Coal Co. at Lewistown Junction.<br />
Pa., with J. M. Webb, scale agent at that<br />
point, as general foreman. Notice to this effect<br />
has been posted by L. W. Allibone. superintendent<br />
of the Sunbury and Susquehanna division.<br />
STATEMENT OF BITUMINOUS COAL MINED IN OHIO AND SHIPPED OVER RAILROADS<br />
SPECIFIED, DURING JULY AND SEVEN MONTHS, 1910-1911.<br />
RAILROADS<br />
Hocking Valley<br />
Toledo and Ohio Central<br />
Baltimore and Ohio<br />
Wheeling and Lake Erie<br />
Cleveland. Lorain and Wheeling<br />
Zanesville and Western . .<br />
Toledo Division Pennsylvania Company <strong>•</strong><br />
Lake Erie. Alliance and Wheeling<br />
Marietta. Columbus and Cleveland Railway<br />
Wabash Pittsburg Terminal Railway . . . .<br />
Kanawha & Michigan Ry<br />
Total<br />
1910<br />
Net tons<br />
357.576<br />
205.960<br />
178 903<br />
304.026<br />
228.306<br />
97.953<br />
149.143<br />
102.913<br />
6 600<br />
6.324<br />
1,637.704<br />
JULY- SEVEN MONTHS—<br />
1911<br />
Net tons<br />
296.659<br />
168.496<br />
118.861<br />
284.883<br />
295,411<br />
85 431<br />
142.010<br />
86.708<br />
1,343<br />
2.964<br />
13.621<br />
1.496.387<br />
1910<br />
Net tons<br />
2.416,367<br />
1.126.609<br />
1.332.413<br />
2.117.183<br />
1.843.063<br />
697.264<br />
1.259.261<br />
648.384<br />
57.417<br />
33,397<br />
11,531.358<br />
1911<br />
Net tons<br />
1.754.999<br />
957.007<br />
935,241<br />
1.787.606<br />
1.542.899<br />
572.648<br />
1,074.433<br />
650.872<br />
15,455<br />
39,748<br />
46.287<br />
9.377.265
STATISTICS OF ILLINOIS COAL PRODUCTION.<br />
Herewith is presented the summary of the Illi<br />
nois coal statistics, for the year ended June 30,<br />
1911, as compiled by Martin Bolt, chief clerk,<br />
State Mining Board, under the direction of that<br />
board;<br />
Number of counties produc<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 53<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
ing coal 53 55<br />
Number of mines and open<br />
ings of all kinds 845 881<br />
New mines or old mines re<br />
opened during the year... 184 86<br />
Mines closed or abandoned<br />
since last report 217 91<br />
Total output of all mines, in<br />
tons of 2000 pounds 50,165,099 48,717,853<br />
Number of shipping or com<br />
mercial mines 3S7 390<br />
Total output of shipping<br />
mines, tons 48,758,657 47,225,201<br />
Number of mines in local<br />
trade only 458 491<br />
Output of local mines, tons. 1,406,442 1,492,652<br />
Total tons of mine-run coal. 13,025,663 10,220,456<br />
Total tons of lump coal.... 19,558,409 20,769,930<br />
Total tons of egg coal 3,725,073 3,334,059<br />
Total tons of nut coal 2,425,712 2,S46,693<br />
Total tons of pea coal 10,268,458 10,174,677<br />
Total tons of slack coal 1,131,784 1,372,038<br />
Total tons shipped 44,578,400 43,007,015<br />
Tons supplied to locomotives<br />
at the mines 877.793 886,217<br />
Tons sold to local trade 2.617,977 2,867,871<br />
Tons consumed ( or wasted)<br />
at the plant 2,090,929 1,956,750<br />
Average days of active operation<br />
for shipping mines. . 169 179<br />
Average days of active opera<br />
tion for all mines 165 171<br />
Average value per ton all<br />
grades at shipping mines. $1,101 $1,016<br />
Total aggregate home value<br />
of product $56,064,494 $50,204,207<br />
Average value per ton, all<br />
grades at all mines $1,118 $1,031<br />
Number of motors in use<br />
underground 316 229<br />
Number of mines in which<br />
mining machines are used 126 114<br />
Number of mining machines<br />
in use 1.430 1.2S9<br />
Number of tons undercut by-<br />
machines 20,191,865 18.176,254<br />
Number of tons mined by<br />
hand 29,973,234 30,541,599<br />
Average number of miners<br />
employed during the year. 39,912 39,069<br />
Average number of other em<br />
ployes underground 30,052<br />
Average number of boys em<br />
ployed underground 1,009<br />
Average number of boys em<br />
ployed above ground 71<br />
Average number of other em<br />
ployes above ground 6,366<br />
Total number of employes.. 77.410<br />
Number of persons employed<br />
at shipping mines 74,508<br />
Number employed at local<br />
mines 2,902<br />
Number of persons at work<br />
underground 70,973<br />
Number at work on surface. 6,437<br />
Average price paid per gross<br />
ton for hand mining, ship<br />
ping mines $.027<br />
Average price paid per gross<br />
ton for machine mining. . $.494<br />
Number of kegs of powder<br />
used for blasting coal.... 1,240,191<br />
Number of kegs of powder<br />
used for other purposes. . . 3,568<br />
Number of men accidentally<br />
killed 157<br />
Number killed inside of the<br />
mines 149<br />
Number killed outside of the<br />
mines S<br />
Number of wives made widows<br />
87<br />
Number of children left fath<br />
erless 245<br />
Number of men injured so as<br />
to lose a month or more of<br />
time 709<br />
Number of gross tons mined<br />
to each life lost 319,523<br />
Number of employes to<br />
each life lost 493<br />
Number of death per 1,000<br />
employed 2.03<br />
Number of gross tons mined<br />
to man injured 70,754<br />
Number of employes to each<br />
man injured 109<br />
Number killed to each mil<br />
lion tons produced 3.1<br />
Number injured to 1.000 em<br />
ployed 9.2<br />
*Not including Cherry mine disaster.<br />
2S.137<br />
1,154<br />
47<br />
0,227<br />
74,634<br />
72.520<br />
3,114<br />
68,360<br />
6,274<br />
$.597<br />
$.462<br />
1,254.095<br />
3,128<br />
*150<br />
*139<br />
*11<br />
*88<br />
*236<br />
742<br />
*324,7S6<br />
*498<br />
*2.01<br />
65,657<br />
101<br />
*3.1<br />
9.9<br />
The Warner-Youghiogheny Coal Co., of Cleve<br />
land, O., will open a new mine in Fayette county,<br />
Pa., and will develop 200 acres of coal. A spur<br />
from the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie railroad will<br />
reach the new mine.
64 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
THE UNDEVELOPED COAL RESOURCES OF CANADA''<br />
In the present paper a review of the area and<br />
probable coal content of the various coal fields<br />
of Canada is attempted. Such a survey, however,<br />
must be regarded as tentative, exhibiting<br />
merely the information available at the present<br />
time. The terms "areas" and "coal content"<br />
where employed have reference to the mineable<br />
quantitly of coal available under ordinary min<br />
ing conditions now obtaining.<br />
The age of the coal beds may be briefly sum<br />
marized as follows:<br />
Lower Carboniferous.—Cannel coals of the Arc<br />
tic Islands. Anthracite at Lepreau, N. B.<br />
Carboniferous.—Bituminous coals of Nova Sco<br />
tia and New Brunswick.<br />
Lower Cretaceous.—Bituminous and anthracite<br />
coals of Rocky Mountains; Queen Charlotte Islands;<br />
small areas on Upper Skeena river, B. C,<br />
and areas in Lewes river district, Yukon.<br />
.Middle Cretaceous.—The bituminous coals of<br />
various horizons in the cretaceous are here in<br />
cluded. On the prairies of Alberta and Saskatchewan,<br />
where a minimum alteration has taken place,<br />
lignites are found. The areas included here are<br />
the Vancouver coal fields; certain exposures in<br />
the foothills of the Rockies, the Lethbridge-Medicine<br />
Hat area, and exposures on Peace river.<br />
Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary.—Lignite beds<br />
of Turtle Mountain, Man.<br />
Lignite beds of Wood Mt. and Souris, Sask.<br />
Lignite beds of Cypress hills, Saskatchewan<br />
and Alberta.<br />
Lignite beds of Edmonton formation, Alberta.<br />
Coal bearing rocks of Edmonton formation in<br />
the foothills.<br />
In the central part of British Columbia a num<br />
ber of small areas contain seams of lignite and<br />
coal. The larger basins near the coast, such as<br />
the delta of the Fraser river and the north end<br />
of Graham Island, have not been thoroughly prospected.<br />
In the Mackenzie basin lignite-bearing<br />
beds are found at Fort Norman and at the mouth<br />
of the Mackenzie. On Peel river an important<br />
lignite bed has been located.<br />
Interglacial.—The lignites found in northern<br />
Ontario are covered by boulder clay and are reported<br />
to be of glacial age.<br />
DETAILS APPEOXIMATE AREA AND AMOUNT OF COAL<br />
SUPPLIES.<br />
Arctic Islands.—Exposures of cannel coal or oi!<br />
shale are noted by many Arctic explorers. Al<br />
though these deposits are not at present available<br />
By D. B. Dowling.<br />
they should be included in the coal assets. The<br />
beds are dipping at low angles, hence when mine<br />
able seams are exposed it may be assumed that<br />
the field is wide. The exposures extend across<br />
the following islands:<br />
Banks Land 150 miles.<br />
Melville Island 150 miles.<br />
Bathurst Island 50 miles.<br />
North Devon 50 miles=400 miles.<br />
Since the exposures are found over a width of<br />
3o miles, the possible area (mined with difficulty<br />
for the most part) may approximate 6,000 square-<br />
miles. With each foot of coal this area would<br />
furnish 3,840 million tons.<br />
YUKON. Million<br />
Sq. Miles. Tons.<br />
Northeast of Dawson 300, Av. 4 ft. coal, Lignite 750<br />
Tantalus area 10. Av. 5 ft. coal, Bitum. 32<br />
Whitehorse & vicinity 3, Av Anth.. 9<br />
Pelly River, possibly 50, Unexplored, Lignite 50<br />
Liard River 50, Unexplored, Bitum. 50<br />
413, Lignite 800<br />
Anth. . 9<br />
Bitum. 82<br />
MACKENZIE DISTRICT.<br />
Lignite-bearing rocks are reported near the<br />
mouth of Mackenzie river.<br />
Square Million<br />
Miles. Tons.<br />
Fort Norman area 200, 4 ft. coal Lignite 500<br />
Peele River area 200, 30 ft. seam known, Lignite 500<br />
too<br />
L ignite 1,000<br />
BRITISH COI tWIBIA.<br />
Square Anth ra- Bitu- Lig<br />
Miles. cite. minous. nite<br />
Koskeemo<br />
5 at 3 ft. . . 9<br />
Suquash ... 10 at 3 ft. . . 19 ...<br />
Comox<br />
.. . 300 at 6 ft. . . 1,152 ...<br />
Nanaimo . . . 350 at 6 ft. . . 1,344 ...<br />
Cowichin 9 at 4 ft. ...<br />
Graham Island... 60 at 8ft. ...<br />
Graham Island... 100 at 4ft. ...<br />
Elk- River 230 at WO ft. ...<br />
Elk River n 140 at 100 ft. ...<br />
Nicola 12 at 4 ft. ...<br />
Princeton 52 at 5 ft. ...<br />
Tulameem 5 at 20 ft. ...<br />
Telkwa 10 at 5 ft. ...<br />
Hat Creek 2 at 50 ft. ...<br />
Skeena River .... 16 at 6ft. 61<br />
Peace and Pine R. 50 at 3 ft. ...<br />
307<br />
22,600<br />
14,000<br />
30<br />
<strong>•</strong>Abstract from a paper read before the Canadian Mining<br />
Institute 1,351 sq. m. 61 39,674 490<br />
64<br />
30<br />
96<br />
256<br />
166
ALBERTA.<br />
The coal areas of this province occur in three<br />
divisions of the cretaceous. The lowest is exposed<br />
in long narrow belts in the outer ranges<br />
of the Rocky Mountains and the foothills. These<br />
areas, besides providing the best coal, are also<br />
important in that they contain many thick seams,<br />
thus ensuring a large supply of valuable coal.<br />
The middle division found occasionally in tlie<br />
foothills is better known as the Lethbridge coal<br />
bearing rocks which are exposed over a large<br />
area in eastern Alberta, and furnishes a coal<br />
which grades from bituminous to sub-bituminous<br />
and lignite. The higher coal bearing beds are<br />
well exposed in Central Alberta and from the well<br />
known coal seams on tbe North Saskatchewan<br />
have received tbe name "Emonton beds." These,<br />
in the western edge of the area, contain seams<br />
approaching bituminous, but in the eastern part<br />
the coal is sub-bituminous.<br />
Kootanie Measures, Rocky Million Tons.<br />
Mountains. -,<br />
Square Anthra- Bitu-<br />
Miles. cite, minous.<br />
Coleman 45 at 50 ft. . . . 2,000<br />
Blairmore, Frank.... 50 at 30ft. ... 1,500<br />
Livingstone 60 at 25 ft. ... 1,500<br />
Moose Mt 15 at 15 ft. ... 250<br />
Cascade 40 at 25 ft. 400 1,200<br />
Palliser 6 at 6 ft. ... 20<br />
Costigan 12 al S ft. ... 60<br />
Bighorn 100 at 90 ft. ... 6,600<br />
Nikanassin 60 at 20ft. ... 770<br />
Jasper Park 20 at 10 ft. ... 250<br />
Smoky River, not explored ... ....<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
40S ... 400 14,150<br />
Million Tons.<br />
Belly River Coal. , ,<br />
Square Bitu- Sub-<br />
Miles, minous. Bit.<br />
Foothills 200 at 6 ft.<br />
Lethbridge-Medicine<br />
Hat 4,000 at 4 ft.<br />
Battle River 3,000 at 2 ft.<br />
800<br />
In Southern Manitoba the occurrence of lignite<br />
seams in the beds forming Turtle Mountain is<br />
500 10,000<br />
known. The coal, however, has never been thor<br />
. . . 4.000<br />
oughly prospected. An available area of 48<br />
7,200 ... 1,300 14.000<br />
square miles is conjectured to contain 160 million<br />
tons of lignite.<br />
Edmonton Bitu- Sub-<br />
Measures, minous. Bit.<br />
Foothills, Red Deer-Athabasca, 300<br />
square miles at 10 ft 2,000<br />
Rocky Mt. House to Athabasca,<br />
2.000 sq. m. at 10 It 12.SOO<br />
Pembina River area, 5.000 sq. m. at<br />
10 ft 30,000<br />
Edmonton area. 5,000 sq. m. at 6 ft 20,000<br />
Bow and Red Deer, 10.000 sq. m. at<br />
4 ft 15,000<br />
Total, 22,300 sq.m. 14,800 65,000<br />
Alberta total—Area, 29.908 square miles:<br />
Anthracite 400<br />
Bituminous 30,250<br />
Sub-bituminous 79,000<br />
Coal is mined on the How River at Bow Centre<br />
and Crowfoot. These seams may be reached by<br />
deep mining as far west as near Calgary. The<br />
principal mining centre on the Red Deer River<br />
is near the mouth of Rosebud River. While mineable<br />
seams are not discoverable over the whole of<br />
this area of about 10,000 square miles, an available<br />
4 feet of coal may be expected over about<br />
6,000 square miles, representing approximately<br />
15,000 million tons.<br />
SASKATCHEWAN.<br />
The western edge of the province has a large<br />
area of the same rocks as are exposed in the<br />
Lethbridge-Medicine Hat area of Alberta. Coal<br />
may be found in the south and western part of<br />
this area which is roughly estimated at 4.200<br />
square miles; 2,000 square miles may prove to be<br />
productive, which, on the basis of 4 feet of coal,<br />
would yield a total of 5,400 million tons.<br />
Although the term "Laramie" is not at present<br />
in favor as a formational name, the horizon indicated<br />
is probably the same as the Edmonton formation<br />
of Alberta. The exposures are confined to<br />
the southern part of the province and include the<br />
Cypress Hills, Wood Mountain and the Souris<br />
coal field. Four thousand square miles are believed<br />
to be productive and contain 13,000 million<br />
tons of coal in grade near the lignite.<br />
Sub. Lig-<br />
Bituminous. nite.<br />
Western Saskatchewan, 2.000 sq. m. 5.000 400<br />
Southern Saskatchewan, 4,000 sq. m. 3,000 10,000<br />
MANITOBA.<br />
ONTAEIO.<br />
8.000 10,400<br />
The glacial deposits overlying beds of peat and<br />
the remains of forests have formed these into lignite<br />
beds. In places the deposits may be mined<br />
or stripped. The known localities are those on<br />
the slope to James Bay, while others have been<br />
discovered between Abilibi and Missinaibi rivers.<br />
An estimate of 10 square miles with 25 million<br />
tons has been made. This, however, may prove<br />
to be excessive.
56 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
NEW BRUNSWICK.<br />
Area 119 square miles = 161 million tons of coal.<br />
NOVA SCOTIA.<br />
Estimate total for Mineable areas with seams<br />
over 4 feet.<br />
Pictou 26 sq. miles=620 million tons.<br />
Cumberland S4 sip miles=871 million tons.<br />
Cape Breton 66 sq. miles^ SOS million tons.<br />
Marine 85 sq. miles 701 million tons.<br />
Richmond io sq. niiles=102 million tons.<br />
Inverness 12 sq. miles 62 million tons.<br />
313 sq.miles ^3,224 million tons.<br />
SUMMARY.<br />
Million Tons.<br />
Anthra- Bitu- Sub- Lig.<br />
District. Area. cite, minous. Hit. nite.<br />
Yukon 413 9 Si' .... SOO<br />
Mackenzie 400 .. .... .... 1,000<br />
Br. Columbia.. 1.351 61 39,674 490 ....<br />
Alberta 29,908 too 30,250 79,000 ....<br />
Saskatchewan.. 6,000 8,000 10,400<br />
Manitoba 4S 160<br />
Ontario lo 25<br />
N. Brunswick. . 119 . . f 61<br />
Nova Scotia... 313 .. 3.221<br />
Total.<br />
38,562 4611 73,391 S7.490 12,485<br />
173,826 million tons.<br />
The Consolidation Coal Co. has opened offices<br />
in tbe Billiter Square buildings. London. England,<br />
for the purpose of extending its already large<br />
business, and coals produced by the company are<br />
now being shipped abroad. First-class bunker<br />
coal will be supplied to the various steamship<br />
lines plying between American and European<br />
ports. All of this business will lie handled<br />
through the London office which is in charge of<br />
G. W. Rutherford as European manager. Mr.<br />
Rutherford was for 20 years a steamship broker<br />
and coal exporter at Swansea, South Wales.<br />
YOU CAN'T<br />
LOOK INTO THE<br />
EARTH, but W E<br />
CAN get you a large<br />
clean core of all strata un- S<br />
der your land tc be ex- S<br />
Joseph C. Head, of Latrobe, has sold 169.775<br />
of coal in Fairfield township, Westmoreland<br />
county, Pa., to the Shenango Furnace Co. for<br />
$75,000.<br />
The Monongahela River Consolidated Coal &<br />
Coke Co. has purchased the Coulson farm of 202<br />
acres, near Monongahela City, Pa., for $50,000.<br />
Jacob S. Patterson and Joseph Inghram have<br />
bought 282 acres of coal in Perry township, Greene<br />
county. Pa., from Spencer Colwell for $37,990.<br />
The Tye Fork Coal Co. has sold Sou acres in<br />
Knox county, Ky., to the Interstate Coal Co., for<br />
$5o.o0o.<br />
NEW ENTERPRISES<br />
Henrietta Pocahontas Coal Co.. English, W. Va.:<br />
capital, $25,000: incorporators, Chipman Botsford,<br />
of English: Jesse V. Hockworth, Fannie R. Botsford.<br />
of Worth: Wyndham Stokes, J. Graham Sale,<br />
of Welch.<br />
Knott County Coal & Lumber Co., Lexington,<br />
Ky.; capital. $250,000: incorporators, Ge<strong>org</strong>e W.<br />
Reese, David H. Davies, Charles S. Ling, A. P.<br />
Stephens, Johnstown, Pa.; and T. T. Foreman, Lexington.<br />
Miami Coal & Coke Co., North Fork, W. Va.;<br />
capital, $25,000; incorporators, Walter Proctor.<br />
C. S. Dieffenderfer, W. H. Sperow, J. H. Bowman<br />
and J. W. Allison, all of North Fork.<br />
Gray Coal Co.. Pennington Gap, Va.; capital,<br />
$10,000; incorporators, Joshua Burdett, Middles-<br />
IJOIO. Ky.; R. H. Gray, Robert Carson, of Pennington<br />
Gap.<br />
Lilley Coal Co., Charleroi, Pa.; capital, $200,000;<br />
incorporators, Thomas Lilley. I. B. Nixon, John H.<br />
Moffit, and Thomas B. Elliott, all of Charleroi.<br />
Martins Fork Coal Co., Pineville, Ky.; capital,<br />
$40,000; incorporators, W. C. Cheff. Ben F. Un-<br />
thunk and H. H. Fuson, all of Pineville.<br />
A cargo of 7,602 tons of coke arrived at the<br />
head of the lakes last week, being part of a 100,-<br />
000 ton lot purchased in the Connellsville region<br />
by British Columbia smelters. It is said to have<br />
been the largest cargo of coke ever shipped, either<br />
on the lakes or on tbe ocean.<br />
amined in broad daylight.<br />
The Elmore-Benjamin Coal Co. has appealed<br />
. No Guess Work. . to the Interstate Commerce Commission for a re<br />
'The J. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO. duction in the all-rail rate on anthracite from<br />
j Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
Harrisburg, Pa., to Milwaukee. A recent in<br />
; Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA. crease of three cents a ton in the rate was the im<br />
; Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING, OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING ; mediate cause of the action.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK ti RER<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
PUBLISHERS OF<br />
The Coal Dealers' Blue Book<br />
Contains a Complete List for the United States and<br />
Canada of all Coal Operators. Shippers and Dealers<br />
Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron<br />
Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coal and<br />
Coke in oar load lots, with capital and pay ratines.<br />
'. Room<br />
{ 550 Monon Building, 440 Doarborn St.,<br />
<strong>•</strong> ; CHICAGO.<br />
1438 SO. PENN SQUARE. '.<br />
PHILADELPHIA. !<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WAHUEX, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, IVi tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909-10.<br />
Showing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
F. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jer<br />
sey wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full par<br />
ticulars, analysis of coal, name, location and out<br />
fit of mine, etc.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VEXEER & LUMBER CO.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.
HOW TO KEEP IN<br />
TOUCH WITH<br />
AFFAIRS.<br />
Mines of information on every subject are at<br />
your disposal—Just say the word and we'll<br />
drive an entry for you - - - - - - - -<br />
USE OUR<br />
PRESS CLIPPINGS.<br />
Ours is the only Clipping Bureau in the greatest<br />
Industrial Center of the World.<br />
We have two branches—<br />
A LOCAL SERVICE—AND—A GENERAL SERVICE.<br />
Both are splendid aids to busy men.<br />
Ask us for definite information<br />
and rates.<br />
The Central Press Bureau,<br />
906 & 908 WABASH BUILDING.<br />
Ttitphom 2164 coun. P I T T S B U R G H . PA.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 59<br />
Old Jake La Rue was a very crusty man, full of<br />
gouty aches due to age and overeating. He lost<br />
patience with his physician one day because the<br />
latter did not make enough fuss over the pain his<br />
patient suffered.<br />
"Doctor," lie thundered, "you don't understand!<br />
You don't seem to grasp the case! You talk as<br />
though there were nothing the matter with me,<br />
whereas 1 am suffering the torments of the<br />
damned!"<br />
"What, already?" queried the doctor, in apparent<br />
amazement.<br />
-o-<br />
"Was his vacation in the country good for his<br />
nervous trouble?'"<br />
"No, the farmer at whose place he stopped kept<br />
geese."<br />
"But I don't see "<br />
"JMM w. J.LI-.H JLIU ,*memm*s*imm£^fi<br />
"Every time a goose honked he tried to climb a<br />
tree."<br />
Mother may 1 go out to swim?<br />
Yes, my darling daughter,<br />
I know a girl with such a limb<br />
Won't go near the water!<br />
r w 1 ,?<br />
' ^F 'Yi -^.-"tv?:^ '-:!<strong>•</strong>' r" Y*.:Yf£YL ^Yf-L-'' V&4MtG/£S/ ^.^-tfdfAEi /te£Si<br />
TIMBER ANY SIZE FOR TIPPLES AND TRESTLES,<br />
LINING, LAGGING, BRATTICE BOARDS<br />
TERHUNE LUMBER CO.-Pittsburgh<br />
House Building, No. 4 Smithfield St. 'Phone—Court 3457<br />
PROMPT<br />
SHIPMENTS<br />
GUARANTEED.<br />
DERRY GLASS SAND COMPANY j<br />
MANUFACTURERS AND SHIPPERS <<br />
H IGH GRADE CRUSHED ROCK SAND !<br />
For Motor, Engine and Building Purpo<br />
GENERAL OFFICES: LATROBE, PA.
60 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Here is a story which Baron Douse, the celebrated<br />
English judge, once told in that exagger<br />
ated Irish "brougue" which he loyed to employ:<br />
"I was down in Cork last month, holding assizes.<br />
On the first day, when the jury came in, the officer<br />
of the court said:<br />
" 'Gentlemen av the jury, ye'll take your accustomed<br />
places, if ye plaze.'<br />
"And may I never laugh. said tbe baron, "if<br />
they didn't all walk into the dock!"—London<br />
Globe.<br />
-o-<br />
Patrolman Casey had ordered a pair of shoes at<br />
Rosenberg's store and was about to try one of<br />
them on when the clerk reached for a box and<br />
deftly sprinkled some French chalk in it to ease<br />
the forthcoming strain. When he handed it back<br />
to the patrolman he threw it on the floor, pulled<br />
on his own shoe and started out.<br />
The proprietor had noticed the scene. "What's<br />
the matter, Mr. Casey?" he panted as he caught<br />
up with him. "Was the clerk sassy or anything?"<br />
For a moment Casey glared at him in almost<br />
speechless anger, then observed with icy dignity:<br />
"If I can't come into a place to thry on a pair iv<br />
shoes widout havin' chloride av lime put in thim<br />
beforehand I'll thrade somewhere Use."—Success<br />
.Magazine.<br />
Mine Inspector Devore of Ohio ordered tbe mine<br />
of the Fort Pitt Coal Co., at Martin's Ferry, 0.,<br />
closed on account of gas an firedamp. Some<br />
time ago the miners tapped old workings and the<br />
gas and firedamp filled the new mine. The mine<br />
was closed until the openings into the old workings<br />
are walled up, which is being done, and it is<br />
expected operations will be resumed shortly.<br />
The Quemahoning Creek Coal Co. is the name<br />
under which Messrs. John C. Brydon, Charles J.<br />
Harrison and Charles J. Harrison, Jr., the last<br />
two of Somerset, Pa., and the former of New<br />
York, will apply for a charter for a corporation<br />
under the laws of Pennsylvania on October 16.<br />
The Cresson shaft of the Pennsylvania Coal &<br />
Coke Co., which was badly damaged by fire about<br />
a year ago is being repaired and will be deepened<br />
to reach the B or Miller vein of coal. Hitherto<br />
only the Lemon seam has been operated.<br />
J. H- SANFORD COAL COMPANY<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS<br />
HIGHEST GRADE PANHANDLE COAL<br />
ANALYSIS :<br />
Moisture 153 BEST FOR STEAM ARID<br />
SSJ&SSr ---<strong>•</strong>--.- 5634 DOMESTIC USES<br />
Ash - - - - - - 6.17<br />
Sulphur - - - - - 1.79<br />
° ffices : 1 3 I 5 Park Building, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, ^ ph Qrant 1822_1823_1824<br />
Jas. Otis Handy, Chief Chemist.<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
. FAMOUj<br />
TT<br />
"ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
JGOAL TRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, NOVEMBER 1, 1911 No. 11<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN;<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STRAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matters<br />
relating to coal or coal production are invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDING, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
COUNTRY WIDE REPORTS FAIL TO sno\\ r THE ADVANCE<br />
in the coal trade the first of November generally<br />
is expected to bring about and the indications for<br />
the remainder of the year point to only a normal<br />
movement in the trade, unless something unex<br />
pected should transpire to bring about a sudden<br />
and decided jump in tonnage and prices. The<br />
movement of coal fom all fields to central dis<br />
tributing markets is on about the same tonnage<br />
basis as at the middle of last month. Cooler<br />
weather in the past few days has brought about<br />
some, increased demand from domestic consumers,<br />
and this is bound to bring about some betterment<br />
in the near future. On the other hand, manufac<br />
turing and transportation buyers are not making<br />
strenuous efforts to secure fuel in large amounts,<br />
but rather are purchasing from hand to mouth,<br />
with the result that demand does not nearly meet<br />
production capacity. This, of course, makes for<br />
idle days at mines where otherwise steady pro<br />
duction would be the rule.<br />
Announcement by the largest carrying concern<br />
that the ore carrying season is about to close has<br />
brought with it the fact that the lake shipments<br />
of coal also will cease shortly and that producers,<br />
if they would augment coal in storage at the lakes'<br />
head, they must rush cargoes forward in a few<br />
days. Government statistics on the amount of<br />
coal shipped via water for the period ending Sep<br />
tember 30, show that eight hundred and sixty odd<br />
thousand tons less of bituminous coal went for<br />
ward than during the same period in 1910. An<br />
thracite lake shipments show an increase, but on<br />
the whole the trade was less active. From these<br />
figures and market reports the inference is that<br />
the 1911 season will not exceed the tonnage of<br />
1910 if it reaches that figure.<br />
According to press repots and pronouncement<br />
by government officials the strike in the Canadian<br />
Northwest has been settled, and this means a re<br />
newal of mining activity in that section. All<br />
other labor matters just now seem centered on<br />
the choice of officers by the miners' union and the<br />
probable demands the next international conven<br />
tion will make in the way of wages and in regard<br />
to the anthracite arbitration agreement.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district the final shipments<br />
intended for water transportation up the lakes are<br />
being gotten ready and are being sent forward in<br />
the main. Of course, some coal thus intended<br />
will be mined and shipped later, but the main<br />
part of the movement is over. River shippers<br />
have sent practically all their coal laden craft<br />
south and the steamers have returned and are re<br />
turning with empty craft, in consequence of which<br />
the river mines have the better of the argument<br />
insofar as working is concerned. Mines in the<br />
district are operating at between 75 to 80 per cent.<br />
of capacity, in this regard showing but little<br />
change from last report, but whatever change there<br />
may be is on the better side of the ledger. Ton<br />
nage for the last two days of October is likely to<br />
show a big drop because of the mine rescue demon<br />
stration, but that is only an incident that will be<br />
made up later. With activity practically station<br />
ary prices are not showing any tendency to move<br />
upward although at this time of year the trade<br />
rather looks for such a condition. Most grades of<br />
coal are stationary, but prices on slack have been<br />
shaded to a certain extent by those carrying a<br />
large amount of it. Quotations in the district
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
are $1.25 to $1.35 for run-of-mine coal; $1.35 to<br />
$1.45 for three-quarter coal; $1.45 to $1.55 for<br />
inch and one-quarter coal, and 75 to 85 cents for<br />
slack.<br />
The coke trade shows little difference during the<br />
past fortnight, the production being almost sta<br />
tionary, with a slight gain during the final week<br />
of the month. Some stock coke has been shipped<br />
but not in sufficient quantities to make a decided<br />
change in tbe market. Producers are keeping<br />
tonnage down to demand, practically, and by this<br />
method aie automatically upholding prices and<br />
thus preventing bargain hunters from reaping a<br />
harvest. The suit of the United States govern<br />
ment to secure the dissolution of the United States<br />
Steel Corporation includes, among the defendant<br />
companies the largest coke manufacturing com<br />
pany, but this legal tangle likely will have but<br />
little effect on tonnage, because, no matter what<br />
the final outcome, the demand for coke will con<br />
tinue even if the dissolution should come. The<br />
manufacturing companies are maintaining card<br />
quotations, which are, $1.75 to $1.85 for furnace<br />
coke and $2.00 to $2.25 for foundry coke.<br />
Anthracite tonnage continue good and unless<br />
the next eight weeks show a decided dropping off<br />
the year will establish a new record. There are<br />
rumors of storage by producing concerns because<br />
of wage negotiations in prospective, but if product<br />
is going into the yards, it probably is because of<br />
provision being made for greater demand during<br />
the cold weather that is to come. Mines are<br />
working steadily and prices are held closely to<br />
winter card rates, with some of the grades held at<br />
a premium because of a scarcity.<br />
* * *<br />
THERE WAS PRESENTED AT THE AMERICAN- MINING<br />
CONGRESS a basis for a workmen's compensation<br />
law, and the recommendation of the committee was<br />
adopted and mine owners were urged to use it<br />
when settling cases of the kind. An awful howl<br />
is sure to come over the figures mentioned and all<br />
sorts of epithets will be hurled at the mine owner<br />
or association of mine owners that adopt it.<br />
Whether it is just we do not care to say at this<br />
time, but in view of the fact that it is a basis<br />
from which to start and formulate an agreement<br />
or a law that will lie mutually satisfactory to<br />
mine owner and employes, it deserves considera<br />
tion. It were better to fix some rate for compen<br />
sation and have the beneficiary get the whole<br />
amount than to go into the courts and have both<br />
employer and employe fatten the earnings of court<br />
officials and attorneys.<br />
* * *<br />
SOME HITHERTO UNKNOWN FACTS HAVE BEEN ASCER<br />
TAINED through the medium of the explosive dem<br />
onstrations at the First Aid meet in Pittsburgh<br />
during the past few days. Also some theories<br />
have been proved and others disproved. Skeptics<br />
of a certain class have had their skepticism driven<br />
out and there is a chorus of "I told you so's" at<br />
work. But above all. the explosions at the Ar<br />
senal grounds, at the experimental mine at Bruce<br />
ton and at Forbes Field have demonstrated this<br />
one great truth, that there is constantly recurring<br />
in the mines situations that are dangerous and<br />
which will nun into disasters unless great care<br />
is had and every precaution is taken. These ex<br />
periments also have brought the coal mining in<br />
dustry closer together and have bonded the em<br />
ployer and employe together in a stronger effort<br />
to prevent disaster in the pits.<br />
* <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
AMERICAN COAL IS GOING TO AFRICAN RAILWAYS<br />
on contract. True, the amount is only relatively<br />
large, but it is another opening wedge in the effort<br />
by American operators to take their place as world<br />
wide suppliers of fuel and is pointing the way to<br />
Still other contracts that will, in all probability<br />
be profitable to mine owners.<br />
Explosives had their inning during the fortnight.<br />
No one was hurt in the experiments and<br />
mayhap they'll prevent loss of life.<br />
<strong>•</strong> * <strong>•</strong><br />
Old Man Winter is just around the corner.<br />
Even the President got interested in the mine<br />
experiments.<br />
# # #<br />
More coal from America going into a new market<br />
has a pleasant look to operators.<br />
* * *<br />
One more strike settled. Why not. apply the<br />
ounce of prevention hereafter.<br />
* * *<br />
Coke makers surely are sitting on the lid these<br />
days.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 25<br />
NATIONAL MINE SAFETY DEMONSTRATIONS,<br />
OCTOBER 30 AND 31.<br />
During the past two days, October 30 and 31,<br />
Pittsburgh has been the scene of one of the most<br />
notable and interesting gatherings of operating<br />
and mining men in theh history of the country's<br />
coal industry. The occasion was the National<br />
Mine Safety Demonstration under the auspices of<br />
the United States Bureau of Mines, the American<br />
National Red Cross Society and the Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Operators' Association. Some of the most<br />
prominent figures in the affairs of our national<br />
and state governments, and representatives of<br />
large and influential coal companies in all sections<br />
of the United States and foreign countries where<br />
"Coal is King," were in attendance. They witnessed<br />
a splendid exhibition of what the United<br />
States Bureau of Mines is doing to bring about<br />
safer and saner methods in extracting the black<br />
diamonds from the bowels of the earth and placing<br />
them within reach of the producer.<br />
The big event of the two days' meet was held<br />
yesterday at Forbes Field, the magnificent Stadium<br />
of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club. The program<br />
consisted of first aid exhibitions and explosion<br />
rescue and first aid work in an experimental<br />
steel gallery. Among the notables present<br />
were President William Howard Taft, who presented<br />
the badges of efficiency and Red Cross first<br />
aid cases to the miners who participated. Secretary<br />
of the Interior Walter L. Fisher, Governor<br />
John K. Tener of Pennsylvania, Director Joseph<br />
A. Holmes of the Bureau of Mines, and other<br />
prominent men. Probably 15,000 spectators were<br />
in attendance.<br />
Teams of trained miners, representing mining<br />
companies from all sections of the United States,<br />
participated in the following demonstrations: —<br />
1. Treating a lacerated wound of the right side<br />
of head (temple) and a lacerated wound on top<br />
of the right shoulder; one man event.<br />
2. Treating a punctured wound over the left<br />
eye and lacerated wound of palm of right hand;<br />
one man event.<br />
3. Treating a simple fracture of left collar<br />
bone and simple fracture of jaw; two men event.<br />
4. Treating a dislocated right shoulder and simple<br />
fracture of right leg; two men event.<br />
5. Treating conditions of a man who has fallen<br />
on an electric wire back down, clothing burning;<br />
rescue, extinguish fire, treat back and upper arms:<br />
team event.<br />
(1. Treating conditions of a man who has<br />
fallen on an electric wire, face down; rescue and<br />
extinguish fire, treat chest and upper arms; team<br />
event.<br />
PITTSBURGH,<br />
7. Treating gas burns of face, neck, ears and<br />
hands; team event.<br />
8. Treating gas burns of hands, right arm and<br />
shoulder; team event.<br />
9. Treating a broken back and simple fracture<br />
of right fore arm; team event.<br />
10. Treating a dislocated hip and simple fracture<br />
of collar-bone; team event.<br />
Even more interesting from the spectator's<br />
standpoin were the exhibitions given in the large<br />
steel explosion gallery, representing an ordinary<br />
coal mine. This gallery was cylindrical in shape<br />
and was 133 feet long.<br />
A test of a permissible explosive was first made,<br />
such explosive being equal in disruptive force to<br />
one-half pound of 40 per cent, nitroglycerine,<br />
tamped with one pound of dry fire clay. The<br />
explosion was fired at the end of the gallery<br />
within which was 133 pounds of fine coal dust<br />
from the Pittsburgh seam, distributed uniformly<br />
throughout, and 20 pounds on a wooden bench<br />
20 feet long near the mouth of the cannon, making<br />
a total of 153 pounds. The coal dust was not<br />
exploded by this test.<br />
An experiment of bow birds are used in exploring<br />
mines was one of the most unique on the<br />
program. It is known that birds are more sensitive<br />
to the effects of poisonous gases than are<br />
men, and this principle has been used to advantage<br />
in mine rescue work. A few birds can be<br />
taken into mines which are known to be gaseous,<br />
and when they show distress the party can retreat<br />
in safety. To bring this forcibly before the minds<br />
of the spectators, G. A. Burrell, a representative<br />
of the Bureau of Mines, entered a glass case containing<br />
.25 of one per cent, carbon monoxide gas<br />
(the miner's "white damp"), taking several canary<br />
birds with him. The birds were soon unable to<br />
withstand the gases and collapsed, although Mr.<br />
Burrell apparently was not affected. The birds,<br />
on being removed from the chamber, were resuscitated<br />
by the use of oxygen.<br />
The effect of black powder exploding in the<br />
presence of coal dust was shown when a charge<br />
of "FFP" black powder equal in disruptive force<br />
to one-half pound of 40 per cent, nitroglycerine<br />
was fired in the gallery containing 153 pounds of<br />
coal dust, being the same kind of dust used in<br />
the permissible explosive experiment. An explosion<br />
of great impact, which blew clouds of<br />
smoke and flame in the air, resulted. Rescue<br />
parties of mine foremen of the Bureau of Mines,<br />
aided by squads representing the Illinois Mine<br />
Rescue Station Commission, the Philadelphia and<br />
Reading Coal & Iron Co., and several local com-
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN<br />
panies, and equipped with the various types of<br />
artificial breathing apparatus, then entered the<br />
gallery and recovered supposed victims of the explosion.<br />
First aid problems were demonstrated<br />
with these rescued men as subjects, by Messrs.<br />
C. O. Roberts, W. A. Raudenbush, William Burke,<br />
W. D. Roberts and J. T. Ryan.<br />
After the field events were completed, addresses<br />
were delivered by President Taft, Secretary<br />
Fisher, Governor Tener and Miss Mabel<br />
Boardman, of the American National Red Cross.<br />
Governor Tener introduced the speakers. In his<br />
introductory remarks he referred to the fact that<br />
his home was in the heart of one of Pennsylvania's<br />
largest coal mining sections.<br />
President Taft, before awarding the badges and<br />
Red Cross cases to the competing miners, said<br />
in part:—<br />
"It is proper that this magnificent demonstration<br />
should be held on the soil of a state which<br />
plays so important a part in the coal mining industry<br />
of our country. Three hundred thousand<br />
miners and their families live in the state of<br />
Pennsylvania. Therefore, this state is interested<br />
more than any other in the cause of saving the<br />
lives of these workmen. There are over 700,000<br />
miners in the United States and in the past ten<br />
years 30,000 have been killed and 70,000 wounded<br />
in the mines through various agencies of destruction—one-seventh<br />
of the entire body. This<br />
is surely not a record to be proud of and it is<br />
time that we take steps to restrain and restrict<br />
the loss.<br />
"The establishment of the Bureau of Mines<br />
was the initial movement. The Federal Government<br />
does not have direct supervision over the<br />
mines but it has the authority under the constitution<br />
to act ior the general welfare of the people.<br />
It is, therefore, right that it shall expend<br />
money to see that correct methods are adopted<br />
and pursued to protect the lives of the miners.<br />
Ultimately, we must depend on the miners themselves<br />
for this. We must have their co-operation."<br />
Secretary Fisher spoke of conservation as related<br />
to tbe work of the Bureau of Mines. "Conservation,"<br />
he said, "is no longer a matter of<br />
sentiment, but is a practical proposition. Nothing<br />
demonstrates this more than the experiments<br />
we have seen here. The work of the Bureau of<br />
Mines typified more than anything the true spirit<br />
of the conservation movement—the conservation<br />
of human life. There are two kinds of waste,<br />
the destruction by fire and the reckless waste due<br />
to improper methods. Then, there is the waste<br />
which arises through the perversion of our national<br />
resources. Both should be prevented. The<br />
greatest waste is the loss of life and energy, how<br />
ever. This is the problem to which the Bureau<br />
of Mines is devoted."<br />
The program opened Monday with demonstrations<br />
and exhibits of explosives and explosions,<br />
safety lamps, fuel testing, etc., at the Bureau of<br />
Mines Building in the morning, and at the Bureau's<br />
experimental mine at Bruceton, Pa., in the<br />
afternoon. The latter was one of the most interesting<br />
and spectacular features connected with the<br />
entire demonstration.<br />
This experimental mine was opened some<br />
months ago in order to study the phenomena of<br />
dust and gas explosives and to test various methods<br />
of preventing and checking explosions in<br />
progress, under actual mine conditions. Situated<br />
back in the hills, far removed from buildings<br />
and structures which might be damaged by the<br />
effects of explosions, the Bruceton mine supplies<br />
ideal conditions for the purpose.<br />
At the demonstration Monday were present<br />
about one thousand spectators who made the trip<br />
from Pittsburgh to Bruceton by special train over<br />
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The mine was<br />
prepared for the explosion by placing coal dust on<br />
the floor of the steel gallery and on wooden<br />
shelves along the sides of the entries, which was<br />
exploded by firing a charge of black blasting powder<br />
(representing a blow out shot) into the steel<br />
gallery-<br />
The visitors were first permitted to explore the<br />
inner workings of the mine under the direction<br />
of guides. The mine was well lighted and the<br />
spectators, many of whom were laymen on the<br />
subject of practical coal mining and had not seen<br />
actual mining conditions, were permitted to walk<br />
from one entry to the other, a distance of about<br />
1,400 feet. Careful account was kept of the number<br />
entering the mine and the number coming<br />
out to avoid any fatalities.<br />
After the mine had been vacated and all wire<br />
connections which were foreign to the experiment<br />
had been removed, the signal was given for firing<br />
the shot. Considerable trouble was experienced<br />
in getting this result, but on the third trial<br />
the explosion occurred. Owing to the delays, it<br />
was dark at the time and the spectators were<br />
treated to a most beautiful yet terrifying sight.<br />
At first it seemed as though the entire hillside had<br />
given away. Large pieces of concrete from the<br />
entries were blown high in the air and the fan<br />
house, located at one of the entries, was almost<br />
completely demolished. Mine cars nearby were<br />
blown off the tracks and the wooden shelves on<br />
which the coal dust had been placed were blown<br />
from the entries like bullets from a rifle. It was<br />
a splendid example of the dreadful destruction<br />
which may result from the explosion of coal dust<br />
ignited by blow-out shots or from other sources.<br />
(Continued on Page 46.)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
AMERICAN MINING CONGRESS IN ANNUAL SESSION AT CHICAGO<br />
DEALS WITH PRESENT DAY PROBLEMS<br />
The fourteenth annual session of the American<br />
Mining Congress was held in Chicago, October<br />
24-28. and with President Taft in attendance, took<br />
up and discussed present day mining problems.<br />
The opening session was held October 24, and<br />
after welcoming addresses and responses a smoker<br />
was held.<br />
The second day's session was featured by the<br />
report of the Workmen's Compensation committee,<br />
which presented the following recommendation<br />
for adoption by the congress:<br />
Scale foi compensation for workmen in mines:<br />
Loss of one life. $1,500.<br />
Loss of one limb, $500.<br />
Loss of one eye, $250.<br />
Maimed hand, right. $500; left, $250.<br />
Loss of one finger, $50 to $100.<br />
The figure for loss of life represents the average<br />
earnings of all miners for three years and it is<br />
urged that operators adopt it. The recommendation<br />
includes a clause that acceptance of the schedule<br />
preclude, on the part of the workmen, any<br />
damage suits. The report was adopted later in<br />
the convention.<br />
At the afternoon session resolutions were adopted<br />
indorsing the deep waterway movement, recommending<br />
the passage of an equitable workingmen's<br />
compensation act and urging a modification of the<br />
Sherman anti-trust law to allow reasonable agreements<br />
between coal operators.<br />
John Mayer of Kansas City, Kan., urged the congress<br />
to consider means for procuring the passage<br />
of a general workingmen's compensation law,<br />
which will be just and equitable to all parts of<br />
the country- Mayer opposed employers' liability<br />
legislation and expressed the belief that the interests<br />
of the workingmen and employers alike<br />
would be better served through a comprehensive<br />
act.<br />
Z. Y. Vincent of Huntington, W. Va., contended<br />
that the passage of uniform laws in the several<br />
states was a hopeless task and that the only solution<br />
of the problem was through national legislation<br />
or through a national bureau.<br />
"Compensation to injured and disabled employes."<br />
Vincent said, "should be made a charge<br />
in the cost of production and should be paid by<br />
the consumer. This is a legitimate charge in the<br />
cost of production and the consumer should pay it."<br />
"The Sherman anti-trust law is almost cruel in<br />
its operation against our industry and if it were<br />
strictly enforced would not only bankrupt us but<br />
would bankrupt 90 per cent, of the business interests<br />
of the United States. The only reason that<br />
we have been able to attain the business importance<br />
which we have is because the Department of<br />
Justice has found it impossible to enforce the Sherman<br />
anti-trust law."<br />
John Dern, owner of the Mercuric Consolidated<br />
mine of Utah and president of the American Mining<br />
Congress, made a strong plea for more help<br />
from the government for the miners.<br />
"We miners must stand up for our rights. There<br />
is no higher calling in tbe world than ours and<br />
we should make tbe government feel that we are<br />
entitled to their help to just as great an extent as<br />
the farmers. The Bureau of Mines in the government<br />
should be to the miners just what the Bureau<br />
of Agriculture is to the farmers. Why is it that<br />
agriculture bas always been the favorite child<br />
when mining is nothing less than her twin sister?<br />
We are not jealous, but believe that mining deserves<br />
to be recognized as much as agriculture and<br />
should be given its just dues."<br />
Horace J. Stevens of Houghton, Mich., spoke on<br />
"The Copper Industry," and T. Poole Maynard of<br />
Atlanta, Ga., read a paper on "The Cement Industry<br />
in the South."<br />
John Hays Hammond made the report of the<br />
« ommittee on federal legislation.<br />
Other speakers and their subjects were:<br />
"The Relation of Congress to the Mining Industry,"<br />
by Dr. Martin D. Foster, chairman mines and<br />
mining committee, U. S. House of Representatives.<br />
"Electric Hoisting," by W. A. Thomas, Pittsburgh,<br />
Pa.<br />
"Hydroelectric Power," by David B. Rushmore,<br />
Schenectady, N. Y.<br />
At the evening session the annual meeting of the<br />
members was held and illustrated addresses were<br />
delivered as follows:<br />
"Problems of the Mining Industry," I illustrated),<br />
by Dr. J. A. Holmes, Washington, D. C.<br />
"What is Being Done to Protect the Lives of<br />
Coal Miners." (illustrated), by Dr. James Douglas,<br />
New York.<br />
"The Mining Industry of California," (illustrated),<br />
by E. H. Benjamin, San Francisco, Cal.<br />
The third day's sessions were devoted almost<br />
entirely to tbe coal industry and Messrs. B. F.<br />
Bush, Charles S. Keith. W. S. Bogle, Carl Scholz,<br />
F. A. Delano, H. N. Taylor and A. H. Purdue were<br />
the principal speakers.<br />
In the evening a paper prepared by D. W. Kuhn<br />
of Pittsburgh, on "The Sherman Law and Its Relation<br />
to the Coal Industry," was read by J. W.<br />
Wardrop. In part it said:<br />
"The history" of the Sherman act has been a
28 IHE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
"comedy of errors." Its supporters have deserted<br />
it, the part which fathered it has sought to change<br />
it and the supreme court has repeatedly reversed<br />
itself in rendering decisions upon it. It does not<br />
conserve business, but is destructive of it. It is<br />
not a remedial act, but an act of repression. It is<br />
a good illustration of how nol to legislate, for it is<br />
impossible of literal enforcement. Labor has in<br />
fringed the provisions of the act, but labor will<br />
not be prosecuted, for that would be politically<br />
inexpedient. It does not make for conservation,<br />
but has exactly the opposite effect. The national<br />
commercial loss has been tremendous as a result<br />
of the repressive effect of this law. If there are<br />
evils of restraint and monopoly, making ihe De<br />
partment of Justice a police department will not<br />
remedy them. We must adopt something con<br />
structive as well as corrective.<br />
"Coal barons are like ghosts. If any one was<br />
ever between the upper and nether millstones, it<br />
is the coal producers. A kodak and toy concern<br />
shows an annual profit for last year of $8,000,000,<br />
while all the coal operators of the Allegheny district<br />
did not make 8,000 cents while depleting the<br />
national resources and taking human life. An<br />
equitable merger would be a positive benefit.<br />
There should, of course, be publicity in corporate<br />
conduct, but a concentration of production is absolutely<br />
necessary and must come sooner or later.<br />
Unless the coal business is freed from tbe iniqui<br />
tous operation of the Sherman act the only possible<br />
course for the operator is to cut wages and<br />
this will have to be done soon. I predict that it<br />
will come next spring when the operators again<br />
meet the workmen, and there will be an industrial<br />
war in this country by the side of which tiie recent<br />
strike in England will seem as mere child's play."<br />
The principal efature of the fourth day's session<br />
was llie address of Hon. Walter L. Fisher, secre<br />
tary of the Interior, who, declaring that be spoke<br />
officially and with the consent of President Taft,<br />
said that the coal lands comprised in tbe public<br />
domain in Alaska, would be available to tbe public<br />
under a leasing system.<br />
Secretary Fisher said the government might<br />
operate certain properties as models and would<br />
lease the remainder to private capitalists under<br />
suitable government regulation. The amount of<br />
land to be leased would lie limited, he said, to the<br />
area that profitably could lie mined to meet current<br />
demands for coal.<br />
Secretary Fisher's announcement that the leasing<br />
system would prevail in the coal fields nf<br />
Alaska was diametrically contrary to the pro<br />
nouncements of previous speakers concerning the<br />
Alaskan domain. A number of Alaskans and<br />
others had spoken during the day. strenuously denouncing<br />
a government leasing system as bad in<br />
every way for both land and people.<br />
Quoting the fnited States supreme court to sup<br />
port his contention that in undertaking railroad<br />
construction the government is in effect "simply<br />
resuming one of its own proper functions," and<br />
not invading the legitimate domain of private en<br />
terprise, Secretary Fisher suggested government<br />
ownership and operation of mines and transporta<br />
tion facilities in Alaska on a limited scale. He<br />
declared, however, that direct government operalion,<br />
including the mining and sending of coal,<br />
involved such deep and far-reaching changes, both<br />
ol' policy and of administration, that there is no<br />
likelihood at the present time of its adoption to<br />
the exclusion of private operation, and that while<br />
much can be said in favor of the government entering<br />
experimentally into those fields, he did not<br />
believe in the policy of having the government<br />
alone own and mine Alaskan coal.<br />
At the closing day's session, October 28, Presi<br />
dent William H. Taft spoke on "The Federal Gov<br />
ernment and the Mining Industry," and among<br />
ether things endorsed the stand taken by Secretary<br />
Fisher.<br />
The following officers were chosen: President.<br />
S. A. Taylor, Pittsburgh, Pa.; first vice president,<br />
D. YV. Brunion, Denver; second vice president, A.<br />
A. .Montgomery, Los Angeles; third vice president.<br />
('ail Scholz, Chicago; secretary. J. F. Callbreath.<br />
Denver.<br />
MERGER OF OHIO COMPANIES IS PLANNED,<br />
WITH ABOUT 15.000 ACRES OF COAL<br />
INVOLVED.<br />
Negotiations are in progress for the merging of<br />
several of the larger coal companies in the No. S<br />
nr Pittsburgh vein district of Ohio, and the committee<br />
of five in charge of the negotiations are<br />
sanguine of success.<br />
Among tbe properties tbat are said to be in<br />
cluded in the negotiations are those of the Rail &<br />
River Coal Co. and the Belmont Coal Mining Co.,<br />
with offices in Pittsburgh, and the Youghiogheny<br />
& Ohio Coal Co., Lorain Coal & Dock Co., Roby-<br />
Sommers Coal Co., and the M. A. Hanna Co., all<br />
with offices in Cleveland, O.<br />
In addition to these larger companies about 40<br />
smaller operating concerns in the district have<br />
been invited to put their properties in the new<br />
corporation. A total of approximately 150,000<br />
acres of coal is involved, while the monetary con<br />
sideration involved is said to be approximately<br />
$20,000,000.<br />
The committee in charge of the merger plans<br />
expect to bring them to a successful conclusion<br />
within a short time, and to have the merger successfully<br />
underwritten.<br />
An almost identical move was started early in<br />
the year, but for some reason, the deal was not<br />
successfully carried out.
EXPERIMENTAL EXPLOSION WRECKS GOV<br />
ERNMENT MINE AT BRUCETON AND<br />
PROVES COAL DUST TO BE EXPLOSIVE<br />
IN ITSELF.<br />
An experimental explosion was successfully carried<br />
out at the U. S. Bureau of Mines Bruceton<br />
mine on October 24, which proved the theory that<br />
coal dust, in itself is explosive, and which wrecked<br />
the mine.<br />
The explosion, whicli occurred about 9 p. m.,<br />
October 24, was the first one in the experimental<br />
mine of the U. S. Bureau of Mines, which lias<br />
done any great damage—and the experts were<br />
startled, even though they were pleased with the<br />
proving of the theories for which some have<br />
laughed at them. The experiment was in line<br />
with those the engineers have been conducting<br />
right along since the taking over of the mine some<br />
time ago.<br />
The test was an explosion of 2(ju pounds of coal<br />
dust placed at tbe end of one of the 700-foot entrances<br />
of the mine. The coal dust was touched<br />
off by an electric spark from the outside. There<br />
was no thought on the part of the engineers that<br />
the explosion would have anything like the results<br />
it had. They proceeded on the theory that the<br />
amount of coal dust they were igniting represented<br />
the condition in tbe average mine. It is also a<br />
theory of the mine experts that coal dust explosions<br />
affect the whole mine, whereas gas explosions<br />
affect only the particular locality in which<br />
they occur. The theory was abundantly upheld<br />
by the experiment, inasmuch as everywhere in the<br />
mine there was evidence of damage.<br />
About two-thirds of the way down one of the<br />
mine entrances there was placed the barrier of<br />
sand bags and at the mouth of another entry the<br />
iron doors were weighted down with 40 simnlar<br />
bags, each weighing in tbe neighborhood of 150<br />
pounds. The big barrier in the entry was knocked<br />
to bits while the blockade at the mouth of the<br />
other entry was hurled aside and some of the bags<br />
were thrown 30 or 40 in the air. About 25 feet<br />
away from the second of the three mine openings<br />
stood a freight car. which was found 300 feet further<br />
off after the smoke had cleared. Where one<br />
entry runs into another the concrete work was<br />
broken down, this being possibly the biggest surprise<br />
the engineers received as showing the force<br />
of the explosion. The main entry of the mine is<br />
built unusually solid of concrete work and this<br />
escaped any damage.<br />
"Had the experimental mine been working as a<br />
normal coal pit and the explosion caused October 2 4<br />
of 200 pounds of mine dust been accidental, it<br />
would have killed 150 coal miners. The explosion<br />
was of such terrific force that it would have<br />
probably blown every miner within the mine into<br />
an unrecognizable mass."<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
This was the statement made by tbe Bureau of<br />
Mines engineers who on October 25 went through<br />
the mine. Tbe force was so terrific on the mine<br />
that some of the registering apparatus was<br />
wrecked. One of them showed a pressure of 100<br />
pounds to the square inch. One hundred feet of<br />
concrete lining at the mine opening had been<br />
i aised and dropped, as well as the entire roof.<br />
Several heavy falls were noted and the entire<br />
working badly wrecked. A gasoline motor standing<br />
100 feet from the entry of tbe mine and supposed<br />
to be out of danger had a small red flag<br />
on it in order that an explosive force might be<br />
noted on the flag. A part of this flag was found<br />
in a tree several hundred feet away. The motor<br />
was wrecked.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e S. Rice, in charge of the mine; Clarence<br />
Hall, in charge of the explosives, and J. W. Paull,<br />
in charge of the rescue department, entered the<br />
mine and made a thorough investigation. The<br />
wreckage was worse than was supposed. That an<br />
explosion can occur when a mine is unusually<br />
moist, as this one was, and tbat the force of the<br />
blast is general and follows every lead of the<br />
workings and in all directions with apparently<br />
equal force was clear.<br />
The test, which is held by experts to be one of<br />
the most appalling ever given, will be studied by<br />
tbe experts of the world. It is held that this will<br />
be the beginning of the solving of many of the<br />
greatest dangers of mining and also offer means<br />
of finding remedies for them.<br />
OFFERS TO BUY INDIAN COAL LANDS.<br />
E. A. Perry of Muskogee, Okla., has offered the<br />
Choctaw nation of Indians $15,000,000 for the half<br />
million acres of segregated coal and asphalt lands<br />
of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations.<br />
Fifteen million dollars is the exact amount that<br />
the government placed as the value of the land<br />
after spending eighteen mom lis anil $100,000 investigating<br />
with diamond drills.<br />
More then 10 years ago the government undertook<br />
to ascertain just what the coal land was<br />
worth. Government experts with diamond drills<br />
were sent into the Choctaw nation. They worked<br />
18 months and spent approximately $100,000. Fifty<br />
test holes were drilled. Some of these were 200<br />
feet deep and some were 2,000.<br />
The segregation consists of a chain of irregular<br />
areas stretching clear across the Choctaw nation<br />
from Tanaha. on tbe Arkansas river, southwest<br />
and into the Chickasaw nation. The asphalt lands<br />
lie almost entirely within the Chickasaw nation.<br />
and the biggest deposits are in the vicinity of Ardmore.<br />
The Bon Jellico Coal Co., Jellico, Tenn.. will develop<br />
1,250 acres of coal in Whiteley county, Ky.
30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
PITTSBURGH COAL RATE HEARING<br />
SET FOR NOVEMBER 20, 1911.<br />
Officials of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. and other<br />
Pittsburgh district coal operators, who have joined<br />
in the fight for lower freight rates to the lakes,<br />
will gather in Washington for the resumed hearing<br />
before the Interstate Commerce Commission<br />
on November 20, instead of November 13, as has<br />
been announced. The further adjournment of a<br />
week is considered an advantage for the operators<br />
as some of them, who have recently come into the<br />
case, will be better prepared to go before the Commerce<br />
Commission and state their reasons why<br />
rates should be equalized.<br />
The hearing, which is a continuation of the<br />
hearing of a couple of months ago, is expected to<br />
take up the remainder of the month of November,<br />
and the Pittsburgh operators are hoping" that all<br />
the evidence may be presented and the matter<br />
laid before the Commission in such shape as to<br />
permit of a decision being rendered soon. This<br />
is the case brought before the Commission by independent<br />
operators, the Pittsburgh Coal Co. intervening<br />
in the petition alter the first hearing<br />
had been held. Since then there has been a<br />
unanimity of sentiment among the operators and<br />
the fight is expected to be one of the hardest<br />
fought of any dispute the Commerce Commission<br />
has had to decide.<br />
At the coming hearing, which is expected to be<br />
the final one. there will be a big array of counsel.<br />
Chief among the coal men's counsel will be Louis<br />
D. Brandeis, the famous Boston lawyer, while<br />
many well known attorneys will be on band to<br />
look after the interests of the railroads.<br />
KANAWHA OPERATORS ASK FOR<br />
NINE-FOOT STAGE IN RIVER.<br />
The Kanawha Coal Operators' Association met in<br />
annual session at Charleston, W. Va.. Oct. 20, and<br />
among other business transacted adopted this resolution:<br />
That Whereas, the system of locks and dams<br />
now being constructed by the United States government<br />
in the Ohio river provide, when the dams<br />
are up for a nine-foot stage of water through the<br />
locks, thereby permitting tbe large size coal barges<br />
and flat boats to pass down the river to the markets<br />
of Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis and New<br />
Orleans; and<br />
Whereas, the system of locks and dams heretofore<br />
constructed in the Great Kanawha river are<br />
so built as to furnish only a six-foot stage of water<br />
when the dams are raised, thereby making it impossible<br />
for the barges and flat boats of the size<br />
now used on the Ohio and requisite for lower river<br />
transportation, to pass through the Kanawha locks;<br />
and<br />
Whereas, present and future conditions of the<br />
river coal markets for the lower Ohio and Mississippi<br />
cities demand for general use the larger sized<br />
barges and flat boats for whose accommodations<br />
the Ohio river locks are now constructed; and<br />
Whereas, in order to secure an abundant and<br />
steady supply of this cheap coal from the coal<br />
mines along the Kanawha river it will be necessary<br />
that the dams be increased in height and the locks<br />
also raised to assure a nine-foot stage of water<br />
similar to what is now provided in the Ohio.<br />
Now therefore, in consideration of the premises,<br />
be it unanimously resolved, that the senators and<br />
congressmen of the state of West Virginia at<br />
Washington be and are hereby urgently requested<br />
to secure such further and adequate appropriations<br />
from the United States Congress as will immediately<br />
assure the work of heightening the dams and<br />
raising the lock walls of the Great Kanawha river<br />
improvement, to the end that, at all times, the<br />
mines of the Kanawha valley may be kept continuously<br />
running and the markets of the lower<br />
Ohio and Mississippi may be continuously supplied<br />
with an abundance of cheaply carried coal,<br />
and the original intent and purpose of the lock<br />
and dam system already constructed may be the<br />
more perfectly carried out.<br />
Among the operators present were: Hon. W. S.<br />
Edwards, Joseph Franz, N. D. Monsarratt, T. H.<br />
Huddy, W. F. Mandt. James Kay, L. C. Tippett,<br />
C. M. Fenton, J. W. Dawson, E. 0. Dana. D. T.<br />
Evans, D. C. Kennedy, J. H. Nash. Quinn Morton.<br />
F. H. Morton, W. L. Morris, W. R. Johnson, Jr.,<br />
Frank Harris, John L. Dickinson, Thomas Woodward,<br />
F. E. Wright.<br />
The officers elected were: President, Quinn<br />
Morton; vice president, E. O. Dana; treasurer,<br />
John L. Dickinson; secretary, D. C. Kennedy. The<br />
new executive committee is composed of the following<br />
members selected at the meeting: William<br />
Seymour Edwards, Edward Schoebaum. W. S.<br />
Wood, N. S. Monsarratt, W. R. Johnson, L. C.<br />
Tippett and Frank Harris.<br />
As a result of the various changes made by the<br />
last Illinois legislature in creating two new mining<br />
districts in the state, the coal producing counties<br />
of Southern Illinois have been redistricted. Frank<br />
Rosebottom, assistant superintendent of the State<br />
Mine Rescue Station at Benton, becomes inspector<br />
of the Eleventh district, composed of the counties<br />
of Franklin, Saline, White and Gallatin. Oscar<br />
C. Cartlige, formerly of Benton, is transferred to<br />
the new district, which embraces Williamson and<br />
Johnston counties, with headquarters at Marion.<br />
Specifications have been issued by the Pitts<br />
burgh Coal Co. for the construction of 1.000 to<br />
1,200 steel underframes for coal cars.
The public interest in the Alaskan situation is<br />
such that, with the consent of the President, I<br />
have concluded at your request to make at this<br />
time a candid, if somewhat informal, expression<br />
of the views I have formed as Secretary of tht<br />
Interior, under whose official supervision much of<br />
the administration of the territory is now placed.<br />
Pressure of other matters imperatively requiring<br />
attention has prevented their presentation in as<br />
precise and comprehensive a form as I had hoped.<br />
This and the absence of the President from Washington<br />
has also prevented the submission to him<br />
of what I have prepared. I wish to say, however,<br />
that no one is more earnest than he in the desire<br />
to see a policy of prompt and wise development<br />
inaugurated in Alaska and that the general policy<br />
contained in this address has been discussed with<br />
him, meets his approval, and will have his support.<br />
I have but recently returned from an altogether<br />
too brief but nevertheless a most interesting and<br />
profitable visit to those portions of Alaska which<br />
are more immediately involved in the questions<br />
now under public consideration. Favored by extraordinary<br />
weather and tbe co-operation of steamship<br />
and railroad lines and the assistance of all<br />
of the governmental agencies, including tbe revenue<br />
cutter service. I visited every port in Alaska<br />
which seems likely in the near future to become<br />
an important entrance to tbe country. I examined<br />
all of the<br />
HARBOR A Nil TOWS SITES<br />
which for this purpose have attracted any considerable<br />
public attention. f traversed the entire<br />
length of each of the three railroads which have<br />
been constructed in the territory and made a short<br />
trip from White Horse down the upper Yukon.<br />
Both before and during the journey I examined a<br />
mass of books, records and papers relating to the<br />
country and its resources. I had conferences<br />
with official committees representing the principal<br />
communities I visited and with numerous individuals,<br />
residents both of the coast and of the interior,<br />
and conerred with engineers, miners, prospectors,<br />
railroad officials, business and professional<br />
men.<br />
I had the good fortune to have with me throughout<br />
the entire Alaska trip Alfred H. Brooks, geologist<br />
in charge of the Alaskan division of the United<br />
States Geological Survey. For 14 years Mr.<br />
Brooks has been studying Alaskan conditions on<br />
the ground; for nine years he has been in charge<br />
01 the mineral division of the Geological Survey<br />
work there. I had arranged for Dr. J. A. Holmes,<br />
*Paper read before the American Mining Congress at<br />
Chicane October 27. 1911.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
ALASKAN PROBLEMS*<br />
By Walter L Fisher, Secretary of the Interior<br />
Director of tbe Bureau of Mines, to precede me to<br />
the Bering River coal field, which he examined<br />
thoroughly before joining me at Cordova. In<br />
the examination of the Bering River field Dr.<br />
Holmes was accompanied by L. T. Wolle, of Ohio,<br />
an engineer of large experience both in coal mining<br />
and railway construction; F. W. C. Whyte, of<br />
Montana, whose coal mining and railway experience<br />
has been extensive in the management for<br />
years of the coal developments and operations of<br />
the Anaconda Copper Co.; T. H. O'Brien, who for<br />
a number of years has been <strong>org</strong>anizing and managing<br />
the coal operations of the Copper Queen,<br />
Stag Canyon, and other companies in the Southwest;<br />
and Ge<strong>org</strong>e Watkins Evans, a coal mining<br />
engineer of experience in tlie Northwest States.<br />
who had already made several professional examinations<br />
of the Bering River coal field. To these<br />
gentlemen, one and all, I am greatly indebted for<br />
the valuable service they have rendered in this<br />
connection. In his subsequent examination of<br />
tbe Matanuska coal field Dr. Holmes was accompanied<br />
by Mr. Whyte and Sumner S. Smith, who<br />
is a mining engineer and the inspector of mines for<br />
Alaska.<br />
At the very outset I wish to express the high<br />
opinion I formed of tbe remarkably large and fine<br />
body of people who have become permanent residents<br />
of Alaska. While there is unquestionably<br />
a considerable floating population of a character<br />
which does not add to the real strength or stability<br />
of the territory, there is a substantial per centage<br />
of vigorous, law-abiding, law-respecting men<br />
and women of the highest type of American citizenship,<br />
and I found that they possessed what is<br />
perhaps the highest form of moral courage—the<br />
ability and the willingness to look at both sides of<br />
the questions which affect their interests and to<br />
admit that they are wrong when once convinced<br />
that they have been led into a mistake of fact or<br />
of opinion. The total population is about 65,000,<br />
of which a little less than half are whites.<br />
They are entitled to a territorial government<br />
better adapted to their peculiar local conditions<br />
and needs. The existing<br />
COAL-LAND LAWS<br />
applicable to Alaska neither promote development<br />
nor protect the public, and all its coal fields are<br />
withdrawn from entry. Numerous claims under<br />
entries made or attempted to be made prior to the<br />
withdrawal are pending in the Department of the<br />
Interior. Their investigation is now being pushed<br />
as rapidly as possible, and wherever indictments<br />
are not pending they will be decided as promptly
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
as this can he done properly.<br />
I found Alaska a country of wonderful scenic<br />
beauty, which in itself will in future years be one<br />
of its greatest financial assets. From all the information<br />
I could gather, i believe it to he a coun<br />
try of great mineral and agricultural possibilities;<br />
indeed; 1 should go furtlier and say a country of<br />
great mineral and agricultural probabilities, need<br />
ing development, ready for development, and invit<br />
ing development, but held back chiefly by inade<br />
quate transportation facilities and inadequate laws.<br />
Its present steamship lines are probably as good<br />
as could be expected, in view of the restricted com<br />
merce and the inadequate manner in which its<br />
coasts are marked and lighted. Its present roads<br />
are almost entirely those which have been built<br />
out of the meager appropriations made by Con<br />
gress for this purpose. Travel by road or trail<br />
in Alaska is still generally of the roughest pioneer<br />
description. Its present railroads are incidents<br />
to the exploitation of its mineral resources.<br />
Aside from the White Pass & Yukon road there<br />
is only one real railroad in Alaska, and that is<br />
the Copper River & Northwestern Railroad, which<br />
leads from Cordova, on Prince William Sound. 200<br />
miles up the Copper River, and its eastern tribu<br />
tary, the Chitina, to the Bonanza copper field, and<br />
is reported to have cost approximately $20,000,000.<br />
The White Pass & Yukon Railroad is an excellent<br />
narrow-gauge road along the line of the historic<br />
trail which leads over the mountains and down<br />
the Yukon to the gold fields of the Klondike, but<br />
only a small part of this railroad is in the territory<br />
of the United States. The Alaska Central<br />
Railroad starts from Seward for the Matanuska<br />
coal fields and the Yukon, but stops, discouraged,<br />
70 miles north of Seward. The present cry in<br />
Alaska and among those who are financially in<br />
terested in Alaska is that development has been<br />
stopped by the withdrawal of the coal fields from<br />
entry. T am convinced that the coal withdrawals<br />
have exerted only an incidental influence uuon<br />
the development of railroads in Alaska. If the<br />
coal fields had remained open to unrestricted private<br />
exploitation, railroad development might<br />
have been stimulated, but in that event the profits<br />
of the coal and not of the railroads would have<br />
been the incentive to construction.<br />
We have already seen in this country the in<br />
jurious effects of the joint or common ownership<br />
of coal fields and railroads, and we are now en<br />
gaged in the attempt b.v drastic legislation to remedy<br />
the evils which<br />
THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE COAL FIELDS<br />
of Alaska should prevent from recurring there.<br />
We should not repeat in Alaska or elsewhere the<br />
mistakes which have been made in the older portions<br />
of the United States. This does not mean<br />
thai Alaskan coal should nol he developed and<br />
developed at once. It means merely that it<br />
should be developed properly as well as promptly.<br />
Alaskan coal is of great value, but its extent<br />
and character have been much exaggerated. There<br />
are great quantities of lignite and low grade bitu<br />
minous coal in several parts of the territory, but<br />
there are only two known fields of high grade coal<br />
in Alaska. The better known of these two fields<br />
is the Bering River field, which is near Controller<br />
Bay, and in which the Cunningham claims were<br />
located. It is the field about which the Alaskan<br />
controversy has been fiercest and most bitter. The<br />
Matanuska field is larger and may prove to be<br />
the more important. Both of these fields contain<br />
anthracite and high grade bituminous coals. Tbe<br />
question is how they shall be opened so as to promote<br />
development and protect the public interests.<br />
Before answering that question it is necessary to<br />
consider tbe general conditions which now exist<br />
and the real end which we wish to attain. Alaskan<br />
coal can be opened so as to enable a larger or<br />
smaller number ot individuals or groups of individuals<br />
to make money out of their development,<br />
bringing with this development considerable inci<br />
dental benefit to the community as a whole<br />
through tbe expenditure of money and the em-<br />
ployment of men, or it can be opened on terms<br />
which will offer to the operator a sufficient profit<br />
to furnish an adequate incentive for his investment<br />
and bis efforts, but which will result in plac<br />
ing the coal upon the market at the cheapest price<br />
consistent with this incentive, conferring upon the<br />
community the manifold advantages of cheap fuel<br />
and of the development of the many forms of industrial<br />
enterprise which cheap fuel renders possible.<br />
I think there can be no room for doubt that the<br />
second of these objects is the one to be attained.<br />
If. however, Alaskan coal is to be mined and sold<br />
under any plan, it is important to know what is<br />
likely to be the present and future market. There<br />
is at present on the Pacific, coast no available anthracite<br />
except that in Alaska. It would be nat<br />
ural, therefore, to expect an immediate demand for<br />
this particular kind of coal. There is little high-<br />
grade bituminous coal on either the eastern or<br />
western border of the Pacific, and it would be<br />
natural to expect a considerable demand for coal<br />
of this character. There is little, if any<br />
HIGH-GRADE COKING COAL<br />
mi Ihe Pacific unless in Alaska, and there is an<br />
immediate demand for a certain amount of coking<br />
coal for smelting copper and other ores. There<br />
is, of course, a certain present limited demand in<br />
Alaska for coal for steaming purposes. Tbe<br />
amount used for all purposes during the last fiscal<br />
year was 116,000 tons. Except for coking use.<br />
it is clear, however, that Alaska coal must now<br />
contend with serious competition. There are
considerable quantities of lignite and low-grade<br />
bituminous coal throughout the lower Pacific<br />
Northwest and in British Columbia. Much of the<br />
bituminous coals are of fair quality. When freight<br />
and handling charges are taken into consideration<br />
it is clear that for steaming purposes the coal of<br />
British Columbia and of the Northwestern States<br />
will hold everything but the Alaskan market it<br />
self against competition from any of the Alaskan<br />
coals except that of the very highest grade, and<br />
coal of this quality can expect to win only where<br />
special considerations control.<br />
For ordinary heating and steaming purposes it<br />
is always possible for low-grade coal at lower prices<br />
to control the market. But for these purposes<br />
the most serious competitor of Alaska coal is Cali<br />
fornia oil, which is already supplanting coal in<br />
many fields and possesses advantages in economy<br />
and convenience of handling. The most reliable<br />
estimate as to the life of the California oil fields<br />
of which f have any knowledge is that they will<br />
be an active competitor for the entire heat-pro<br />
ducing market for the next 50 years. Oil has<br />
already supplanted coal on many of the western<br />
railroads, and is now being installed in the rail<br />
roads and steamships of Alaska and the Pacific<br />
coast. Whether it will be possible for Alaska<br />
coal to compete with it, once the necessary changes<br />
in the boiler equipment have been made, is ex<br />
ceedingly doubtful. Oil. however, is a iess dan<br />
gerous competitor in smelting and in making steel.<br />
It is not now used for either of these purposes,<br />
except experimentally.<br />
Vast deposits of copper are already known to<br />
exist in Alaska, and smelters will undoubtedly be<br />
established in that country as well as farther south<br />
upon the Pacific coast. Some iron exists in the<br />
Pacific States, and there are numerous indications<br />
of its presence in Alaska, although commercial de<br />
velopment there is as yet practically negligible.<br />
My own judgment is that the present market for<br />
Alaskan coal is limited and uncertain, but that<br />
the demand will rapidly increase as the country is<br />
developed. There are now the local needs of a<br />
comparatively small population and comparatively<br />
few industrial enterprises. There is also some<br />
demand for high-grade coal on the lower Pacific-<br />
coast which Alaska alone can furnish and supply.<br />
If the mines are opened there should be, and in<br />
my opinion there will be, immediately established<br />
on Prince William Sound one or more smelters<br />
capable of smelting the copper ores whicli are now<br />
being mined and of taking care of the develop<br />
ment of this ore which seems sure to come in the<br />
early future. There will be at some time a de<br />
mand for coke for making steel; and if adequate<br />
transportation facilities are furnished so as to<br />
permit, of the development of the iron and other<br />
minerals which probably exist in the country there<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
will be an increasing demand for coke for these<br />
and for the ores of the lower Pacific. After all,<br />
however, important as these needs and opportuni<br />
ties are, it seems reasonably clear that Alaskan<br />
coal will not dominate the coal market ot the Pa<br />
cific coast as it was confidently thought it would<br />
when the fields were first discovered. That this<br />
is true will be apparent upon a further considera<br />
tion of the physical condition of the coal fields<br />
and of the coal itself. I personally visited<br />
THE BEKING FIELD<br />
and examined some of its coal veins and coal<br />
mines. It is located along the foot of the Chugach<br />
Mountains, in the region a little south of Prince<br />
William Sound and some 1,200 miles from Seattle.<br />
The fields cover an urea of 50 square miles or<br />
32,000 acres, lying approximately 25 miles from the<br />
coast at Controller Bay with an immense glacier,<br />
known as the Bering glacier on the east from<br />
which the Bering River runs and empties into<br />
Controller Bay. This field was discovered in 1896<br />
and practically all of it appears to have been cov<br />
ered b.v claims entered under tbe law of 1904. The<br />
country is exceedingly rough and broken and the<br />
rocks are faulted and folded to an extraordinary<br />
degree.<br />
In addition to the titanic upheavals which must<br />
have occurred at Ibis point, the stratification has<br />
slid or moved within itself in such a way as to<br />
crush the larger portion of the coal beds in this<br />
field, leaving what otherwise would have been the<br />
highest grade of bituminous coal so that much<br />
of it cannot be mined as lump coal, but only in a<br />
finely crushed condition. There is. however,<br />
some coal in tbe field which doubtless can be<br />
mined as lump, but how much there is of this coal<br />
remains a question of considerable doubt. This<br />
doubt is further intensified by the fact that in the<br />
crushing process the coal beds have become pinched<br />
so that beds of considerable thickness at one point<br />
become thin or even pinched out within a short<br />
distance, making it difficult to determine what will<br />
be the condition of the beds at any given point<br />
beyond the explored area. All of these conditions<br />
will add materially to the cost of mining, which<br />
will be further increased by the fact that the coal<br />
itself cannot be lelied upon to support the roof<br />
of the mine and that timbering will have to be<br />
resorted to to an unusual extent. Although the<br />
local timbei" is of poor quality, it will probably<br />
answer for ordinary mining purposes, but the cost<br />
of labor will be high. -Vside from its crushed condition,<br />
much of the coal itself is of excellent qual<br />
ity, possessing high thermal value. The crushed<br />
condition does not interfere with its coking qual<br />
ity if otherwise good. Although it can be bri-<br />
quetted, or with the use of specially constructed<br />
furnaces it can be burned successfully in its pres<br />
ent form, its physical condition will undoubtedly
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
interfere with its immediate commercial value.<br />
The erection of smelters on Prince William Sound<br />
will cause an immediate demand for this coal, as<br />
the first smelters will probably be erected at or<br />
near Cordova, which is the tidewater terminal of<br />
the Copper River and Norlhwestern Railroad,<br />
which now taps the principal copper field of the<br />
territory.<br />
One of the pressing needs of the territory is the<br />
construction of such smelters at which the copper<br />
ore especially can be smelted without the labor and<br />
expense of transporting the ore the enormous distance<br />
now necessary for this purpose. The main<br />
purpose and practically the only present use of<br />
tbe extensive railroad from Cordova tip the Copper<br />
River is the transportation of the ore from<br />
the so-called Bonanza copper field in which the<br />
M<strong>org</strong>an-Guggenheim syndicate, which owns this<br />
railroad, already has extensive interests. No<br />
smelter, however, has as yet been constructed, and<br />
none would be profitable until the coal and the<br />
copper can be brought together. Once tbe Bering<br />
coal fields are open tbe transportation problem becomes<br />
in this, as in other respects, the most important<br />
problem upon the solution of which future<br />
development will depend. The enormous expense<br />
of railroad construction through the mountainous<br />
and glacier-covered territory makes it practically<br />
certain that the<br />
COPPER RIVER RAILROAD<br />
will remain the natural distributor for any of this<br />
coal for which there may be a demand in the interior<br />
of the particular district in which it is<br />
located. I think it may be assumed, not only from<br />
the statements made to me by its officials but also<br />
from the very nature of the case, that tbe people<br />
interested in this road will construct smelting<br />
works at Cordova as soon as Alaskan coal is available<br />
for its use. Smelters at Cordova would be<br />
able to take care of tbe copper ores, of which there<br />
are many indications throughout the entire district<br />
tributary to Prince William Sound.<br />
The exploitation and commercial development<br />
of these ores would promptly follow the construction<br />
and operation of such smelters. Representatives<br />
of the Copper River Railroad state that<br />
they will immediately construct a branch line to<br />
the Bering coal fields as soon as they are opened<br />
to development. Under these circumstances it is<br />
natural to inquire what, if any, advantages there<br />
would be in the construction of another railroad<br />
from tidewater to these fields. Tbe answer to the<br />
question depends largely upon the extent to which<br />
the government will be able to regulate the service<br />
and the rates of the Copper River road. Such<br />
regulation, however, should be comparatively simple<br />
and effective, especially if we insist upon keeping<br />
the railroad or its owners from acquiring a<br />
controlling interest in the coal fields. That this<br />
can be done by a proper system of leasehold I see<br />
no reason to doubt. Representatives of the railroad<br />
have assured me that its owners recognize<br />
and intend to accept in good faith, so far as the<br />
coal fields are concerned, the principle upon which<br />
public opinion and the law now insist in the states<br />
and will undoubtedly insist in Alaska—the principle<br />
that transportation lines should not be interested,<br />
directly or indirectly, in the commodities<br />
which they transport. Whatever may be<br />
thought of such assurances, the law itself should<br />
divorce the railroads from tbe coal business, so<br />
that all the lessees of coal lands may receive impartial<br />
service from the roads and the incentive<br />
to favoritism mav be removed. If this can successfully<br />
be accomplished, it is apparent that a<br />
competitive railroad will simply divide the profits<br />
of transportation, which are now not adequate to<br />
pay the cost of operation, and whose future cannot<br />
be foretold with any certainty because of the<br />
doubts as to the future market for the coal to<br />
which reference has already been made.<br />
There is, however, abundant opportunity for<br />
competitive roads if they should ever become desirable.<br />
Not only is there room at or near Cordova<br />
for competitive terminals, but there is ample<br />
frontage for a government railroad if one should<br />
ever lie desired. The harbor at Cordova is so<br />
clearly superior in all respects to any other harbor<br />
available for the Bering coal fields that the<br />
slightly longer transportation necessary by this<br />
route appears entirely unimportant, especially as<br />
the grade is practically a water grade to the coal<br />
fields. Nevertheless, there is a possible harbor,<br />
although a poor and expensive one, available at<br />
CONTROLLER BAY.<br />
This much discussed bay, tempest tossed by controversy<br />
as well as by nature, is inclosed partly<br />
by rocky remnants of the hills and partly by low<br />
reefs built up of mud brought down by glacial<br />
streams and raised above the water surface by<br />
action of the waves. The bay itself is gradually<br />
being silted up by similar material from the same<br />
extensive glaciers which border the coal fields on<br />
the north and east and probably cover many beds<br />
of coal. These long, low reefs and flats, together<br />
with the rocky islands of Kayak and Wingham<br />
on the southwest, protect its waters from the open<br />
sea. The area from tbe base of the coal-bearing<br />
mountains on the north, along the east side of<br />
Bering River, to the bay, a distance of 15 to 20<br />
miles, is a low-lying plain but a few feet above<br />
water level, much of it flat and swampy, built up<br />
of glacial deoris.<br />
The entire bay is shallow except a narrow, irregular<br />
channel from a few hundred yards to a<br />
mile in width and a few fathoms in depth leading<br />
southward and westward to the sea. The tidal<br />
currents passing into and out of this bay diminish
the settling of glacial silt in this channel, but<br />
these do not appear to prevent the silting up of<br />
the larger part of the bay itself; and doubtless<br />
the channel is slowly but continuously becoming<br />
smaller and more shallow. This channel lies<br />
from 2 to 3 miles out from the present shore, with<br />
these shallow mud flats intervening. Of course,<br />
whether and how rapidly the large quantities of<br />
silt brought down from the glaciers will continue<br />
to fill up the waters of Controller Bay can only be<br />
deteimined by careful and protracted observation,<br />
but there is every reason for believing tbat this<br />
process will continue in the future as it has done<br />
in the past unless the conditions are improved Inartificial<br />
construction and dredging.<br />
I should add, however, that some persons insist<br />
that the future deposits brought down by the Bering<br />
River will in no appreciable way affect the<br />
navigability of the bay; and that the conditions<br />
can be easily improved by dredging. As the Controller<br />
Bay region is only 20 to 30 miles distant<br />
from the coal fields, there have naturally been<br />
numerous investigations to determine the possibility<br />
of constructing harbor facilities there. 1<br />
am told tbat it was carefully investigated on behalf<br />
of the Copper River Railroad by engineers of<br />
high standing and was discarded as impracticable.<br />
The attempt, however, was made under the advice<br />
of engineers of this road to construct a harbor at<br />
Katalla, which is outside of the range of islands<br />
to the westward of Controller Bay, where there<br />
is deep water immediately off shore and where a<br />
pier or breakwater was constructed at considerable<br />
expense in the vain attempt to protect shipping<br />
from the force of the winds and waves of an open<br />
roadstead. A storm promptly demolished these<br />
works and led to the removal of the railroad to<br />
Cordova. Tts representatives say they would not<br />
now construct a harbor at Controller Bay even if<br />
they should become interested in a railroad to the<br />
coal fields, and give as an added reason the necessary<br />
duplication of clock facilities which they are<br />
now constructing at Cordova.<br />
Obviously, if modern dockage is provided at Cordova<br />
for copper ore and other heavy freight, it<br />
can be made to provide for coal with less additional<br />
expense than if separate facilities should be constructed<br />
on Controller Bay. Nevertheless, several<br />
other railroad enterprises have been projected at<br />
Controller Bay. but apparently all have become<br />
inactive except that in which R. S. Ryan and his<br />
associates are interested. Tt was the persistence<br />
of Mr. Ryan which led to the elimination of the<br />
shore of Controller Bay from the Chugach National<br />
Forest, and he has made three scrip entries on<br />
the shore, which are still pending before the Department<br />
of the Interior. Following the law.<br />
these entries each have a frontage of 160 rods,<br />
leaving 80-rod intervals between them, which the<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
law provides shall be kept free from entry. On<br />
one of these 80-rod strips<br />
A RAILROAD TER JUN AL<br />
bas been located, but this entry appears to be<br />
without any warrant of law and is based wholly<br />
upon the theory that a railroad terminal location<br />
does not constitute an entry within the meaning<br />
of the act. It seems to have been made merely<br />
to exclude others and upon the chance that the<br />
statute may be open to the construction mentioned.<br />
I do not believe thai it is even intended<br />
to be seriously pushed. At all events, all the rest<br />
of tbe shore, except as stated, remains free from<br />
entry, thus disposing effectively of tbe claim that<br />
a railroad monopoly has acquired the frontage of<br />
Controller Bay. Whatever may be the merits<br />
or demerits of this harbor, it has not passed out<br />
of the control of the government.<br />
To develop it at all it will be necessary to c-onstruct<br />
piers or roadways from the shore out over<br />
the shallow Hats to the channel I have described;<br />
and after the elimination from the national forest<br />
Ryan secured from Congress, without apparent objection<br />
from any source, a special act containing<br />
many provisions for the protection of the publicinterests,<br />
permitting him to construct a pier with<br />
dockage facilities where it reaches the deeper<br />
water. Here, 3 miles from the shore, he proposes<br />
to create a harbor. Similar facilities can<br />
be created at other points along the shore if this<br />
should be desired, and by dredging, a certain<br />
amount of which Mr. Ryan admits he will have to<br />
do, facilities equally advantageous with his can<br />
apparently be created, if desired. Ice from the<br />
Bering River and other small streams forms in<br />
winter and collects in the shallow waters of Controller<br />
Bay. Some of those familiar with Alaskan<br />
conditions, whose opinions are entitled to<br />
weight, regard this ice as a menace to tbe harbor,<br />
but the greatest disadvantage, aside from the shallow<br />
waters, appears to be conceded to be the fierce<br />
winds which sweep down over the bay from the<br />
glaciated regions on shore. Under somewhat<br />
similar conditions elsewhere, shipping is said to<br />
be actually blown from the docks in extreme cases;<br />
and if winds of this character would blow while<br />
vessels were attempting to enter Controller Bay<br />
the danger would be great.<br />
Mr. Ryan has recognized the difficulties and<br />
thinks they can be met, at least so far as the docks<br />
are concerned, by constructing them so that ships<br />
will dock with their bows directly facing the prevailing<br />
winds. The plans which he has recently<br />
prepared are so drawn. That such precautions<br />
are necessary even in his judgment is a sufficient<br />
indication of the importance of this particular<br />
problem. If he should really construct a road and<br />
extend it from the coal fields to a connection with<br />
the Copper River Railroad, copper ore might be
3fi THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
diverted either by enforced or voluntary switching<br />
arrangements to smelters established in the coal<br />
fields themselves or at Controller Bay, but these<br />
smelters would not possibly be as available for<br />
the copper ores of Prince William Sound as would<br />
smelters at Cordova. For the reasons which I<br />
have thus indicated. I am unable to see how a rail<br />
road at Controller Bay would be of any particular<br />
advantage to the Alaska syndicate and if a real<br />
competitive railroad should be built, it would<br />
serve as a check upon the Copper River road. If.<br />
on the other hand.<br />
A GOVERNMENT RAILROAD<br />
is desirable now or in tbe future, there is ample<br />
opportunity for it. If the Ryan railroad should be<br />
built, and the government desired its acquisition,<br />
the opportunity for the government to build a<br />
competitive road should be effective in preventing<br />
an exorbitant price.<br />
However, under the conditions which exist, in<br />
cluding the character of the Bering coal fields,<br />
the present state, and the immediate future of the<br />
coal market, and the fact that the Copper River<br />
Railroad is already in the field, 1 see no reason<br />
why the government sliould at this time take upon<br />
itself the unnecessary financial risks of supplying<br />
transportation. If railroad rates and service can<br />
ever be effectively regulated, this can be clone in<br />
the case of a railroad carrying but a single com<br />
modity between fixed points, as would be the ease<br />
with the Ryan railroad, or carrying but few commodities<br />
and those chiefly in bulk, as is now tbe<br />
case with the Copper River Railroad, and is likely<br />
to be the case with it for many years to come.<br />
While I am an optimist as to the future of Alaska,<br />
I see no reason why the Alaska syndicate should<br />
not be permitted to continue the enormously ex<br />
pensive experiment to which its present investment<br />
has already committed it and which that investment<br />
prevents it from abandoning. The es<br />
sential thing is that we shall adopt proper coal<br />
laws under which monopoly will be impossible and<br />
that we shall preserve ample opportunities for<br />
whatever action by the government the future may<br />
require. The immediately important thing is that<br />
the Bering coal field should be open to wise development<br />
so that it may supply local needs and afford<br />
ample opportunity for supplying any market for<br />
this particular coal which may now exist or which<br />
it may be possible to create on the Pacific coast.<br />
My visit to Alaska has led me to take a far<br />
greater interest in the future of<br />
THE MATANTJSKE COAL FIELD,<br />
which is larger in extent, having an area of 74<br />
square miles or 47,360 acres, better in coal, better<br />
in physical condition, and freer from the compli<br />
cations of private claims than is true at Bering<br />
River. Against these advantages must he set off<br />
its greater distance from tbe sea, hut this very<br />
distance connects it more intimately with the real<br />
problem of Alaskan development—that of adequate<br />
transportation Irom tide water to the Yukon.<br />
What Alaska needs more than all else is a trunk<br />
line railroad from the ocean to the great interior<br />
valleys of the Yukon and the Tanana. opening up<br />
the eountry so that its future development may<br />
really be possible. To-day, as I have said, Alaska<br />
is a country of large probabilities, minerally and<br />
agriculturally. Mineral resources of great variety<br />
and extent are indicated by such surface explora<br />
tion as is possible. The real value of these min<br />
eral indications, however, cannot be effectively<br />
determined while the cost of transporting even the<br />
simplest of mining machinery into the interior is<br />
practically prohibitive and can be justified only as<br />
a gigantic gamble by men of sufficient means to<br />
pocket their losses. The vast interior valleys are<br />
covered with luxuriant grasses and can be made to<br />
raise cattle and sheep and even grain if proper<br />
seed and proper methods are experimentally developed<br />
by scientific agriculture. But agricultural<br />
development cannot go forward where the local<br />
markets are small and scattered and exportation<br />
is impossible.<br />
The Matanuska coal field lies north of Prince<br />
William Sound and from 150 to 200 miles from<br />
Seward, on Resurrection Bay. It is known to contain<br />
extensive beds of coal of the same or slightly<br />
superior quality to that of Bering River, and in<br />
better physical condition both as to the coal itself<br />
and as to the obstacles to profitable mining. Tbe<br />
country is not so broken, faults and pinching are<br />
less in evidence, and the crushing process appears<br />
to have gone on to a much less extent. A far less<br />
percentage of the field has been entered by private<br />
claimants, and most of these appear.to be clearly<br />
illegal on account of dummy entries and other violations<br />
of the law. for which indictments are now<br />
pending. A railroad to develop this field and to<br />
open up the great interior valleys has been started<br />
from Seward, which has by far the best harbor<br />
and the best town site in Alaska which T saw or of<br />
which I have been able to obtain auy knowledge.<br />
THE TOWN OI SEWARD<br />
lies at the head of Resurrection Bay, which is a<br />
magnificent and extensive harbor, landlocked and<br />
free from ice, and already selected by the govern<br />
ment as a naval coaling station, and where smelter<br />
operations may be one of the future industries.<br />
The only criticism of the harbor of which I have<br />
heard is that the water is so deep that docks and<br />
fixed moorings will be necessary for perfect safety,<br />
but as this is also true of the harbor of Seattle,<br />
which has been regarded as one of the most magnificent<br />
in the world, it seems to be a fault which<br />
closely approaches a virtue. The railroad from<br />
Seward—the so-called Alaskan Central or Alaskan<br />
Northern- at present extends only seventy odd
miles to a point on Turnagain Arm, where it stopped<br />
for lack of funds and for various other reasons,<br />
among which the withdrawal of the coal fields<br />
from entry is particularly emphasized. 1 think,<br />
however, that its financial plans afford a more convincing<br />
reason for its failure. At all events, it<br />
has passed through the courts into the custody<br />
of its bondholders, who are not particularly eager,<br />
if they are able, to finance its further extension.<br />
While a part of its construction does not seem<br />
wisely adapted to the transportation of coal or<br />
other heavy freight. I believe this road should be<br />
continued on to the coal fields and beyond them<br />
to the interior, and that if private interests do not<br />
care to undertake the task the government itself<br />
should do so. The situation here is not like that<br />
in the Copper River country. No large financial<br />
interests are back of the railroad; no large investments<br />
have been made which it will be necessary<br />
for private interests to protect.<br />
Such a railroad as I have suggested w ill pass<br />
through a country which appears to have large agricultural<br />
possibilities as well as great mineral<br />
resources. These possibilities and resources,<br />
however, will require time for their development.<br />
The adoption of a leasing policy will take away<br />
from the promoters of such a road the lure of<br />
great gain from the exploitation of tbe coal fields.<br />
This exploitation clearly should be prevented in<br />
the public interest. But at tbe same time, the<br />
government must recognize that if it withdraws<br />
from private capital this incentive for railroad<br />
construction the government itself must assume<br />
the obligation of making possible that kind of<br />
development upon which it insists for the general<br />
good. It has been urged that the government<br />
should meet this objection by guaranteeing the<br />
payment of bonds or the interest on bonds equal<br />
to the cost of the construction of the road. I can<br />
see no advantage whatever in this policy. If the<br />
government is to guarantee the cost of construction,<br />
I see no reason why the government should<br />
not own the road outright, whether it operates it<br />
or leases to an operating company.<br />
If a plan for construction at the<br />
JOINT RISK AND JOINT PROFIT<br />
of the private investor and of tbe public- along the<br />
lines of the Chicago Traction ordinances could Input<br />
into successful operation, this might reconcile<br />
the conflicting views of public policy as to the<br />
government ownership of railroads, especially if<br />
the government's share of any future profits should<br />
be commuted into an equivalent reduction of the<br />
rates or should be directly expended in furnishing<br />
to Alaska, the other means of transportation of<br />
which it is and will continue to be so much in<br />
need. After such careful consideration, however,<br />
as I have been able to give the matter, I believe<br />
that the uncertainty of immediate financial return<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 37<br />
will prevent the adoption of this plan and that the<br />
imperative need of immediate transportation development<br />
calls for the construction of at least<br />
one main trunk line from tidewater to the Yukon,<br />
which can better be constructed from Resurrection<br />
Bay through the Matanuska coal fields than in any<br />
other way. There seems to be no likelihood that<br />
the Copper River Railroad will be extended into<br />
the interior for years to come, and even then its<br />
route would probably be far removed from tbe line<br />
I have suggested.<br />
The -Matanuska coal should be brought to Seward<br />
for the use of our naval coaling station, and a<br />
mine for that purpose can well be opened by tbe<br />
government on the Matanuska, where it can be<br />
made to serve as an example for private mining,<br />
where it can furnish information and serve as a<br />
check upon tbe profits of the lessees tinder government<br />
leases. The Secretary of the Navy authorizes<br />
me to state that he believes there should be<br />
reserved a sufficient portion of high-grade Alaska<br />
coal, suitable for the use of the Navy, to be mined<br />
hereafter for this express purpose under the Bureau<br />
of Mines. The Navy Department is now conducting<br />
a test of the available coals in the Pacific-<br />
Coast States with the result that none of these<br />
coals have been found suitable for naval uses. It<br />
is the intention to test additional coals from New<br />
Mexico and Wyoming.<br />
I have made some inquiries to ascertain whether<br />
the present owners of the Alaska Central are willing<br />
to give any assurances that they will extend<br />
that railroad through the coal fields to the interim<br />
in the near future, with tlie result that some at<br />
least of those interested in it have indicated a<br />
preference to sell the railroad to the government<br />
for the face of the outstanding bonds, which<br />
amount to some $4,600,000. I assume that it can<br />
be purchased for the real value of the road, whatever<br />
that may be, and that it will not he extended<br />
by its present owners.<br />
In undertaking railroad construction there is<br />
ample precedent at Panama, and it must be borne<br />
in mind that as a matter of principle the government<br />
is not thus invading the legitimate domain<br />
of private enterprise, but is in effect simply resuming<br />
one of its own proper functions. The<br />
Supreme Court of the United States said in United<br />
States vs. Joint Traffic Association I 171 U. S.,<br />
505-570) : "Tbe business of a railroad carrier is<br />
of a public nature, and in performing it Ihe carrier<br />
is also performing, to a certain extent, a<br />
function of government." "Iu Talcott vs. Pine<br />
Grove (23 Federal Cases, 652), the United States<br />
Circuit Court for the West Division of Michigan.<br />
said that railway corporations "exercise delegated<br />
sovereign rights" and are "but a portion of the<br />
public government. * * * And it is not true, we<br />
submit, that it is in degree only that these fran-
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
chises differ in their relations to the public from<br />
mills and inns, as is said in People vs. Salem.<br />
The one is private property; the other is a political<br />
function, which, when resting in the hands of<br />
government where originally it. resided, or dele<br />
gated still for the same public- use, to either per<br />
sons or corporations, ever has been, and of right<br />
may be, aided by taxation. * * * It is lor the per<br />
formance and regulation of this old and<br />
FAMILIAR GOVERNMENTAL DUTY,<br />
in a mode deemed by the legislature most efficient<br />
and economical, that in modern times railway and<br />
other corporations have been created. And in<br />
the most plenary and critical sense, under the general<br />
railroad law of Michigan, they are parts of the<br />
political <strong>org</strong>anism. The road, once constructed,<br />
is, instanter and by mere force of the grant and<br />
law, embodied in the governmental agencies of the<br />
state and dedicated to public use. All and singu<br />
lar its cars, engines, rights of ways, and property<br />
of every description, real, personal and mixed, are<br />
but a trust fund for the political power, like the<br />
functions of a public office."<br />
Indeed, the most important features of our rail<br />
road law are squarely based and depend upon this<br />
theory of the relation of railroads to the functions<br />
of government. What has happened, then, with<br />
respect to railroads is simply that the government<br />
has delegated one of its own functions to private<br />
agencies for what, at the time, are believed to be<br />
considerations of wise expediency. If. for reasons<br />
of equal expediency, the government decides<br />
at any given time or place to resume its true func<br />
tion, it cannot he said to be in any sense invading<br />
the field of private enterprise.<br />
If we may assume that some of the coal claims<br />
which have been entered in Alaska in either tbe<br />
Matanuska or the Bering fields have complied with<br />
the law and should be allowed, the suggestions 1<br />
have made will enable us to compare in practical<br />
operation the development of coal under private<br />
ownership, under government leasehold, and under<br />
the direct operation of the government itself. We<br />
shall have an important railroad under private<br />
ownership, with governmental regulation, to compare<br />
with one under public ownership, and these<br />
two railroads will operate in separale fields where<br />
they will not directly conflict, but where each may<br />
serve as a check upon the other, and the advocates<br />
of both methods w.ill doubtless come to appreciate<br />
more fully and more fairly both the difficulties<br />
and the advantages of the railroad as a governmental<br />
agent.<br />
It remains only to consider more in detail the<br />
methods by which the coal fields should be opened.<br />
Those suggested have been the sale of the lands<br />
in fee, their development under lease from the<br />
government, and their operation by the govern<br />
ment itself. I believe that the time has passed<br />
when the government should convey an unre<br />
stricted title to its coal fields. The day is done<br />
in whicli the government should deliberately en<br />
courage the<br />
UNRESTRICTED PRIVATE EXPLOITATIO-N<br />
of the sources of power. To impose effective<br />
regulations upon these sources after they have<br />
passed to private individuals in fee is exceedingly<br />
difficult, even if not impossible. The ownership<br />
of the fee carries with it under the law the right<br />
of unrestricted sale, and many regulations which<br />
are desirable in the public, interest can be im<br />
posed, if at all, only after radical changes in the<br />
laws and prolonged litigation in the courts, per<br />
haps only after constitutional amendments. It is<br />
therefore unwise, and in my opinion unnecessary,<br />
to sell our coal lands in order to secure their effec<br />
tive development.<br />
On the other hand, direct government operation,<br />
including the mining and the selling of coal, involves<br />
such deep and far-reaching changes, both of<br />
policy and of administration, that there is no likelihood<br />
at the present time of its adoption to the ex<br />
clusion of private operation. Unlike the govern<br />
ment ownership of railroads, public coal mining<br />
has never been held b.v the courts to be a function<br />
of government. It would be regarded by many<br />
sincere and disinterested citizens as an invasion<br />
of the field of private enterprise, and would involve<br />
such general and uncompromising opposition<br />
tbat even those who believe in its adoption<br />
as a matter of principle should not insist upon<br />
tying up the coal fields of Alaska until the great<br />
economic and political questions which are involved<br />
in its exclusive application to these fields<br />
have been fought out to a practical conclusion.<br />
The true function of government is not merely the<br />
preservation of public- order or the regulation of<br />
the conduct of individuals, but the carrying on ot<br />
any enterprise which will promote the welfare of<br />
the community as a whole more effectively if carried<br />
on by the <strong>org</strong>anized community than if left to<br />
the voluntary action of individual members of the<br />
community. But to determine whether a particular<br />
activity answers this test depends in every<br />
instance on a final and complete analysis involving<br />
a. consideration not only of immediate results, but<br />
of the far-reaching consequences upon humanity<br />
and upon the social order. While, therefore, much<br />
can be said in favor of permitting the government<br />
to enter experimentally into those fields upon which<br />
industrial development and the welfare of society-<br />
depends, which perhaps may in the future include<br />
the development and distribution of power and the<br />
means by which power may be created, I do not<br />
believe that the government alone should preempt<br />
these fields or exclusively control their develop<br />
ment until it becomes far clearer than it is to-day<br />
(Continued on Page 52.)
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
THE MINING BUREAU'S FUEL INVESTIGATIONS*<br />
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS DONE AND IS ENDEAVORING TO DO<br />
By Dr. J. A. Holmes. Chief of the United States Bureau of Mines.<br />
The United States is to-day producing coal at<br />
an annual rate of about one-half billion tons, and<br />
of this amount the railroads of the country are<br />
consuming approximately one-fifth. Any work,<br />
therefore, relating to the development of new<br />
sources of fuel or to improvements in methods of<br />
use is of vital importance to the railroad interests.<br />
That the officials of the different roads have so<br />
considered the fuel investigation of the Geologi<br />
cal Survey and the Bureau of Mines is evidenced<br />
by their readiness at all times to co-operate in any<br />
way with those in charge.<br />
The government fuel testing plant began its<br />
work at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St.<br />
Louis in 19U4, during which year Congress appro<br />
priated $60,000 for analyzing and testing "the<br />
coals and lignites of the United States, in order<br />
to determine their fuel values and the most eco<br />
nomical method for their utilization for different<br />
purposes." This work was continued at St. Louis<br />
until early in 1907, when the plant was removed<br />
to the Jamestown Exposition at Norfolk, Va. It<br />
was operated at the latter place during the expo<br />
sition period, and in 1908 moved to the present<br />
location in Pittsburgh, Pa., where a portion of the<br />
buildings and grounds of the old Allegheny Ar<br />
senal were temporarily transferred to the Geo<br />
logical Survey by the War Department. The<br />
buildings so transferred were altered so as to per<br />
mit the installation of equipment, and some new<br />
structures were erected. In addition to these<br />
laboratories at the Pittsburgh station, the bureau<br />
has also a coal laboratory in Washington for the<br />
analysis of fuel inspection samples.<br />
At the time investigations were commenced, in<br />
1904, there was not a lack of reliable information<br />
concerning the character and analyses of different<br />
fuels found in the various sections of the country.<br />
but data as to the use of these coals and lignites<br />
in power-generating equipment was very limited.<br />
This was particularly true of the newer fields and<br />
those in which the poorer coals are mined. In<br />
contrast with this we have to-day not only the<br />
bulletins of the United States Geological Survey<br />
and of the Bureau of Mines, but also recent pub<br />
lications of some of the State geological surveys<br />
and of the State universities, as well as some<br />
texts which may be referred to for the above men<br />
tioned information. It is also certain that to the<br />
work done at this fuel testing plant may be at<br />
tributed in a large measure the increased interest<br />
in fuel economy, the more intelligent purchase of<br />
"Paper read before the International Railway Fuel Association,<br />
at Chattanooga. Tenn.<br />
fuel, and the progress in smoke abatement during<br />
the last few years.<br />
It was because of the general lack of informa<br />
tion about the fuels of the country and the best<br />
methods for their use that the work was originally<br />
planned and carried out as it was. Coke ovens,<br />
briquetting machines, producer-gas and steam<br />
power generating equipments, such as were in<br />
most general commercial use, were installed at the<br />
plant. Carload samples, loaded in most cases<br />
under the supervision of a Geological Survey engineer,<br />
were<br />
SHIPPED Id THE PLANT,<br />
together with mine and car samples collected by<br />
this engineer at the time shipment was made and<br />
tests were conducted in the several kinds of equip<br />
ment to determine the value of each coal for cok<br />
ing, briquetting or steaming purposes, or for use<br />
in producer-gas plants. On account of the great<br />
demand to have more and more coals tested, and<br />
also because of the fact that the work was not es<br />
tablished on a permanent basis, investigations<br />
could be planned for only one year in advance, and<br />
therefore the making of these commercial tests<br />
was continued for several years.<br />
During this period there were collected and analyzed<br />
5,000 mine car and test samples of coals<br />
from many fields. Most of these analyses have<br />
been published in the several bulletins of the Geological<br />
Survey or the Bureau of Mines, the demand<br />
for which has been great. On account of the fact<br />
that some of these publications are now out of<br />
print, the Bureau, in order to meet this demand.<br />
which still continues, is now preparing a bulletin<br />
which will contain in one volume the analyses of<br />
all coals tested at St. Louis and at Norfolk.<br />
That there is to-day much greater interest in<br />
matters relating to fuel economy is shown by the<br />
extent to which the specifications method for the<br />
purchase of coal is being adopted. People are<br />
coming to see that it is no more unreasonable to<br />
specify what quality of fuel is to be delivered for<br />
their use than it is to require that maple flooring<br />
shall be of a certain width and thickness and shall<br />
not have knots of all sizes, or that paints shall be<br />
made of certain materials in given proportions. In<br />
most localities where this method of purchase has.<br />
been in use for some time tbe dealers, as well as<br />
consumers, have become accustomed to it, and<br />
recognize that it is fairer to both parties than is<br />
the buying of coal at a fiat price without specifica<br />
tions.<br />
The government is to-day buying about $6,000.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
000 worth of coal each year, about one-half of<br />
which is purchased on specifications. The proportion<br />
of coal so bought, both for the government<br />
and for commercial plants, is increasing each year,<br />
and requests are constantly being received by this<br />
Bureau for more information as to the method and<br />
the results obtained.<br />
The question is sometimes asked, "What does it<br />
cost the government to inspect the coal, and what<br />
is the net saving resulting from the adoption of<br />
this method of purchase?" Unfortunately, this<br />
question cannot be answered at this time. Figures<br />
show that the laboratory cost for making the<br />
analyses was, for the year 1909-10, $1.54 per sample,<br />
and it is estimated that the cost for the current<br />
fiscal year will be $1.44 per sample. The<br />
cost of inspection of the coal and of collection of<br />
samples is, however, much more difficult to determine,<br />
for the reason that a portion of this expense<br />
is borne by other departments or bureaus, and also<br />
because of the fact that some of the engineers who<br />
look after the inspection work are frequently detailed<br />
for special<br />
TESTS OR INVESTIGATIONS<br />
and are therefore unable to give their entire time<br />
to coal inspection.<br />
The calculation of the net saving resulting from<br />
the adoption of any method is practically impossible.<br />
This can be readily seen when it is remembered<br />
that the fuel is bought not only for a<br />
number of separate bureaus or departments but<br />
for a far greater number of plants scattered<br />
throughout a large part of the United States, as<br />
well as on the Isthmus of Panama. The records<br />
do show that in some cases the penalties alone have<br />
more than offset the entire cost of inspection; also<br />
that in some plants cheaper grades of coal are now<br />
used. By the substitution of such a fuel in one<br />
plant where tests were made by this bureau, and<br />
upon the results of which tests the recommendation<br />
for this substitution was based, a saving of about<br />
$S00 per month is being effected.<br />
One very noticeable result of buying on specifications<br />
is that the material delivered is much<br />
more uniform in quality than before the coal was<br />
so bought, and this, in itself, is conducive to more<br />
economical and satisfactory operation. Some of<br />
the operating engineers also state that when the<br />
coals delivered to them are inspected and the<br />
analysis of the inspection samples reported to<br />
them they are enabled to check their operating<br />
costs more easily, and the knowledge of this on<br />
the part of the firemen results in more careful<br />
stoking.<br />
In addition to the laboratory work on the analysis<br />
of mine, car and test supplies of coal, some<br />
experimental investigations were conducted to determine<br />
the nature and quantity of volatile matter<br />
driven off from several typical coals when heated<br />
in different ways. The results, which are published<br />
in Bulletin No. 1 of the Bureau of Mines,<br />
show that there is a marked difference in both<br />
the nature and quantity of this volatile matter<br />
evolved from two different coals when subjected<br />
to the same conditions, and that the conditions<br />
of heating also affect the evolution. At the request<br />
of the Navy Department the Geological Survey<br />
began some time ago a study of the causes<br />
of spontaneous combustion and also of the deterioration<br />
of coal when stored under various conditions.<br />
This work is being continued at the present<br />
time by the Bureau of Mines and tests are<br />
made at intervals of from three to six months to<br />
ascertain what changes are taking place.<br />
Other experiments had for their purpose the<br />
separation of some of the compounds composing<br />
the coal substance and their determination. This<br />
work has not been completed as yet. but it has<br />
been found possible by the use of inert solvents<br />
to separate about 35 per cent, of the component<br />
substances.<br />
A laboratory study of the petroleum of some of<br />
our large oil fields was taken up in 1907. and<br />
analyses and calorimetric determinations of many<br />
samples were made. Tests in a laboratory still<br />
were also conducted on these oils to determine<br />
what distillates could be obtained from them.<br />
Other experiments had to do with the separation<br />
of water from oil, and the determination of other<br />
physical characteristics. In connection with the<br />
collection of samples in the field, a study was also<br />
made of the various methods of using the oil and<br />
of the kinds of equipment for its use now on the<br />
market.<br />
The gas producer work has, from the time these<br />
investigations were begun, been one of tbe most<br />
important branches. Not only were all kinds of<br />
coals, lignites and peats successfully gasified, but<br />
the fuel consumption per<br />
ELECTRICAL HORSE POWER<br />
hour was much lower than in the steam plant of<br />
similar rated capacity. Some of these fuels were<br />
of such quality that it would have been impossible<br />
to use them in ordinary steaming equipment and<br />
carry the loads which were kept on the gas engine<br />
for many hours, and with which no particular<br />
difficulties were experienced. Several bulletins<br />
were published by the Geological Survey<br />
giving results of these trials, but practically all are<br />
out of print to-day, and on account of the continued<br />
demand for the same, the Bureau of Mines<br />
is now preparing and will soon have ready for publication,<br />
a bulletin giving results of some 195 tests.<br />
This bulletin will have in it practically all the data<br />
contained in the earlier ones, with such revisions<br />
and additions as the authors deem advisable.<br />
During the years that the testing plant was in<br />
St. Louis many tons of briquets were made from
a number of the coals shipped to the plant. Various<br />
materials were tried as binding agents and<br />
the briquets were subjected to weathering and<br />
physical tests while some of them were also used<br />
in combustion tests in domestic and power boilers.<br />
In the earlier briquetting experiments the coals<br />
used were, for the most part, of the better grades,<br />
the object being to determine if such fuels could<br />
be sufficiently improved by briquetting to justify<br />
the expense connected therewith. The results of<br />
the combustion tests on stationary boilers showed<br />
that it will usually prove unprofitable to briquet.<br />
these better grades of coal, although in some localities<br />
the conditions may warrant the manufacture<br />
of briquets from the slack coal in order to supply<br />
the domestic trade.<br />
Of particular interest to the members of this<br />
association are the investigations relating to the<br />
use of briquetted fuel in locomotive practice.<br />
Our series of such experiments was conducted<br />
at the locomotive testing plant of the Pennsylvania<br />
railroad at Altoona, Pa., in which work the Geological<br />
Survey actively co-operated. All the fuel<br />
used was inspected by the Survey at the time<br />
shipment was made, a portion of this coal going<br />
to the testing plant in St. Louis to be briquetted.<br />
and then forwarded to Altoona for the test. The<br />
details of these tests and the conclusion drawn<br />
therefrom are set forth in Bulletin 363 of the<br />
United States Geological Survey. They show that,<br />
although the evaporation per pound of briquets<br />
was greater than it was per pound of raw coal,<br />
and the amount of smoke made was less with briquets,<br />
the increased cost of the briquetted fuel was<br />
not warranted by the resulting increase in evaporation<br />
efficiency.<br />
In tbe same bulletin mention is made of about<br />
100 locomotive road tests conducted by a number<br />
of other railroads in co-operation with the engineers<br />
from the testing plant. The chief purpose<br />
of these tests was to observe the behavior of the<br />
briquetted fuel under service conditions and in<br />
most of them no accurate data were obtained as<br />
to the coal and water used. For this reason exact<br />
figures as to the differences in the efficiencies with<br />
coal and with briquets could not be computed, but<br />
the conclusions drawn from this work were, in<br />
general, the same as stated for the Altoona tests.<br />
Another series of comparative trials of run-ofmine<br />
and briquetted<br />
COAL IN A LOCOMOTIVE BOILER<br />
was conducted jointly by the Seaboard Air Line<br />
railway and the representatives of the Survey in<br />
tne company's yards at Portsmouth, Va. During<br />
these trials such steam as was necessary for the<br />
Iiroduction of "draft" was exhausted directly<br />
through the cylinders to the nozzle, the valves in<br />
both steam chests having been removed so as to<br />
make this possible. Any surplus steam generated<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
was discharged through special piping into the<br />
steam mains of tbe company's shops.<br />
Bulletin 412 of the Geological Survey describes<br />
the method of conducting the tests and gives results<br />
of same. The comparative showing made<br />
by the raw coal and the briquets, under the conditions<br />
there obtaining, was somewhat more in<br />
favor of the briquets than it was in the other tests<br />
mentioned. Among the conclusions drawn by the<br />
authors of this bulletin may be quoted the following:<br />
(a) "At low rates of working, run-of-mine coal<br />
gives a higher equivalent evaporation than briquets;<br />
at medium rates there is little difference;<br />
at high rates briquets do considerably better.<br />
(b I "The smaller briquets are easier to fire and<br />
to level on the fire than are the larger ones; either<br />
form gives the fireman far less work and trouble<br />
than run-of-mine coal.<br />
(c) "In sparks briquet fires lose less than coal<br />
fires.<br />
(d) "On roads having heavy grades it will probably<br />
pay well to burn briquets, at least part of the<br />
time.<br />
(e) "Perhaps it would pay to add combustion<br />
chambers to the front ends of some locomotive<br />
fire boxes, and use a larger number of boiler tubes<br />
of shorter length and smaller diameters."<br />
In connection with the conclusion last quoted,<br />
it is jiossible that the special furnace combustion<br />
investigations to be mentioned later on may furnish<br />
some interesting data.<br />
The most of the later briquetting tests have been<br />
made on the low grade fuels, of which there are<br />
immense deposits in some parts of this country.<br />
In some localities the deposits of these sub-bituminous<br />
or lignite coals have reniained practically<br />
undeveloped because of the fact that there was<br />
only a small local demand, and the fuel in its raw<br />
state could not be shipped to any distant points<br />
because of the slacking or disintegrating action<br />
of the air. By partially drying these coals and<br />
then subjecting the material to heavy pressure in<br />
an open-mould-type press it has been found possible<br />
to make from some of them, without the use<br />
of any binding material, briquets which could be<br />
handled without excessive breaking and which<br />
also withstood the action of the weather reasonably<br />
well.<br />
Washing and coking investigations were conducted<br />
at St. Louis and then later at a plant built<br />
by the Geological Survey in Denver, Colo., all the<br />
work being done with ovens of the bee-hive type.<br />
It was found that by employing proper methods<br />
of treatment many coals which had always been<br />
considered as non-coking would yield a satisfactory<br />
coke. Several of the bulletins of the Geological<br />
Survey contain
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
RESULTS OF THOSE COKING TESTS,<br />
some of which bulletins are out of print, but the<br />
others may be obtained by addressing the director<br />
of the Bureau of Mines.<br />
Probably no o«e part of the work of the fuel-<br />
testing plant has attracted quite as much atten<br />
tion as the steaming tests, and the smoke preven<br />
tion investigations so closely related thereto. The<br />
interest in this part of the work has been due<br />
partly to the large number of fuels tested and the<br />
impossibility of obtaining from any other source<br />
information of the same nature relative to such<br />
a variety of coals from different sections of the<br />
country. The most important result, however, of<br />
this work is that operating engineers have had<br />
their interest in the economical use of fuel so<br />
aroused that the use of scientific methods of plant<br />
management has greatly increased. There has<br />
been such a demand for some of the bulletins relating<br />
to this work that every available copy has<br />
either been given away or sold. To meet the re<br />
quests that are still being received, the Bureau of<br />
Mines will soon publish a revised bulletin containing<br />
the results of over 500 boiler trials conducted<br />
at the testing plant.<br />
The rapid growth of the movement for smoke<br />
abatement has been helped to a large extent by<br />
the work of the Technologic Branch of the Geological<br />
Survey and of the Bureau of Mines. Ten<br />
years ago hardly a city in this country had a smoke<br />
ordinance that could be enforced, or a smoke department<br />
to look after the enforcement of the<br />
ordinance. The smoke abatement investigations.<br />
however, showed that the prevention of smoke in<br />
boiler furnaces and the great reduction in the<br />
amount produced in other furnaces is a possibility.<br />
As the bulletins relating to these investigations<br />
were circulated, people began to realize that the<br />
improvement of conditions in our cities is not im<br />
possible, and with this realization came the demand<br />
for practical smoke ordinances and for officials<br />
to carry out the purposes of the same. As a<br />
result we find that to-day in many of our cities<br />
real progress is being made toward smoke abatement.<br />
In the cities where the work is being most suc<br />
cessfully carried on, the ordinances require that all<br />
plans for new construction or for extensive altera<br />
tions must be approved by the smoke requirement.<br />
and in this way the installation of work which<br />
would certainly cause trouble is prevented. In<br />
order that such supervision may be properly car<br />
ried out the smoke department personnel should<br />
include those, who by training and experience, are<br />
qualified for such duties.<br />
The work of the government along the line of<br />
smoke prevention has included not only tbe study<br />
of some phases of the problem at the testing plant,<br />
but also investigations in commercial plants in<br />
different sections of the country, and the dissemi<br />
nation through bulletins and other channels of the<br />
information obtained. In this way the work be<br />
comes co-operative, because ever}' bit of interest<br />
aroused directly or indirectly results in efforts<br />
toward the desired end.<br />
In this connection it may be said that better re<br />
sults are obtained by smoke departments whose<br />
offic ials endeavor to secure the co-operation of plant<br />
engineers or owners, than by those who attempt to<br />
ELIMINATE THE SMOKE<br />
of a city by simply entering suits and collecting<br />
fines.<br />
The abatement of locomotive smoke is one of<br />
the most difficult problems with which a city<br />
smoke inspector has to contend, and yet in many<br />
of our cities where efforts are being made to im<br />
prove conditions the amount of locomotive smoke<br />
has been greatly reduced. In such places the railroad<br />
companies have made some changes in their<br />
equipment, but in addition to this they have put<br />
on their own inspectors, whose duties are not only<br />
to watch for and report firemen who are violating<br />
the ordinance, but also to instruct such men as to<br />
methods of firing by which the smoke could be<br />
prevented or greatly reduced. The entire elimina<br />
tion of locomotive smoke does not to-day appear to<br />
be a possibility in sections where a high volatile<br />
coal is used—at least, it will not come without<br />
snme decided changes in locomotive design—but<br />
it can safely be stated that there is no locality<br />
where the present conditions cannot be improved<br />
upon.<br />
With the establishment of the Bureau of Mines<br />
these fuel investigations were put on a more substantial<br />
base than they had ever been prior to<br />
that time. During the earlier years of the testing<br />
work special appropriations were made from year<br />
to year for its continuance, but the plant was not<br />
permanently located, nor was there any assurance<br />
that it would not be discounted any year. This<br />
fact not only made it impracticable to plan and<br />
carry out work as would otherwise have been<br />
clone, but it also increased the difficulty of getting.<br />
and particularly holding, the technical men to conduct<br />
the investigations.<br />
Since the new Bureau of Mines was created the<br />
plans for part of tbe work have been changed and<br />
investigation of a more fundamental nature taken<br />
uii. The coking tests in bee-hive ovens, for ex<br />
ample, have been discontinued and at the present<br />
time a study is being made of some of the basic<br />
principles of cupola practice, for the purpose of<br />
bringing about the more economical use of coke in<br />
cupola operation. In the not distant future it<br />
is hoped that funds may be provided for the in<br />
stallation of by-product coke ovens and investiga<br />
tion of some of the problems connected with the<br />
manufacture of by-product coke.
A change of plan has also been made in the gas<br />
producer work. The earlier experiments were<br />
conducted in producers such as are in use in commercial<br />
plants, the tests at St. Louis and Norfolk<br />
being in an up-draft producer, while the later tests<br />
at Pittsburgh were in one of the down-draft type.<br />
fn neither one of these installations could be carried<br />
on some of the lines of investigation it was<br />
desired to pursue, so the bureau has now established<br />
at Pittsburgh an experimental equipment<br />
of special design, in which certain problems are to<br />
he studied. One of the latter relates to the possibility<br />
and practicability of using in a gas producer<br />
fuels of excessively high ash content. It is considered<br />
that, in view of the many unsettled questions<br />
in connection with gas producer design and<br />
operation, a study of some of these in an experimental<br />
installation will prove of greater value<br />
than the continuance of tests of a more or less routine<br />
nature in one of the commercial producers.<br />
A similar conclusion has been reached regarding<br />
the steaming investigation, and for this reason the<br />
Bureau is no longer conducting the<br />
COMMERCIAL BOILER TESTS<br />
on various coals, as was done at St. Louis. This<br />
statement is not be interpreted to mean that work<br />
such as that done during the first few years is not<br />
of value to the people of the country. There are,<br />
however, factors which affect the results obtained<br />
from the test of any one coal, and when there is<br />
a wide variation in the coal to be tested, as there<br />
is in the fuels from different sections of this<br />
country, it is impossible to select any one type<br />
of boiler and setting as installed in commercial<br />
practice, and expect to get in this equipment the<br />
best possible results from each coal. Such being<br />
the case, it is readily seen that it will not beequally<br />
fair to all fuels to test them in any one<br />
equipment, if the results of these tests are to be<br />
taken as an indication of the comparative value<br />
of the coals for steaming purposes. Such trials.<br />
it carefully conducted, would show very well the<br />
values when used under certain conditions, bul<br />
there is to-day little available information upon<br />
which to base an opinion as to how much better<br />
results for any one coal could be obtained byusing<br />
a boiler and furnace of different design.<br />
Of the factors affecting the evaporative results,<br />
those dependent on furnace design and operation<br />
may be separated from the factors governed by<br />
boiler proportions, and are of greater moment<br />
than the latter. For these reasons the bureau is<br />
now making, in a specially constructed furnace and<br />
combustion chamber, a study of some of the fundamental<br />
principles of combustion and their relation<br />
to furnace requirements.<br />
It is now commonly known by engineers that to<br />
completely burn a high-volatile coal at a given<br />
rate of combustion, more combustion space is re<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
quired than to burn at the same rate a semibituminous<br />
or semi-anthracite coal, assuming that<br />
hoth fuels are stoked in the same way. There is,<br />
however, no iniblished data as to what space is<br />
required for any one of the typical coals, nor is<br />
it known what losses occur if the space is less<br />
than it should be. The study of this problem is<br />
now being carried on by the Bureau of Mines and<br />
constitutes the principal part of the steaming investigations.<br />
For this work a special testing equipment has<br />
been designed and built, consisting of a Murphy<br />
mechanical stoker of 25 square foot grate area,<br />
with the usual arch over the grates, to which is<br />
joined a tunnel or combustion chamber about 35<br />
feet long and with an internal cross-section approximately<br />
3' 0" x 3' 0", and Heine water tube<br />
boiler to absorb the heat generated. Provision<br />
is made for taking gas samples, temperatures, and<br />
other observations at intervals of five feet from<br />
the bridge wall of the stoker throughout the length<br />
of the tunnel. The latter discharges the products<br />
of combustion into the combustion chamber proper<br />
of the boiler setting, the gases then passing ovei<br />
the heating surface of the boiler in the usual manner.<br />
By taking simultaneous gas samples at a number<br />
of places in the tunnel it is possible lo determine<br />
not only how far the gases travel before the<br />
coal is completely burned, but also what losses<br />
would occur if the combustion was arrested at any<br />
point. In this way data will be obtained as to<br />
the furnace requirements for burning different<br />
coals under various conditions. The<br />
WORK NOW PLANKED<br />
and being carried out includes tests with several<br />
typical coals, in whicli tests the effect of the following<br />
factors is to be studied:<br />
(a) Nature of the coal.<br />
(b) Rate of combustion.<br />
( c) Supply of air.<br />
(dl Rate at which the coal is heated.<br />
(e) Rate ot mixing the volatile combustible and<br />
air.<br />
Another line of investigations related to the use<br />
of fuel in boiler furnaces is the study of the<br />
clinkering properties of ash, and of boiler feedwater<br />
treatment. Tbe object of the work in clinker<br />
formation is to determine the factors governing<br />
this tendency and to devise, if possible, methods<br />
for reducing the troubles from this source. It<br />
is probable that when these investigations have<br />
been continued a while, laboratory tests will be<br />
developed, which, together with an analysis, wili<br />
enable one to predict the clinkering action of an<br />
ash under given conditions.<br />
The boiler feed-water problem is being studied<br />
along a line different from those followed heretofore,<br />
in that experiments are to be conducted un-
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
der the pressure and temperature conditions which<br />
obtain in boiler practice. It is very probable that<br />
the reactions which take place under high temperature<br />
and pressures may be found to be quite<br />
different from those observed at atmospheric, pressure,<br />
and the methods of treatment changed accordingly.<br />
In the foregoing the speaker has endeavored to<br />
give, without entering too much into details, a<br />
general outline of the fuel investigations as carried<br />
on under the Geological Survey and also as<br />
they are being continued by the Bureau of Mines.<br />
No attempt has been made to point out the many<br />
applications of the results ot this work, but the<br />
inquiries continually being received by the bureau<br />
indicate that they are as varied as they are numerous.<br />
In the future, not only will the present<br />
lines of research be extended, but as soon as funds<br />
are available, the study of other and larger problems<br />
than those now in hand will be taken up.<br />
In connection with your paper, I wish to call<br />
your attention to a paper by Paul P. Bird, smoke<br />
inspector of Chicago, on "Locomotive Smoke in<br />
Chicago," presented February 15, 1911, before tbe<br />
Western Societ> of Engineers. Some ot the conclusions<br />
of Mr. Bird are interesting and 1 am repeating<br />
them here:<br />
1. Although the locomotives of the city use<br />
only 18% per cent, of the total coal, they make<br />
43 per cent, of the total smoke and over one-half<br />
of the total dirt.<br />
2. The locomotives consume, within the city<br />
limits. 5,600 tons of soft coal daily, or about 1,850,-<br />
000 tons annually.<br />
3. According to the Ringlemann system of judging<br />
the density of<br />
BLACKNESS OF SMOKE,<br />
the average density of locomotive smoke in Chicago<br />
is 23 per cent.<br />
4. Railroad locomotives make 4? per cent, of all<br />
the smoke made in Chicago.<br />
5. Because smoke from locomotives carries with<br />
it large quantities of sparks and cinders, such<br />
smoke is a greater dirt producer than smoke from<br />
stationary plants.<br />
6. Although locomotives make 43 per rent, of<br />
the total smoke, because of the character of the<br />
smoke, they produce over one-half of the total dirt<br />
traceable to smoke.<br />
7. The lowest average density of smoke produced<br />
by any one road is about 10 per cent. This<br />
figure probably represents as low an average as<br />
can be maintained with steam locomotives using<br />
soft coal.<br />
8. If all locomotives in Chicago maintained an<br />
average smoke density as low as 10 per cent., the<br />
locomotive smoke would still form 29 per cent, of<br />
the total smoke and probably produce over onethird<br />
of the dirt.<br />
9. Locomotives in the neighboring towns outside<br />
of Chicago make an average smoke density<br />
of about 41 per cent., showing that the anti-smoke<br />
campaign in the city has already reduced the<br />
smoke nearly one-half.<br />
10. Approximately 10 per cent, of all coal fired<br />
in a locomotive fire-box, is discharged from the<br />
stack in form of cinders. Within the city limits<br />
ot Chicago about 560 tons (14 car loads) of cinders<br />
from locomotive smokestacks are dropped<br />
every day.<br />
11. There are about 2,200 miles of railway<br />
track in the city limits. At all times there are<br />
about 1,400 different locomotives working in the<br />
city, and during a week as many as 3,740 different<br />
locomotives are in Chicago.<br />
BELIEVES ALABAMA COAL OUTPUT<br />
<strong>•</strong>WILL SHOW A DECREASE.<br />
"Prospects for renewed activity and good business<br />
among the coal mines of the state are very<br />
bright for this winter, but I do not believe the<br />
annual output of tonnage will equal that of last<br />
year," said State Mine Inspector Nesbitt of Alabama<br />
to a Birmingham reporter. "In 1910, the<br />
output amounted to 16,300,000 tons, but I do not<br />
estimate it to be over 14,000,000 tons this year,<br />
as a number of the mines have been closed and<br />
many of them only working three or four days out<br />
of the week.<br />
"Within the next few days, several of the mines<br />
which have been idle for the past few months and<br />
longer will begin to work again. The Sloss Co.<br />
will give work to 375 men, both white and colored,<br />
at the opening soon of the ivy mine at Dora, in<br />
Walker county, after being out of operation since<br />
June. At West Corona, also in Walker county,<br />
the Corona Coal & Iron Co. will open their mine<br />
and over 75 men will be employed. The Seaboard<br />
Coal & Coke Co. will resume the working of the<br />
Coal Branch mine in St. Clair county soon, and<br />
smaller mines scattered over the northern part of<br />
the state are also getting busy.<br />
"The loss of life among the 22,500 miners now<br />
employed in Alabama during September was 7,<br />
just one above the average number, which is 6.<br />
Wach year we are lowering the mortality list of<br />
fatal accidents, but as long as the mining industry<br />
continues there will be the death toll to pay."<br />
Among the recent charters made for transporting<br />
American coals to foreign ports, is noted that of a<br />
British steamer, to load coal from Norfolk consigned<br />
to Dakar, Africa, the rate being 13 shillings.<br />
The schooner Stanley M. Seamen, has been chartered<br />
to take a cargo of 1,500 tons of coal from<br />
Philadelphia to San Juan, Porto Rico. Terms are<br />
private.
SOME LEADING LINES FOR<br />
PROPER WATER PURIFICATION.<br />
Everywhere where for industrial purposes no<br />
suitable mineral water is at hand, there arises the<br />
demand upon the promoter cn- operator to make<br />
the raw water good. The ingredients that most<br />
oppose proper use are minerals in solution with<br />
gases and air that were absorbed in the water as<br />
it passed on its way through the earth's crust. It<br />
must be distinc-tly emphasized that both categories<br />
act injuriously when present alone in the water,<br />
as for instanc-e if much of the water before using<br />
is distilled or formed by condensation, for on the<br />
way through the condensers and pumps air and<br />
gases are taken up, therefore it appears over and<br />
over again that the water most freed of minerals,<br />
those just mentioned, are quite as injurious as<br />
natural waters if the opportunity offers them to<br />
deposit the contained air or gases upon metal sur<br />
faces. Thus it bas been repeatedly observed with<br />
stationary and marine boilers that water from con<br />
densers has corroded them, the oxygen of the air.<br />
in the absence of other minerals to combine with,<br />
was forced to react with the metal. The view that<br />
corrosions come but from free acids in the water<br />
is erroneous, rather are they due to air contained<br />
in the feed water. The minerals dissolved in the<br />
water are mostly combined with carbonic- acid and<br />
sulphuric acid and have the peculiarity of separat<br />
ing from the solution to deposit them somewhere.<br />
With steam boilers these phenomena are of pre<br />
cipitated slime and scale which cause at overheat<br />
ing the tearing of the plates as with the sudden<br />
flying off of the hard deposited scale the water<br />
strikes red hot metal. Though these cases are<br />
rarer now with periodical cleansing of boilers, yet<br />
the formation at all of scale brings in a loss of<br />
heating effect—a waste of fuel—at any rate the<br />
building up within the boiler of an insulating stra<br />
tum influences the factor of steaming.<br />
Because of the difficulties with water purification<br />
there arose the secret means, the so-called anti-<br />
scales. In Eckermann's report of 400 analyses<br />
there is shown the danger from applied neutraliz<br />
ing coatings that while keeping away the encrusta<br />
tion keep off tbe water from the walls to cause<br />
their overheating, bulging swellings and so weakening.<br />
A particular group for anti-boiler scale<br />
dosing are the soda solvents, to be regularly drop<br />
ped in by supply pipe. Named automatic the ap<br />
paratus may be a failure as having less regard for<br />
the hardness of the water and requisite measure<br />
of its feeding, and further because the entrance to<br />
the boiler is at another place than that of feed<br />
water supply. If such like device is to work,<br />
there must be excess of soda in the boiler; besides<br />
<strong>•</strong>Translated for The Co.cl Trade Bulletin from Stein-und<br />
Braunkohlc. I.cip^it. Aunusi .s. nil. by Mr. F. Z. Schellenbcre.<br />
C. E.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 46<br />
if has occurred in practice that the piping has cor<br />
roded or fouled to narrow the main opening, or<br />
filled tin- drop-by-drop way with soda crystalliza<br />
tion. Only the outside purifications have met<br />
approval.<br />
Among the preliminaries should belong the daily<br />
examinations of the water because of changing<br />
circumstances affecting the ground water and dif<br />
fering atmospheric precipitations. Mostly with<br />
that apparatus, too, the chemicals are a steady<br />
addition so that to-day too much, to-morrow too<br />
little soda may be contained in the treated water.<br />
Of late there has been introduced "The Pernm-<br />
tating Method of Purification." Tt is for obtaining<br />
zero hardness by filtration. Tbe actual re<br />
sult outside the boiler is the exchange of soda<br />
given against lime and magnesia salts contained<br />
Its regeneration after six hours is the pouring over<br />
the filter of hot common salt solution. So there<br />
is much circumstance and two filters are required.<br />
But if there is dissolved iron an anti-ferrous installation<br />
is called lor. More weight is to be<br />
accorded to the fact tbat while the heavier salts<br />
are thrown out soda dissolving reacts with the<br />
separated CO. and SO, to form salts spoiling the<br />
boiler. Those interested are advised to consult<br />
a chemist.<br />
Tn 1906 it was found that scale formers could<br />
be removed without chemicals if the water at one<br />
place in the boiler was brought to the temperature<br />
at which the former became insoluble. For this<br />
there suits best a special apparatus upon which<br />
the scale solidifies and the slime settles, to be re<br />
moved by blowing off the steam at times. Condi<br />
tioned is a continuous feed and even pressure of<br />
six atmospheres minimum.<br />
A boiler sparing apparatus is the "Vapor," patented<br />
by the Htilsmeyer firm in Dusseldorf. It<br />
undertakes the dehardening of the feedwater auto<br />
matically and removes air and gases from the<br />
boiler water. ft consists of cast iron platterns<br />
perforated, stacked up in horizontal terraces at<br />
near intervals, by feeding water pipes prepared to<br />
spray out along for trickling over the surfaces,<br />
enlarging plattern circles in the descent. The<br />
apparatus is hung above the water cone, slowly<br />
preheats the water and gives off the air and gases<br />
directly into the steam, and saves out the minerals<br />
in crumbly form for easy removal from the shelves.<br />
The Interstate Commerce Commission on Oct.<br />
26 further suspended until May 16. 1912, the pro<br />
posed advances in the rate on bituminous coal over<br />
the Cleveland. Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis<br />
railroad and its connecting lines. These rates<br />
were first suspended until Nov. 16. but the commission<br />
finds that it cannot dispose of the matter<br />
in that time.
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
National Mine Safety Demonstrations.<br />
(Continued from Page 26.)<br />
After tbe explosion, the entry doors were closed<br />
and men equipped with oxygen helmets entered<br />
the mine through a slide door in the main entry<br />
door. (las samples were taken, incipient fires<br />
were extinguished and a complete inspection made<br />
of the mine. Later, when conditions were safer,<br />
the fan was started and the mine cleared of after<br />
damp. Complete records were taken by tbe Bu<br />
reau of Mines' authorities of the results of th.<br />
explosion and the entire experiment handled as<br />
it is done in actual practice when aid is rendered<br />
at the time of explosions in coal workings.<br />
The special train bearing the sight-seers did<br />
not return to Pittsburgh until after s o'clock, and<br />
all those present, although tired and hungry, felt<br />
that, it had been an afternoon well spent. Undoubtedly<br />
it was something that should have been<br />
witnessed by every coal operator in the country.<br />
On Monday morning, the physical and chemical<br />
laboratories of the Bureau of Mines were the<br />
mecca for the visitors and quests, laboratory ex<br />
periments being given on explosions, fuel testing,<br />
safety appliances, etc. Among the most realistic<br />
experiments were those showing the effects of a<br />
gas and coal dust explosion caused by the ignition<br />
of blasting powder and showing the benefits<br />
derived from having a hood over the motor of<br />
electric coal cutting machines. In the latter test<br />
the motor was equipped with a hood. The space<br />
between the hood and motor was filled with gas<br />
and ignited on signal. No explosion occurred outside<br />
of the hood, proving the value of the appb<br />
ance. When the same machine was used without<br />
such equipment, but otherwise under the same<br />
conditions, there was a terrific explosion, paper<br />
and wood in the tube being ignited.<br />
At 10:30 o'clock the address of welcome was<br />
delivered by Secretary of the Interior Walter L.<br />
Fisher, the speaker being introduced by Director<br />
Joseph L. Holmes of the Bureau of Mines. Secretary<br />
Fisher declared the government would furnish all<br />
the aid iiossible to keep the local station on a<br />
high plane and expressed hope that the old buildings<br />
on the Arsenal grounds which have been<br />
fitted up temporarily for the wink of the Bureau<br />
of Mines would soon be replaced by modern structures,<br />
so that even better results can be obtained<br />
in the future.<br />
In the evening, 500 people attended the infor<br />
mal n ception to Secretary Fisher and Director<br />
Holmes in the English room of the Fort. Pitt hotel.<br />
After the guests were- introduced, brief addresses<br />
were made by Secretary Fisher and Director<br />
Holmes. John Laing, president of the State Mine<br />
Inspectors association, spoke on "The Work of the<br />
Mine Inspectors and Safety Conditions that Exist<br />
in Mines." W. A. Lathrop, president of the Lehigh<br />
Valley Coal Navigation Co., spoke on behalf of the<br />
operators on "Co-Operation Between Operators,<br />
Miners and the State and National Mining Bu<br />
reaus."<br />
While the officials of the Bureau of Mines and<br />
their guests were at Bruceton, Secretary Fisher<br />
took a trip to the plant of the Carnegie Steel<br />
Company in Homestead. He was accompanied by<br />
Director Ge<strong>org</strong>e Otis Smith of the United States<br />
Geological Survey.<br />
The management of the demonstration was<br />
perfect, every detail being arranged so that the<br />
program was carried out right on scheduled time<br />
and without a single delay.<br />
The following men were in charge: —<br />
Board of Managers—H. M. Wilson, representing<br />
United States Bureau of Mines; Major Charles<br />
Lynch, U. S. A., representing American National<br />
Red Cross; S. A. Taylor, representing Coal Opera<br />
tors ol the l'uited States; Francis Feehan, representing<br />
United Mine Workers of America; John<br />
Laing, representing the State Mine Inspectors;<br />
Thos. B. Dilts. representing Industrial Department<br />
of International Y. M. C. A.<br />
General Committee—H. M. Wilson, Chairman;<br />
J. W. Paul. Mine Rescue and First Aid; Clarence<br />
Hall, Arsenal Demonstration; L, M. Jones, Experimental<br />
Mine; Lauson Stone. Program; A. W.<br />
Belclen, Reception; J. K. Clement, Ushering; C. S.<br />
Stevenson, Secretary.<br />
Presidential Reception Committee—Ge<strong>org</strong>e T.<br />
Oliver. T". S. Senator; John Dalzell, A. J. Barch-<br />
fielcl. James Francis Burke, S. G. Porter, Repre<br />
sentatives in Congress; W. A. Magee, Mayor of<br />
Pittsburgh; Joseph A. Holmes, Director Bureau<br />
of Mines; F. R. Babcock, President Chamber of<br />
Commerce; Wm. H. Stevenson, President Historical<br />
Society.<br />
Field Officers—.1. W. Paul. Manager of Field<br />
Events; Dr. M. J. Shields, Manager of First Aid<br />
Events; Clarence Hall, Manager of Explosion;<br />
Francis Feehan, Field Marshal; .1. K. Clement,<br />
Chief Usher.<br />
The following is a list of mining companies and<br />
their representatives at the demonstration: —<br />
Allegheny Coal Co., Cheswick, Pa.—P. Townsend,<br />
Gen. Manager; J. J. Adams, Supt.<br />
Argyle Coal Co., Greensburg, Pa.—John Jones.<br />
President; J. J. Sams, Manager; John Jacobs,<br />
Supt.; S. M. McHenry, Physician; (two teams).<br />
Ashland Coal & Coke Co., Ashland, W. Va.<br />
Anaconda Copper Co., Coal Dept., Anaconda,<br />
Mont.—F. W. C. Whyte, Manager.<br />
Allegheny River Mining Co.. Conifer, Pa —<br />
Arnold Hirst, Supt.<br />
Alden Coal Co., Alden, Pa.—K. M. Smith, Gen.<br />
Manager.<br />
American Coal Mining Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.—C.<br />
C. Powers, President.
Atlas Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—J. H. Henderson,<br />
Supt.<br />
Ada Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—Ira W. Dawson,<br />
Treasurer.<br />
Barnes & Tucker Coal Co., Barnesboro, Pa.<br />
Belmont Coal Mining Co., Pittsburgh, Pa-<br />
Mark Adams, Manager; Theo. K. Maher, Gen.<br />
Manager and Vice Pres.<br />
Black Betsey Coal & Mining Co., Black Betsey,<br />
W. Va.—F. W. Woodward, Gen. Manager.<br />
Berwind-White Coal Mining Co., Windber, Pa.—<br />
W. R. Calverly, Gen. Supt.; (four teams).<br />
Big Bend Coal Mining Co.. Expedit, Pa.—J. W.<br />
Harrison.<br />
Bessemer Coal & Coke Co., Russelton. Pa.—Thos.<br />
A. Jackson, Mine Foreman.<br />
Bessemer Coke Co., Masontown. Pa.—Ed. Wilkinson,<br />
Supt.<br />
Briar Hill Coke Co., Briar Hill, I'a.—Thos. M.<br />
Caffery, Supt.<br />
Brown & Cochran. Dawson, Pa.—J. T. Loughrey,<br />
Manager.<br />
Beech Bottom Coal Co., Mt. Pleasant, Pa.—Jas.<br />
Braddock, President.<br />
Browning Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa. -A. L.<br />
Davis, Gen. Manager.<br />
Brownsville Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—J. W.<br />
Abraham, Gen. Manager.<br />
Brownfield-Connellsville Coke Co., Uniontown,<br />
Pa.—I. H. Brownfield, Gen. Supt.<br />
Byrne, James Coal Co., New Salem, Pa.—F. W.<br />
Byrne, Manager.<br />
Consolidation Coal Co., Baltimore, Md.—T. R.<br />
Lyon, Manager Penn'a Division, Somerset, Pa.;<br />
(two teams).<br />
Cedar Grove Mine, Hanlin Station, Pa.—W. J.<br />
Flanagan, Lessee.<br />
Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corporation, Clynier,<br />
Pa.<br />
Carnegie Coal Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.—R. P. Burgan,<br />
President.<br />
Clark Bros., Coal Mining Co., Smoke Run, Pa.—<br />
J. H. Miller, Supt.<br />
Century Coal & Coke Co., New Salem, Pa.—C. E.<br />
Lenhart, President.<br />
Connellsville-Central Coke Co., New Salem, Pa.<br />
—C. Bartz, Gen. Supt.<br />
Connellsville Consolidated Coke Co., Gray's<br />
Landing, Pa.—H. B. Bollman, Supt.<br />
Cambria Fuel Co., Cambria. Wyo.—L. T. Wolle.<br />
Vice Pres.<br />
Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., Denver, Colo.—E. H.<br />
Weitzel, Gen. Manager.<br />
City Coal Co., Beckley, W. Va.—Mr. Thomas,<br />
Gen. Manager.<br />
Carbon Coal Co., Dudley, Pa.—Daniel Ryan,<br />
Supt.<br />
Cascade Coal & Coke Co., Buffalo. N. Y— C. C.<br />
Gadd, Gen. Supt.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
Chicago-Wilmington & Vermillion Coal Co.,<br />
Streator, 111— H. A. Herbert, Gen. Supt.<br />
Chicago & Carterville Coal Co., Herrin, 111.—J.<br />
H. Peters, Vice Pres. and Gen. Manager.<br />
Clark Coal & Coke Co., Peoria, 111.—Horace<br />
Clark, Sec'y.<br />
Commercial Coal Mining Co., Expedit, Pa.—M.<br />
(.'. Smith, Supt.; (one team).<br />
Creighton Coal Co., Creighton, Pa.—Chas. E.<br />
Craig, Supt.<br />
Cunningham Coal Co., Chicora, Pa. — P. A.<br />
Jordan.<br />
Cochrane Coal Co., Williamsport, Pa.—R. T. S.<br />
Steele, Treas.; W. H. H. Miller, Supt.; Thos. Stratton,<br />
Mine Foreman.<br />
Connellsville Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—H. J.<br />
Ellsworth.<br />
Dunbar Furnace Co., Dunbar, Pa. -Stuart B.<br />
Marshall, Supt.; (one team).<br />
Dodson Coal Co., Morea, Pa.—Truman Dodson,<br />
Vice President.<br />
Donehoe Coke Co., Crabtree, Pa.—C. R. King,<br />
Supt.<br />
Diamond Coal Mining Co., Rimersburg, Pa.—<br />
Jas. Mahoney, Supt.<br />
Delaware-Lackawanna & Western Coal Mining<br />
Co., Scranton, Pa.—R. A. Phillips, Supt.; H. G.<br />
Davis, Div. Supt.; P. H. Devers, Dis. Supt.; C. E.<br />
Robey, Asst. Supt.; (two teams).<br />
Dayton Coal & Coke Co., Dayton, Tenn.—L. C.<br />
Crew, Supt.<br />
Dawson Bros. Coke Co., Dawson, Pa.—H. C.<br />
Cochrane, Sec'y; A. J. Cochrane, Pres.<br />
Delaware & Hudson Co., Scranton, Pa.—C. C.<br />
Rose, Gen. Supt.; E. R. Pettebone, Chief Engineer<br />
of Mines; E. S. Van Home, Asst, Chief Engineer<br />
of Mines.<br />
Ellsworth Collieries Co., Ellsworth, Pa.—F. B.<br />
Dunbar, Supt.; W. A. Luce, Gen. Manager; (three<br />
teams).<br />
Fairmont Coal Co., Fairmont, W. Va.—E. C.<br />
Roberts, Gen. Manager; (one team).<br />
Fayette Coal Co., Noblestown, Pa.—John Mc-<br />
Vicker, Mine Supt.<br />
Fayette Coke Co., New Salem, Pa.—Geo. H.<br />
Reynolds, Supt.<br />
Franklin Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—Orville<br />
Hibbs, Sec'y.<br />
Huff Coal Co., Humbert, Pa.—F. Huff.<br />
Hillsdale Coal & Coke Co., Glen Campbell, Pa —<br />
Levi Conner, Supt.<br />
Harbison-Walker Refractories Co., Pittsburgh,<br />
Pa.—Kenneth Seaver, Chief Engineer.<br />
Hitchman Coal & Coke Co., Wheeling, W. Va.—<br />
Wm. H. Koch, Manager.<br />
Hope Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—J. E. Hustead,<br />
Gen. Manager.<br />
Hustead-Semans Coal & Coke Co., Uniontown,<br />
Pa.—J. M. Hustead. President.
48 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Iron City Coal & Coke Co., Pittsburgh, Pa —<br />
M. S. Moore.<br />
Jacob Creek Coal & Coke Co., Grays Landing,<br />
Pa.—Wm. Beal.<br />
Keystone Coal & Coke Co., Greensburg, Pa.—<br />
G. B. Hutchinson, Chief Engineer; H. B. Bovard,<br />
Gen. Supt,; Lloyd Huff, Gen. Manager; Frank<br />
Miller, Asst. Gen. Manager; A. N. Pershing, Auditor;<br />
William Xesbit, Inspector; K. C. Taylor,<br />
Supt; Foster Cook, Supt.; Jas. Duncan, Foreman;<br />
A. W. White, Supt.; Joe Wentling, Supt.; H. H.<br />
Null, Supt.; Henry Welty. Supt.; M. R. Morris,<br />
Supt.; Alex. Coultes, Supt.; H. M. Knight, Supt.;<br />
G. H. Francis, Engineer; Paul Johnson, Chief<br />
Clerk.<br />
Kemmerer Coal Co., Kemmerer, Wyo.—P. J.<br />
Oneal, Vice Pres. and Gen. Manager.<br />
Krag Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—W. W. Parshall.<br />
Kennerly, J. Blair. Philadelphia, Pa.—J. B.<br />
Kennerly.<br />
Kingston Coal Co., Kingston, Pa.—T. R. Zerber.<br />
Kaine & Wilkey Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—<br />
Theo. D. Blisss.<br />
La Belle Coal Co., Wellsburg, W. Va.—O. S.<br />
Marquis, Supt.; H. F. Bovard, Gen. Supt.<br />
Latrobe Coal Co.. Latrobe, Pa.—1). W. Jones,<br />
Supt.<br />
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co., Lansford, Pa.—<br />
Baird Snyder, Jr., (Jen. Supt.; Wm. G. Whilden,<br />
Supt.; John Simons, Inspector; Ur. Young, Instructing<br />
Physician; W. A. Lathrop, Pres.; Collin<br />
B. Wilbur, Vice Pres.; (one team).<br />
Lehigh Valley Coal Co., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.—F.<br />
M. Chase, Gen. Supt.; W. H. Davies. Div. Supt;<br />
J. M. Humphreys, Div. Supt.; John Lloyd, Inspector<br />
of Equipment; A. H. Bowen, Asst. Inspector<br />
of Equipment; Paul Sterling, Mech. Engineer;<br />
A. B. Jessup, Chief Mining Engineer; (two<br />
teams).<br />
Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Co., Wilkes-Barre,<br />
Pa.—C. F. Huber, Vice Pres. and Gen. Manager;<br />
D. R. Roberts, Div. Supt.; John Josephs, Dist.<br />
Supt.; M. R. M<strong>org</strong>ans, Supt.; Douglass Bunting,<br />
Chief Engineer; F. L. McKee, Surgeon; (one<br />
team).<br />
Loyal Hanna Coal & Coke Co., Omalinda, Pa.—<br />
Joseph Patterson, Supt.<br />
Latrobe-Connellsville Coal & Coke Co., Latrobe,<br />
Pa.—M. W. Saxnian, 'treasurer.<br />
Lincoln Coal & Coke Co., Walterstown, Pa.- -<br />
D. Priest, Supt.<br />
Madera-Hill Coal Mining Co., Phillipsburg, Pa.<br />
—L. F. Heller, Chief Engineer.<br />
Marquet Coal Co., New Cumberland, W. Va.—<strong>•</strong><br />
C. F. Wagoner, Supt,<br />
Mifflin Coal Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.—W. I. Berryman,<br />
Sec'y; J. M. Taylor, Treasurer.<br />
Monmouth Coal Co.. Bereton, 111.—N. .1. Spencer,<br />
(ten. Manager.<br />
Mullins Coal Co., James, Cleveland, O.—A. P.<br />
Mullins.<br />
Myersdale Coal Co., Listie, Pa.—W. L. Hoblitzel,<br />
Gen. Manager; J. H. Seurfield, Supt.<br />
Monongahela River Coal & Coke Co., Pittsburgh,<br />
Pa.—Geo. 1'. Osier, Gen. Manager.<br />
Marion Coke Co., Udell, Pa.—H. A. Davis.<br />
Miller Coal Co., Portage, Pa.—J. H. Buckwater,<br />
Supt.; ( one team ).<br />
McTurk Coal Co., The W. R., Girardville, Pa.—<br />
W. R. McTurk, Sr., President; W. R. McTurk, Jr.,<br />
Asst. Supt.; J. M. Holt, Supt.<br />
New River & Pochahontas Consolidated Coal<br />
Co., Layland, W. Va.—A. K. Wood, Asst. Supt.,<br />
Lowell Creek Division.<br />
Northwestern Improvement Co., Coal Mining<br />
Dept, Tacoma, Wash.—C. R. Claghorn, Gen. Manager;<br />
(one team I.<br />
New York & Cleveland Gas Coal Co., Turtle<br />
Creek, Pa.—Hugh Dunning, (Jen, Supt.<br />
Oak Hill Coal Co., Minersville, Pa.—Jacob<br />
Butler, Supt.<br />
Oliver & Snider Steel Co.. Oliver, Pa.—F. C.<br />
Keighley, Gen. Supt.; (one team).<br />
Orient Coal Co., Orient, Pa.—Charles Opperman,<br />
Supt.<br />
Pennsylvania Coal Co., Scranton, Pa.—Capt. W.<br />
A. May, Gen. Manager; W. W. Inglis, Supt.: G.<br />
W. F. Neuffer, Mining Engineer; (one team I.<br />
Pittsburgh & Westmoreland Coal Co., Manor,<br />
Pa.—J. G. Ferguson, Supt. No. 1 Mine.<br />
Plymouth Coal Co., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.—Gilbert<br />
S. Jones, Supt.<br />
Prospect Hill Coal Co., East Palestine, 0.—<br />
Grant Hill, Supt.<br />
Portage Coal Mining Co.. Portage, ra.—H. H.<br />
Tompkins, Supt.; David Fraggett; (one team).<br />
Puritan Coal Co., Uniontown, Pa.—F. R. Crown,<br />
Supt.<br />
Pennsylvania Gas Coal Co., Irwin, Pa.—A. P.<br />
Cameron, Gen. Manager.<br />
Prospect Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—G. H. Bortz.<br />
Pardee Bros. & Co., Latimer Mines, Pa.—G. W.<br />
Barager, Gen. Manager.<br />
Parrish Coal Co., Plymouth, Pa.—W. G. Thomas,<br />
Gen. Manager; G. O. Thomas, Gen. Foreman; (one<br />
team).<br />
Pittsburgh Terminal R. R. & Coal Co., Pittsburgh,<br />
Pa.—W. W. Keefer, President; Wm. WIT;<br />
fred, Jr., Supt.; (one team).<br />
Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co., Pottsville,<br />
Pa.—W. J. Richards, Vice Pres. and Gen.<br />
Manager; (one team and one rescue team I.<br />
Pittsburgh Coal Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.—W. K.<br />
Field, Pres.; G. W. Schluederberg, Gen. Manager;<br />
William Blower, Supt.; Henry Cattley, Supt.;<br />
Emil Gerry, Supt.; P. J. Garvey, Supt.; Matthew<br />
Herron, Supt.; Thomas Easton, Pricedale, Pa.,<br />
Supt.; L. ('. Sarver. Sept.; Robert C. Smith, Supt.;
T. W. Gray, Supt.; John Hauser, Supt.; M. T.<br />
Jones, Supt.; Wm. Ferguson, Supt.; Wm. Kelvington,<br />
Supt.; Wm. Carter, Supt.; W. H. Linsley,<br />
Supt.; W. A. Lockhart, Supt.; F. P. Mank. Supt.;<br />
H. R. Miller, Supt,; S. P. McCaffrey, Supt.; Alex.<br />
McClymont, Supt.; Samuel McKay, Supt.; William<br />
Neil, Supt.; Samuel Pritchard, Supt.; James<br />
Porter, Supt.; James A. Gould, Supt.; James M.<br />
Sloan, Supt.; F. W. Stark, Supt.; H. D. Thomson,<br />
Supt.; Jules Waterloo, Supt.; Edw. Ryan, Supt.;<br />
Thomas Whiteman, Supt.; F. A. Schulte, Supt.;<br />
Dr. Russell, Dr. Douglas, Dr. Miller, Dr. Taylor,<br />
Dr. Dutton, Dr. Walker, Sr., Dr. Curishank, Dr.<br />
Minnehan, Dr. Fife, Dr. Kocher, Dr. Williams,<br />
Dr. Phillips, Dr. Hansel, Dr. Collier, Dr. Stollar,<br />
Dr. Nicholls, Dr. Royers, Dr. Rupert. Dr. Day,<br />
Dr. Lynn, Dr. Woods, Dr. Sinister, Dr. Shidler,<br />
Dr. Burkett, Dr. Patterson, Sr., Dr. Broadhurst.<br />
Dr. McCullough. Dr. Hutton, Dr. Shepler, Dr.<br />
Taylor, Dr. Newell, Dr. Kirk, Dr. Moore, Dr. La-<br />
Ross, Dr. Dickson, Dr. Folz. Dr. Walker, Jr., Dr.<br />
McGrew, Dr. Moore, Dr. Haney, Dr. McGarvey,<br />
Dr. Golden, Dr. Dague, Dr. Hopwood, Dr. Quinn,<br />
Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Lawel, Dr. bowman, Dr. Warner,<br />
Or. Speck, Dr. Murphy, Dr. Brown, Dr. Hamilton,<br />
Dr. Lyle, Dr. Miller. Dr. Patterson, Jr., Dr. Walsh,<br />
Dr. Heath, Dr. Aspey, Dr. Lawhead, Dr. Robinson.<br />
Dr. Peairs, Dr. Shields. Dr. Kelly. Dr. Davis,<br />
Dr. Long. Dr. Goodpasture; (four teams).<br />
Pocahontas Consolidated Collieries Co., Pocahontas.<br />
Va.—A. M. Elwood Jones, Gen. Manager.<br />
Pocahontas Coal & Coke Co.—L. E. Tierney,<br />
Gen. Manager.<br />
Pittsburgh-Buffalo Co., Mariana, Pa.—Mr. Guffin,<br />
Manager; S. C. Reynolds, Supt.; P. T. Jones;<br />
(one team ).<br />
Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal & Iron Co., Punxsutawney,<br />
Pa.—A. R. Calloway, Supt.; (one team).<br />
Republic Iron & Steel Co.. Republic. Pa.—W. H.<br />
E. Royce, Supt.; (one team ).<br />
Rich Hill Coal Co., Hastings, Pa.—W. H. Allport.<br />
Rock Island Coal Co., Chicago, 111.—Carl Scholz,<br />
Vice President and Gen. Manager.<br />
Sunday Creek Co., Poston. O — Edw. Call, Supt.;<br />
(one team).<br />
Stag Canon Fuel Co., Dawson, N. M.—T. H.<br />
O'Brien, Gen. Manager; Dr. F. C. Diver; (one<br />
team).<br />
Shawmut Mining Co.. St. Mary's, Pa.—W. R<br />
Craig, Chief Engineer.<br />
Sterling Coal Co., Cleveland, O.—W. H. Hillman,<br />
Gen. Manager.<br />
Stearns Coal & Lumber Co., Stearns, Ky.; one<br />
team).<br />
St. Clair Coal Co., St. Clair. Pa,—Win. T. Smith,<br />
Supt.<br />
Shannon Coal & Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—Jas.<br />
Shannon.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
Struthers Coal & Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—<br />
John Shultz. Supt.<br />
Sunshine Coal & Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—<br />
Francis Rock, Supt.<br />
Susquehanna Coal Co., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.—<br />
Robert A. Quinn, Manager; Mr. Kohlbraker, Supt.;<br />
C. V. Dougherty, Asst. Manager; (one team).<br />
Shannon Coal & Coke Co., Uniontown, Pa.—1.<br />
Hunt, R. Hunt.<br />
Spring Valley Coal Co., Spring Valley, 111.—S.<br />
M. Dalzell, Gen. Manager; (one team).<br />
Smithfield Coal & Coke Co.. Smithfield, Fait.<br />
S. Burchinal, Supt.<br />
Scranton Coal Co., Scranton, Pa.—John R.<br />
Bryden, (ten. Manager.<br />
Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., Birmingham,<br />
Ala.—E. II. Coxe, Gen. Manager; (one team).<br />
Temple Iron Co.. Scranton, Pa.<br />
Thompson-Connellsville Coal Co., Pittsburgh,<br />
Pa.—J. V. Thompson, President.<br />
Tower Hill Coal Co., Uniontown, Pa.—F. M.<br />
Osborne, Pres.; (one team).<br />
Taylor Coal & Coke Co., Searight, Pa.—J. J. Mc-<br />
Tntyre, Supt.<br />
U. S. Coal & Coke Co., Anawalt, W. Va.—H. T.<br />
Graham. Supt.<br />
Unity Coal Co.. Latrobe, Pa.—Thomas Fish,<br />
Supt.<br />
Unity-Connellsville Co., Latrobe, Pa.—J. F.<br />
Irwin, Supt.<br />
l'uited Coal Co., Meadowlands, Pa.—Wm. Clark,<br />
Supt.<br />
Union Pacific Coal Co., Omaha, Neb.—D. O.<br />
Clark, former Vice Pres. and Gen. Manager; Frank<br />
0. Mauley, Vice Pres. and Gen. Manager.<br />
Virginia-Maryland Coal Co., Adamstown, W. Va.<br />
—A. L. White, Supt.<br />
Vesta Coal Co., California, Pa.<br />
Valley Camp Coal Co., New Kensington, Pa.—<br />
H. Kinlock, Supt.<br />
West Penn Coal Mining Co., Philadelphia, Pa.—<br />
E. D. Davis. Supt., Apollo, Pa.<br />
Whyel Coke Co., Dniontown, I'a.—Harry Whyel,<br />
President.<br />
Widnoon Coal Mining Co., Lawsontown, Pa.—<br />
W. E. Layton, Supt,<br />
Waltersburg Coal Co., Waltersburg, Pa.—O. P.<br />
Stone, Mine Supt.<br />
Westmoreland Coal Co., Rillton, Pa.—F. P. Mc-<br />
Clain, Supt.<br />
Youghiogheny & Ohio Coal Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.<br />
—Wm. G. Muse, Chief Engineer; Dr. J. H. Lawhead,<br />
West Newton, Pa.; W. G. Patterson, Gen.<br />
Supt.<br />
Yukon Coal Co., Deerfield, 0.—John P. Williams,<br />
Sec'y.<br />
The State Mine Tnspeetors present were: —<br />
Alabama Mesbitt. Chas. H., Birmingham.
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Colorado—Dalrymple, Jas. H.. (Chief Inspector),<br />
Newcastle.<br />
Idaho—Moore, F. Gushing, Boise.<br />
Indiana—Pearce, F. I., (Chief Inspector),<br />
Indianapolis.<br />
Illinois—Williams. W. W., Litchfield; Little,<br />
Thomas, Carbondale; Cartlidge, Oscar, Benton.<br />
Iowa—McAlister. Hector, Streator; Rhys, R. T.,<br />
Ottmuwa; Sweeney, Edward, Des Moines.<br />
Kentucky—Barr, F. J., Lexington; Crumbaugh,<br />
John J., Louisville; Norwood, C. J. (Chief Inspector),<br />
Lexington; Jones, H. D., Central City.<br />
Maryland—Donahue, John H., Frostburg.<br />
Michigan—Quine, John T„ Ishpeming.<br />
Minnesota—Ramquist, P. 1,., Coleraine.<br />
New York—Jones, Wm. W., 14 Manning Square,<br />
Albany.<br />
Nevada—Ryan, Ed., Carson City.<br />
Ohio — Harrison, Ge<strong>org</strong>e (Chief Inspector),<br />
Columbus; Kennedy, Edward, Carbon Hill; Miller,<br />
W. H., Massillon: Burke, John, Vellston; Hill,<br />
Isaac, Zanesville; Ellwood, Abel, Cambridge;<br />
Smith, Alex., New Philadelphia; Devore, L. D.,<br />
Route 2, Bellaire; Hennessy, Jas., Barton; Jenkins,<br />
Lot., Martins Ferry; McDonald, John L.,<br />
Glouster; Morrison, Thos., Sherrodsville; Wheatley,<br />
Robt. S., Salineville.<br />
Oklahoma—Boyle, Ed. (Chief Inspector), Mc<br />
Alester; Clark, Martin, McAlester; Haley, Frank.<br />
McAlester.<br />
Pennsylvania—Adams. T. K., Mercer; Bell, John<br />
F., Dravosburg; Brennan, M. J., Pottsville; Blown.<br />
D. R., Scottdale; Byrne, C. P., Punxsutawney;<br />
Curran, John, Pottsville; Cunningham, J. F.,<br />
Charleroi; Davies, Isaac M., Lansford; Evans. B.<br />
I., Mt. Carmel; Evans, Nicholas, Johnstown; Furniss,<br />
F. A., Punxsutawney; Howarth, W. H.,<br />
Brownsville; Lowther, T. S., Punxsutawney; Mc<br />
Gregor, C. P., Carnegie; May, Alva, Punxsutawney;<br />
Maize, Richard, Somerset; Moore, P. J.,<br />
Carbondale; Neale, Arthur. Irwin; O'Donnell, Jas.<br />
A., Centralia; Phillips, Elias. DuBois; Pratt. J. L..<br />
Pittsburgh; Price, Charles J., Lykens; Ross, C. B.,<br />
Greensburg; Roby, J. G., I T niontown; Roderick,<br />
Jas. E., Harrisburg I Chief of Dept. of Mines);<br />
Roderick, D. J., Hazelton; Walsh, P. J., Connellsville-;<br />
Walsh. Jos. J., Nanticoke; Williams, Jos..<br />
Altoona; Young. David, Freeport.<br />
Tennessee—Sylvester, Geo. E. (Chief Inspector),<br />
Rockwood; Rose, John, Dayton.<br />
Washington—Rotting, D. C. (Chief Inspector),<br />
415 Malhorn Bldg., Seattle; Corey, John J., Seattle.<br />
West Virginia—Laing, John, Charleston (Chief<br />
Inspector); Nicholson, Win,, Bluefield; Plaster,<br />
W. D., Elkins; Holliday, L. B., Blenley; Schoew,<br />
Karl F., Fairmont: Parsons, F. E., Clarksburg;<br />
Vaughn, L. D., Grafton; Henry, E. A„ Clifton;<br />
Hill, B. H., Chelyan; Martin, James, Charleston;<br />
Muir. R. Y., Prince: Mitchell, Arthur, Bluefield;<br />
Grady, P. A., Huntington.<br />
* RETAIL TRADE NOTES *<br />
At the recent meeting of the Reading. Pa., Retail<br />
Coal Dealers' Association, the following were nominated<br />
for election to offices: President, H. .1.<br />
Heck; vice president, A. H. Schroeder; secretary,<br />
W. T. Snyder; treasurer, C. P. High; directors,<br />
I. B. Steibert. E. E. Moore, Ge<strong>org</strong>e J. Shindelbeck.<br />
C. F. Shilbert, H. Y. Landith. Ge<strong>org</strong>e J. Scheirer,<br />
Edmund Fischer. J. Eaches, and J. A. Strunk.<br />
There was no opposition to this ticket.<br />
If the ordinance introduced by the Coal Dealers'<br />
Correct Weight Association, composed of the<br />
dealers of Ottumwa, Iowa, is passed, that city will<br />
have an inspector of weights who will see to it that<br />
all drivers are furnished with tickets and that<br />
consumers receive full weight, by demanding the<br />
re-weighing of wagons which appear light.<br />
Following the example of some other <strong>org</strong>anizations<br />
in the trade the New York State & Western<br />
Pennsylvania Coal Merchants' Association will soon<br />
engage a field secretary, the purpose being of<br />
course to have some one travel around and keep in<br />
close touch with members and prospective members.<br />
At a meeting of the executive board of the<br />
Michigan-Ohio-Indiana Coal Association it was decided<br />
to hold the mid-winter meeting of the <strong>org</strong>anization<br />
at Cincinnati January 18. Secretary B. F.<br />
Nigh presented a satisfactory report to the board.<br />
The Martin-Strelau Co. is building a 2,000-ton<br />
concrete coal pocket at Dubuque, Iowa, which, it<br />
is said, is the first retail plant of its kind to be<br />
erected in that part, of the state.<br />
The plan to put the retail trade at Binghamton,<br />
N. Y., on a cash basis seems likely to come to<br />
naught owing to the oppospition of some of the<br />
leading dealers.<br />
8 KO-KOALS' DOINGS ft<br />
Chicago KoKoals, taking advantage of the large<br />
number of KoKoals attending the mining congress.<br />
held a koruskation at the Automobile Club October<br />
28. A new initiation stunt and the annual<br />
election of officers for the Chicago Breaker were<br />
two of the many important events which brought<br />
out a large crowd.<br />
The annual dinner of the Philadelphia Breaker<br />
of the Order KoKoal was held October 20 at the<br />
Hotel Roosevelt. Addresses were made along educational<br />
lines by prominent speakers.
<strong>•</strong> PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS <strong>•</strong><br />
The Black, Sheridan, Wilson Co. has recently<br />
laken new and considerably enlarged offices in the<br />
Fidelity building, Baltimore, moving from the<br />
second floor to the 11th, thus securing much better<br />
light and air. The building itself, which is owned<br />
by the Fidelity & Deposit Co., has been greatly<br />
enlarged during the past year. H. Crawford Black<br />
is prominently identified with tbe banking company<br />
that owns the structure and two of his sons<br />
are now identified with the coal company in official<br />
capacities.<br />
Permission was granted by tbe Interstate Commerce<br />
Commission on Oct. 26 to the Pennsylvania<br />
and tbe Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington<br />
railroads to establish a rate of $1.10 a ton on bituminous<br />
coal from Wehrum, Pa., to Lackawanna,<br />
N. Y., although the rate to intermediate points is<br />
as high as $1.52. The low rate, which affects a<br />
heavy traffic, was permitted to enable the pro<br />
posing lines to meet close competition at Lackawanna<br />
At the annual meeting of the Cumberland &<br />
Pennsylvania Railway Co., which is controlled by<br />
the Consolidation Coal Co., C. W. Watson, J. H.<br />
Wheelwright, H. Crawford Black, A. B. Fleming<br />
and Samuel McRoberts were re-elected directors.<br />
Mr. Wheelwright was elected president.<br />
United States Judge K. M. Landis of Chicago<br />
has appointed the Central Trust Co. of Chicago<br />
receiver for the Wabash Valley Coal Co. at the request<br />
of the creditors, aggregating over $20,000<br />
loans. The petition alleges that the company admitted<br />
its inability to pay.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 61<br />
The Davis Coal & Coke Co. has appointed Mr.<br />
Robert Grant as superintendents the Henry plant<br />
of the concern at Thomas, W. Va., to succeed Mr.<br />
W. J. Christopher, resigned. Mr. H. H. Harrison<br />
has been appointed superintendent of the Elk Garden<br />
plant, at Thomas, succeeding .Mr. Grant.<br />
Special Master John C. Berry of Wheeling has<br />
sold 26,906 acres of coal and mineral lands in<br />
Berkeley and M<strong>org</strong>an counties, W. Va., the property<br />
of the Sleepy Mountain Anthracite Coal Co.,<br />
to Hay Walker of Pittsburgh for $250,000.<br />
The new Natalie breaker near Shamokin, Pa.,<br />
which replaces the one burned in tbe spring, was<br />
put in operation recently. It is much larger than<br />
the old one and is equipped throughout with the<br />
most up-to-date machinery.<br />
By court order the Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia<br />
& Reading, Susquehanna and other coal companies<br />
will have to remove nine feet of culm from<br />
Shamokin creek and thereby restore drainage facilities<br />
to Mt. Carmel, Pa.<br />
It is announced that the Virginia & Southwestern<br />
Mr. James Epperson, former state mine inspector Ry. will augment its coal-handling equipment in<br />
of Indiana and for several months superintendent the course of the next few months by the addition<br />
of the Crescent coal mine, Evansville, Ind.. has of six new locomotives of the heaviest type and<br />
resigned his position and has gone to Terre Haute. 525 coal cars.<br />
where he will take a position with a new liability<br />
insurance company, which will make a specialty of Henceforth the headquarters of Inspector P.<br />
mine risks.<br />
J. Grady, of West Virginia, will be at Williamson,<br />
he having been assigned to look after all mines<br />
on the Norfolk & Western railway from Kenova<br />
to Welch.<br />
The formal opening of the government mine rescue<br />
station which has been established near Birmingham,<br />
Ala., will be held early in November<br />
under the auspices of J. W. Paul of the Bureau of<br />
Tenders have been invited by the Cardiff, Wales, Mines.<br />
Coal exchange on behalf of the Egyptian state<br />
railways for 40,000 tons of American coal. It is The Chicago, Wilmington — Vermillion Coal<br />
reported that this is intended as an experiment to Co., Chicago, will sink a shaft near Zeigler, 111.,<br />
ascertain whether American coal is a suitable sub to develop 6,000 acres of coal. It is planned to<br />
stitute for the Welsh coal now used.<br />
have a plant that will load 4,000 tons per day.<br />
The hearing before the Interstate Commerce<br />
Commission on coal freight rates to the lakes.<br />
scheduled for October 23, has been set forward<br />
by the commission to November 13.<br />
The Northern Coal & Coke Co. of Denver, Col.,<br />
has sold to the Rocky Mountain Fuel Co. all its<br />
Mr. Robert H. Morris, late superintendent for mines the in the northern and southern Colorado coal<br />
Mexican Coal & Coke Co., is now superintendent fields, the price being $2,000,000.<br />
for the Jasper Park Collieries, Ltd., which is opening<br />
coal mines at Pocahontas, Alberta, along the The Lacolle Coal Mining Co., Indiana, Pa., will<br />
line of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway, 205 miles develop 2,000 acres of coal near Bolivar, Pa. Work<br />
west of Edmonton.<br />
of opening a drift is to be started soon.
52<br />
Alaskan Problems.<br />
(Continued from Page 38.)<br />
tbat their development by private enterprise can<br />
not be effectively controlled. For this reason 1 am<br />
OPPOSED TO THE POLICY<br />
of having tbe government alone own and mine<br />
Alaskan coal.<br />
1 believe tbat tlie leasing system avoids the con<br />
troversies and the difficulties of both extremes of<br />
public and of private ownership. It has been<br />
adopted with conspicuous success in the gieat min<br />
ing communities of Australia and New Zealand.<br />
It is now the established law of the Yukon terri<br />
tory lying in Canada just across the border line<br />
from Alaska. It is the system under which much<br />
of the privately owned coal land of tbe United<br />
States is in fact to-day being developed. Under<br />
it we can insert as matters of contract and as conditions<br />
to which the lessee voluntarily consents<br />
those regulations and requirements which promote<br />
the public interest, the enforcement oi some of<br />
which by mandatory law might be unconstitutional.<br />
By making the terms of our leases liberal<br />
we can make them even more attractive to capital<br />
than if we adopt the policy of an outright sale of<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
the fee.<br />
Let us consider for a moment what ordinarily<br />
happens with coal land which is sold outright.<br />
Comparatively little of it is mined b.v the original<br />
purchaser. He usually disposes of his title to a<br />
succession of others, each of whom in turn adds<br />
to the cost of his purchase the profit in consideration<br />
of which he sells, and with increasing fre<br />
quency the final result is the operation of the coal<br />
mines by a lessee, who must pay a return on these<br />
accumulated profits and who acids his own, trans<br />
ferring the burden of it all to the consumer. Ont<br />
hundred and fifty-six million tons of coal, or 34<br />
per cent, of the total production of the United<br />
States for the year 1909, were mined from lands<br />
operated under private leases, and these leases are<br />
common in every coal mining state, naturally much<br />
more so in some states than in others. Consider<br />
ing the areas involved, we find that in West Virginia,<br />
in the great Pocahontas and New River coal<br />
fields, which yield the finest steaming coals of the<br />
continent, about t'O per cent, of the area in the<br />
Pocahontas district and about 60 per cent, of that<br />
in the New River district are mined on a private<br />
lease basis, which pays the lessor a royalty fee<br />
averaging 10 cents per ton.<br />
In the Southern Appalachian coal fields, just<br />
south of the Pocahontas region, it is estimated that<br />
75 per cent, of the area is mined on a lease basis;<br />
in the Hocking Valley region of Ohio. 75 per cent.;<br />
in Iowa, more than 70 per cent.; in Arkansas, 60<br />
per cent.: and in Oklahoma, nearly all of the coal<br />
land is operated on a lease basis.<br />
Taking all of our principal coal mining states,<br />
the census figures for 1909 show that out of a total<br />
of 6,900,000 acres of coal lands under operation,<br />
more than 2,000,000 acres, or 30 per cent, of the<br />
whole, was in 1909 operated under a<br />
SYSTEM OE PRIVATE LEASES.<br />
It is therefore substantially correct to say that,<br />
whether we like it or not, the choice is not as to<br />
whether we shall mine our coal on the leasehold<br />
system, but whether we shall mine it under leases<br />
from private owners or from the government di-<br />
lect. That the consumer has everything to gain<br />
under tbe governmental leasehold must be ap<br />
parent, for the government can make its royalties<br />
as little as it chooses and it has no invested capi<br />
tal and no unearned increment on which to pay<br />
returns. Opposition is to be expected only from<br />
those who wish to secure our coal lands for stock<br />
jobbing or speculative purposes or so that they<br />
may make a greater profit than is essential to se<br />
cure immediate development. Indeed, immediate<br />
development can he assured only under the lease<br />
hold system. Without it there is no reason why<br />
private individuals should not secure the property<br />
and hold it out of development until they can take<br />
advantage of the increasing demands of the future.<br />
Expedients could be adopted in the effort to enforce<br />
development by requiring the purchaser to<br />
mine a certain amount of coal or to expend a cer<br />
tain amount of money in developing the land under<br />
pain of forfeiting his title to the government, but<br />
this, after all, is only a crude and awkward device<br />
for securing what can be far more effectively se<br />
c-tired by means of lease. Indeed, these devices<br />
are economically unsound, for they compel development<br />
whether the immediate market justifies it or<br />
not. The leasing system, upon the other hand,<br />
can be given much of the flexibility necessary for<br />
meeting automatically the fluctuating demands of<br />
the market.<br />
The opponents of the leasing system delight to<br />
dwell upon the fact that in the first half of the last<br />
century the Federal government undertook to lease<br />
the lead mines on the public domain and that the<br />
effort was not a success and was abandoned in<br />
1847, but when we consider the conditions under<br />
which the attempt was made, and especially that<br />
the leases were limited to five years, with a royalty<br />
of one-sixth of the lead for government use; that<br />
the validity of the leases was constantly attacked<br />
upon the ground that the statute did not contain<br />
the necessary provisions for carrying it into effect;<br />
and that the system was permeated with the same<br />
kind of fraud and evasion which until recently<br />
characterized the operation of certain of our later<br />
land and mineral laws, we can understand the fail<br />
ure and that the experiment is of no value what<br />
ever in determining tbe merits or demerits of a<br />
properly drawn and properly enforced law for the<br />
leasing of the public coal lands of to-day. The
whole experiment was carried on under such crude<br />
and inefficient methods that the total rental received<br />
by the government for the four years ending<br />
with 1844 was only $6,354.74, while the expenses<br />
for the same period amounted to $26,111.11.<br />
A few persons who have expressed themselves<br />
as being "unalterably opposed" to a leasing system<br />
for the coal lands of Alaska have stated that<br />
they were unalterably opposed to it because, in the<br />
first place, it would be impossible to get any leasing<br />
legislation through Congress; and in the second<br />
place, if a leasing bill did pass Congress, it would<br />
be impossible to get anybody to work coal lands<br />
on a lease basis. I need not discuss at this time<br />
what Congress may or may not do, except to saythat,<br />
in my judgment, Congress is far more likely<br />
to pass<br />
A RATIOS Al LEASING MEASURE<br />
than it is to throw the coal fields of Alaska open<br />
for unrestricted private exploitation.<br />
As to the second of these objections, whether or<br />
not the leasing of the coal lands in Alaska is a<br />
practicable proposition, let us see what the experience<br />
has been with reference to such a proposition<br />
in our own and other countries. A similar objection<br />
was raised when it was proposed to lease the<br />
coal lands in New Zealand and in the Australian<br />
States, such as New South Wales, West Australia,<br />
Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania. In each of<br />
these far-away countries Ihe local conditions in<br />
some respects resembled those in Alaska. They<br />
were remote from commercial centers, with meager<br />
or no transportation facilities, and industrial development<br />
was carried on under great difficulties.<br />
It was argued in each of these countries that the<br />
great need was capital and development, and that<br />
the coal fields should be thrown wide open to all<br />
who were willing to risk (heir capita] in helping<br />
to open up and build up the country. In some<br />
eases the sale of the fee was tried; but the wise<br />
Anglo-Saxons of that region thought it better as a<br />
matter of national policy to keep the ultimate control<br />
of these essential resources in the hands of<br />
the state, and they adopted a leasing system as the<br />
only safe means of doing this. And what was the<br />
result? The coal lands in each of these countries<br />
have been taken up and are being developed and<br />
mined under tht leasing system; and under that<br />
system coal is not only being mined "or home consumption,<br />
but it is being exported to our own<br />
Pacific coast, and to other countries bordering on<br />
the Pacific. The difficulties that stood in the way<br />
of leasing the coal lands in those countries were<br />
imaginary difficulties, and they disappeared when<br />
the matter was put to a practical test.<br />
Again, in Nova Scotia and in the far-away Yukon<br />
country, where the conditions for investment are<br />
even more unfavorable than they are in many parts<br />
of Alaska, those who were opposed to the adoption<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 63<br />
of a leasing system said that it would be impossible<br />
to lease public coal lands on any basis; but<br />
when the experiment was tried, parties came forward<br />
to take out the leases and are operating the<br />
coal lands.<br />
In our own country, in the state of Wyoming<br />
and Colorado, when it was proposed that these<br />
states should lease their coal lands instead of selling<br />
them outright, it was argued that nobody<br />
would take out the leases. But experience has<br />
shown otherwise. In Colorado in 1900, in addition<br />
to the large acreage of coal lands held in private<br />
ownership, nearly 6,000 acres of state coal<br />
lands were operated under lease, and in 1910 nearly<br />
20,000 acres of the state coal lands were being<br />
operated under such leases, with a royalty charge<br />
of lo cents per ton. In Wyoming to-day more than<br />
3,000,000 ACRES OF STATE LANDS<br />
of all kinds are being operated under 5,700 leases.<br />
While only a small portion of this acreage relates<br />
to coal, the state statistics do not indicate what<br />
this proportion is.<br />
With records at hand giving the results of a<br />
large volume and great variety of experience covering<br />
the operations of both private and public coal<br />
land leases in our own and many other countries,<br />
it should not be difficult to decide upon the ordinary<br />
conditions and requirements that should be<br />
incorporated in a leasing system for the Alaskan<br />
coal fields—working conditions that will meet the<br />
legitimate demands of the prospector, the investor,<br />
and the operator, safeguard the health and life<br />
of the mine worker and the property of the government,<br />
to the end tbat the public may secure an<br />
adequate supply of fuel at the lowest cost consistent<br />
with these conditions.<br />
Some of the bills which have been recently introduced<br />
in Congress provide that the Interstate<br />
Commerce Commission shall regulate the prices at<br />
which the coal mined under these leases is sold<br />
not only by the miner but by the middleman and<br />
the retailer to the consumer. Important as is the<br />
question of protecting the consumer, it seems unwise<br />
that price regulation by the government<br />
should be insisted upon as a necessary feature of<br />
a coal leasing law for Alaska. Obviously such<br />
regulation must extend to the retailer if it is to<br />
do anything but enable the middlemen to make<br />
the profit denied to the miner. Regulation of this<br />
sort would be a new departure in either state or<br />
federal administration. It raises fundamental<br />
questions of public policy about which differences<br />
exist that are as yet uncompromising. It would<br />
doubtless prevent any early action by Congress.<br />
Certainly if enacted in the form presented in these<br />
hills, which merely declare the general principle<br />
and leave all of the real difficulties to be worked<br />
out by the commission and the courts, it would<br />
prove a serious, if not prohibitive, barrier to the
54 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
development of a new country and a new and uncertain<br />
market. Under these conditions it would<br />
seem a sufficient undertaking to inaugurate a new<br />
system of tenure, without imposing upon Alaska<br />
the additional difficulties of the administration of<br />
a hitherto untried attempt to settle by public regulation<br />
what would constitute a reasonable profit<br />
for the miner, the wholesaler, and the retailer of<br />
coal. It is especially hard to understand how<br />
those who doubt the success of railroad regulation<br />
in Alaska can now advocate entering the more<br />
difficult field of the regulation of commodities.<br />
PRICE REGULATION<br />
has been suggested by some representatives of<br />
large corporate interests as a safeguard under<br />
which the modern economic tendency toward consolidation<br />
might be safely permitted to continue,<br />
but the bills referred to do not propose to treat<br />
Alaska coal on the principle of a regulated private<br />
monopoly. This question should be left for<br />
more mature consideration as a question of broad<br />
general policy, applicable, if at all, to the states<br />
as well as to Alaska.<br />
It may be practicable to provide in connection<br />
with the renewal of leases at their termination<br />
that such renewals shall be subject to the then<br />
existing laws applicable thereto. This principle<br />
has been successfully adopted in the Australian<br />
leases. Our first leases can well be made more<br />
favorable than those which follow, and if they<br />
are for reasonable but fixed periods, and if we<br />
lease only as much of our coal lands as may be<br />
required for the existing market and its effective<br />
extension, we can thus proceed experimentally,<br />
correcting early mistakes and meeting future conditions<br />
as they arise.<br />
The prime requisites of a leasing system are that<br />
only sufficient coal lands should be leased to meet<br />
the existing market and encourage its development;<br />
that the quantity leased to any one lessee<br />
should be limited to the amount that can be profitably<br />
mined as a unit and yet be large enough to<br />
attract investors; that the lessee shall pay his<br />
royalty as he mines his coal; that this shall annually<br />
amount to at least a fixed minimum which<br />
will make it unprofitable for him to hold the land<br />
without production; that he shall mine his coal<br />
without unnecessary waste and with clue regard<br />
to the health and safety of his employes; that he<br />
shall not engage directly or indirectly in any combinations,<br />
agreements, or understandings to control<br />
the price of coal, and that the revenues derived<br />
by the government shall not be used as a<br />
source of federal revenue or as a substitute for<br />
taxation, but shall be devoted to the development<br />
of the state or territory in which the coal is mined.<br />
These at least are the principal features which<br />
should be embodied in a leasing law.<br />
From the information which I have at hand, I<br />
infer that in Australia and New Zealand the quantity<br />
embraced within a single lease does not seem<br />
to be limited, but reliance is placed upon the re<br />
quirements which make it unprofitable for a tenant<br />
to lease more land than he really develops.<br />
That both the government and the coal operators<br />
are believers in the leasing system is apparent<br />
from the universal application and from the investigation<br />
made in 1907 and 1908 at the instance<br />
of President Roosevelt by Arthur C. Veatch, of<br />
the Geological Survey.<br />
The comparison with the coal production oi<br />
Alaska is, of course, of no consequence as the coal<br />
lands in Alaska were not really open to development<br />
in 1905. In the Yukon territory of Canada<br />
coal lands are now leased by the government for a<br />
term of 21 years at an annual rental of $1 an acre,<br />
and not more than 2,560 acres can be leased by<br />
one applicant. The royalty is 5 cents per ton on<br />
the merchantable output of the mine. Here, as in<br />
Alaska, facilities for transportation are necessary<br />
uefore any extensive development can be expected.<br />
Shortly before I went to Alaska I improved an<br />
opportunity to discuss the question of its coal development<br />
with a group of prominent coal operators<br />
in the state of Pennsylvania and I was surprised<br />
to find that they were unanimously of the<br />
opinion that the leasing system should be adopted<br />
and that only sufficient land should be leased to<br />
meet the demands of the market and provide the<br />
incentive for developing that market in a vigorous<br />
and rational manner.<br />
When I reached Cordova I was presented with<br />
a series of resolutions adopted by the Cordova<br />
Chamber of Commerce expressing its<br />
DISAPPROVAL OF A LEASING SYSTEM<br />
for Alaska coal lands. Since my return to the<br />
states I have received from the Chamber of Commerce<br />
a most courteous statement to the effect that<br />
after further careful consideration the chamber<br />
did not now desire to be considered as opposed to<br />
a leasing system, and suggesting certain requirements<br />
or conditions which it believed should be incorporated<br />
in leases if such a system is adopted.<br />
What is desired in Alaska is prompt action by<br />
Congress in some direction that will promote development.<br />
I have already stated that Director Holmes, of<br />
the Bureau of Mines, and his associates have personally<br />
visited both the Bering and the Matanuska<br />
coal fields, and I am glad to be able to say that<br />
Dr. Holmes has read this address and concurs in<br />
its statements of fact and in its recommendations.<br />
That they are infallible I do not claim. It may<br />
include inaccuracies of statement and more serious<br />
mistakes; but these I reserve the right to correct<br />
whenever I discover them or whenever new facts<br />
or more mature consideration lead me to a different<br />
conclusion. For the present they are offered
as definite suggestions for a policy under which<br />
the territory of" Alaska may be immediately opened<br />
for wise and vigorous development.<br />
I have been greatly pleased with the fair-mindedness<br />
and public spirit of the Alaskan people on<br />
this subject. I believe back of their naturally<br />
great and justifiable desire for immediate action<br />
they want done in this matter .whatever will in the<br />
end prove best for Alaska as a whole, without regard<br />
to special individual or corporate interests;<br />
and I believe that Congress and the American<br />
people as a whole will be in accord with that purpose.<br />
The members of the American Mining Congress<br />
can do much to aid in carrying that purpose into<br />
effect.<br />
The convention of the Ninth district, United<br />
Mine Workers of America, in session at Pottsville.<br />
Pa., during the fortnight, adjourned October 21.<br />
after formulating the demands to be made upon<br />
the operators for higher pay and better working<br />
conditions. The demands call for a 20 per cent.<br />
increase in the rate of pay for all employes over<br />
and above the rates awarded in 1902, a work-day<br />
of not more than eight hours, complete recognition<br />
of the union, including the check-off. A resolution<br />
was adopted declaring it the sense of the<br />
convention that it is unalterably opposed to a renewal<br />
of the award of the anthracite coal strike<br />
commission. Pottsville will get the convention<br />
next year and these officers were chosen: President,<br />
John Fahy; vice president, John Strambo;<br />
secretary-treasurer, Thomas J. Richards; international<br />
executive board member, Martin A. Nash.<br />
The district board members elected are: Edward<br />
Harris, Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. Henry, M. J. McGrath, Martin<br />
J. Boyle, Stiney Geguzie, Joseph Turnto, Peter<br />
Zemetis and Martin Powasie.<br />
At a meeting of Hocking Valley miners at Nelsonville,<br />
0., recently, steps were taken towards<br />
negotiations for the wage scale for the Hocking<br />
district which expires April 1, 1912. It is hinted<br />
that the operators' contention that they must receive<br />
more relief if they are to compete with West<br />
Virginia operators will receive some attention from<br />
the miners' <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
The coal strike which has kept 7,000 miners in<br />
Alberta and British Columbia idle for moie than<br />
six months has been settled, according to an announcement<br />
by Robert Rogers, Canadian Minister<br />
of the Interior, on October 27.<br />
A referendum vote of Illinois mine workers on<br />
the question of <strong>org</strong>anizing a labor party in Illinois<br />
resulted in an overwhelming defeat for the proposition.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
The Ingersoll-Rand Co. of Broadway, New York<br />
City, has just issued Form 3210, bulletin of 12<br />
pages, descriptive of Class NE-1 power-driven,<br />
single-stage, straight-line, air compressors. This<br />
compressor consists of an air cylinder supported<br />
b.v a main frame with a piston operated by means<br />
of a center crank shaft with a belt wheel on one<br />
side and a fly wheel on the other. Shaft and<br />
wheels can be reversed in the bearings if the belt<br />
wheel is preferred on the other side. Air inlet<br />
valves on the smaller machines are of tbe "Direct<br />
Lift" type; on the larger machines "Hurricane inlet"<br />
valves are standard. "Cushioned Direct Lift"<br />
discharge valves are standard on all sizes. The<br />
catalogue shows several views of the machine in<br />
section and gives tables of sizes and capacities.<br />
"Heat Treated Axles, Shafts and Similar Parts,"<br />
is the title of a neat booklet from the press of the<br />
Carnegie Steel Co., in which the company treats<br />
of axles and their relative strength and usefulness<br />
after they have passed through certain processes<br />
and become known as "Annealed," "Toughened"<br />
and "High Test" axles.<br />
The Carnegie Steel Co. has just issued a new<br />
"Shape Book," containing profiles, tables and data<br />
appertaining to the Shapes, Plates, Bars, Rails<br />
and Track Accessories manufactured by the company.<br />
The book supersedes and cancels the book<br />
of shapes issues in 1903 together with all supplements<br />
thereto.<br />
CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANY SELLS<br />
COAL TO EGYPTIAN STATE RAILROADS.<br />
The Consolidation Coal Co. of Baltimore, has<br />
just closed a contract through its London agents<br />
to furnish 40,000 tons of coal to the Egyptian State<br />
Railways Co. President Jere H. Wheelwright,<br />
of the Consolidation, received a cable to this effect<br />
October 23. The coal is asked for immediate delivery,<br />
and the loading of steamers at Baltimore<br />
for Egypt will soon begin. The securing of this<br />
contract is expected to open up a new field for<br />
this product. Its commercial importance to Baltimore,<br />
apart from tbe profit made by the local<br />
company, is that it will take new vessels there for<br />
the loading. These may come with cargoes and<br />
open up a line of traffic beneficial in its results.<br />
The stock of the Consolidation Coal Co. has been<br />
showing steady improvement for some weeks. It<br />
has advanced in this time from 99% to 102 though.<br />
in the meantime the quarterly dividend of 1% per<br />
cent, has been declared. The full price was bid<br />
recently without offerings.
66 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
GOVERNMENT COAL MINES<br />
IN NORTH DAKOTA.<br />
As an auxiliary to an irrigation project, the<br />
Department of the Interior has gone into the coal<br />
business. At Williston, N. D., the government<br />
owns and operates a coal mine. It pays its miners<br />
good wages, operates a model mine, uses all<br />
modern safety appliances, and produces fuel at a<br />
cost of $1.60 a ton.<br />
In its mining enterprise the government does<br />
not enter the market in competition with private<br />
operators, the mine simply furnishing fuel for the<br />
Williston and Buford-Trenton irrigation project.<br />
As the retail price of coal in Williston is $2.50, the<br />
government saves 90 cents a ton. besides always<br />
being certain tbat it will not suffer from a shortage<br />
of fuel.<br />
The conditions tinder which the miners live and<br />
work are as nearly ideal as they can be made. The<br />
men are worked eight hours a day, six days a week,<br />
and are able to make $100 a month above living<br />
expenses. On the average the miners make $5 a<br />
day, the schedule being 60 cents a ton for room<br />
work, 70 cents in 10-foot entries and 80 cents in<br />
7-foot entries.<br />
For the single miners the government furnishes<br />
free barracks, the men furnishing only their own<br />
bedding. A "mess" is provided where meals are<br />
given for a quarter each. Neat cottages are provided<br />
for the married miners at a rental of $10 a<br />
month.<br />
As to the safety of the mine itself, the Interior<br />
Department has sought to develop a model mine.<br />
Adequate exits are arranged so that entombment<br />
is considered impossible; all modern safety appliances<br />
have been installed, while a system of ventilation<br />
has been put in by which the air in tunnels<br />
2,000 feet underground is said to be kept almost<br />
as fresh as on the surface.<br />
Notwithstanding the expense of operating a<br />
model mine, the coal costs the government only<br />
$1.60 a ton for mining. The mine is run during<br />
the crop growing season only, four months a year,<br />
and the engineers of the reclamation service who<br />
IY0U CAN'T<br />
are in charge declare that if the mine were operated<br />
the year around, the cost of mining would be<br />
cut to $1.25 a ton.<br />
So far tbe government mining experiment has<br />
been free from most of the troubles generally incident<br />
to mining. No one has ever been killed or<br />
seriously injured in the mine. There have been<br />
no strikes; labor disputes have been absent.<br />
RECENT COAL TRADE PATENTS.<br />
The following recently granted patents of interest<br />
to the coal trade, are reported expressly for<br />
THE CAL TRADE BULLETIN by J. M. Nesbit, Patent<br />
Attorney, Park Building, Pittsburgh, Pa., from<br />
whom printed copies may be procured for 15 cents<br />
each:<br />
Miner's safety lamp tester, Fred Benedetti and<br />
Andrew Stella, Black Diamond, Wash.; 1,004,348.<br />
Method of mining (2), Wm. Griffith, West Pittston,<br />
Pa.; 1,004,418 and 1,004,419.<br />
Mine car stop, G. W. Jenkins and Edward Lowry,<br />
Nelsonville, O.; 1,004,652.<br />
Mine safety apparatus, Maturen Gold, Hayward,<br />
Okla., and W. A. Montgomery, Solano, N. Mex.;<br />
1,005,196.<br />
Apparatus for exploding mine charges, Johann<br />
Krannichfeldt, Cologne, Germany; 1,005,649.<br />
Mine car wheel lubricator, U. U. Carr, Pittsburgh.<br />
Pa.; 1,006,059.<br />
Safety stop for elevators, John Hotter, Baxter,<br />
W. Va.; 1,005.837.<br />
Automatic car dumping mechanism, F. C. Greene,<br />
Cleveland, and G. C. Palmer, East Cleveland, O.;<br />
1,005.961.<br />
Coke oven door, Louis Wilputte, Joliet, 111.; 1,-<br />
006,036.<br />
Prop for mines, August Winz, Ruttenscheid, Germany:<br />
1,006,163.<br />
Mining machine, L. F. Hess. Hawks Nest, W. Va.;<br />
1,006,213.<br />
Car for quenching coke, Hans Ries, Munich, Germany;<br />
1.006,281.<br />
Car or truck. W. M. Duncan, Alton, 111.; 1,006,369.<br />
LOOK INTO THE<br />
EARTH, but WE<br />
CAN get you a large i<br />
The directors of the St. Bernard Mining Co.,<br />
Lexington, Ky., have postponed the election of a<br />
president until the May meeting out of respect to<br />
the late president, John B. Atkinson. Ge<strong>org</strong>e C.<br />
clean core of all strata un- } Atkinson, who has been in control for some time,<br />
der your land tc be examined<br />
in broad daylight.<br />
was vested with all the rights and powers of president<br />
and resigned as treasurer. Dan M. Evans.<br />
for the past year secretary, was chosen treasurer.<br />
. No Guess Work. . Frank D. Rush, the efficient general manager of<br />
'The J. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
; Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
J Field Office, House Buildine, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
the company, and W. S. Packard, of Philadelphia,<br />
were elected to fill vacancies in the board of directors,<br />
Mr. Rush representing the local stockholders<br />
S Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING. OIL AND ARTESIAN WEIL DRILLING ; and Mr. Packard the eastern.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK ti KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H. W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA,<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
THE J. B. SANBORN CO.<br />
Special Mercantile Agency<br />
COAL TRADE.<br />
PUBLISHERS OF<br />
The Coal Dealers' Blue Book<br />
Contains a Complete List for the United States and<br />
Canada of all Coal Operators, Shippers and Dealers<br />
Gas Companies, Elevators, Foundries, Mills, Iron<br />
Works, and all Manufacturers who buy Coaland<br />
Coke in oar load lots, with capital and pay ratines.<br />
-: Room<br />
: 550 Monon Building, 440 Dearborn St.,<br />
CHICAGO.<br />
1438 SO. PENN SQUARE.C<br />
PHILADELPHIA. (<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch gauge, 1% tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909 IO.<br />
Rhowing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
ihe names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT.<br />
P. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jer<br />
sey wishes to establish connection with reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full par<br />
ticulars, analysis' of coal, name, location and out<br />
fit of mine, etc.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VENEER & LUMBER Co.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on Liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.
Laurel Hill Valley Coal & Coke Co., Somerset,<br />
Pa.; capital, $50,000; incorporators, Cyrenius W.<br />
Kurtz, Humbert, Pa.; Jacob Kreger, Kiugwood,<br />
Pa.; Ge<strong>org</strong>e Drunbauld, Upper Turkeyfoot township,<br />
Somerset county, Pa.; John A. Berkey, Somerset,<br />
Pa.; Cosmos D. Kutz, Lyons, Pa.; Daniel H.<br />
Schweyer, Maxatawney township, Berks county,<br />
Pa.; Albert Knobb, Pittsburgh; Edwin DeLong,<br />
Bowers, Pa.<br />
Quemahoning Creek Coal Co., Somerset, Pa.;<br />
capital, $100,0(10; incorporators, Charles J. Harrison,<br />
Jr., Somerset, Pa.; John C. Brydon. New-<br />
York; L. B. Brydon, Grafton, W. Va.; Charles J.<br />
Harrison. Norman T. Boose, Somerset, Pa.<br />
The Pond Fork Coal Co., Huntington, W. Va.;<br />
capital, $75,000; incorporators, William H. Yawkey,<br />
of New York City; C. H. Freeman, of Huntington,<br />
W. Va.; and F. C. Leftwich, of Huntington,<br />
W. Va.<br />
Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Clearing House, Inc.,<br />
Pittsburgh; capital, $5.OOP; incorporators, H. F.<br />
Dannals, Jr., F. P. Foster, E. B. Taylor, Henry F.<br />
Dannals and James R. Murphy, all of Grafton, Pa.<br />
Lertz-Johnston-Gaillard Coal Co.. Montgomery,<br />
Ala.; capital, $20,000; incorporators, Wm. C. Lertz,<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 59<br />
Hattie H. Lertz, A. J. Ahlum, W. Frank Johnston,<br />
and James F. Johnston.<br />
Big Hupp Coal Co., Huntington, W. Va.; capital,<br />
$400,000; incorporators, Thomas W. Garvey,<br />
Thomas H. Harvey, of Huntington; J. B. Wilkinson,<br />
of Logan.<br />
Bon Jellico Coal Co., Jellico, Tenn.; capital,<br />
$100,000; incorporators, Arthur Groves, F. F. Floyd,<br />
W. J. Everett, E. B. Taylor and F. M. Haynes, all<br />
of Jellico.<br />
Central Illinois Fuel Co., Rock Island, 111.; capital,<br />
$25,000; incorporators, F. M. Goddard, Davenport;<br />
F. W. Young, Rock Island; H. C. Kohl, Moline,<br />
III.<br />
A Scheppers & Son. Lake Forest, 111.; capital.<br />
$35,000; incorporators, A. D. Jackman, E. Buekel,<br />
A. Warren, Lake Forest.<br />
Miss D., a teacher of unquestioned propriety in<br />
all its branches, was in the throes of commencement,<br />
and to the best of her ability was entertaining<br />
some young men—the suitors of her fair pupils.<br />
They conversed on some beautiful flowers<br />
in the drawing room.<br />
"Yes," exclaimed the old lady; "but if you think<br />
these are pretty, you just ought to go upstairs and<br />
look in the bath tubs of the girls' dormitories.<br />
They are just full of American beauties?"<br />
"OLD COMPANY'S LEHIGH"<br />
MINED AND SHIPPED BY<br />
THE LEHIGH COAL AND NAVIGATION COMPANY<br />
SUMMIT<br />
Registered U. S.<br />
GREENWOOD<br />
Pateut Office<br />
GENERAL OFFICES, 437 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA<br />
W. A. LATHROP, President ROLLIN H. WILBUR, Vice President<br />
RICHARD T. DAVIES, General Coal Agent<br />
F. N. ULRICK, Assistant General Coal Agent<br />
NEW YORK: CARROLL MOORE. SALES ACENT<br />
REPRESENTATIVES I<br />
BOSTON: 0. B. JOHNSON, EASTERN SALES ACENT<br />
143 LIBERTY STREET<br />
141 MILK STREET
60 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
LARGEST STEAMER ON THE LAKES.<br />
The steamer Colonel James M. Schoonmaker is<br />
the biggest freight carrier on fresh water, being<br />
617 feet long, 61 feet beam, and 33 feet moulded<br />
depth, with 35 hatches, and a maximum capacity<br />
of 14,000 tons at a draft of 21 feet. She recently<br />
had her first load at Toledo, taking on a cargo of<br />
coal mined by the New Pittsburgh Coal Co.<br />
The pilot house equipment consists of regular<br />
and auxiliary steering gear, operated by two wheels<br />
and two separate steering engines; McNab engine<br />
indicator, automatic helm indicator, pelorus, bearing<br />
finder and a delicate little lever that starts an<br />
electric motor which pulls the cord to the big<br />
steam whistle.<br />
The wireless telegraph and chart rooms are just<br />
abaft the pilot house, and the private state rooms<br />
of the captain and mates and tbe quarters for<br />
wheelmen and watchmen, all equipped with hot<br />
and cold water marble baths and electric fans, are<br />
adjacent.<br />
On the forecastle deck is the observation and<br />
grill room, where meals are served to the ship's<br />
guests. Cooking is all done below quarters on a<br />
great electric range. Adjoining the grill rooms<br />
are the dining room for the navigation officers, the<br />
captain's library and office, in which he may sit<br />
and telephone orders to all parts of the ship while<br />
watching the course as indicated by one of the<br />
newest navigating instruments, a Schuette recording<br />
compass. A pen tracing, made automatically,<br />
shows at a glance each course and the length of<br />
time the ship has been upon that course.<br />
Directly under the pilot house is the lounging<br />
or smoking room, with buffet and costly mirrors,<br />
and all the furniture is of expensive weathered<br />
oak in mission style.<br />
There are eight large staterooms for guests, all<br />
on the forecastle deck, all with private tub and<br />
shower baths, electric fans and bells, and furnished<br />
as luxuriously as the rooms in the best hotels.<br />
The quarters for the engine room force are<br />
nearly an eighth of a mile aft, just above the great<br />
power plant, and are almost as luxuriously fitted<br />
as those of the navigating officers forward.<br />
Even in the quarters of the stokers and deck<br />
hands there are electric fans, bells, baths and steam<br />
heat.<br />
J. H. SANFORD COAL COMPANY<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS<br />
HIGHEST GRADE PANHANDLE COAL<br />
ANALYSIS :<br />
Mois,ure 153 BEST FOR STEAM AID<br />
Volatile Matter - -35.96 „ „ „. „<br />
Fixed Carbon - - - - 56.34 DOMESTIC USES<br />
Ash 6.17<br />
Sulphur - - - - - 1.79<br />
B. T. U. per pound of Dry Coal, 13544.3 ° fficeS : ' 3 ' 5 Park Bidding, PITTSBURGH.<br />
Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, _ „ -,, _ „, , .<br />
. <strong>•</strong>" Bell Phones, Grant 1822—1823—1824<br />
Jas. Otis Handy, Chief Chemist.<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
. FAMOUj<br />
TT<br />
"ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
C r\ A V O A<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
GOAL TRADE BULLETIN<br />
Vol. XXV PITTSBURGH, NOVEMBER 15, 1911 No. 12<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN;<br />
PUBLISHED SEMI-MONTHLY.<br />
Copyrighted, 1911, by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY.<br />
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,<br />
H. J. STHAUB, Managing Editor.<br />
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR<br />
FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY<br />
Correspondence and communications upon all matters<br />
relating to coal or coal production are Invited.<br />
All communications and remittances to<br />
THE COAL TRADE COMPANY,<br />
926-930 PARK BUILDINO, PITTSBUEQH.<br />
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.<br />
[Entered at tbe Post Office at Pittsburgh as<br />
Second Class Mail Matter.]<br />
SEASONABLE WEATHER HAS ARRIVED, and as a re<br />
sult the coal trade is looking for better demand<br />
for product, and for a picking up in trade that<br />
will make the closing six weeks of the year the<br />
best portion of it. Not only is this the hope, but<br />
appearances indicate that it will have fulfillment.<br />
From all over the country comes the cheering news<br />
that the spot coal market is somewhat firmer, and<br />
that there is less chance of picking up a bargain in<br />
the way of coal that is approaching demurrage or<br />
that has to be disposed of in order to avoid a loss.<br />
Also there is less coal being offered at a bargain<br />
in order to keep mines going.<br />
Two factors enter into the trade at this time<br />
that are responsible for this condition of affairs,<br />
a condition that is satisfactory particularly to the<br />
producers. These factors are a tightening up in<br />
the car supply and the wintry weather. The for<br />
mer seems to have the most influence on the trade,<br />
and reports of a shortage of cars art heard in a few-<br />
sections, with promise that it will become more<br />
general as the cold weather continues and the<br />
demand increases. While the operators do not<br />
like a car shortage, it surely presages one thing.<br />
and that is that fueling demands of railroads will<br />
increase and therefore, a betterment of trade will<br />
follow.<br />
The lake coal trade is tapering off at this time,<br />
and some of the producing companies are con<br />
tracting for bottoms for storage of coal to await<br />
the opening of navigation next spring. With the<br />
close of the present season practically at hand, a<br />
partial summing up of the season's shipments is<br />
possible, and from advance reports it looks as<br />
though the season of 1911 has been a record<br />
breaker. However, this may be changed by offi<br />
cial figures when they are available. From all<br />
the districts where lake coal is forwarded, the re<br />
port of tapering off is at hand, and it is only for<br />
last cargoes and storage that coal is going forward.<br />
The car situation, as mentioned above, is becom<br />
ing one of the factors the operators must watch<br />
closely from now on until the warmer weather of<br />
spring is at hand or tlie general merchandise and<br />
manufactured products shipments fall off. In<br />
some of tbe fields the shortage is acute, especially<br />
where certain kinds of cars are demanded to take<br />
care of the trade. The outlook is that within the<br />
next month the entire surplus of idle cars will<br />
be wiped out and that a general shortage will be<br />
the resume of the situation. Of course, the trade<br />
doesn't like this, and when it comes there will be<br />
the usual scramble to get cars.<br />
Coupled with this situation is another that is<br />
not to the liking of the trade and that is the<br />
shortage of labor. Many of the operating con<br />
cerns in many districts are advertising for men to<br />
man the mines, and the cry for help is increasing<br />
rather than showing signs of a decrease. The<br />
political situation in the miners' <strong>org</strong>anization also<br />
is attracting attention, and the outcome of the<br />
election next month is one of the things in which<br />
the trade is taking a very decided interest.<br />
In the Pittsburgh district the demand is some<br />
what better and there has been a hardening in the<br />
way of prices. On the other hand the production<br />
has not increased to any great extent, save the<br />
river shipping mines, and probably 70 per cent.<br />
of capacity is the extent of the working of the<br />
mines. The last lake coal is going forward, as<br />
it is in other districts, and the mines now are pre-
24 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
paring to take care of the all-rail trade. Because<br />
of the rise in the rivers during the fortnight, the<br />
river shipping companies have gotten their empty<br />
craft into the Pittsburgh harbor and are now<br />
busily engaged in loading them at the mines and<br />
sending them to the landings to await another<br />
shipping stage. But little is heard in this dis<br />
trict of the car shortage, nor is there much to be<br />
said in the way of labor shortage. The cold snap<br />
that struck the district during the past few days<br />
is exiiected to help matters materially. With the<br />
trade jogging along without much that is notice<br />
able, the price quotations have shown signs of<br />
stiffening, and while no increase has been an<br />
nounced, tonnage is held closely at $1.25 to $1.35<br />
for run of mine coal; $1.35 to $1.45 for three-<br />
quarter coal; $1.45 to $1.55 for inch and one-<br />
quarter coal, with slack at 75 to S5 cents.<br />
The coke trade has taken on activity of a kind,<br />
in that the large furnace interest, has fired dur<br />
ing the fortnight something over six hundred<br />
additional ovens. Production has therefore taken<br />
a spurt, and is approaching the time when the<br />
weekly output will exceed that of 1910, a thing<br />
that has not happened during the whole eleven<br />
months of the year. Not much change is notice<br />
able in the merchant ovens, and the increase is<br />
almost altogether due to the furnace interests.<br />
The independent producers, however, are keeping<br />
their tonnage close to the demand, and they can<br />
be expected to meet any increased inquiries with a<br />
prompt increase in production. Thus, at the<br />
eleventh hour the coke trade seems to have a spark<br />
of life in it. and coke men seem to see better<br />
things for the remainder of the year. The orders<br />
for iron and steel that are reported have a good<br />
look to the coke manufacturers and it is probable<br />
that, as soon as these orders begin going out to<br />
the buyers, the coke trade will move steadily up<br />
ward. With the small improvement at hand,<br />
prices are held more firmly than ever at $1.75 to<br />
$1.85 for furnace coke and $2.00 to $2.25 for foun<br />
dry coke.<br />
The anthracite branch of the trade is the one<br />
that is enjoying real prosperity, and the tonnage<br />
figures for the ten months of the year show a big<br />
increase in total coal shipped, with the prospect<br />
that when final figures are at hand the year will<br />
have been the banner year of the industry. Al<br />
ready the records are broken and now that the<br />
cold weather really is here there is little likeli<br />
hood that the remainder of the year will cut down<br />
the tonnage to any appreciable extent. Prices<br />
are at winter figures, although in some instances<br />
an increase has been asked because of distance<br />
and local conditions. Mines are operating stead<br />
ily now that the demand is so good.<br />
* * *<br />
DEMANDS TO HE MADE HY THE ANTHRACITE MI.NEHS<br />
were formulated at the tri-district convention. We<br />
print them for information of our readers with<br />
out comment, save to say that if insisted on, the<br />
period of negotiation of a wage contract is likely<br />
to be a long one.<br />
# * *<br />
COAL .MEN WILL HAIL WITH GLADNESS the report<br />
that the railroads will reduce freight rates to and<br />
from the lakes on coal and ore, and, if the pro<br />
mulgation of the new rates bears out the early re<br />
port will be in a mood to enjoy more thoroughly<br />
their Thanksgiving dinner.<br />
Producers of anthracite certainly seem to be<br />
getting back their markets or else are practicing<br />
"intensive farming" of the ones already at hand,<br />
judging from the way they are breaking records<br />
on tonnage.<br />
* * *<br />
The coal man is looking around for his Thanksgiving<br />
turkey and a suitable sauce of better con<br />
ditions to garnish it with.<br />
* * *<br />
Anthracite miners have made their position<br />
clear. Now comes the rub, what do the operators<br />
say?<br />
* * *<br />
Reduced rates to the lakes is the rainbow of<br />
promise. It seems too good to be true.<br />
* * *<br />
Six hundred ovens going alight at once puts<br />
new life into the coke regions.<br />
* * *<br />
Real winter at last. Let'er come. The more<br />
the better.<br />
* * *<br />
May you really have something to be thankful<br />
for.<br />
* * *<br />
Even government figures don't always tally up.
DEMANDS OF ANTHRACITE MINE WORKERS.<br />
The anthracite mine workers of the three districts,<br />
Nos. 1, 7 and 9, concluded their tri-district<br />
convention at Pottsville, on November 3, and<br />
adopted a schedule of demands to be presented to<br />
the operators when the meeting to formulate a<br />
wage scale is held after April 1. The demands<br />
were:<br />
1. We demand that the next contract be for a<br />
period of one year, commencing April 1, 1912, and<br />
ending March 31, 1913.<br />
2. We demand a work day of not more than<br />
eight hours for all inside and outside day labor<br />
with no reduction in wages.<br />
3. We demand the recognition of the United<br />
Mine Workers of district Nos. 1, 7 and 9 as a<br />
party to negotiate a wage contract, and the right<br />
to provide a method for the collection of revenues<br />
for the <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
4. We demand a more convenient and uniform<br />
system of adjusting local grievances within a reasonable<br />
time limit.<br />
5. We demand an advance of 20 per cent, on<br />
the rate of wages for all employes over and above<br />
the rates awarded in 1903.<br />
0. We demand a minimum rate of $3.50 per<br />
day for miners and $2.75 for laborers.<br />
7. We demand that the system whereby a contract<br />
miner has more than one working place or<br />
employs more than two laborers shall be abolished.<br />
S. We demand that tbe rights of the cheekweighmen<br />
and check docking bosses shall be recognized,<br />
and that they shall not be interefered with<br />
in the proper performance of their work.<br />
9. We demand that all coal shall be mined and<br />
paid for by the ton of 2,240 pounds wherever practical.<br />
10. Your committee would recommend that a<br />
joint scale committee composed of the executive<br />
boards of the three anthracite districts, together<br />
with the national president, be appointed by this<br />
convention and clothed with discretionary power<br />
to negotiate an agreement on the basis agreed to<br />
by the convention and in the event of their feeling<br />
unable to do so they shall be empowered to order a<br />
suspension of work in accordance with the laws<br />
of the <strong>org</strong>anization.<br />
It is reported that the Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh<br />
& Lake Erie. Baltimore & Ohio, Erie, Bessemer &<br />
Lake Erie and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railroads<br />
will file joint notice with the Interstate Commerce<br />
Commission shortly, on a voluntary reduction of<br />
from 75 to $1 a ton, equivalent to from 20 to 25<br />
per cent, in the transportation charge on coal, coke<br />
and iron ore to and from the lakes.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BUL.LETIN. 25<br />
EIGHT PER CENT. BONUS<br />
FOR HARD COAL MINERS.<br />
The "sliding scale," established b.v the commissioners<br />
whom President Roosevelt appointed to settle<br />
the strike of 1902, brought the anthracite mine<br />
workers a bonus of S per cent, last month. United<br />
States Commissioner of Labor Charles S. Neill<br />
has just sent out a notice directing the payment of<br />
the bonus. It applies to all classes of employes.<br />
and is added to their November pay.<br />
The Strike Commission granted a 10 per cent.<br />
increase in pay to the mine workers, but decreed<br />
that to be a minimum. Then it decreed that, for<br />
every rise of 5 cents above $4.50 in tlie average<br />
price of the domestic sizes of coal at tidewater, in<br />
any month, the workers should receive an additional<br />
1 per cent., to be applied to the payroll ol<br />
the following month. Certified records of sales<br />
are sent to the Commissioner of Labor, who computes<br />
the average and then sends out the official<br />
notice of the bonus. As the average price was<br />
$4.91 in October, the advance to tbe miners is 8<br />
per cent.<br />
As the increased minimum pay granted by the<br />
commission is used as the basis upon which to<br />
calculate this 8 per cent., the total increase to the<br />
mine workers over the 1902 wages is more than IS<br />
per cent. The total benefits to the mine workers<br />
from the sliding scale, since it went into effect on<br />
April 1. 1903, have amounted to about $28,500,000.<br />
In his latest bulletin on anthracite iiroduction,<br />
Edward W. Parker of the United States Geological<br />
Survey, who was a member of the Strike Commission,<br />
calls attention to the increased earnings of<br />
the mine workers. "From 1906 to 1910," says Mr.<br />
Parker, "the average number of working days<br />
ranged from 195 to 229, with a mean average of<br />
210. This means that, in addition to the increase<br />
in wages following the strike of 1902, and the further<br />
benefits secured to the miners through the<br />
sliding scale created at the same time, the miners,<br />
by reason of an increase of 27 per cent, in their<br />
working time, are able further to supplement their<br />
earnings by that percentage."<br />
EARNINGS SHOW A DECREASE.<br />
Gross earnings from operation of the Colorado<br />
Fuel & Iron Co. for the year ending June 30, 1911,<br />
were $22,934,685, a decrease of $705,127 compared<br />
with the previous year, according to the annual report<br />
made public at Denver, Col.<br />
Operating expenses were $19,456,335, a decrease<br />
of $440,861, leaving net earnings from operating<br />
$3,478,349, a decrease of $264,265. Income from<br />
sources other than operation amounted to $671,599,<br />
bringing the net income to $4,349,948, a decrease<br />
of $219,586, compared with the previous year.<br />
After providing for all fixed charges, sinking<br />
funds, etc., a surplus of $1,259,672 was left.
26 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
OKLAHOMA'S COAL PRODUCTION<br />
FOR YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1911.<br />
The production of coal in Oklahoma from July 1,<br />
1910, to June 30, 1911, was 2,569,869 tons, worth on<br />
board the cars $6,424,672; the total daily production<br />
of gas was 1,400,000,000 cubic feet: total production<br />
of oil. 47.450,000 barrels, according to the<br />
figures given in the annual report of Chief Mine<br />
Inspector Ed. Boyle. Aside from coal, tlie values<br />
of the mineral products are not given.<br />
To mine the coal, the services of 4,667 miners,<br />
2,330 inside or day men and 1,194 outside men, a<br />
total of 8,191 men, were required. In blasting<br />
the coal the miners used 124,227 kegs of black powder.<br />
1,575 cases of dynamite. 58,500 pounds of carbonite,<br />
33,724 pounds of masurite and 7.S50 pounds<br />
of monobell. The total cost of all explosives was<br />
$227,065.84. More than 19 tons of coal were produced<br />
to every keg of powder used.<br />
During the period there were 29 fatal accidents<br />
and 102 non-fatal accidents. Of this number, 12<br />
fatal and 40 non-fatal accidents occurred since<br />
Chief Inspector Boyle assumed office January 9,<br />
1911. One man was killed for every 88,616 tons<br />
of coal produced, a slight decrease over the preceding<br />
year.<br />
For the year, each miner produced 551 tons of<br />
coal, on an average. At an average price of 80<br />
cents per ton, this would mean an earning capacity<br />
of $440.80 per miner per year. Deducting the cost<br />
of explosives and incidentals, a net balance of<br />
$374.68 is left as the average earning capacity.<br />
Mining the 8,638 tons of lead and zinc required<br />
the services of 148 men, among whom there were<br />
one fatal and two non-fatal accidents.<br />
Forty-five men were required to mine the 5,713<br />
tons of asphalt during the year, while 69 men<br />
mined the 111,013 tons of gypsum.<br />
The 14,259 oil wells of the state produced an<br />
average of 130,000 barrels a day, or 47,450,000 barrels<br />
for the year. During the period there were<br />
inspected 141,974 barrels of refined oil, and the<br />
receipts of the office from such inspection were<br />
$25,245.50.<br />
The first district of the state led in coal production<br />
with a total of 1,143,799 tons, the second<br />
district produced SS.803 tons, and the third district<br />
558,035 tons.<br />
A pretty young woman had been away from<br />
home all afternoon, had overstayed her time. Her<br />
mother asked:<br />
"Where have you been?"<br />
"Only walking in the park."<br />
"With whom?"<br />
"No one, mama."<br />
"Then explain to me, please, how you happen to<br />
lie carrying a gentleman's cane instead of your<br />
parasol."<br />
CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANY START<br />
ANOTHER TOWN ON KENTUCKY PRO<br />
PERTY.<br />
The Consolidation Coal Co., building the new<br />
town of Jenkins on Elkhorn Creek, Ky., has started<br />
another model town on its property across the<br />
mountain from the headwaters of Elkhorn on<br />
Wright's fork of Boone creek at the terminus of<br />
the extension of the Lexington & Eastern railroad<br />
under construction. The new town has been<br />
christened McRoberts and a postoffice will shortly<br />
be established. Already telephones, electric<br />
lights, hotels, boarding houses, barns and many<br />
conveniences have been built, while there is much<br />
building under headway. The Nicola Building<br />
Co. of Pittsburgh, which has the contract for building<br />
the new town, has a large band mill and several<br />
small mills cutting lumber from forests of<br />
Wright's Park. Its contract includes about 1,000<br />
houses for McRoberts, as well as 1,500 for Jenkins.<br />
Another 1,000 may be built in Jenkins.<br />
It is intended that the building shall be completed<br />
and mining under way by the time the railroads<br />
are completed to the new town. Tbe Elkhorn<br />
& Big Sandy will reach Jenkins, while the<br />
L. & E. will cover McRoberts. Over 500 men will<br />
be employed at McRoberts within a short time.<br />
NEW AND IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS OF<br />
THE WEST VIRGINIA GEOLOGICAL SUR<br />
VEY.<br />
There has just been issued from the press a<br />
new publication by the West Virginia Geological<br />
Survey, M<strong>org</strong>antown, W. Va., an important volume<br />
which those interested in oil and gas have been<br />
eagerly expecting for several months. This<br />
volume is described in the following extract from<br />
the printed circular of the Geological Survey, and<br />
the reader is also told how to secure the publication<br />
in question:<br />
Detailed County Report, on Wirt, Roane and<br />
Calhoun Counties, 573 pages-|-XX, with case of 3<br />
maps—topographic, geologic, and soil—published<br />
under date of July lst, 1911, and ready for delivery<br />
in October. Besides the detailed study and<br />
description of all the rocks, minerals, soils,<br />
streams, industries, etc., found within the area,<br />
the geologic map gives also the true location of<br />
all the oil and gas pools developed up to July lst,<br />
1911, and shows by structural contours the several<br />
anticlinal and synclinal arches including the<br />
southern extension of the famous Burning Springs<br />
or Volcano anticlinal. Price, with case of maps,<br />
postage paid by the Survey, $2.00. Extra copies<br />
of geological or topographic map, 50c each.<br />
Send remittances to the West Virginia Geological<br />
Survey, M<strong>org</strong>antown, West Virginia, Lock Box<br />
No. 448.
COAL PRODUCTION OF THE<br />
UNITED STATES FOR 1910.<br />
The coal production of the United States by<br />
states for the year 1910, as shown by statistics pub<br />
lished by the United States Geological Survey,<br />
Idaho 4,553<br />
Illinois 45,900,246 50.970.364 50,904,990<br />
Indiana 18,389,815 14,881,699 14.834,259<br />
Iowa 7,928,120 7,755,362 7,757,762<br />
Kansas 4.921,451 6,979,778 6,986,478<br />
Kentucky 14,623,319 10,648,981 10,697,384<br />
Maryland 5,217,125 4.1137,343 4,023,241<br />
Michigan 1,534,967 1,783,692 1,784,692<br />
Missouri 2,982,433 3,096,785 3,756,530<br />
Montana 2,920,970 2.560,272 2,553,940<br />
New Mexico 3,508,321 2,808,325 2,801,128<br />
North Dakota... 399,041 404,496 422,047<br />
Ohio 34,209,668 27,919,891 27,939,641<br />
Oklahoma 2,646,226 3,116,500 3,119,377<br />
Oregon 67,536 90,228 87,276<br />
Penna., Bituminous<br />
150,521,526 137,845,815 137,966,791<br />
Tennessee 7,121,380 6,328,073 6,358,645<br />
Texas 1,892,176 1,824,4411 1,824,440<br />
Utah 2.517,809 2,269,481 2,266,899<br />
Virginia 6,507,997 4,750,045 4,752,217<br />
Washington 3,911.899 3,576,406 3,602,263<br />
West Virginia. .. 61,671,019 51,446,010 51,849,220<br />
Wyoming 7,533.(188 6,38(1,897 6,393.109<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Miscellaneous . . 5.44S 7,353<br />
Total Bitumin's.417,091,659 378,551,024 379,744,257<br />
Pa. Anthracite.. 84,485.236 80,658.049 81,070,359<br />
501.576,895 459.209,073 46(1,814,616<br />
<strong>•</strong>California and Alaska were combined in the<br />
reported production of 1909.<br />
tCensus figures for 1909 production were gathered<br />
in conjunction with the U. S. Geological Survey<br />
and were published in 1910 with the census<br />
returns. The U. S. Geological figures cover the<br />
same period, but show a discrepancy of 1,605,543<br />
tons between the two sets of government statistics,<br />
both supposed to have been collected and compiled<br />
by the same officials.<br />
The Merchants Coal Co. at Boswell, Pa., is spend<br />
ing about $1(10,000 in improvements, which will<br />
increase the output from 2,000 to 3,500 tons daily<br />
and give employment to 300 more men. The improvements<br />
include an enlarged tipple, two dumps<br />
for load coal, new crusher, new fan house, new<br />
haulage engine, an addition to the power plant to<br />
house a new generator and boilers.<br />
IRON AND STEEL PRODUCTION<br />
BREAKS THE RECORD.<br />
The iron and steel industry in the United<br />
States broke all previous records in 1910, accord<br />
ing to Ernest F. Burchard, of the United States<br />
E. W. Parker, statistician, was:<br />
Geological Survey. The iron ore production was<br />
State.<br />
1910.<br />
Census<br />
Figures, f<br />
1909.<br />
U. S. Geo.<br />
Survey<br />
Figures, f<br />
1909.<br />
56,SS9,734 long tons, the pig iron production, 27,-<br />
303,567 tons, and the steel production, 26,094,919<br />
tons. These figures show increases over the pro<br />
Alaska<br />
Alabama<br />
*1,000<br />
16,111,462<br />
*<br />
13.703,910<br />
*<br />
13,703,450<br />
duction in 19(19 of iron ore, 5,734,297 tons, pig<br />
iron 1,508,096 tons, steel 2,139,898 tons. The fol<br />
Arkansas 1,905,958 2,379,100 2,377,157 lowing table shows the enormous growth of the<br />
California *11,164 *4S,636 *45,836 iron and steel industry in the United States since<br />
Colorado 11,973,736 10,722,746 10,716,936 1900:<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>ia 177,196 211,196 211,196<br />
Iron Ore. Pig Iron. Steel<br />
1900 27,553,161 13,789,242 10,188,329<br />
1905 42,526,133 22,992,3S0 20,023,947<br />
1906 47,749,728 25,307,191 23,398,136<br />
1907 51,720,619 25,781,361 23,362,594<br />
190S 35,924,771 15,936,018 14,023,247<br />
1909 51,155,437 25,795,471 23,955,021<br />
1910 56,889,734 27,303.567 26,094,919<br />
The value of the iron ore produced in 1910 was<br />
$140,735,607, as against $109,964,903 for 1909, and<br />
that of pig iron was $425,115,235, as against $419,-<br />
175,000 in 1909.<br />
Iron ore was mined in 28 States in 1910. The<br />
following table shows the production of the five<br />
leading States:<br />
Long Tons. Value.<br />
Minnesota 31,966,769 $78,462,560<br />
Michigan 13,303,906 41,393,585<br />
Alabama 4,801,275 6,083,722<br />
New York 1,287,209 3,848,683<br />
Wisconsin 1,149,551 3,610,349<br />
Virginia was sixth in output and Pennsylvania<br />
seventh, each producing less than 1,00(1,000 tons.<br />
In the production of pig iron, however, Penn<br />
sylvania heads the list as usual. The five leading<br />
States in pig iron production were as follows:<br />
Long Tons. Value.<br />
Pennsylvania 11,272,323 $180,695,338<br />
Ohio 5,752,112 88,122,356<br />
Illinois 2,675,646 42,917,362<br />
Alabama 1,939,147 23,754,551<br />
New York 1,938,407 32,410,165<br />
Michigan and Indiana together ranked sixth,<br />
with a production of a million and a quarter tons<br />
and no other State reached the half million mark.<br />
During 1910, of the 451 ore mines in operation,<br />
191 mines produced over 50,000 long tons each,<br />
the largest quantity produced by a single mine<br />
being 3,190,093 tons, by the Hull-Rust mine, of<br />
the Mesabi range, Minnesota. Nine mines in<br />
Minnesota, besides one group of mines in Michi<br />
gan and one group in Alabama, produced more<br />
than 1,000,000 tons each, the second greatest pro<br />
duction being 1,769,067 long tons by the Red<br />
Ti
28 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Mountain group of mines, near Birmingham, Alabama.<br />
Twenty-five mines produced more than<br />
500,000 tons each.<br />
Importations of iron ore in 1910 were the greatest<br />
in the history of the industry, being 2,591,031<br />
tons, valued at $7,832,225. Exports were 644,875<br />
tons valued at $2,074,164. Figures showing the<br />
foreign production of iron ore are not yet available<br />
for 1910, but the following table for 1909<br />
shows the supremacy of the United States in iron<br />
mining.<br />
United States, long tons 51.155,437<br />
Germany and Luxemburg, metric tons. .25,506,000<br />
United Kingdom, long tons 14,979,979<br />
France, metric tons 11,890,000<br />
Cuba, long tons 1,417,914<br />
No other country produced so much as a million<br />
tons. It will be seen that the United States<br />
produced nearly one-half of the total of the world's<br />
output.<br />
In steel production in 1910 Pennsylvania led all<br />
States, with 13,207,539 long tons and Ohio came<br />
second with 5,050,608 tons. The total production<br />
of the l'uited States was 26,094,919 tons.<br />
THE HEADS OF MINING DEPARTMENT AND<br />
STATE INSPECTORS OF THE UNITED<br />
STATES.<br />
The following are the heads of the mining departments<br />
and the chief mine inspectors of the<br />
different coal producing states of the Union, together<br />
with their titles and addresses:<br />
Charles H. Nesbitt, Chief Mine Inspector, 420-422<br />
chamber of Commerce building", Birmingham, Alabama.<br />
Summer S. Smith. U. S. Mine Inspector, Juneau,<br />
Alaska.<br />
T. A. Freeze, Mine Inspector. Huntington. Arkansas.<br />
T. R. Henahen, Commissioner of Mines. State<br />
Capitol. Denver. Colorado.<br />
F. dishing Moore, State Inspector of Mines,<br />
Boise. Idaho.<br />
J. .1. Jeff leys. Mine Inspector District No. 1,<br />
Albia, Iowa.<br />
R. T. Rhys, Mine Inspector District No. 2, Ottumwa,<br />
Iowa.<br />
Edward Sweeney, Mine Inspector District No. 3,<br />
Des Moines, Iowa.<br />
Frank I. Pearce, Deputy Inspector of Klines and<br />
Mining, Indianapolis, Indiana.<br />
David Ross. Secretary Bureau of Labor Statistics,<br />
Springfield, Illinois.<br />
Leon Besson. State Secretary of Mines, Pittsburg,<br />
Kansas.<br />
Charles J. Norwood. Chief Inspector of Mines,<br />
Lexington. Kentucky.<br />
John H. Donahue, Mine Inspector, Frostburg,<br />
Maryland.<br />
John T. Quine, Mine Inspector, Ishpeming, Mich.<br />
Andrew Stevenson, Mine Inspector, Bay City,<br />
Mich.<br />
John Ashton, Mine Inspector, Calumet, Mich.<br />
State Commissioner of Labor, Si. Paul. Minn.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Bartholomaeus, Secretary Bureau of<br />
Mines and Mine Inspection, Jefferson City. Missouri.<br />
William Walsh, State Mine Inspector. Helena.<br />
Montana.<br />
Jo E. Sheridan, U. S. Mine Inspector, Silver<br />
City. N. M.<br />
T. R. Atkinson. State Engineer. Bismarck,<br />
North Dakota.<br />
Ed. Ryan, Mine Inspector, Carson City, Nevada.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Harrison, Chief Inspector of Mines, Columbus,<br />
Ohio.<br />
Ed. Boyle, Chief Inspector of Mines. McAlestei.<br />
Okla.<br />
H. M. Parks. State Mine Inspector. Corvallis,<br />
Oregon.<br />
James E. Roderick. Chief Department of Mines,<br />
Harrisburg, Pa.<br />
Robert L. Daugherty, Lead, South Dakota.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e E. Sylvester, Chief Mine Inspector, Nashville,<br />
Tenn.<br />
Isidore Broman, State Mine Inspector, Austin.<br />
Texas.<br />
J. E. Pettit, State Coal Mine Inspector, Salt Lake<br />
City. Utah.<br />
James B. Doherty. Commissioner of Labor. Richmond.<br />
Virginia.<br />
D. C. Botting, State Coal Mine Inspector, Seattle,<br />
Washington.<br />
John Laing. Depaitment of Mines, Charleston,<br />
W. Va.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e Blacker, Inspector. District No. 1. Cumberland,<br />
Wyoming.<br />
William E. Jones, Inspector, District No. 2,<br />
Sheridan, Wyoming.<br />
Numerous changes in the management of the<br />
Upper Lehigh Coal Co. mines at Freeland, Pa..<br />
have been announced. Albert C. Leiserling. general<br />
manager of the company for 30 years, has resigned<br />
to take effect January 1 ; Thomas Kiommes.<br />
inside superintendent, left November 1. He was<br />
succeeded by Adam Lesser, of Upper Lehigh. The<br />
outside superintendent, C. S. Beidlman, and the<br />
carpenter foreman, Daniel Shellhanger, also left<br />
November 1.<br />
The October output of the Dominion Coal Co.'s<br />
mines in Nova Scotia was 349.992 tons, an increase<br />
over the September tonnage, which was exceptionally<br />
heavy.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 29<br />
WHAT THE WEST NEEDS IN COAL LAND LEGISLATION<br />
By Ge<strong>org</strong>e Otis Smith. Director United States Geological Survey.<br />
In any discussion of the needed revision of our<br />
public land laws, a due share of attention must be<br />
given to the statutes relating to the coal lands.<br />
While certain classes of lands in the Western<br />
States have largely passed into private ownership.<br />
the public's holding of coal lands is still large<br />
enough to deserve most serious consideration.<br />
West of the One Hundredth Meridian lies the nation's<br />
greatest coal reserve, estimated at more<br />
than a million million tons of anthracite, bituminous<br />
and sub-bituminous coal, and title to from<br />
60 to S5 per cent, of this tonnage is in the United<br />
States. It is self-evident that this fuel reserve<br />
is the key to the present and future industrial development<br />
of the Rocky Mountain region. Utilization<br />
of the water power resources will be an important<br />
factor locally, and for several decades fuel<br />
oil may be expected to affect the industrial situation,<br />
but so far as we (an now foresee coal must<br />
be regarded as the principal source of power. Its<br />
present importance is shown by the fact that the<br />
coal production of the Rocky Mountain States was<br />
14.7 per cent, greater in 1910 than in 1909, although<br />
for the whole United States the increase<br />
in coal output for the same period was less than<br />
9 per cent. Utilization of these western coal deposits<br />
that will meet both present and future demands<br />
is the end that must be served in whatever<br />
public policy is adopted. The West needs and<br />
has a right to demand full opportunity for legitimate,<br />
energetic business development, but that<br />
does not include the right to infliet an unearned<br />
speculative tax on the future consumer.<br />
Full opportunity on the public coal lands can<br />
be defined both from the standpoint of the coal<br />
operator and from the point of view of the consuming<br />
public. In my opinion the operator can<br />
justly ask two things: First, the right to occupy<br />
an acreage sufficiently large for economic operation<br />
during an average mine-life period, and second,<br />
freedom from too<br />
CHEAT INVESTMENT UISKS.<br />
Economic operation we will understand to mean<br />
the installation of such equipment as will secure<br />
maximum reco\ery at low cost with proper safeguarding<br />
of both life and property, while excessive<br />
investment risks refer to capital outlays out of<br />
proportion to expected profits of operation. Both<br />
of the factors are in reality of hardly less interest<br />
to the public than to the operator. For upon<br />
them depend in the last analysis much that determines<br />
prices and concerns general welfare. The<br />
public should also demand that no light to the<br />
'Paper read before the American Mining Congress at<br />
Chicago. October 27. 1911.<br />
public coal land shall be granted except for present<br />
use. Actual development must be made the<br />
first condition of occupancy of any part of what<br />
now remains in the public domain.<br />
The present status of coal mining in the West<br />
is the resultant of two factors, land ownership<br />
and consumptive demand for coal. Tlie large<br />
holdings of coal land legitimately acquired through<br />
railroad grants and those secured by coal companies<br />
through dummy entrymen, and by purchase<br />
of agricultural entries as well as those patented<br />
to the states as non-mineral lands, together constitute<br />
a coal land supply that has practically met<br />
the demand. The strict administration of the<br />
public domain during the past few years,<br />
however, has shut off all opportunity for wholesale<br />
accumulation of coal lands under cover of<br />
the homestead and other laws. Up to the present<br />
time the acquisition of the coal land in the<br />
public domain has been largely accomplished without<br />
recourse to the coal land law, so that the question<br />
becomes opportune—is the present coal land<br />
law adequate to meet present and future needs?<br />
This law relating to coal lands is less unsatisfactory<br />
than many of the mineral land laws now<br />
on the statute books. By its provision for the valuation<br />
of coal lands at an adequate price the law<br />
makes possible a selling price that may promote de<br />
velopment and at the same time prevent monoplization.<br />
As is pointed out in a public statement by<br />
Secretary Fisher, the<br />
PRESENT GOVERNMENTAL POLICY<br />
of basing the valuation of public coal lands upon<br />
the tonnage and quality of coal which underlies<br />
the tract results in prices that are neither unreasonable<br />
nor exorbitant; the purchaser instead<br />
of paying a flat rate per acre in reality pays for<br />
the coal by the ton at values graded according to<br />
the quality and the character of the coal. Consideration<br />
is also given to every known physical<br />
and commercial factor affecting tlie value of the<br />
coal of the particular locality. The purpose has<br />
been to protect the present interests of the West<br />
b.v making the selling price of coal land approach<br />
but in no case exceed the present purchase value<br />
of a royalty under a lease-bold, such as the states<br />
of Colorado and Wyoming or land companies in<br />
the West grant to the lessee, and at the same time<br />
to protect the future interests of the people by<br />
having these prices such as to discourage longtime<br />
speculative holdings. W'e must always keep<br />
in mind the fact that large speculative holdings<br />
are sure to affect the future price of coal in two<br />
ways: through the possibility of monopoly and
.'50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
through the certainty of accumulated interest<br />
charges on the cost of the idle land.<br />
The test of any policy is in the results it pro<br />
duces. That the prices put upon the public coal<br />
lands are not prohibitive can be shown by the<br />
record of sales. In the four years following the<br />
adoption of the policy of classifying and valuing<br />
the coal lands, the sales have increased 12'« per<br />
cent, in acreage and 36 per cent, in value as com<br />
pared with the four years preceding, and this in<br />
spite of the fact that the four years since July 1,<br />
1907, have included a period of industrial depres<br />
sion and slow recovery as contrasted with the pre<br />
ceding period of boom conditions. So far. there<br />
fore, as its<br />
PRO\ [SION FOR PRICING<br />
is concerned, the present law appears to be as<br />
satisfactory as a sale law can be.<br />
One serious defect exists in the present law<br />
which all must admit demands an immediate rem<br />
edy. The restriction of legal purchases to a maximum<br />
of 160 acres for an individual or 640 for an<br />
association is absurdly out of accord with good<br />
mining practice. The fixed charges of a modern<br />
coal mine equipped so as to safeguard life and<br />
property and to secure maximum recovery are too<br />
high to be assessed against the tonnage of so limited<br />
a tract, especially where the coal seam is of<br />
moderate thickness. Furthermore, unless provi<br />
sion is made for commercial operation on the remaining<br />
lands too great an advantage is secured<br />
to the land grant railroads and the large coal companies<br />
already in possession of considerable areas<br />
of high grade coal. There is no public need of<br />
having either individuals or large corporations<br />
acquire large acreages of these lands for long-time<br />
holding without development. Nor is there any<br />
sound economic reason for the disposition of the<br />
coal lands in small tracts. The homestead law<br />
expresses the spirit of American institutions in<br />
that it has encouraged every citizen to own a<br />
home, but there is neither sentiment nor sense in<br />
a proposition to sell at a low price 160 acres of<br />
coal land to an individual—every citizen does not<br />
need to own a coal mine.<br />
In the endeavor to discourage long-time speculalive<br />
investment in the coal lands and at the same<br />
time permit present development, the fixing of selling<br />
prices has involved difficulties. It has been<br />
recognized that an ideal adjustment of values is<br />
well night unattainable for many if not for mos*<br />
coal lands. These difficulties suggest the wis<br />
dom of considering the other method of disposition,<br />
namely a leasing system. As Secretary<br />
Fisher has stated, "It may well be that a liberal<br />
but wisely protected leasing<br />
LAW won.n in; tin MI<br />
to promote development more vigorously than any<br />
system of outright purchase." Thus, under a<br />
leasehold law any uncertainties as to quantity of<br />
coal or as to costs of operation would not need to<br />
be so critically estimated in advance. There<br />
would be no necessity of discounting every possible<br />
future condition, but periodic adjustment<br />
of rate of royalty could insure all equities of both<br />
operator and public, and I should expect that such<br />
adjustments might as often be downward as up<br />
ward.<br />
Under a leasing system too it would be comparatively<br />
easy so to adjust the relationship be<br />
tween ground rental and royalty as to prevent<br />
the acquisition of coal deposits until actual operation<br />
became profitable. The greatest advantage<br />
of the lease system to the operator directly, and<br />
to the public indirectly, is relief from the large<br />
capital outlay now required in the acquisition of<br />
the large acreage absolutely necessary for a mod<br />
ern mine. This argument advanced against the<br />
present policy of valuing the public coal lands at<br />
even conservative prices thus becomes an argument<br />
for a lease-hold law.<br />
The objections to a leasing system are of two<br />
classes: those based upon political theory and<br />
those based upon economic considerations. Under<br />
political objections I will place the arguments so<br />
often put forward against federal landlordism,<br />
namely, that the eastern coal lands were disposed<br />
of in fee and that the West deserves the same<br />
treatment; and further, that the natural resources<br />
of the West should not be made a source of profit<br />
to relieve the eastern taxpayer. Such arguments<br />
can be easily answered. Past mistakes are poor<br />
precedents for future blunders. The citizen who<br />
argues for the continuance of the liberal, wideopen<br />
public land policy of the past is apt to be<br />
one who wishes a middleman's profit on a small<br />
investment, and we know that East or West, the<br />
owner of coal lands acquired as<br />
AGRICULTURAL LANDS,<br />
oi' iii any other wa>, at a low price, makes his<br />
large and unearned profit out of the coal operator,<br />
and through him, out of the public. Too large a<br />
percentage of the coal output of this country is<br />
now mined under lease to justify this objection<br />
to allowing the people themselves to lease direct.<br />
As regards the argument of reserving western<br />
resources for the West, too few people in the pub<br />
lic land states realize that under the present system<br />
of sale, the proceeds from the coal lands go<br />
directly into western development through the<br />
Reclamation fund, and cannot be used to relieve<br />
the eastern taxpayers except as the whole coun<br />
try benefits by the agricultural development of<br />
these public land states. It is reasonable to ex<br />
pect that any leasing law would make similar<br />
provision for the local use of revenues resulting<br />
from leases, and indeed several of the bills already
introduced in Congress have specifically recognized<br />
the wisdom of such disposition.<br />
Much more worthy of consideration are the ob<br />
jections to the lease system based upon the fear<br />
that the cost of coal to the consumer would be<br />
increased, but I regard this result as altogether<br />
improbable. The royalty paid into the United<br />
States treasury can be no greater a tax upon the<br />
consumer than the royalty paid to the state of<br />
Colorado, or to the railroad land company, or to<br />
the farmer. The average price of bituminous<br />
coal at the mine, in the United States last year,<br />
was $1.12, which usually includes either a royalty<br />
or an equivalent interest charge, either of which<br />
would probably be greater than any government<br />
royalty. This amount forms so small a part of<br />
the price to the consumer that the royalty under a<br />
federal lease could be of but little concern to tlie<br />
public, if, indeed, it resulted in any increase in<br />
the first cost of the coal.<br />
However, if we consider the lease as contrasted<br />
with sale outright to the coal operator, the reduc<br />
tion in capital necessary<br />
EOI! ORIGINAL INVESTMENT<br />
and the elimination of many of the risks in such<br />
investment, must result in reducing cost of opera<br />
tion to the mine owner, and thus make possible a<br />
correspondingly lower price of coal to the con<br />
sumer.<br />
The other objection to the lease system is that<br />
based upon fears of expensive federal management.<br />
and of inefficient administration or even malad<br />
ministration. These are possibilities which we<br />
must squarely face: but my faith in the efficiency<br />
of public administration is increasing to such a<br />
degree that this argument against the leasing is<br />
rapidly losing its force with me. If we look be<br />
yond our own Rockies, and out across the Pacific,<br />
we discover that a governmental leasing system<br />
for coal lands is not a theory but an actual work<br />
ing fact. The Anglo-Saxon peoples of the Austra<br />
lasian states have found the leasing system not<br />
only practicable, but indeed preferable to the sale<br />
of coal lands. In New Zealand, where for 30 years<br />
the laws have permitted to the operator a choice<br />
of either sale or lease of public mineral lands, a<br />
conclusive argument for the leasing system is<br />
given in the latest statistics of mineral produc<br />
tion, which show that approximately 90 per cent.<br />
of the total mineral product of that country was<br />
mined under leasehold. If our trans-Pacific neigh<br />
bors can administer a lease law so satisfactorily.<br />
and if the mine operators in New Zealand prefer<br />
operation under leasehold, will a similar system be<br />
fraught with either danger or failure in the Uni<br />
ted States?<br />
We must face the fact that Uncle Sam is a land<br />
lord on a large scale—a coal baron, if you please:<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31<br />
and that the question before us is how these mil<br />
lions of acres of coal land are to be disposed ol<br />
so as to serve tbe just needs of tbe operator who<br />
offers his capital, technical skill and business ex<br />
perience, asking in return a fair profil. and at tin<br />
same time to protect the public interests.<br />
All that the West needs is. first, opportunity for<br />
the coal industry to develop as fast as the market<br />
justifies expansion, and with the least possible<br />
risks: and second, opportunity for the public to<br />
secure its coal at prices based on a minimum cost<br />
of production and without any addition of un<br />
earned and undue tribute to private landlords wl)o<br />
desire to speculate on the future needs of the con<br />
sumer. These ends 1 believe can be best attained<br />
by legislation inaugurating a federal leasing sys<br />
tem for coal lands of the public domain.<br />
-* RETAIL TRADE NOTES »<br />
The date lor the annual meeting of the New<br />
York State and Western Pennsylvania Retail Coal<br />
Dealers' Association has not yet been selected by<br />
the executive committee. Heretofore it has usu<br />
ally been held during October but owing to the<br />
details connected with the merging of the Eastern<br />
and Central New York Association with the West<br />
ern New York and Pennsylvania Association the<br />
meeting has been postponed. It is probable, how<br />
ever, that it will be held in the near future.<br />
At last month's meeting of the executive com<br />
mittee of the Michigan-Ohio-Indiana Coal Association<br />
it was voted to hold their mid-winter meet<br />
ing at the Hotel Sinton, Cincinnati, O.. on Janu<br />
ary 16 and 17. At this meeting it is decided at<br />
which city the next annual convention of the asso<br />
ciation shall be held as well as other important<br />
matters in connection with the work of Ihe <strong>org</strong>ani<br />
zation.<br />
A new law regulating the weighing and sale of<br />
coal went into effect in Connecticut November 1.<br />
It requires that duplicate weight checks shall be<br />
issued with each load delivered, and besides in<br />
volving a little extra clerical work will not bring<br />
about much change in the old methods in vogue in<br />
coal offices.<br />
The Dominion Board of Railway Commissioners<br />
heard additional testimony at Toronto recently<br />
concerning the reciprocal demurrage proposition<br />
advocated by the Canadian Retail Coal Dealers'<br />
Association. The measure was opposed by repre<br />
sentatives of the railroads.<br />
The Correct Weight Association has been <strong>org</strong>an<br />
ized at Ottumwa. la., by 10 local dealers who are<br />
desirous of correcting certain long-standing abuses<br />
in the trade of that city.
32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
IRON ORE SHIPMENTS.<br />
Iron ore shipments during September were 5,-<br />
231,069 tons as against 6,273,823 tons for the cor<br />
responding month last year, a decrease of 1,042,-<br />
763 tons. The movement to Oct. 1, 1911, was 24,-<br />
837,137 tons, as against 35,100,864 for tne corre<br />
sponding period last year, a decrease of 10,263,727<br />
tons. The movement for September shows a<br />
slight decrease in comparison with the movement<br />
during August of the present year, when 5.548,311<br />
tons weie shipped. August will undoubtedly be<br />
the record month of the present year.<br />
The fleet last year moved 4,877,441 tons in October<br />
and 2,641,886 tons in November, which marked<br />
the (lose of the iron ore season on the lakes. If<br />
the fleet moves an equivalent amount during the<br />
remainder of the present season, the total ship<br />
ments for tlie year would be 32,356.464 tons. However,<br />
as shippers expect to be through with out<br />
side ships in October, the October and November<br />
movements will be light and it is not likely that<br />
the movement for the entire season of 1911 will be<br />
much in excess of 31,000,000 tons. The total<br />
movement for tbe season of 191(1 was 42.620,201<br />
tons.<br />
Following are the shipments by ports:<br />
Port. 1910. 1911.<br />
Escanaba 705,801 668,595<br />
Marquette 439,442 367.964<br />
Ashland 557.858 368,945<br />
Superior 1,256.665 1,563,836<br />
Duluth 2,041,90S 1,131,247<br />
Two Harbors 1,272,158 1,130,482<br />
0,273,832 5,231,069<br />
1911 decrease 1,042,763<br />
To Oct. 1. To Oct. 1.<br />
Port. 1910. 1911.<br />
Escanaba 3.S6S.072 3.086,847<br />
Marquette 2.689,219 1.568,711<br />
Ashland 3,436,829 1,878,786<br />
Superior 6,484,352 7.946,109<br />
Duluth 11,865,552 5,501,364<br />
Two Harbors 6.756,840 4,855.320<br />
35.100.864 24.S37.137<br />
1911 decrease 10,263,727<br />
Mr. John G. Coryell, president of the Coryell<br />
Coal & Iron Co., died suddenly at Williamsport,<br />
Pa., on November 3, aged 50 years. He was a<br />
brother of Gen. James Ii. Coryell of Philadelphia.<br />
Mr. H. P. Hyndman, for many years identified<br />
with the coal and coke industries as general sales<br />
agent for the Washington Coal & Coke Co.. suffered<br />
a bereavement in llie death of Mrs. Hyndman,<br />
which occurred at Saegertown, Pa., November 6.<br />
OFFICERS ARE ELECTED BY SIX<br />
COKE PRODUCING COMPANIES.<br />
Six eoal corporations held their annual meetings<br />
at Uniontown, Pa., during the fortnight and elected<br />
officers.<br />
The Belton Coal & Coke Co. elected a board of<br />
directors consisting of T. S. Lackey, Albert Gaddis,<br />
E. E. Dilliner. A. W. Cottom and A. D. Wil<br />
liams of Uniontown; Dr. J. C. McClenathan, D. P.<br />
Patterson and Charles Weihe of Connellsville, and<br />
John C. F. Jones of Braddock. The board <strong>org</strong>an<br />
ized by electing Albert Gaddis, president; T. S.<br />
Lackey, vice president; Dr. J. C. McClenathan,<br />
treasurer, and A. D. Williams, secretary.<br />
The Whetstone Coal & Coke Co. elected the following<br />
directors: Daniel Sturgeon, R. D. Daw<br />
son. A. E. Bailey and A. D. Williams, of Union-<br />
town, and Andrew Brown, of Fayette City. The<br />
board elected Daniel Sturgeon, president; R. W.<br />
Williams, vice president; and A. D. Williams, secretary<br />
and treasurer.<br />
The Littleton Coal & Coke Co. elected the fol<br />
lowing directors: T. S. Lackey. W. C. McKean.<br />
N. H. Jaquette, J. H. Kerr, A. J. Stentz. F. P. Rush<br />
and A. D. Williams, of Uniontown; James A. Phillips,<br />
of Washington, and J. L Barchus, of Elk<br />
Lick. The board elected T. S. Lackey, president;<br />
W. C. Kean, vice president; and A. D. Williams,<br />
secretary and treasurer.<br />
The Lafayette Coal & Coke Co. elected Harry<br />
Whyel, Ge<strong>org</strong>e Whyel, Ge<strong>org</strong>e B B.urchinal and<br />
A. D. Williams, of Uniontown, and B. Ffl Boyts,<br />
of Connellsville, directors. Harry Whyel is president;<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e B. Burchinal, vice president; and<br />
A. D. Williams, secretary and treasurer.<br />
The Ohio River & Great Lakes Coal & Coke Co.<br />
elected the following directors: Ray V. Hennen,<br />
Earl M. Hennen and J. L. Callard of M<strong>org</strong>antown,<br />
W. Va.: H. L. Silcox of Connellsville. and T. S.<br />
Lackey. R. W. Gilmore. Joseph Gault, A. W. Cottom<br />
and A. D. Williams of Uniontown. The board<br />
<strong>org</strong>anized by electing T. S. Lackey, president; J.<br />
L Callard. vice president; and A. D. Williams,<br />
secretary and treasurer.<br />
The Grave Creek Coal & Coke Co. elected a<br />
board of directors consisting of T. S. Lackey, D.<br />
W. McDonald, R. M. Carroll and A. D. Williams,<br />
of Uniontown. and Ge<strong>org</strong>e W. McCartney, of Connellsville;<br />
and the board elected T. S. Lackey,<br />
president; D. W. McDonald, vice president; and<br />
A. D. Williams, secretary and treasurer.<br />
The suit of James & Maclain of Spangler, receivers<br />
for the Walnut Coal Co., against the Penn<br />
sylvania Railroad Co. for discrimination in cars,<br />
has ended in a verdict in the Cambria county, Pa.,<br />
courts of $78.46S for the coal company.
The mine-run law was passed in Arkansas in<br />
1905, and Ihe conditions brought about by its<br />
operation are probably the most vital of any that<br />
relate to the present condition of the coal mining<br />
industry in the state.<br />
It might be well to state in this connection,<br />
for the benefit of those not familiar with coal<br />
milling methods, that what is known as the mine-<br />
run law provides that the miner shall be paid for<br />
all coal, both lump and slack, taken from the<br />
mine. Before the enactment of tbe law in<br />
Arkansas, the miners in that state were paid<br />
wholly or largely on the screened coal basis, and<br />
the great argument in favor of tbe law was. that<br />
not being paid for the slack, Ihe miners were<br />
giving the operators a marketable product. While<br />
this argument appears valid, it really is not sound,<br />
as applied to conditions in Arkansas, for a simple<br />
arithmetical computation shows that the compe<br />
tent miner could make more money on the<br />
screened coal basis at the rates paid for that<br />
than he can on the present mine-run rates.<br />
Another argument in favor of the mine-run law<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 33<br />
MINE RUN LAW IN ARKANSAS"<br />
in our state was that the screen often let lumps<br />
through into the slack, thus robbing the miner.<br />
In some instances, the operators may, through<br />
carelessness, have let this occur, but the differ<br />
ence between the selling price of the slack and<br />
that of the lump coal at the mine is so great, thai<br />
it is decidedly to the interest of the operator to<br />
pass all the lump coal over the screen.<br />
Probably the most vital argument in favor of<br />
tbe mine-run law is that if the miners are paid<br />
for only lump coal, they will leave a great deal<br />
of slack in the mine as a permanent loss of<br />
natural resource. But in Arkansas only a small<br />
amount of slack was left in the mines for the<br />
reason that the coal is loaded with the shove<br />
and is shoveled up from the floor.<br />
The operation of the mine-run law in Arkansas<br />
furnishes a fine example of the evils that may<br />
follow legalizing a practice which on its face ap<br />
pears equitable. No miner or operator has ever<br />
looked impracticable for either to have done so.<br />
Such investigations<br />
CAN BEST BE CONDUCTED<br />
through the agency of a public bureau, and this<br />
fact supplied the Geological Survey of Arkansas-<br />
the reason for taking it up as a part oi me coal<br />
mining investigations.<br />
One noticeable result in the operation of tbe<br />
law in Arkansas is an increase in the per cent.<br />
of slack. That such has been true is recognized<br />
<strong>•</strong>Paper read before the American Mining Congress,<br />
Chicago, December 24—28.<br />
By Prof, A. H. Purdue. State Geologist of Arkansas.<br />
by both miners and operators. Investigations bj<br />
the Geological Survey go to show that this has<br />
been very great, reaching more than 14 per cen;.<br />
from 19(16 to 191ii. Were all miners men of higl<br />
ethical ideas, this would nol have been true, t<br />
each miner would then have continued to prod;:'<br />
the maximum amount of lump coal, though he w<br />
receiving as much for the slack as the lump; b<br />
miners are like other people. They are not all<br />
honest; some are not only dishonest but lazy. It is<br />
easier to mine coal with a large per cent, than i<br />
small per cent, of slack. So the dishonest, lazy<br />
fellow yields to the temptation to put in heavy<br />
charges of powder, without firsl undermining the<br />
coal, rather than to undermine and then loosen<br />
the face with light charges. In other words, he<br />
conserves his energy at the expense of hi:;<br />
powder. The extent to which this physical con<br />
servation may reach, is shown in the case of tw i<br />
mines in the same district in one of whicli th:<br />
coal was undermined before shooting, and in til<br />
other it was shot without undermining. The pro<br />
portion of powder used in the two cases was es<br />
1 to 5.S. That is 5.8 times as much powder w; s<br />
used in the latter case as would have been used<br />
had the coal been properly mined. It also mean-<br />
that the excess of powder energy went towaic'<br />
producing slack.<br />
It is often remarked by those not conversant<br />
with the details of the industry that the slack is<br />
not lost either to the operators or the public, for<br />
the reason that it is sold. This is true; but slack<br />
in Arkansas brings from 95 cents to $1.50 less<br />
per ton than lump, so that all slack tbat might as<br />
well be put on the market as lump, represents so<br />
much loss to the operator.<br />
But the loss is not to the operatois alone. The<br />
principal sufferers are the public. In Arkansas<br />
there are frequent partings of dirt or<br />
SLATE IX THE COAL<br />
that under proper methods would be largely<br />
or wholly mined out. These are shot down with<br />
the coal, the dirt becoming hopelessly mixed with<br />
the slack, and the slate largely so. This, of<br />
course, means a loss to the consumer in the<br />
freight paid on worthless material, to say noth<br />
ing of the loss in heating value. While the per<br />
cent, of slate thus introduced in lump coal has not<br />
been ascertained, it is known to be great regard<br />
less of the fact that the larger mines each employ<br />
extra slate pickers in their efforts to put good<br />
coal on the market. An idea of the per cent, of<br />
increase of fine slate in slack may be obtained<br />
from a single slack washer, in which it was found<br />
that the per cent, of slate in the slack increased
34 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
from 11 in 1907 to 23 in 1910. By comparison with<br />
the price of other coals and figured on the basis<br />
of the government contracts, the loss in the quan<br />
tity of the Arkansas coal due to the excess of<br />
slate is 54 cents a ton. As the normal annual<br />
output of Arkansas coal is two and a half million<br />
tons, this means that there is an annual loss to<br />
the consumers of $875,000 net. A conservative<br />
estimate shows that the excess of slate in the<br />
coal used by the state institutions of Arkansas<br />
costs the state about $4,500 a year. This comes<br />
in loss of fuel value and the freight and drayage<br />
on tbe excess slate.<br />
Xot only is the quantity of Arkansas coal re<br />
duced by the excess of slate in both lump and<br />
slack, but the quality of the lump is materially<br />
reduced. The heavy charges used in shooting<br />
down the coal greatly reduce the amount of lump<br />
that goes over the screen, and also so shatter<br />
this that in tbe jarring and handling incident to<br />
its transportation from the mine to the consumer,<br />
no small per cent, is broken down into slack. I<br />
think it is safe to say that of the so-called lump<br />
coal produced by our mines, at least 3d per cent.<br />
is slack before it reaches the cellar of the consumer.<br />
In common parlance, the consumer "has<br />
the bag to hold."<br />
As the operators sell coal at close profits, the<br />
balance of trade, between competing districts, is<br />
very sensitive and quickly responds to an in<br />
creased cost of mining or<br />
A DECERASED QUANTITY<br />
from any district. This is exemplified in eastern<br />
Arkansas, where Arkansas coal and Illinois coal<br />
come into competition. In 19(14 it was shown by<br />
government experts that Arkansas coal had at<br />
that time about 20 per cent, more heating value,<br />
and less ash and sulphur than Illinois coal. It<br />
was therefore then possible to sell Arkansas coal<br />
at comparative points for a higher price than was<br />
paid for Illinois coal; but at present, the quality<br />
nf Arkansas coal is so reduced that the market<br />
of the eastern part of the state is supplied largely<br />
by the Illinois mines at prices ranging from 35<br />
cents to 50 cents a ton higher than that oi<br />
Arkansas coal.<br />
The excess of dirt and slate in coal not only<br />
results in loss of market, but entails much extra<br />
cost in mining. During the year 19119 one com<br />
pany in Arkansa washed 2S,S0o tons of dirt<br />
from its slack. It is estimated that at least half<br />
of this could have been left out by proper mining.<br />
That is, the company paid 62 cents a ton, or<br />
$8,928, for dirt that in all fairness should have<br />
been left in the mine. Probably a better idea of<br />
the increased cost of mining could be arrived at<br />
in another way. Since the mine-run law went into<br />
operation in our state the increase in the amount<br />
of slate is conservatively estimated at 5 per cent.<br />
of the weight of the coal. With an annual output<br />
of 2,500,000 tons this excess of slate costs the<br />
operators $137,500. If this slate is removed before<br />
the coal goes on the market the operators suffer.<br />
If not, the consumer suffers.<br />
The cost of mining is further increased by the<br />
cost of explosions produced by excessive use of<br />
powder, by removing the excessive amount of<br />
draw slate, and by an increase in the general<br />
operating expenses.<br />
But the effect of the mine-run law in Arkansas<br />
extends not only to the operator and consumer,<br />
but in many ways reacts upon the miner him<br />
self. Not the least of these is an increase in<br />
mine accidents. In 1905 there were 21.2 accidents<br />
to the 1,000,000 tons of coal mined, and in 1909<br />
31.1 accidents—an increase of 9.9. Tne increase<br />
is caused from an excessive use of powder, which<br />
loosens or blows out the props,<br />
SHATTERS TIIE ROOF<br />
so as to increase the falls of rock and makes the<br />
shot-driver's task a hazardous one.<br />
The daily earnings of many miners are less<br />
than formerly, the decrease ranging from 25 cents<br />
to $1. The reduced earnings of our miners.<br />
through loss of markets and the general depression<br />
of the industry in the state doubtless are far<br />
greater than they realize. If the Arkansas operators<br />
could control the market in the eastern part<br />
of the state that legitimately belongs to them, but<br />
which is now supplied b.v Illinois and Alabama,<br />
with the present miners and present crew they<br />
could run a possible 20 days per month instead<br />
of 17 days. The average earnings of the miners<br />
would thereby be increased $7 per month, which.<br />
with 4,000 miners in the state, would be a total<br />
monthly increase of $28,000.<br />
A very serious effect upon the miner, and one<br />
that is growing, is the loss of skill. It takes<br />
miner to mine coal, but any able-bodied man can<br />
shoot it. The latter shoots the coal down as<br />
slack and as the former must come in competition<br />
with him, the inevitable result is to lower<br />
the work of the craft to that of the common<br />
laborer.<br />
The foregoing remarks relate to conservation<br />
in the coal industry chiefly in the broad applica<br />
tion of the term. Let us now take up briefly the<br />
effects of the mine-run law in the more restricted<br />
sense of relating to the permanent waste of coal.<br />
The heavy shooting causes an unknown but large<br />
per cent, of the coal to fly to all parts of the room.<br />
.Much of this falls in places that are not conveniently<br />
accessible, and much of it on the piles<br />
of draw slate. The miner cannot afford to spend<br />
bis time to pick up this coal, so it remains in<br />
the mine as a permanent loss.<br />
There is another permanent loss of coal in<br />
unmined patches that cannot be worked with
profit under present conditions, for which the<br />
mine-run law is largely, if not wholly, responsible.<br />
Such patches include those in which there is an<br />
unusual number of bands of dirt; or an unusual<br />
amount of bone or sulphur; or where the<br />
COAL IS SEAMY<br />
or otherwise faulty; or where the roof will<br />
not stand the heavy shooting; or those parts that<br />
are too thin to mine under present conditions.<br />
After these patches are left and the mine fills<br />
with water, it probably never will be practicable<br />
to mine them out.<br />
All this is attributable to the reduced profits<br />
brought about by mine-run conditions. A careful<br />
study of mining costs shows that, at an additional<br />
expense of 10 cents a ton, enough coal can.be<br />
mined from the patches that are now left in the<br />
ground, to increase by 15 per cent, the proportion<br />
of coal recovered from the areas which are<br />
now mined. It is estimated that the total underground<br />
waste in Arkansas, under present conditions,<br />
is 20 per cent, of the output. As the normal<br />
output is about 2,500,000 tons, the loss to the<br />
state is about 500,000 tons annually, worth $840,-<br />
000. This may be considered as absolute waste<br />
of our resources.<br />
A summary of the annual cost to the state of<br />
Arkansas which we think is fairly attributed to<br />
the mine-run law, is as follows:<br />
Loss to present producers and consumers<br />
$ 1,670,000<br />
Net loss to mine workers now in the<br />
state 100,000<br />
Loss due to the loss of market 1,600,000<br />
Loss due to unmined patches 840.000<br />
Total $ 4,210,000<br />
In a state which is relatively a very small producer<br />
of coal this is appalling. It is the result<br />
of a law that was enacted with the best of inten<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35<br />
tions. On its face it appears to give the miners<br />
what they justly deserve; but in its operation it<br />
reaches out in many directions with disastrous<br />
results that not even the most thoughtful operators<br />
foresaw. It works a great injury to the consumer,<br />
the operator, and even to the miner himself.<br />
Many, it is believed a majority, of the<br />
miners in our state recognize the evils of the<br />
law, and would hail its repeal with delight.<br />
KO-KOALS' DOINGS<br />
Among the KoKoal koruskations scheduled for<br />
the near future are Peoria, 111., under the jurisdiction<br />
of Skout W. R. Coleman; at Sioux City, la.,<br />
under Frank J. Gard and A. V. Beck, and at Fairmont,<br />
W. Va., in connection with the West Virginia<br />
Mining Institute under the auspices of Imperial<br />
Baron Dan Howard, of Clarksburg, assisted<br />
by Skouts C. E. Zeek, Monongah; J. W. Heron,<br />
Huntington; A. D. Hamman, Bluefield; E. F. Fuller,<br />
Belpre, O.; E. R. Clayton, Grafton; Gilbert<br />
Smith, New River field; A. A. Erdman, Elkins,<br />
W. Va., and J. C. McKinley, of Wheeling, W. Va.<br />
A general coal trade banquet and KoKoal koruskation<br />
will be held at the Ballingall Hotel, Ottumwa,<br />
la., at 7:11 o'clock Wednesday evening,<br />
November 22, under the auspices of W. A. Linton,<br />
skout for Southeastern Iowa and Imperial Mazumer<br />
John H. Craig.<br />
It is announced that the Union Pacific Coal Co.<br />
will shortly reopen mines No. 3 and No. 4 at Rock<br />
Springs, Wyo., that were abandoned a few years<br />
ago. This will require an additional force of 500<br />
men. It is stated the company has figured that<br />
it is better economy to reopen these old workings<br />
than to open new ground.<br />
STATEMENT OF BITUMINOUS COAL MINED IN OHIO AND SHIPPED OVER RAILROADS<br />
SPECIFIED, DURING AUGUST AND EIGHT MONTHS, 1910-1911.<br />
RAILROADS<br />
Hocking Valley<br />
Toledo and Ohio Central<br />
Baltimore and Ohio<br />
Wheeling and Lake Erie <strong>•</strong> -,<br />
Cleveland, Lorain and Wheeling<br />
Zanesville and Western<br />
Toledo Division Pennsylvania Company <strong>•</strong><br />
Lake Erie. Alliance and Wheeling<br />
Marietta, Columbus and Cleveland Railway<br />
-Wabash Pittsburg Terminal Railway . . <strong>•</strong> <strong>•</strong><br />
Kanawha & Michigan Ry<br />
Total<br />
482.273<br />
233.754<br />
195 690<br />
323.455<br />
250.239<br />
93,759<br />
205 329<br />
122.917<br />
10 065<br />
6.059<br />
AUGUST—<br />
394.936<br />
171.587<br />
168.981<br />
368.836<br />
316.821<br />
103 348<br />
149.047<br />
123.491<br />
3.153<br />
3.803<br />
10.062<br />
EIGHT M O N T H S —<br />
Net tons<br />
2.898.610<br />
1.360.363<br />
1.528.103<br />
2.440.638<br />
2.093.302<br />
791.023<br />
1.464.590<br />
771,301<br />
67.482<br />
39.456<br />
13.454.898<br />
Net tons<br />
2.149.935<br />
1.128.664<br />
1.101.222<br />
2.156.442<br />
1.859.720<br />
675.996<br />
1.223.480<br />
774.363<br />
18.608<br />
43.551<br />
56,349<br />
11.191.330
36 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
WILL MANUFACTURE FAMOUS MINE FANS IN CANADA<br />
The American Blower Company of Detroit,<br />
Michigan, with a factory also at Troy, New York,<br />
and branch offices throughout the world, have<br />
come to realize the importance of the Dominion<br />
of Canada, as evidenced by the application just<br />
filed for a charter for a company to be known as<br />
the Canadian Sirocco Company, Limited, of Wind<br />
sor, Ontario. This coinpany has acquired from<br />
the city of Windsor a tract of land, centrally<br />
located, on the Essex Terminal Railway, and will<br />
proceed at once with the erection of a plant which,<br />
when completed, will doubtless be one of the most<br />
complete of its kind on this continent.<br />
A perspective of the proposed buildings is herewith<br />
reproduced. The company is proceeding at<br />
once with the construction of the erecting shop,<br />
50x200 feet, to be of steel and concrete construc<br />
tion, also the office building. This is about all<br />
CANADIAN SIROCCO COMPANY **<br />
WtMosow ONTARIO. ^^^^<br />
that it seems possible to complete for occupancy<br />
this winter. In all probability the foundry building<br />
will come next and will be started in the<br />
spring.<br />
This company will hold the exclusive patent<br />
rights for the manufacture in Canada of the famous<br />
"Sirocco" fans and blowers which have revolutionized<br />
the blower business of the world by<br />
their space and power saving features. These<br />
patents are controlled in the United States, the<br />
U. S. possessions, Mexico, Central and South<br />
American and Japan b.v the American Blower<br />
Company and in Europe by Davidson & Com<br />
pany's Sirocco Engineering Works, Belfast, Ireland,<br />
home of Mr. S. C. Davidson, the inventor.<br />
Sirocco fans are being specified and used more<br />
largely throughout the world than any other for<br />
mechanical draft on boilers, mine ventilation,<br />
heating and ventilating plants, for public build<br />
ings, school houses, factories and stores, and are<br />
used exclusively in the British Navy.<br />
The Canadian Sirocco Company will also manu-<br />
facture the full line of the American Blower Co.<br />
products, consisting of fans, blowers, heating, ven<br />
tilating, drying apparatus, steam engines, steam<br />
traps, etc.<br />
The blower business is so interwoven with the<br />
sciences of pneumatics, thermo-dynamies and electricity<br />
that it is essentially an engineering indus<br />
try, the expert knowledge of how to apply such<br />
special apparatus for producing efficient results<br />
almost predominating the apparatus manufactured<br />
and employed.<br />
It is stated that no company in the world is so<br />
well equipped in this line as the American Blower<br />
Coinpany, and the Canadian Sirocco Company<br />
enters the Dominion of Canada with this most<br />
complete engineering staff at its disposal, estab<br />
lishing at the outset a unique position.<br />
NAVY ADOPTS VIRGINIA COAL.<br />
For the first time in many years Norfolk, Va.,<br />
is shipping coal to New York. Five naval col<br />
liers are taking on coal at the Virginian railway<br />
piers, at Sewall's Point, and the Norfolk & West<br />
ern railway piers, at Lambert's Point. The coal.<br />
it is said, will be used by tbe battleship fleet nongathering<br />
in New York harbor, and it is the first<br />
time that Norfolk ever shipped fuel to the fleet<br />
while mobilizing at another American port.<br />
The Navy Department, it is said, has decided to<br />
use Pocahontas coal almost exclusively on war<br />
ships, finding it superior to other steam coal.<br />
Those loading were the Ajax. at Sewall's Point,<br />
from the Chesapeake & Ohio Coal & Coke Co.; the<br />
Hector, at Sewall's Point, from Castner, Curran &<br />
Bullitt. Inc.; the Lebanon and Vulcan, at Lam<br />
bert's Point, from the Crozer Pocahontas Coal Co..<br />
and the Mars, at Lambert's Point, from Castner,<br />
Curran & Bullitt, Inc.
SOME INTERESTING FIGURES<br />
CONCERNING ATLANTIC FLEET.<br />
From every standard of comparison the most<br />
notable fleet ever assembled by the United States<br />
was that reviewed by President Taft and Secretary<br />
of the Navy Meyer, at New York, November<br />
2. It involved the greatest number of American<br />
vessels ever mobilized, with the greatest total displacement<br />
and represented the maximum in fighting<br />
effectiveness probably ever gathered at one<br />
point by any nation.<br />
This latest review at New York included 102<br />
vessels of all classes, displacing about 577,285 tons,<br />
which does not include the eight submarines, of<br />
which no figures were available. Concurrently at<br />
Los Angeles a review was taking place of 24<br />
vessels of 116,000 tons displacement, giving a<br />
grand total of 126 vessels displacing 694,000 tons.<br />
Perhaps the most striking evidence of our progress<br />
is that of all the vessels in the New York<br />
review the only ones that were a part of our navy<br />
at the time of the Spanish war were the battleships,<br />
Iowa, Indiana and Massachusetts, the gun<br />
boats Castine, Nashville, Marietta and Petrel, a<br />
few of the small torpedo boats and some of the<br />
fleet auxiliaries.<br />
The following table shows the number of vessels<br />
of each class in the Atlantic fleet and their total<br />
displacement:<br />
Tons.<br />
24 battleships 366,864<br />
2 armored cruisers 29,000<br />
2 cruisers 6,950<br />
22 destroyers 15,463<br />
16 torpedo boats 2,994<br />
8 submarines<br />
3 tenders to torpedo fleet 8,466<br />
4 gunboats 4,737<br />
9 miscellaneous 40,733<br />
8 colliers 93,938<br />
1 oil tanker 6,159<br />
3 tugs 1,981<br />
102 vessels of all classes 577,285<br />
Exclusive again of the submarines these vessels<br />
represent a total horsepower of 946,811, for the<br />
supplying of which there are 567 boilers, with an<br />
aggregate of 46,360 sq. ft. of grate surface and<br />
2,062,000 sq. ft. of heating surface. All of the<br />
battleships, cruisers and torpedo boats except the<br />
battleship Iowa have water tube boilers. This is<br />
an interesting reversal of the condition of affairs<br />
at the time of the Spanish-American Avar, when<br />
outside of the torpedo boats there were only four<br />
warships then equipped with water tube boilers.<br />
Seventeen of the destroyers burn oil as fuel and<br />
the four latest battleships, Delaware, North Dakota,<br />
Utah and Florida, burn oil in conjunction<br />
with coal. The fleet has attached to it a fuel oil<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. :\l<br />
tank ship to carry the reserve fuel oil supply for<br />
these vessels, serving the corresponding function<br />
of the eight colliers carrying the coal supplies for<br />
the other vessels.<br />
The aggregate coal bunker capacity of the fleet<br />
i.s 81,450 tons. Adding to this the coal cargo capacity<br />
of the colliers, 58,813 tons, the fleet can<br />
sail away with a total of 140,263 tons of coal.<br />
Piopelled simultaneously at their full power all<br />
of the vessels would consume coal at the rate of<br />
20,000 tons a day.<br />
The Government has invested in this fleet $123,-<br />
397,400, to say nothing of the cost of supplies of<br />
all kinds and the salaries of the officers and crew.<br />
With its full complement the fleet would carry<br />
57,344 men and 1,660 officers, a total of 29,004, and<br />
it is safe to say the actual figure is in the neighborhood<br />
of 25,000 men.<br />
The average speed of the vessels is 21.6 knots.<br />
The fastest vessel is the destroyer Paulding, which<br />
is capable of a speed of 32.8 knots. Placed end to<br />
end touching, the vessels of the fleet would extend<br />
a total length of 29,942 ft. or over 5 2-3 miles. If<br />
passed in review in single file at an average distance<br />
apart of 200 yards, the fleet would form a<br />
line extending nearly 25 miles and at an average<br />
speed of 10 knots an hour would take about two<br />
hours to pass a given point.<br />
The armament of the fleet includes 181 torpedo<br />
tubes and 1,890 guns of all kinds. The battleships,<br />
armored cruisers and scouts have either two or<br />
four submerged torpedo tubes discharging 21-in.<br />
torpedo and their battle equipment of four torpedoes<br />
for each tube would make a total of 300<br />
torpedoes each carrying 200 lb. of gun cotton. The<br />
torpedo boats each have two or three lS-in. tubes<br />
and in time of war would carry all told about 200<br />
torpedoes. A single broadside of torpedoes from the<br />
vessels in line would carry a total of 35,000 lb. of<br />
gun cotton. Of guns from 6 to 13 in. caliber there<br />
are 496, one round from which would discharge a<br />
total weight of 182,800 lb. and require 62,650 lb<br />
of powder. In the projectiles would be carried<br />
about 7,000 lb. of high explosive. The range of<br />
the largest of these guns is 12 miles and it is interesting<br />
to note that at the recent target practice,<br />
from which many of these vessels have just<br />
come, remarkable accuracy of fire was shown at<br />
ranges of from 15,000 to 16,000 yards. The remainder<br />
of the guns in tbe fleet, ranging in caliber<br />
from 1 to 5 in., discharge projectiles ranging in<br />
weight from 1 to 60 lb.<br />
It is self-evident, what such a fleet as this means<br />
to the shipbuilding and ordnance manufacturing<br />
industries, but there are also less intimately associated<br />
industries that played an important part in<br />
the equipment of this fleet. We are advised for<br />
example by the Blake & Knowles Steam Pump<br />
Works, 115 Broadway, New York City, that it has
38 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
installed pumping equipment on 65 of these vessels,<br />
which is a large percentage considering that<br />
nine of the remainder carry no steam pumps, including<br />
the submarines and one sailing vessel, and<br />
that eight of the others, principally colliers, were<br />
built abroad. The number of pumps this company<br />
has installed on the fleet exceeds 1,000 and their<br />
cost represents nearly a million and a quarter<br />
dollars.<br />
The Jeffrey Manufacturing Co., Columbus, 0,.<br />
has just issued a new catalogue on Power and<br />
Transmission. It is believed to be the most<br />
complete and up to date power and transmission<br />
catalogue in existence, that is to say, there are<br />
more subjects listed and there is more technical<br />
and real information in this book than in any<br />
other publication. Besides listing dimensions<br />
and sizes of every part in this line, it contains<br />
descriptive matter on the Horse Powers of Steel<br />
Shafting, Standard Methods of Key Seating, sizes<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39<br />
PREPARATION OF COAL*<br />
By Dennis Dorris. Chief Coal Inspector Susquehanna Coal Company.<br />
Chief Coal Inspector, Susquehanna Coal Co.<br />
* Paper read at the meeting of the Nanticoke<br />
Mining Institute, Nanticoke, Pa., Nov. 3, 1911.<br />
A great many of the coal dealers and consumers<br />
outside of the coal producing region of Pennsylvania<br />
are under the impression that the coal<br />
companies make no pretense or effort to properly<br />
prepare the shipments they receive, that they are<br />
the most abused class of people in the world, and<br />
that the companies have no scruples along these<br />
lines in preparing coal. I might say that the<br />
same opinion prevails among a great many people<br />
who reside in the shadow of the operations,<br />
who are not familiar with the work of preparing<br />
coal. They would cheerfully reverse their opinion<br />
if they would visit the different plants and<br />
witness the careful methods adopted in order to<br />
produce a well prepared product.<br />
Some years ago the position of colliery inspector<br />
was considered a farce, and only a feeble effort<br />
was made by him to hold up the standard of<br />
preparation, owing to the fact that he was deprived<br />
of the power of deciding as to whether<br />
the coal should be accepted or rejected. The foreman,<br />
or his assistant, were usually the people who<br />
would pass judgment as to whether the coal should<br />
go forward or not. Many exciting scenes and<br />
tilts were witnessed in the vicinity of the "loaded"<br />
tracks between the breaker foreman and the coal<br />
inspector over some questionable coal—and the<br />
disposition to be made of the same. The superintendent<br />
was continually in a turmoil and kept<br />
busy rendering decisions as to who was right in<br />
this matter, and in almost every instance his decisions<br />
would be rendered in favor of the coal<br />
going forward. In those days an outside foreman<br />
dreaded the thought of his coal being turned back,<br />
as his reputation and pride was bitterly attacked,<br />
and was always willing and ready to battle at<br />
the mere mention of condemned coal. Nothing<br />
would be more pleasing and gratifying to him<br />
than to be successful in a victory over the inspector<br />
on some questionable coal, and he would<br />
become highly enthusiastic over the great achievement.<br />
. Those who recall the troublesome days in the<br />
inspecting of anthracite coal, which greatly disturbed<br />
the trade by passing a<br />
POORLY PREPARED PRODUCT,<br />
which caused all kinds of abuse to be leveled<br />
at the head of the inspector, can realize the vast<br />
change in the system of inspecting.<br />
The duties of the present day coal inspector<br />
reach out over a large space. In this capacity,<br />
he is broad and convincing, and the absolute judge<br />
as to the quality of the preparation. When his<br />
decision is rendered by actual test, no one questions<br />
his authority as to the correctness of that<br />
test. Occasionally now you will meet a foreman<br />
who imagines the inspector is too severe and<br />
rigid in his work as to what he classifies slate<br />
and bone, and endeavors to convey this impression<br />
to the superintendent, and appeals to<br />
him for some relief, but that official, unlike<br />
in the troublesome days, promptly waves him<br />
aside and advises him that the inspector's word<br />
is final. By doing this he realizes the necessity<br />
of protecting the consumer against such overzealous<br />
officials.<br />
The managers and superintendents of today are<br />
the most vigorous expounders of the rights and<br />
needs of the consumer and have done much to<br />
counteract the anti-colliery inspector feeling<br />
which for years has been so detrimental to the<br />
coal business. They have learned the cost of ill<br />
will, and the profits in good will, in the sale of<br />
anthracite coal. The management has come to<br />
realize in this great industry, which has so many<br />
common interests, that each is so dependent on<br />
the other that one cannot remain apart and maintain<br />
its full individual efficiency. Today one cannot<br />
help noticing the wonderful change existing<br />
between the breaker foreman, his <strong>org</strong>anization,<br />
and the coal inspector. They are in complete harmony<br />
and there is an air of old fashioned hospitality<br />
about the operations, a spirit of comradeship,<br />
and a pleasant feeling among those who<br />
are working for one common cause, which makes<br />
it appear so different from the old days. The<br />
breaker foreman has come to believe that the<br />
coal inspector is one of the most important employees.<br />
In fact, he considers him a necessity,<br />
as he not only keeps him posted on the condition<br />
of his coal, but also keeps him well informed by<br />
frequently testing the refuse, so that that end of<br />
the operation will not show a heavy percentage<br />
of loss of merchantable coal going to the bank.<br />
This is considered a serious problem and one<br />
that it is necessary to closely guard against,<br />
which, eventually, greatly affects the "prepared"<br />
sizes.<br />
There is a rule governing the inspection of<br />
anthracite coal both for size and impurities.<br />
Each size is limited to a certain percentage of<br />
slate and bone, and when these percentages are<br />
exceeded, the coal is<br />
NOT CONSIDERED MERCHANTABLE<br />
and is promptly condemned and re-prepared. It<br />
is, therefore, necessary that the breaker provide<br />
*Paper read at the meeting of the Nanticoke Mining Insti machinery for the treatment of condemned coal.<br />
tute. Nanticoke. Pa.. November 3. 1911.
40 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Slate contains less than 40 per cent, of fixed<br />
carbon, while bone contains between 40 and 65<br />
per cent. None of the several sizes shall contain<br />
a mixture of larger size sufficiently great to<br />
render the coal objectionable, nor respectively a<br />
larger proportion of any smaller size that is<br />
usually present in good merchantable coal.<br />
The position of a coal inspector requires considerable<br />
diplomacy. He should exercise great<br />
care in his judgment of what he classifies as slate<br />
and bone, and he should cheerfully give the outside<br />
foreman any information in reference to the<br />
preparation, and endeavor to satisfy him as to<br />
the correctness of his tests.<br />
The general appearance is the most important<br />
factor in the sale of domestic sizes. The burning<br />
qualities are seldom considered so long as it appears<br />
well. However, the steam sizes are sometimes<br />
considered on the analysis basis, as the<br />
ash question is becoming quite a proposition with<br />
large manufacturing concerns in the large cities,<br />
as the disposition of the ash runs into quite an<br />
item during the year.<br />
The Susquehanna Coal Co. has erected and fitted<br />
up at a great expense a chemical laboratory at<br />
Nanticoke. Daily samples are taken as the coal<br />
flows into the car from each steam size and kept<br />
in a separate box under lock and key until the<br />
end of each month. It is then taken to the laboratory<br />
to be tested. This keeps the standard of<br />
the market coal normal, as tests are continually<br />
being made to ascertain the heat units the coal<br />
contains.<br />
Very frequently coal is condemned on account<br />
of its appearance, because it is not properly<br />
washed, thus losing its lustre, but not its heat<br />
units. It is a difficult matter to convince the<br />
average consumer of this.<br />
The management encourages its subordinates<br />
to make improvements in the various lines that<br />
will<br />
BETTER THE PREPARATION.<br />
and they have spared no expense in design or<br />
construction and equipments to make the different<br />
plants the best possible for the work to<br />
be done, in full realization of the fact that the<br />
consumer must be pleased. Careful consideration<br />
has been given to every detail connected with the<br />
preparation. Many new features for preparing<br />
coal are being added, and the most modern methods<br />
adopted in the coal industry by knowledge<br />
gained from many years' experience by men who<br />
made a life study of the business, in order to<br />
make the preparation more pleasing and perfect<br />
for the benefit of the consumer.<br />
The successful inspector makes frequent visits<br />
under the breaker where the coal is being loaded<br />
whenever he can find it possible to do so in order<br />
to guard against a poor preparation getting into<br />
the body of the car. He should give some atten<br />
tion to the bottoms of cars and insist upon them<br />
being cleaned of all foreign matter. The officials<br />
are continually drilling the inspectors upon the<br />
necessity of rejecting coal that is not fully up<br />
to the standard, as they realize that a poorly prepared<br />
product causes considerable annoyance, because<br />
the reputation of the coal is greatly lessened<br />
in the eyes of the trade.<br />
The general appearance of the surface of a car<br />
where the inspector makes his examination by<br />
testing 100 pounds of material in different portions<br />
of the car, decides whether the coal is<br />
properly prepared. The dealer thoroughly scrutinizes<br />
the surface of cars, and if it looks anyway<br />
suspicious, he will not accept it.<br />
Coal which is drawn into a car from a pocket,<br />
and which is conveyed to that point on one telegraph,<br />
if well prepared on the surface, the same<br />
condition generally exists all through the body<br />
of the car, but when more than one telegraph is<br />
depositing coal into a pocket, there is always<br />
danger of some genius in the breaker sizing up<br />
the situation whereby a poorer quality of preparation<br />
is liable to get into the body of the car<br />
which the inspector is unable to locate.<br />
The question has been frequently argued that<br />
coal is one of the necessities of life, and not a<br />
luxury, and the consumer is forced to buy it and<br />
could not be driven away from the transaction.<br />
It is undoubtedly a fact that coal is never bought<br />
except to<br />
FII.I. AN ACTUAL WANT,<br />
and, in this respect, it differs from hundreds of<br />
articles of commerce which are bought because<br />
of some passing fancy. Never in the history of<br />
the coal industry has the preparation and prepared<br />
sizes figured so prominently. The business<br />
has become a manufacturing proposition in so far<br />
that the tendency is now to perfect the preparation<br />
with the least percentage of loss of profit<br />
from the crude material taken from the mines.<br />
Within the last few years, special efforts have<br />
been made to improve the preparation and also<br />
increase the prepared sizes and it is surprising<br />
what great advancement has been shown in this<br />
work. The officials are constantly making improvements<br />
to increase favorable results.<br />
The Susquehanna Coal Co. was among the first<br />
of the large companies to create the position of<br />
"Prepared Coal Man," whose duty is to increase,<br />
if possible, the prepared sizes by closely observing<br />
the condition in the different plants. Nothing<br />
has been overlooked to perfect the condition<br />
which will produce the largest percentage of what<br />
is known above pea size, especially stove and nut.<br />
The prepared sizes are those mostly consumed<br />
for domestic purposes. All other sizes known as<br />
pea, buck, rice and barley, might be called breakage,<br />
as they are not as desirable as the larger<br />
sizes.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 41<br />
Frequent tests are being made on the speed<br />
1 feet per minute down to 300 feet per minute,<br />
of rolls and designs of teeth and the result of<br />
f it was necessary to install tbe compound low<br />
tests made at one of the company's operations s speed gear and the experiments are gratifying<br />
last week confirms the conclusion that low speed 1 to the officials. They are not stopping at this<br />
is an important factor in the economical roll op i- knowledge gained to further advance and improve<br />
eration. The ordinary direct driven high speed 1 conditions, but are sending experts into the mines<br />
LARGEST CARRIER ON GREAT LAKES TAKING ON HER FIRST CARGO<br />
OF HOCKING MINED BY THE NEW PITTSBURGH COAL COMPANY.<br />
This magnificent freighter, the Colonel James M. Schoonmaker, was loaded at Toledo, O.,<br />
recently with Hocking coal produced by the New Pittsburgh Coal Co., Columbus, O., for her<br />
initial trip to the upper ports. She is the last word in craft of her type, outstripping all<br />
built before her in size, capacity, machinery equipment and appointments. A description<br />
appeared in the November lst issue of THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
roller could not be satisfactorily run at a reduced<br />
speed because the change would involve the loss<br />
of crushing power, causing the roll to become<br />
choked with coal. To overcome this obstacle in<br />
changing the speed of the roll from 800 to 850<br />
and instructing the miners in the best method to<br />
determine the power of explosives.<br />
The economical breaking of coal has been the<br />
subject of much serious consideration by those<br />
who are directly connected with the operations.
42 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Great stress has been laid upon the different<br />
TVTES OF MECHANICAL PICKERS<br />
and also the proper construction of chutes. The<br />
breakage of coal in gravity may, be attributed to<br />
the badly constructed chutes. The lesson has been<br />
learned that the proper chute is the one which<br />
is without corners or sharp turns around which<br />
the coal will slide without striking the sides,<br />
or dropping, which causes the breakage.<br />
Much thought and concern are given the many<br />
different machines for cleaning coal. The spiral<br />
type will work very well when handling all dry,<br />
or all wet coal, but will not give good results on<br />
a mixture of both. The falling of the coal from<br />
the spiral plates to the coal chutes causes a loss<br />
in breakage, and it requires considerable attention<br />
in order to prevent a large proportion of<br />
good coal going with the refuse, which would result<br />
in the reduction of the "Mine Car Yield."<br />
The jig type has its advantages in displacing<br />
heavy rock owing to the difference in specific<br />
gravity of rock and coal, but then again the coal<br />
conveyor chain is largely responsible for more<br />
or less breakage.<br />
The mud screen product contains a high percentage<br />
of flat material, which is objectionable<br />
to the average consumer, but it would not materially<br />
effect the burning qualities of the coal.<br />
One type has been installed, known as the Norman<br />
picker, which consists of long rolls geared<br />
together, revolving the same direction, with narrow<br />
opening, from which the more cubical pieces<br />
of coal slide over, allowing the flat material to<br />
fall through. This finally may be cleaned of impurities<br />
in a separate jig and broken down to one<br />
of the smaller sizes and re-screened.<br />
Shipments of dry coal are very desirable by<br />
the average dealer, as the washing of coal on the<br />
lip screen is usually required to remove the fine<br />
dirt which adheres to the coal, especially coal<br />
that has been prepared with water, which freezes<br />
in the car during the cold weather, subsequently,<br />
causing considerable expense and trouble in unloading.<br />
Careful consideration and attention are given<br />
the work of loading coal into the ears ready for<br />
consignment. The object desired is to reduce the<br />
high velocity of the coal by gently conveying it<br />
into the car from the lip screens with as<br />
MUCH CAREFUL HANDLING<br />
as possible in order to eliminate an excessive<br />
amount of breakage. This has been overlooked<br />
by a great many dealers when the coal reaches<br />
its destination. It is known in some yards that<br />
the coal is dropped from 25 to 30 feet when unloading,<br />
and the dealer wonders why the accumulation<br />
of dirt is so great.<br />
Nearly all the large anthracite coal companies<br />
have a chief inspector, a man of practical experience,<br />
on the preparation of coal, who has a<br />
wide range of service, such as employing the inspectors,<br />
supervising their work and reports, keeping<br />
closely in touch with the preparation and<br />
conditions at all the operations, and for conference<br />
with the sales agents as to the merits and<br />
quality of coal. All this is done in order that<br />
the best results may be secured to satisfy all<br />
parties.<br />
The increasing demand for steam sizes within<br />
the last four or five years has made it necessary<br />
for the operators to attack the culm banks, formerly<br />
regarded as worthless refuse, and convert<br />
them into money, which are yielding a surprising<br />
percentage of steam sizes. These mountains of<br />
coal piles throughout the anthracite regions are<br />
memories of the time when anthracite was cheaper<br />
and more plentiful than it will ever be again.<br />
In the early days of coal mining in Pennsylvania<br />
it was imagined that the newly discovered<br />
stores of anthracite were inexhaustible. There<br />
was so much of the "black diamond" mineral for<br />
the digging of it, it was thought that it would<br />
last forever. Naturally the methods adopted for<br />
getting it out were crude and those engaged in<br />
the industry threw away the steam sizes, which<br />
today are competing with the bituminous coal.<br />
It was cheaper to reject such material because<br />
there was plenty more at hand, and it paid better<br />
to go after the big pieces known as lump. This<br />
material that the operators considered worthless<br />
built the<br />
LARGE COAL MOUNTAINS<br />
which at the present time, when steam sizes are<br />
becoming more and more precious, are being systematically<br />
mined for their stores of wealth. The<br />
operator of today is not content with saving the<br />
lump, but is even experimenting with the coal<br />
dust, and they expect some day to burn it under<br />
the boilers. They are also saving the slush banks<br />
for future use in case the briquet fuel should<br />
figure in tbe coal business.<br />
Another novel and interesting use made of the<br />
material washed from the coal, which goes<br />
through the 1-16 inch mesh, is to slush it back<br />
into the mines from which it was originally taken,<br />
filling up the gangways and breasts. This soon<br />
becomes hard and solid, whereby they can remove<br />
the pillars of valuable anthracite, which<br />
in the original operation had to be left for the<br />
support of the roof.<br />
Millions of tons of coal have been recovered<br />
in the past four or five years from dirt banks<br />
in the anthracite region. It is plainly realized<br />
that they are giving up their merchantable coal<br />
at a pretty rapid rate; in fact, they are fast disappearing<br />
and only a small fraction remains.<br />
The question still remaining, in which the institute<br />
members will be interested, is who are<br />
responsible for clean coal?
1. The inside employees and bosses, who<br />
should not load impurities, or<br />
2. The outside force, who have the daylight<br />
and ought to clean the coal.<br />
In answer to the above question, I would suggest<br />
that the inside and outside officials work in<br />
harmony at all times, inside men endeavoring<br />
to keep all the impurities out of the car.<br />
It would be a good thing for the operation if<br />
the outside and inside officials would meet frequently<br />
and discuss the affairs of the mines.<br />
This would work to a better understanding and<br />
would, no doubt, result in good for all concerned.<br />
NEW PUBLICATIONS ISSUED BY THE<br />
UNITED STATES BUREAU OF MINES.<br />
The following publications are now ready for<br />
distribution by the United States Bureau of Mines:<br />
BTJLLETTN.<br />
Bulletin 13. Resume of producer-gas investigations,<br />
by R. H. Fernald and C. D. Smith. 1911.<br />
378 pp., 12 pis.<br />
MIXERS' CIRCULAR.<br />
Miners' Circular 5. Electrical accidents in<br />
mines; their prevention and treatment, by H. H.<br />
Clark. 1911.<br />
REPRINTS.<br />
Bulletin 24. Binders for coal briquets, by J. E.<br />
Mills. 56 pp. Reprint of United States Geological<br />
Survey Bulletin 323. Copies will not be sent to<br />
persons who received Bulletin 343.<br />
Bulletin 28. Experimental work conducted in<br />
the chemical laboratory of the United States fueltesting<br />
plant, St. Louis, Mo., January 1, 1905, to<br />
July 31, 1906. Reprint of United States Geological<br />
Survey Bulletin 323. Copies will not me sent to<br />
persons who received Bulletin 323.<br />
Bulletin 27. Tests of coal and briquets as fuel<br />
for house-heating boilers, by D. T. Randall. 45 pp.,<br />
3 pis. Reprint of United States Geological Survey<br />
Bulletin 366. Copies will not be sent to persons<br />
who received Bulletin 366.<br />
Bulletin 35. The utilization of fuel in locomotive<br />
practice, by W. F. M. Goss. 28 pp. Reprint<br />
of United States Geological Survey Bulletin 402.<br />
Copies will not be sent to persons who received<br />
Bulletin 402.<br />
The Bureau of Mines has copies of these publications<br />
for free distribution, but cannot give more<br />
than one copy of the same bulletin to one person.<br />
Requests for all papers cannot be granted without<br />
satisfactory reason. In asking for publications<br />
please order them by number and title. Applications<br />
should be addressed to the Director of the<br />
Bureau of Mines, Washington, D. C.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 43<br />
LABOR NOTES<br />
Frank Smith, Alexander Rice and Joseph Benivitch,<br />
employed in mine No. 6 of the Pittsburgh<br />
Terminal Railroad & Coal Co.. Bruceton, Pa., have<br />
been committed to jail by Alderman James V. Mr-<br />
Masters of Pittsburgh for a hearing, charged with<br />
violating the state mining laws. The men are<br />
said to have walked by a danger sign in the mine.<br />
The infoimations were made by State Mine Inspector<br />
James I. Spratt.<br />
Chief Mine Inspector Nesbitt of Alabama, who<br />
has been taking a census of the mine workers of<br />
the state, reports that there are 242 coal mines in<br />
Alabama of sufficient size to be classed as commercial<br />
operations. The miners number 20,156, and<br />
it is stated that the number is inadequate in active<br />
periods like tbe present, as reports of labor shortages<br />
are had from various mining communities.<br />
Luke F. Lanham, who last summer succeeded to<br />
the presidency of No. 17 district of the United<br />
Mine Workers of America, when Ben Davis resigned<br />
and engaged in other business at Montgomery,<br />
has resigned. James E. Craigo. who became<br />
vice president when Lanham took the presidency,<br />
has become president for the remainder of<br />
the term, until April 1 next.<br />
On November 9, at Windber, Pa., 100 employes<br />
of the Berwind-White Coal Mining Co. were presented<br />
with diplomas of efficiency in first aid work<br />
by the American Red Cross. The presentation<br />
address was made by Burgess Dr. J. W. Hawes,<br />
and other speakers were General Manager W. A<br />
Calverly and Chief Engineer E. A. Delaney, of the<br />
company.<br />
The auditors of the United .Mine Workers of<br />
America are at Indianapolis auditing the accounts<br />
of the Irwin, Pa., strike relief fund.<br />
COAL LAND SALES FROM RECORDS<br />
Loren N. Wood of Mt. Vernon, 111., has sold 7,00(<br />
acres of Jefferson county coal lands to the Big<br />
Muddy Coal syndicate of New York. The purchase<br />
price exceeds a quarter of a million dollars.<br />
W. D. Cotterel and Harry Taylor, of Waynesburg,<br />
Pa., have purchased from Ge<strong>org</strong>e Hennen, 109,321<br />
acres of coal in Gilmore township, Greene county.<br />
Pa.; consideration, $14,758.33.<br />
Alvey Gregory has sold to W. Howard of Barboursville,<br />
Ky.. 150 acres of coal in the Fourmile<br />
district of Bell county, Ky., for $0,500.<br />
AV. Howard of Barboursville, Ky., has sold to<br />
the Wilhoit Coal Co.. 175 acres of coal in Bell<br />
county, Ky., for $8,000.
44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
ENFORCIBLE PENALTIES A REMEDY FOR UNSETTLED<br />
TRADE CONDITIONS<br />
By Charles S. Thorne, President Pocahontas Coke Company, and Vice President Pocahontas Coal Company.<br />
The attention of men of business and of the<br />
legal piofession associated with the industrial<br />
corporations of this country has, for a consid<br />
erable time, been centered upon questions referring<br />
to the proper formation of trade associations,<br />
or consolidation of industries, for the purpose of<br />
eliminating excessive, unreasonable and destructive<br />
competition to permit of a return of interest<br />
on capital to the smallest investor in corporations,<br />
and yet keep such formations within the<br />
scope of the law.<br />
Development of rapid transportation between<br />
the great cities, manufacturing and producing<br />
sections of the l'uited States and the establishment<br />
of quick communication by telephone, telegraph<br />
and cable between the trade centers of the<br />
world has been accomplished by grouping propel<br />
ties under central controls, or management, and<br />
by making working agreements for prorating<br />
uniform charges for such services. This has not<br />
only brought all the marketable product of the<br />
world to the door of the purchaser, but has also<br />
brought about centralization of the buying of<br />
commodities required in these operations. The<br />
law takes no exception to such uniform charges<br />
for services, or to this centralized purchasing.<br />
These centralized purchasers have the opportunity<br />
of offering tempting propositions of purchase<br />
which will provide regular movement of the entire<br />
capacity of some one or more of the producers<br />
of such commodities, who are thereby led<br />
into contracts upon terms which establish a<br />
ruinous basis for other producers, who are excluded<br />
from such contracts and who can operate<br />
only on a pro rata, or less than a pro rata of<br />
capacity basis. In this manner the old adage<br />
that "Competition is the life of trade" has often<br />
been reversed and competition under these conditions<br />
has become the great "Dark Way" down<br />
which many have fallen from fair dealings to<br />
destruction.<br />
Recognition by our legislators and by the<br />
United States Courts that the portion of the<br />
business community engaged in the production,<br />
manufacture and sale of the products of the<br />
country as part of "The Public," is entitled to<br />
reasonably centralize and regulate this side of<br />
these trade conditions and that, in considering<br />
questions in connection with Interstate Commerce<br />
it is, as part of "the public," entitled also<br />
to legal protection from breach of faith and from<br />
unfair acts, which would then be unlawful, to<br />
the same extent at least accorded to that por<br />
tion of the public which is engaged in the trans<br />
portation, purchase or consumption of such pro-<br />
<strong>•</strong> ducts, would be a step in the right direction and<br />
permit of the correction of much of the destructive<br />
competition to which business is now sub<br />
jected.<br />
Recent decisions of the United States Supreme<br />
Court indicate that there is a possibility of a<br />
corporation acquiring and operating a consider<br />
able local percentage of any commodity that enters<br />
into the general market, provided that it does<br />
not represent a control of the total of such com<br />
modity within the jurisdicion of the United States<br />
Courts. If the laws could be broadened to permit<br />
of optional trade agreements between these<br />
producers regulating the sale and distribution of<br />
the products of the different sections of the country,<br />
such as are permissible under the laws of<br />
Great Britain, many of the conditions which disturb<br />
business in the United States today could be<br />
corrected, and the tendency to create Trusts might<br />
be lessened.<br />
The so-called Gentlemen's Agreements, developed<br />
by informal meetings of persons engaged in business<br />
of the same nature, where views of the market<br />
conditions were exchanged, have failed to be<br />
effective in correcting these undesirable conditions,<br />
as the views expressed at these meetings<br />
imposed no binding obligations and provided no<br />
penalties for individual departure, immediately<br />
before or after such conferences, from the ideas<br />
expressed, and much harm has been inflicted upon<br />
responsible business interests which have expected<br />
some shifty individual competitor to adhere<br />
literally to his expressed ideas; and, therefore,<br />
this method of avoiding destructive sacrifices of<br />
commerce and property is now looked upon with<br />
suspicion and has been abandoned to a great extent.<br />
The adoption of laws providing for permissible<br />
or optional Trade Agreements with enforcible<br />
penalties should not only correct many of the<br />
undesirable conditions which hamper business in<br />
the United States today, but should also remove<br />
one incentive—that of constant necessity of selfpreservation<br />
from destructive competition which<br />
has driven some of our industries into so-called<br />
Trusts under one control, as these Trusts seemed<br />
the only means of keeping market conditions<br />
steady or uniform. With permissible trade agree<br />
ments and enforcible penalties, a greater number<br />
of business units dealing in the same commodity<br />
might conduct profitable business without<br />
destruction of competitors and without resorting<br />
to a single Trust control by ownership; and,
after all. what the purchaser and consumer want<br />
is not the lowest price that can be made, without<br />
profit to the producer, but a uniform price as low<br />
as his neighboring purchaser and competitor secures.<br />
Enforcible penalties, as prescribed by law, have<br />
been the regulators of all governments, aud the<br />
power of the employer to dismiss an unfaithful<br />
employee, as well as the power of the public to<br />
elect or remove its representatives have always<br />
been recognized as important regulators in all<br />
civilized countries and even in investment exchanges,<br />
bank clearing house associations and<br />
in the social clubs, the enforcible penalty for<br />
bad faith is exercised in the right of suspension,<br />
which is reserved by all of these associations.<br />
Enforcible penalties, either by the legal deposit<br />
of money, subject to forfeiture for breach<br />
of faith in trade understandings, 01 an enforcible<br />
right to have removed from office representatives<br />
of business interests who enter into trade agreements<br />
of faith and violate them, or an enforcible<br />
penalty yet to be devised, should be permissible<br />
as much as penalties prescribed by law and custom<br />
for the punishment of unfaithful performances<br />
of duties of either public or private office.<br />
It would, therefore, appear that what is needed<br />
today is not so much the development of a new<br />
form of <strong>org</strong>anization to conduct consolidated business,<br />
but the enactment of laws which will permit<br />
of agreements for the regulation of trade conditions<br />
pertaining to the distribution of the commodities<br />
of the country and permit of enforcible<br />
penalties for the breach of such regulations. This<br />
optional power in the hands of many business<br />
units would, in all probability, be exercised in a<br />
reasonable manner and would surely brighten the<br />
great "Dark Way" along which so many of our<br />
business enterprises are today groping for light<br />
and encouragement.<br />
IDLE CARS DECREASE.<br />
On October 25 the net surplus of idle cars on<br />
lines of the United States and Canada was 20.532<br />
compared with 35,897 two weeks before. The<br />
difference is 15,365. The gross number of idle<br />
cars was 39.306 compared with 48,854; shortage<br />
increased from 12,957 to 18,774.<br />
In the two weeks ended October 25 the surplus<br />
of coal cars decreased from 16.496 to 12,148; boxcar<br />
surplus decreased from 10,487 to 7,166: miscellaneous<br />
car surplus decreased somewhat, but<br />
the number of flat cars remained almost stationary.<br />
The biggest decrease occurred on lines operating<br />
in the middle Atlantic States; the number of cars<br />
idle there was reduced to under 3,000, a new low<br />
record for the year, and is almost 4,000 lower than<br />
at this time a year ago.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 45<br />
OCTOBER ANTHRACITE SHIPMENTS.<br />
The shipments of anthracite coal by companies<br />
for tbe month of October, 1911, as compared with<br />
191(», were:<br />
Companies. 1911. 1910.<br />
Philadelphia & Reading.... 1.273.412 LOSS,975<br />
Lehigh Valley 1,109,170 1,009,694<br />
Central Railroad of N. J.... 913.04S 759.510<br />
Delaware, Lacka. & Western 880,699 8(17.086<br />
Delaware & Hudson 604.722 543,940<br />
Pennsylvania R. R 570,930 566,469<br />
Erie 730,984 636.286<br />
Ontario & Western 186,214 213.135<br />
Totals 0,269,179 5,622.1195<br />
The shipments for 1911 by months as compared<br />
with 19ln were:<br />
1911. 1910.<br />
January 5,904.117 5,306.618<br />
February 5,070.948 5,031,784<br />
March 5,996,894 5,174,166<br />
April 5,804,915 6,224,396<br />
May 6,317,352 5,679,601<br />
June 6,215,357 5,398,123<br />
July 4,804,065 4,202,059<br />
August 5,531.790 4.990,044<br />
September 5,730,935 4,967,516<br />
October 6,269,179 5,622,095<br />
November 6,071,746<br />
December 6,231,578<br />
Totals 57,645,558 64,905,786<br />
RATIFY REORGANIZATION PLAN FOR PENN<br />
SYLVANIA COAL AND COKE COMPANY.<br />
Bondholders of the Pennsylvania Coal & Coke<br />
Co. on November 10 ratified the plan of re<strong>org</strong>anization<br />
recently proposed.<br />
According to the plan, the consolidated mortgage<br />
is to be foreclosed and the properties held by the<br />
receiver, T. H. Watkins, which are not subject to<br />
lien will be sold. All the properties, machinery<br />
and equipment of the company, with certain restrictions<br />
and subject to the lien of the underlying<br />
mortgage of $6,823,000' and car purchase debt of<br />
$122,841, are to be transferred to the Clearfield<br />
Co. if the properties sold at foreclosure and receiver's<br />
sales be acquired by the Bondholders'<br />
Committee.<br />
For such transfer the committee will receive<br />
$2,500,000 face value of the Clearfield Co.'s gold<br />
bonds, after deducting $660,137, the receiver's indebtedness<br />
to the New York Central. The coal<br />
underlying, about 59,000 acres of acquired leaseholds<br />
will be leased b.v the Clearfield Co. to the<br />
new company for certain rentals, royalties and<br />
other payments. The capital of the re<strong>org</strong>anized<br />
company will be $7,500,000.
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
FAST WORK AT NEW DOCKS.<br />
scrap lumber. This car was blown over the end<br />
of the dump and most of the scrap lumber landed<br />
In a recent test made by tb.e Pittsburgh Coal Co.<br />
on or about the motor. Whether the car passed<br />
of its new Dock No. 7 at Duluth, some fast work<br />
over and on one side of the motor is, as yet, in<br />
was accomplished. This dock has just been com<br />
doubt. In spite, however, of the fact that the<br />
pleted, and is equipped with three bridges of the<br />
motor had its normal quantity of gasoline upon it<br />
most modern pattern, having been constructed by<br />
and was exposed to the violence of the explosion,<br />
the Brown Hoisting Machinery Co., and the records<br />
the gasoline tank was not injured, none of the<br />
established prove that the efficiency of this dock<br />
connections were disturbed and the motor itself<br />
surpasses any of similar equipment, and will prob<br />
was so slightly damaged that about four hours'<br />
ably equal that of any four-rig dock in tbe North<br />
work by one man in cleaning out the coal dust<br />
west.<br />
and replacing a few of the parts, put it in condi<br />
The steamer J. S. Ashley, with 8,983 tons of<br />
tion to run—practically as good as new.<br />
lump coal, was unloaded in 10 hours and 15 minutes,<br />
and the cargo of the J. R. Upson, 8,747 tons<br />
of the same grade, was taken out in 10 hours and <strong>•</strong> PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS <strong>•</strong>)<br />
55 minutes actual working time. This means that<br />
on the full running time of the test, the coal was Secretary of the Interior Fisher during the fort<br />
handled at the rate of 900 tons per hour, including night announced the appointment of Dr. Waldemar<br />
the delay in cleaning up anod finishing the hand Lindgren as chief geologist of the U. S. Geological<br />
ling. While working in free coal each clam aver Survey. The position had previously been tendaged<br />
nearly six tons to the lift, and it is estimated ered to Dr. Alfred H. Brooks, chief of the Alaska<br />
that in performing this class of lightering, the corps of the Survey; but Dr. Brooks had consid<br />
three rigs will average 1,500 tons per hour.<br />
ered it his duty to decline the honor, feeling that<br />
Altogether, the test was most satisfactory, and the best interests of the Alaska work demanded<br />
it is now considered that the Pittsburgh Coal Co.'s<br />
new dock is about the fastest unloading equipment<br />
his continuation in that special field.<br />
at the head of the lakes.<br />
The board of directors of the Consolidation Coal<br />
Co., Baltimore, Md., declared the regular quarterly<br />
dividend of 1% per cent, on its capital stock, pay<br />
WEST VIRGINIA MINING INSTITUTE TO able October 31, and also declared a quarterly<br />
MEET IN FAIRMONT, DECEMBER 4 AND 5. dividend of 1% per cent, on the subscription receipts<br />
for stock carrying dividends declared after<br />
January 31. 1911, payable October 31, 1911.<br />
E. B. Day of Pittsburgh, secretary-treasurer of<br />
the West Virginia Coal Mine Institute, was in<br />
Fairmont, W. Va., November 8, in conference with<br />
President Frank Haas, and as a result a committee<br />
was designated to arrange for the institute<br />
meeting at Fairmont December 4 and 5.<br />
The committee will consist of R. T. Cunningham,<br />
W. S. Haywood. A. H. Fleming, A. F. Smith, A. B.<br />
Scott, E. M. Showalter, Brooks Fleming, Jr., E. B.<br />
Day. R. M. Hite, M. W. Head, Harold B. Clark.<br />
M. L. Hutchins, Duncan Sullivan, W. J. Rathburn,<br />
L. H. Smith and L. M. Davis.<br />
MOTOR PRACTICALLY UNINJURED.<br />
In the accounts of the explosion at the United<br />
States Bureau of Mines' experimental mine on<br />
October 24, this paragraph appeared:<br />
"A gasoline motor standing 100 feet from the<br />
entry of the mine and supposed to be out of danger,<br />
had a small red flag on it in order that an<br />
explosive force might be noted on the flag. A<br />
part of this flag was found in a tree several hundred<br />
feet away. The motor was wrecked."<br />
This seems to have been incorrect and the<br />
facts in the case are:<br />
Just back of the motor was a car loaded with<br />
It is understood that the Northwestern Fuel Co.<br />
is planning to enlarge its No. 2 dock at Superior<br />
to an extent that will provide storage capacity for<br />
850,000 tons. New coal handling facilities will<br />
also be installed.<br />
Pittsburgh district river shipping coal companies<br />
sent 1,000.000 bushels of coal to southern markets<br />
on a rise in the rivers on November 9. The<br />
shipment practically clears the Pittsburgh harbor<br />
of coal.<br />
The main offices of the Vandalia Coal Co. will<br />
be moved from Indianapolis to Terre Haute, Ind.,<br />
December 1. Part of the office force already has<br />
changed base.<br />
The Chesapeake & Ohio Coal & Coke Co. announces<br />
the removal of its Washington office from<br />
the Munsey building, Washington, D. C. to 146-156<br />
West Main street, Norfolk, Va., on November 10.<br />
The Island Creek Coal Co. will erect a ccal storage<br />
dock at Duluth, Minn., in the near future, having<br />
purchased a site on the water front at that<br />
port for the purpose.
L<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 47<br />
OVERHEAD ELECTRICAL PRACTICE IN MINES<br />
By G. H. Bolus. Engineer Ohio Brass Company.<br />
While much has been written about the behavior<br />
or performance of electrical apparatus in mines<br />
covering various kinds and types of motors, loco<br />
motives, etc., the overhead electrical circuit seems<br />
to have received very little consideration.<br />
In practically all of the coal mines and some<br />
of the metal mines in the United States, direct<br />
current is used with a range in voltage of from<br />
220 to 250. Some mines in West Virginia em<br />
ploy the three-wire system with 500 volts between<br />
outside wires and 250 volts between outside and<br />
neutral. There are also some alternating current<br />
installations in use in mines, but generally speaking,<br />
it may be said that the<br />
use of alternating current is<br />
not as much used as direct<br />
current.<br />
In the transmission of electrical<br />
energy, it is a generally<br />
accepted rule to limit the<br />
range of distribution to one<br />
mile for 250 volts and four<br />
miles for 50ft volts. Unfortunately,<br />
in mines it is frequently<br />
necessary to carry<br />
electric power into a mine<br />
using 250 volt service, for a<br />
greater distance than one<br />
mile, and this calls for a correspondingly<br />
greater outlay<br />
for feeders. Beyond these<br />
distances, where conditions<br />
will permit, it is advisable to<br />
use alternating current of<br />
higher potential, and transmit<br />
the power by means of a high<br />
voltage transmission line.<br />
Single phase motors are not<br />
adapted to mine service and for this reason, polyphase<br />
systems are much preferred.<br />
Electrical apparatus and fittings for use under<br />
ground are subjected to the destructive action of<br />
acid-laden mine waters and excessive dampness<br />
and they are, therefore, designed to take care of<br />
this condition; but even with all the precautions<br />
taken in the design of a piece of apparatus or fitting,<br />
it may still prove inefficient if it is improperly<br />
installed. It seems to have been the tendency<br />
in past years for one mining company to follow<br />
the rules of its neighbor in laying out the elec<br />
trical circuits, with little or no information as to<br />
whether the neighbor was right or wrong. The<br />
result is that many mine managers are now awak<br />
ening to the fact that their electrical circuits are<br />
inadequate for the service required.<br />
The tempoarry manner in which new operations<br />
are supplied with power transmission, is fre<br />
quently the cause of insufficient feeder wire being<br />
installed, and as the workings progress further<br />
back into the seam, the mine manager finds it<br />
necessary to install more feeder in order to get<br />
the proper response from his cutting machines<br />
and locomotives. Another thing which has been<br />
Fig. i. Example of Good Overhead Construction in Mines.<br />
the cause of considerable bad installation work in<br />
mines has been the scarcity of good workmen,<br />
proper tools and properly designed material.<br />
The subject of the proper percentage loss of<br />
voltage in mine circuits is a much mooted one,<br />
but generally speaking, the writer has found that a<br />
loss of from 15 to 20 per cent, at maximum load is<br />
permissible.<br />
Regarding the proportioning of the carrying<br />
capacity of feeders, it has been found that if the<br />
feeder is laid out to carry 60 per cent, of the total<br />
current used in a mine, the operation will be satis-
46 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
factory, as it is rarely tbe case that all machines<br />
are operating continuously at one time, and even<br />
should this condition occur,<br />
a short time.<br />
Fig-. 2. Showing Uneven Trolley Wire Caused by Hanger Being Out ol Plumb.<br />
Lo.ss OF VOLTAGE IN MINKS—(TWO WIRE SYSTEM ).<br />
it would only be for<br />
The table herewith gives<br />
the approximate drop in volt<br />
age of a 250 volt two-wire<br />
system with conditions of<br />
trolley and feeders as ordinarily<br />
encountered in the<br />
average coal mine.<br />
It would be extremely diffi<br />
cult to lay down any hard<br />
and fixed rules for the instal<br />
lation of the overhead circuit<br />
in mines, but the writer be<br />
lieves that the following<br />
rules, if carried out, will very<br />
materially increase the efficiency<br />
of the electrical circuit.<br />
A. Install all mine wiring<br />
for power ou approved porce<br />
lain or glass insulators with<br />
steel or wood pins as a sup<br />
port. They should be placed<br />
as often as 20 feet for low-<br />
roof and not to exceed 35 feet<br />
for high roof. Porcelain in-<br />
250 VOLTS AT MINE ENTRANCE, TRACK RESISTANCE EQUAL TO OVERHEAD RESISTANCE. 100 AMPERES IN<br />
cruet IT.<br />
Volts Between Track and Trolley. Volts Loss.<br />
Volt<br />
Distance<br />
in Mine<br />
in Feet.<br />
1000<br />
2000<br />
3000<br />
4000<br />
5000<br />
6000<br />
7000<br />
8000<br />
9000<br />
10000<br />
12000<br />
15000<br />
One<br />
-0 Trollev<br />
Only.<br />
10<br />
19<br />
29<br />
39<br />
49<br />
59<br />
68<br />
78<br />
88<br />
98<br />
117<br />
1 16<br />
One<br />
4-0 Trolley<br />
and One<br />
4-0-Feeder.<br />
5<br />
10<br />
14<br />
19<br />
24<br />
29<br />
3 1<br />
39<br />
44<br />
48<br />
59<br />
73<br />
One '<br />
4-0 Trol ev<br />
and Two<br />
4-0 Feed ers.<br />
3<br />
6<br />
in<br />
13<br />
16<br />
20<br />
23<br />
26<br />
29<br />
33<br />
39<br />
19<br />
One<br />
4-0 Trollev<br />
Only.<br />
240<br />
2.31<br />
221<br />
211<br />
201<br />
191<br />
182<br />
172<br />
162<br />
152<br />
133<br />
UU<br />
One<br />
4-(i Trolley<br />
and One<br />
4-0 Feeder.<br />
245<br />
240<br />
236<br />
231<br />
226<br />
221<br />
216<br />
211<br />
206<br />
201<br />
191<br />
177<br />
One<br />
4-0 Trolley<br />
and Two<br />
4-0 Feeders<br />
247<br />
244<br />
240<br />
237<br />
234<br />
230<br />
227<br />
224<br />
221<br />
214<br />
211<br />
201<br />
To Find Volts Loss at any Other Current:<br />
result by the Volts Loss in table.<br />
-Divide current in amperes hy 100 and multiply the<br />
Example:—Required voltage between trolley and track, in a mine using 4-0 Trollev and one<br />
4-0 Feeder at a point 3000 feet from mine entrance. Current 500 amperes<br />
Solution:-Volts loss with 4-0 Trolley and 4-0 Feeder at 3000 feet=14. 500 amperes divided<br />
by 100 equals 5 5 multiplied by 14 equals 70=Volts loss. 250 volts at mine entrance minus 70<br />
volts loss equals 180 volts between trolley and traek=Answer<br />
To find Loss in mine using 3-0 Trolley or Feeder, multiply Volts loss in table by 1 261<br />
To find Loss in mine using 2-0 Trolley or Feeder, multiply Volts loss in table bv 1 509<br />
Example:-Required voltage in mine using 3-0 Trolley and two 3-0 Feeders, at a point 5000<br />
feet from the mine entrance, current 100 amperes.<br />
Solution:—Look in table and find under one 4-0 Trollev and two 4-0 Feede lers, and opposite 5000<br />
feet the loss to be 16 volts. Multiply 16 by 1.261 which gives 20 volts 250 volts minus 20 volts^<br />
240 volts=Answer.<br />
To find Current taken by a 250 volt motor, multiply the horsepower by three<br />
To find Current taken by a 500 volt motor, multiply the horsepower by one and one-half.
sulators are to be preferred<br />
thoroughly vitrified.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 49<br />
as against glass if<br />
Fig 3. Bending of Stud on Curve Due to Clamp Not Being<br />
Screwed Up Tight Against the Hanger.<br />
B. Install only one wire on each insulator, securely<br />
tying same to the insulator with a tie wire,<br />
preferably of the<br />
same material as the<br />
conductor. This<br />
would not, of course,<br />
apply to lead covered<br />
conductors. T i e<br />
wire should be preferably,<br />
No. 4 wire.<br />
C. Install all trol<br />
ley wire hangers<br />
practically same<br />
height from the top<br />
of the rails, so as to<br />
bring the trolley<br />
wire as nearly on a<br />
level as possible.<br />
This will eliminate<br />
jumping of the trolley<br />
wheel and also<br />
arcing to a certain<br />
extent. The center<br />
distance is governed by the mining laws of different<br />
states, and also by the size and type of locomotives<br />
used.<br />
The severest stress which can be placed upon a<br />
hanger, and especially upon the insulation, is that<br />
encountered on a curve, and in railway practice<br />
pull-offs are used to take care of the strain on<br />
the curve, hut as railway pull-offs are not practical<br />
in mines, (especially in the low veined type),<br />
a sufficient number of hangers should be installed<br />
on the curve to prevent the studs of the hangers<br />
being bent and the trolley clamps from being distorted.<br />
No fixed rule can be laid down for this<br />
as it depends entirely on the strains induced by<br />
the trolley wire and the degree of the curve; but<br />
generally speaking, hangers should be placed from<br />
six to 10 feet apart on curves. For curve work,<br />
it is good practice to use a clamp in which the<br />
boss comes tightly against the insulation when<br />
the clamp is lined up. This will prevent to a<br />
certain extent, bending of the stud (see Fig. 3).<br />
Where pull-offs can be used they should be guyed<br />
with No. 6 galvanized steel wire and should have<br />
Fig. 4. Approved Method ol Dead Ending Trolley Wire.<br />
a Conical Strain Insula<br />
tor cut in the wire.<br />
Timber hangers, as the<br />
name would imply, are<br />
designed to be attached<br />
directly to mine timbers<br />
but in a large number<br />
of mines it has been the<br />
custom to attach the<br />
Fig. 5<br />
Method of Connecting Feeder Wire to the Trolley by means of Two or More Taps to<br />
Obtain Full Capacity of Feeder Wire.<br />
timber hangers directly<br />
to the mine roof, either<br />
by means of suitable expansion<br />
bolts or wooden<br />
of each hanger should be plumbed a certain dis plugs driven into holes in the roof, and the hanger<br />
tance outside the outer edge of track rail. This installed by means of lag bolts. This practice,
50 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
while not so good as if installed on a timber or a<br />
small block, still it has proven satisfactory in service.<br />
The insulation resistance of the hanger<br />
is the same as that of an expansion bolt hanger<br />
and, consequently, leakage would be the same.<br />
Expansion bolt hangers are provided with a<br />
boss into which the end of the expansion bolt may<br />
be screwed. The hanger is usually provided with<br />
a hexagonal body so that a wrench may be applied.<br />
Spikes and nails should not be used for attaching<br />
hangers of any kind to their supports. Steel<br />
mine limbers are rapidly coming into use for timbering<br />
main entries, and a very good installation<br />
of trolley and feeder may be made by fastening the<br />
hangers directly to the bottom of the 1 beams.<br />
Clamps for fastening the hanger to the 1 beams<br />
are now being placed on the market.<br />
D. The subject of proper placing of a trolley<br />
frog or switch pan. as it is sometimes called, has<br />
frequently been brought to the writer's attention.<br />
and on account of various sizes of locomotives<br />
used, it is a rather difficult matter to etermine.<br />
Circular No. 23 of the Bureau of Standards recommends<br />
that frogs be placed 10 to 12 feet back<br />
from point of latch and held in horizontal position<br />
by properly placing hangers on the line near frogs.<br />
It has been the writer's experience that the distance<br />
specified will be satisfactory for most of the<br />
conditions encountered in mines.<br />
Trolley frogs are provided, as a rule, with four<br />
pull-off rings or eyes so that they may lie guyed<br />
to the pioper position by the use ol' guy wires.<br />
Never attach a guy wire on a frog or any other<br />
trolley device which is to carry current, without<br />
cutting in a Conical Strain Insulator in the guy,<br />
which will properly insulate it.<br />
Frogs should always be placed on branches leaving<br />
main trolley.<br />
Malleable iron trolley frogs are now making<br />
their appearance upon the market and can be used<br />
to advantage in mine service.<br />
E. When dead-ending trolley wire, it should he<br />
securely anchored and insulated, either by use of<br />
a Conical Strain Insulator and ordinary turnbuckle,<br />
or a Brooklyn Strain Insulator which is<br />
really a combination of the above two mentioned,<br />
or other suitable insulator. A suitable galvanized<br />
clamp should be used for holding the dead-end loop<br />
at the end of the trolley wire (see Fig. 4).<br />
F. Allow proper clearances in all cases for the<br />
trolley wheel. It is extremely bad practice to<br />
allow the wdieel to touch the roof, even though the<br />
roof may be hard sandstone or other formation, as<br />
it increases wear on the wheel and is generally<br />
unsatisfactory. It is better to install more hangers<br />
where the trolley touches the roof; that is,<br />
install them so that they will come closer together.<br />
It is still better to shoot down a little of the top<br />
and get the proper clearance, where conditions will<br />
permit.<br />
G. The manner of making the proper connection<br />
at a point where feeder is to be tapped into the<br />
trolley wire, should receive careful consideration.<br />
The practice of hooking feeder around the trolley<br />
clamps should not be permitted, as they invariably<br />
work loose and cause trouble. A high resistance<br />
will generate considerable heat and will produce<br />
a very vicious arc which will probably burn off<br />
the feeder. It is recommended that a good form<br />
of feeder ear or clamp be employed, and where the<br />
feeder is of such size that it will not fit the ear,<br />
two or even three ears should be installed at that<br />
point and suitable taps run from the feeder proper<br />
to the ears (see Fig 5). The total area of copper<br />
in circular mils in the taps should he equal to the<br />
area in circular mils of the cable. Feed-in yokes<br />
made especially for feeding in purposes may be<br />
purchased in the market and will he found satis<br />
factory for this purpose.<br />
H. The selection of a proper trolley clamp is a<br />
matter that should receive proper consideration.<br />
Clamps have been designed which are too long and<br />
which, when the hanger is installed slightly out<br />
of plumb, produce a bump or projection in the<br />
trolley wire which invariably causes arcing as the<br />
trolley wheel passes the clamp (see Fig. 61. The<br />
clamp should be narrow so that the wheel will<br />
pass it without striking and the nut or other<br />
clamping means should be located high enough on<br />
the clamp proper so as not to strike a badly worn<br />
trolley wdieel. A great deal of the sparking of<br />
trolley at hanger points could be eliminated by the<br />
use of a well designed clamp and keeping the hangers<br />
carefully plumbed.<br />
I. Splices in the electrical circuit should be<br />
made with care, as it is astonishing to observe the<br />
drop in voltage caused from poorly made joints.<br />
Splices in the trolley circuit may be made by suit-
able splicers designed for this purpose, and may<br />
be either soldered or mechanical. Splices in feeders<br />
should be made by the use of a good splicer<br />
and may be either of the soldered or mechanical<br />
type.<br />
It is known that where two dissimilar metals are<br />
joined together, as would be the case where two<br />
copper wires were joined by means of a soldered<br />
connector, that due to the excessively moist atmosphere<br />
there will be set up a local electrolytic action<br />
which in time will destroy the joint. A remedy<br />
for this is to simply tape the joint so that it will<br />
he protected from the moisture.<br />
J. Section insulators for sectionalizing the trolley<br />
circuit may be purchased in the market and<br />
they should be installed in such a manner as to<br />
prevent their wobbling when the trolley wheel<br />
passes under them. It is generally considered<br />
good practice to install a section insulator on a<br />
hanger. They may also be supported by hangers<br />
installed a short distance on each side of the insulator.<br />
Section insulators are of three general kinds:<br />
the ordinary, automatic, and hand operated. The<br />
ordinary type of section insulator is used where it<br />
is desired simply to sectionalize the trolley, as foi<br />
instance, in a case where one feeder would feed<br />
one section of trolley and another feeder another<br />
section of trolley. There is no means provided<br />
for connecting the two sections of trolley together.<br />
except by the use of a jumper in an emergency.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
The Automatic Section Insulator is designed<br />
with a rocker arm so placed tbat the action of the<br />
trolley wheel in passing under the section insulator<br />
will cut in a section of trolley ahead of the locomotive.<br />
Tney have operated satisfactorily but<br />
are open to the objection that they frequently get<br />
out of order and the movable parts give trouble.<br />
The Section Insulator with switch is an ordinary<br />
section insulator with a knife switch placed on<br />
one side. The handle of the switch is brought out<br />
at an angle of about 45 degrees and is so placed<br />
that the locomotive driver in passing under the<br />
section insulator may throw the switch. It has<br />
Ihe advantage of few working parts, very rugged<br />
construction and light weight.<br />
K. In wiring entries where a grounded circuit<br />
is used, care should be taken to install the positive<br />
or hot wire next to tbe rib. and the negative or<br />
cold wire installed 10" on the outside of the hot<br />
wire.<br />
No electrical conductors of any kind should be<br />
installed in mines unless they are put up on suitable<br />
insulators or hangers. This, of course, would<br />
not apply to cases where conduit is used, but this<br />
latter condition is rather rare.<br />
The installation of incandescent lamps in a mine<br />
should be done as thoroughly as that employed in<br />
house wiring. The practice of soldering a wire<br />
61<br />
to the base of a lamp and hooking the other end<br />
across the circuit should be discontinued. Special<br />
precautions should be taken in gaseous mines to<br />
enclose all incandescent lamps in air tight globes.<br />
The rules covering this will be found in the mining<br />
laws of various states<br />
L Whenever there is danger of the wires being<br />
touched, as for example, where they cross an entry,<br />
they should be protected either by trenching the<br />
roof or other suitable means. If trenches ate<br />
used they should then be covered by 1" boards fastened<br />
by wooden pegs or other means. The wires<br />
must not touch the roof but must lie thoroughly<br />
insulated and well separated from it.<br />
It should be understood that the above suggestions<br />
are for the average conditions encountered<br />
in a mine. Special conditions, of course, would<br />
require special treatment and cannot be covered<br />
here.<br />
Appreciating that the lack of a good simple formula<br />
for determining the amount of feeder necessary<br />
to handle any installation is quite keenly felt,<br />
a formula which is quite generally accepted is<br />
given below:<br />
We will take a concrete example:<br />
Required size of feeder to transmit 300 amperes,<br />
total distance from power house to center of distribution<br />
3000 feet. 15 per cent, allowable drop in<br />
22 xD x I<br />
voltage. From formula. CM = , we<br />
L<br />
have the following, where D = the distance in<br />
feet, I = Current and L = Voltage Loss, 22 is a<br />
constant:<br />
L = 15% of 250 = 37Mi Volts<br />
22x3000x300<br />
CM =<br />
37 %<br />
19800000<br />
= 528000 C. M.<br />
37%<br />
In practice, a 500,0(10 C. M. Cable would probably<br />
be installed or, under some conditions, a 4-0<br />
feeder and a 4-1) trolley could be tied together<br />
and used to take care of this condition although<br />
not quite up to the required area. In these calculations<br />
it is assumed in all cases that the track<br />
return resistance is equal to the trolley resistance.<br />
as this is the most economical condition for the<br />
transmission of power using the track return. The<br />
subject of the proper care and maintenance of the<br />
track return circuit is reserved for a later article.<br />
Mr. Robert Mitchell, general sales agent of the<br />
Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Co., who has been in<br />
poor health for the past two or three years, is reported<br />
to have benefited somewhat by recent treatment,<br />
but is as yet unable to resume active business<br />
duties.
52 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
STEEL MINE TIMBERS IN DODSON COLLIERY<br />
The Dodson colliery of the Plymouth Coal Co. is<br />
noted as the place at which culm flushing was<br />
first tried out, in 1891, by Gilbert Jones, general<br />
superintendent, under the direction of Mr. John<br />
C. Haddock, now president of the company.<br />
The timbering in the pump room of this colliery<br />
has been a matter of difficulty owing to<br />
movement of the strata above it. The original<br />
wooden timbering consisted of 18-inch to 22-inch<br />
round sticks of white pine, yellow pine, and oak<br />
placed 2 feet center to center. A great deal of<br />
trouble was experienced from these timbers becoming<br />
forced in close upon the pipe lines with<br />
the possibility of breaking them. As new timbers<br />
were placed, they were put in between the<br />
seats already in, so that eventually the pump<br />
room had timbers practically skin to skin. It is<br />
estimated that the entire pump room was retimbered<br />
in wood once a year.<br />
The pump house is loo feet long, 8 feet high in<br />
the clear and 18 to 22 feet wide. Beginning with<br />
April 16, 1910, the 70 wooden sets of mine timbers<br />
were replaced by 48 steel sets made up of 18-inch,<br />
55-pound, and 20-inch, 65-pound I-beam collars and<br />
6-inch H-beam legs, weighing 23.6 pounds per<br />
foot. The last set was installed about December<br />
15, 1910.<br />
From the statement below it will be noted that<br />
the total cost for timbering once with wood was<br />
$2,415, and the total cost for timbering in steel<br />
$2,889.09, or a difference in first cost of not quite<br />
20 per cent. The steel cost at the mines slightly<br />
over two and a half times the cost of the wooden<br />
sets, and it also cost 33 1-3 per cent, more for<br />
placing. Fewer sets were required, however, and<br />
the ultimate rate was thereby lessened.<br />
The comparative cost of the two installations is<br />
shown in the statement below, prepared by Mr.<br />
Haddock:<br />
WOOD.<br />
Number of sets 70<br />
Average diameter of timber, inches 20<br />
Quality of timber—yellow pine and oak.<br />
Average weight per set, pounds 4,150<br />
Cost per set f. o. b. cars mines $12.00<br />
Cost per set for placing $22.50<br />
Cost per set in place $34.50<br />
Total cost for timbering $2,415.00<br />
Life of timber set, year 1<br />
STEEL.<br />
Number of sets 48<br />
Size of collars, 18-inch beam, pounds 58<br />
Size of collars, 20-inch beam, pounds 65<br />
Size of legs, 6-inch H-beam, pounds 23.6<br />
Quality of steel—structural grade.<br />
Average weight per set, pounds 1,483<br />
Cost per set f. o. b. mines $31.47<br />
Cost per set for placing $30.00<br />
Cost per set in place $61.47<br />
Total cost for timbering $2,889.09<br />
The higher cost of placing the steel is due to<br />
three causes:<br />
1. The charge of taking out the old timber,<br />
which, however, was insignificant, as the steel was<br />
placed a set at a time by forepoling ahead, the<br />
condition of the roof being very bad and there<br />
being loose material for an unknown distance<br />
above.<br />
2. Great care was taken with the steel to line it<br />
up properly and provide a good base, which was<br />
made of a solid concrete wall built the full length<br />
of the pump room on each side. This solid concrete<br />
base is unnecessary with the wood and<br />
might have been omitted with steel, but its use<br />
means a real betterment in the construction.<br />
3. The steel was placed without interfering with<br />
the operation of the pumps, which necessitated<br />
very careful handling and added something to<br />
what the expense would have been had the room<br />
been free fiom obstructions.<br />
It is apparent that while the first cost of the<br />
steel construction is greater than that of wood, it<br />
will have much more than paid for itself if its<br />
life extends over 15 months only, and that every<br />
additional length of time it stands will mean that<br />
much less in cost of maintenance. The first steel<br />
has now been in place 16 months with no sign of<br />
deflection in the collars, and what is better, with<br />
no evidence of fracture in the concrete where any<br />
overloading of the steel would immediately show.<br />
York Coal & Coke Co.. Ashland, Ky.; capital,<br />
$250,000; incorporators, John F. Hager, J. J. Johnson,<br />
E. P. Price and K. M. Fitzgerald, all of Ashland,<br />
and James Sowards of Pikeville, Ky.<br />
Southern Collieries Co., Chaileston. W. Va.; capital,<br />
$10(1,00; incorporators, T. A. Leyshorn, of<br />
Quick, W. Va.; W. G. MacCorkle, S. B. Chilton. S.<br />
Hess and T. S. Clark, of Charleston, W. Va.<br />
Patten Coal Mining Co., Hamilton, Tenn.; capital.<br />
$1(10,000; incorporators, T. A. Leyshorn, of<br />
Barnes, B. D. Turman. W. B. Stewart and James<br />
M. Adams.<br />
A device for testing mine air and detecting<br />
therein the presence of gas in dangerous quantities<br />
has been installed at the office of Chief Mine<br />
Inspector Nesbitt, of Alabama. Samples from<br />
every coal mine in the state will be taken at 30day<br />
intervals by the district inspectors and forwarded<br />
to Birmingham for analysis. It is believed<br />
that the danger of explosions will be considerably<br />
lessened by this means.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 53<br />
> ELECTRICAL ACCIDENTS IN MINES; THEIR CAUSES AND PREVENTION 1<br />
By H. H. Clark.<br />
One of the purposes of the work carried on by<br />
the Bureau of Mines is to make mining safer.<br />
For this reason the bureau is investigating the<br />
causes of mine accidents, the methods by which<br />
such accidents may be prevented, and the best<br />
ways of rendering aid to those who are injured or<br />
put in danger by accidents. This circular tells<br />
what are the chief causes of electrical accidents in<br />
mines, briefly points out tbe precautions that<br />
should be taken to avoid or prevent these accidents,<br />
and gives directions for treating persons<br />
suffering from electric shock or burns.<br />
To make this circular clear to persons not familiar<br />
with electrical matters, the following terms<br />
are defined:<br />
Electric Conductor.—An electric conductor is<br />
something through which electric current may flow,<br />
just as a pipe is something through which water<br />
may flow.<br />
Electric Circuit.—An electric circuit is a system<br />
of electric conductors joined together so that electric<br />
current may flow through them, as water flows<br />
through a system of pipes.<br />
Complete Circuit.—A complete circuit is one in<br />
which the current may flow freely, with nothing<br />
to stop it.<br />
Current Strength.—The strength of a current is<br />
its amount. A large current may be considered as<br />
stronger than a smaller one, because it has more<br />
effect upon a man's body.<br />
Alive and Live.—Alive and live are terms that<br />
mean "charged with electricity," and are used in<br />
speaking of conductors, circuits and machines<br />
that in a condition to give an electric shock.<br />
Insulator.—An insulator is something that stops<br />
the flow of electric current, just as a clam stops<br />
the flow of water.<br />
Voltage.—Voltage means electric pressure. Voltage<br />
causes electric current to flow, just as water<br />
pressure causes a current of water to flow.<br />
In handling live electrical machines or wires,<br />
or in working near them, care must be used to<br />
avoid getting a shock. This is especially true<br />
when the wires or machines are underground, because,<br />
as a general thing,<br />
THERE IS LITTLE SPACE<br />
little light, and much dampness in a mine, and<br />
these are conditions which help to make electrical<br />
accidents possible.<br />
The fact that the earth is used as a return cir<br />
cuit for the electric current places the miner in<br />
the position of standing upon one terminal of an<br />
electric generator: therefore, if be touches only a<br />
*Mine Circular No. 5. Department of the Interior. Bureau<br />
of Mines.<br />
single point connected to the other terminal of<br />
the generator (such as the trolley wire, a metal<br />
part of a switch, a bare place on a mining machine<br />
wire, or a live part of a motor) he is likely<br />
to receive a shock, the effect of which will vary<br />
with conditions from a severe jolt to a bad burn<br />
or even death.<br />
A man's body is an electric conductor, although<br />
it is not as good a conductor as a trolley wire<br />
or a track rail, and current will (low thiough the<br />
body if it is made part of an electric circuit. The<br />
effect that such a current will produce depends<br />
upon its strength. The current may be so small<br />
that it cannot be felt; it may be only strong<br />
enough to give a slight shock; it may be strong<br />
enough to produce insensibility and death.<br />
The amount of current which will How through<br />
a man's body when it is made part of an electric<br />
circuit depends upon two things:<br />
( 1) The voltage or pressure of the circuit.<br />
(2) The completeness of the contact between<br />
the man's body and the circuit.<br />
Under the same conditions more current will<br />
flow from a large voltage than from a smaller one.<br />
A single-cell battery giving one to two volts can<br />
cause a current to flow through the body, but the<br />
current is too small to be felt. Much more current<br />
will flow through the body from contact with<br />
a 1 Ui-volt circuit. Such a current will give a<br />
slight shock. Contact with circuits of higher<br />
voltage allows even stronger currents to flow and<br />
these give more severe shocks.<br />
If a perfect insulator could be found, a man<br />
might stand upon it and place his hand upon a<br />
500-volt trolley wire without receiving a shock,<br />
because the circuit through his body would not be<br />
complete and no current could flow. If a man<br />
should stand upon damp earth and handle a live<br />
trolley wire wdth gloves that were moist with<br />
sweat he would probably<br />
RECEIVE A SEVERE SHOCK,<br />
because a circuit would be completed through his<br />
body. If he wore no gloves the shock would be<br />
heavy enough to knock him down and might even<br />
kill him. because the circuit through bis body<br />
would be still more complete. There are some<br />
men, but not many, to whom this last statement<br />
does not seem to apply.<br />
It is most important to realize the extreme difficulty<br />
of so insulating the body that a circuit can<br />
not be completed through it. There is no such<br />
thing as a perfect insulator, although for practical<br />
purposes a number of things may be so considered.<br />
The most that can be done is to so insulate the<br />
body that the current which passes through it
54 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
will be so small that no shock will be felt. The<br />
difficulty of doing this becomes greater as the volt<br />
age that is handled increases.<br />
The most common voltages used underground<br />
are 110, 250 and 500 to 600 volts. The first volt<br />
age, whicli is used very rarely, is not hard to<br />
guard against, and the conditions under which<br />
it will give a severe shock are seldom, if ever, met.<br />
It is much more difficult to protect the body from<br />
25D volts, and in working about circuits of 500 to<br />
6i)0 volts great care must be used in order to escape<br />
shock, especially when the earth is used as one<br />
side of the circuit, as it very often is in mine work.<br />
The reports of the mine inspectors of several<br />
states indicate that most of the shocks received<br />
in mines result from contact with trolley wires.<br />
These wires have to be bare of insulation, an'J<br />
they cannot easily be shielded from passers-by<br />
throughout their entire length. A trolley wire<br />
must often be strung less than a man's height<br />
from the floor, with a track rail almost directly<br />
underneath it. Everything combines to make it<br />
dangerous to travel in the same entry with a trol<br />
ley wire, especially if tools are being carried or<br />
things are happening that distract the attention.<br />
Great care is necessary to avoid shocks in crossing<br />
over trips of cars or entering or leaving them from<br />
the trolley-wire side. In such case a man's head<br />
must pass close beside the wire at the time that<br />
his attention is given to watching his footing.<br />
Next to contact with trolley wires, the most<br />
likely cause of shock is contact with parts of ma<br />
chines or equipment that aie not supposed nor in<br />
tended to carry current, but are accidentally<br />
charged with electricity. This<br />
CHARGING IS CAUSED<br />
by the failure of insulation or by a live wire coming<br />
in contact with equipment. The frame of a<br />
motor or cutting machine or the iron casing of an<br />
inclosed switch may become alive and may then<br />
give as bad a shock as a trolley wire. Such a<br />
condition is especially dangerous because it is<br />
unexpected.<br />
The frame of a locomotive is usually so completely<br />
in contact with the track rail that a man<br />
cannot get a shock by standing on the rail and<br />
touching the locomotive, but this may not always<br />
be the case. If for any reason there is a great<br />
deal of sand on the rails the locomotive frame<br />
may be almost completely insulated from them.<br />
In that case a shock may be received from the<br />
locomotive frame or the draw-bars of cars coupled<br />
to the locomotive.<br />
Other shocks aie caused by contact with those<br />
parts of equipment that are known to be alive but<br />
are touched by accident while handling apparatus<br />
or repairing it. This applies to connections made<br />
to the trolley wire while it is carrying current,<br />
to the adjustment of motor brushes, and to all<br />
repairs made to apparatus tbat is alive.<br />
The best way to avoid electric shock is to show<br />
due respect for the electric current. Indifference<br />
to the dangers of electricity does not indicate cour<br />
age or wisdom, but poor judgment and ignorance.<br />
The fact that a man does not get hurt when he is<br />
careless in handling electric wires does not prove<br />
that he is cleverer than other men, but rather<br />
that he is more fortunate. The worst feature of<br />
such acts is the bad effect that they have on those<br />
who see them or are told about them. Those<br />
who know about electrical apparatus and are em<br />
ployed to handle and repair it should try to teach<br />
others to be careful instead of encouraging them<br />
to be careless.<br />
The only sure ways to escape shock are to keep<br />
away from the trolley wire, especially when carry<br />
ing tools; to avoid<br />
TOUCHING ELECTRICAL MACHINES<br />
unnecessarily; and to provide and use some means<br />
of insulating the body when making repairs on<br />
electrical apparatus. If there is a way to cut<br />
off the current from apparatus the current should<br />
lie cut off before the apparatus is handled. If it<br />
is necessary to work on apparatus that is carry<br />
ing current, every precaution should be taken to<br />
insulate the body from the ground.<br />
It is impossible to tell whether conditions are<br />
safe unless the workman has made them so himself.<br />
No one can tell by merely looking at a<br />
motor whether or not the parts that carry current<br />
have come in contact with the frame of the ma<br />
chine. A workman cannot be certain whether the<br />
place where he must stand to repair live apparatus<br />
will sufficiently insulate his body from shock.<br />
The only way for him to be safe is to provide something<br />
suitable to stand on while making repairs.<br />
In doing this he should remember that dryness is<br />
the most desirable quality. Dry boards, free from<br />
nails, are good for the purpose.<br />
Rubber gloves or leather gloves in good condi<br />
tion and without metallic fastenings will protect<br />
the body from shock. If the rubber covering of<br />
gloves is worn thin the gloves give almost no pro<br />
tection. The same is true of leather gloves that<br />
are damp with water or sweat. Rubber boots<br />
without nails in the soles or heels are good pro<br />
tection when new, but if the soles are worn or<br />
cracked, their insulating value is doubtful.<br />
The position of the body is an important matter<br />
in handling apparatus that is carrying current.<br />
If a man has merely to make some adjustment he<br />
should use but one hand, if possible. He should<br />
also try to place his body so that the involuntary<br />
recoil from a possible shock will remove his hands<br />
from the apparatus instead of causing them to<br />
grasp it.<br />
The use of rubber tape on the handles of pliers
screw drivers and wrenches cannot be depended<br />
on unless the tape has been<br />
ERESHI.V AND CAREFULLY<br />
applied. Rubber coverings for the bandies of<br />
such tools are a protection if rhe coverings are<br />
new and in good condition, but even then the<br />
chances are great of touching the hand or the fingers<br />
to an uncovered part. Insulated tools should<br />
not be trusted to give entire protection.<br />
There is one practice that cannot be condemned<br />
too severely, and that is the wilful giving of electrical<br />
shocks to others. This may be done impulsively<br />
or may be deliberately planned, but il<br />
is always dangerous. Tbe effect of such a trick<br />
cannot be'foreseen because there are so many things<br />
to consider. The person who is given the shock<br />
may be so placed and so constituted that serious<br />
and even fatal results will follow.<br />
Great care should be used in handling explosives<br />
near electric current. It requires only a very<br />
small electric spark to set off powder. An exceedingly<br />
small current passed through the powder<br />
itself will explode it.<br />
In carrying explosives in mine cars care should<br />
be taken to keep the packages off the floor of the<br />
car and away from the iron fittings, as these frequently<br />
receive current from the drawbars, especially<br />
when the motorman is using sand on a slippery<br />
rail. Packages of explosives should be kept<br />
closed, and should not be taken into cars that are<br />
near the locomotive, as sparks are often thrown<br />
down from the trolley wheel.<br />
The safest thing to do is to keep explosives as<br />
far away as possible from all electric current. If<br />
explosives must be handled near the current, use<br />
every precaution to protect the packages.<br />
The following of tbe suggestions given below<br />
will help to lessen the number of electrical accidents.<br />
la) SUGGESTIONS FOR MINE FOREMEN.<br />
Don't allow the men to ride electric locomotives.<br />
Don't allow inexperienced men to handle electric<br />
wires.<br />
Don't fail to protect the trolley wires at crossovers<br />
and partings.<br />
Don't allow wires to be installed in a slipshod<br />
manner.<br />
Don't fail to have wires promptly repaired after<br />
roof falls.<br />
Don't allow explosives to be carried in cars near<br />
the locomotive.<br />
(b) SUGGESTIONS FOR ELECTRICIANS.<br />
Don't fail to set a good example for less experienced<br />
men to follow.<br />
Don't work on live apparatus if it is possible<br />
to cut off the current.<br />
Don't stand directly on the ground and work<br />
upon live apparatus of any kind—get something<br />
dry to stand on.<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 55<br />
Don't rely upon gloves for protection, unless<br />
they are perfectly dry, free from holes, and without<br />
metal parts.<br />
Don't, under any circumstances, work on live<br />
apparatus that is charged with a voltage greater<br />
than 650 volts.<br />
Don't handle wires carelessly just because they<br />
are insulated.<br />
Don't send an inexperienced man to work on or<br />
about live apparatus.<br />
Don't neglect to inspect your equipment regularly.<br />
Don't ever cause anyone to receive an electricshock.<br />
(c) SUGGESTIONS FOR MIXERS.<br />
Don't think that it is smart to get an electric<br />
shock. Every time a man gets a shock it shows<br />
that he has been lacking in care or knowledge.<br />
Don't be ashamed to be careful. You owe this<br />
not only to yourself but to others who may follow<br />
your example.<br />
Don't handle wires or electrical apparatus of<br />
any kind unless you are told to do so.<br />
Don't get off or on trips from the trolley-wire<br />
side.<br />
Don't carry tools on your shoulders when crossing<br />
under the trolley wire or when traveling in<br />
the same entry with it.<br />
Don't travel in the same entry with the trolley<br />
wire if you can avoid doing so.<br />
Don't get your explosives near electric wires.<br />
Don't allow packages of explosives to come in<br />
contact with the metal parts of cars.<br />
Don't carry explosives in cars near the locomotive.<br />
Don't ever cause anyone to receive an electric<br />
shock.<br />
Don't ride on electric locomotives.<br />
Don't fail to report when you find that electric<br />
wires are down.<br />
Don't install temporary lights—leave that work<br />
to tbe electrician.<br />
When a man has received an electric shock that<br />
leaves him senseless, two things should be done<br />
as soon as possible.<br />
First, remove the victim from contact with the<br />
electric wire.<br />
Second, revive him or "bring him to" by getting<br />
him to breathe.<br />
While removing the victim from the electric<br />
circuit, be careful not to get a shock yourself. If<br />
there is a switch right at hand, cut off the current<br />
at once: but if there will be any delay in cutting<br />
off the current, remove the body from the circuit<br />
by means of a piece of dry wood, used either to roll<br />
or push tbe body aside or to lift from the body<br />
whatever is carrying current to it. Tools with<br />
dry wooden handles, such as picks or axes, may be<br />
safely used for this purpose.
56 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
The body of the victim can be safely grasped if<br />
your hands are protected by several thicknesses of<br />
dry cloth, or if you stand upon a piece of dry<br />
wood.<br />
When you can do nothing else, you may be able<br />
to short-circuit the line with which the victim is<br />
in contact, and thus<br />
GLOW TIIE CIRCUIT BREAKER<br />
or fuses which protect that part of the electric system.<br />
A short circuit may be made by placing an auger<br />
or drill or a piece of pipe so that it will connect<br />
the two sides of the electric circuit. For example.<br />
in case the victim is in contact with a trolley wire.<br />
the auger, drill, or pipe should be thrown across<br />
the trolley wire and track rail, so as to be in contact<br />
with both. In doing this, be sure that the<br />
auger, drill, or pipe leaves your hand before it<br />
touches the current-carrying part of the circuit, as<br />
otherwise you will get a shock yourself.<br />
When the victim has been removed from contact<br />
with the current, turn him on his back, loosen<br />
the clothing from around his neck, chest and abdomen,<br />
and place a small log, a rolled-up coat, or<br />
something of similar size and shape under bis<br />
shoulders in such a way as to throw his head back<br />
and chest up.<br />
The next thing to do is to draw out the victim's<br />
tongue, which can best be done by grasping it<br />
wdth a piece of dry cloth. This act clears the<br />
windpipe, and unless it is done, the victim cannot<br />
be made to breathe. If the rescuer is alone, he<br />
will have to keep the tongue in this position by<br />
tying it with a handkerchief or a bandage passed<br />
over the tongue and under the jaw.<br />
The tongue must be held in this position while<br />
giving artificial respiration.<br />
There are several methods of giving artificial<br />
respiration, but the one most commonly used is the<br />
Sylvester method. Kneel behind the head of the<br />
victim, grasp his forearms just below the elbows<br />
and draw them slowly backward until they are extended<br />
as far as possible over his head and hold<br />
them there for aoout one second.<br />
IY0U CAN'T<br />
LOOK INTO THE<br />
EARTH, but WE<br />
C A N get you a large j<br />
clean core of all strata un- !<br />
s<br />
der your land tc be ex- \<br />
amined in broad daylight. 5<br />
. No Guess Work. . P<br />
^TheJ. A. BRENNAN DRILLING CO.<br />
) Home Office, SCRANTON, PA.<br />
> Field Office, House Building, PITTSBURGH, PA.<br />
S Contractors for DIAMOND DRILLING, OIL AND ARTESIAN WELL DRILLING ;<br />
Then slowly push the elbows forward and downward.<br />
Next press the elbows firmly against the<br />
chest and hold them there for about one second<br />
so as to drive out the air from the lungs.<br />
Do not perform these movements hurriedly;<br />
pumping the arms up and down is a waste of time.<br />
To complete one series of movements should take<br />
about four seconds. A very<br />
GOOD WAY TO TIME<br />
yourself is to count, very slowly, "one, two, three,<br />
four," while making the movements. Count "one"<br />
as the victim's arms are being extended, count<br />
"two" while ihey are held above his head, count<br />
"three" while his arms are being returned to his<br />
side, and count "four" while exerting pressure on<br />
his chest.<br />
Usually a victim of electric shock can be made<br />
to breathe within an hour, and the artificial respiration<br />
should be continued at least that long,<br />
even if the patient does not show any signs of<br />
being "brought to."<br />
If other persons are at hand, have them assist<br />
by relieving you at short intervals, and have them<br />
keep the victim warm by covering him with coats<br />
or anything else that may be at hand. After the<br />
victim begins to breathe the assistants should rub<br />
his limbs briskly and toward the heart, keeping<br />
their hands under the covering while doing so.<br />
This will help to restore the circulation of the<br />
blood, which has been for a time suspended.<br />
While arrangements are being made for removing<br />
the injured man to his home or to a hospital.<br />
treat any injuries that the victim has received.<br />
Treat electric burns exactly as ordinary burns.<br />
Before the arrival of a doctor it is proper to cover<br />
the burnt place with several thicknesses of picricacid<br />
gauze. This gauze is now being used in<br />
nearly all mines and hospital emergency rooms.<br />
In case no picric-acid gauze is at hand the burns<br />
may be covered with clean gauze, preferably taken<br />
from sterile packages, and covered with vaseline,<br />
carbolized vaseline, olive oil, linseed oil, or what<br />
is known as carron oil, which is a mixture of linseed<br />
oil and lime-water.<br />
Cover these dressings wdth plenty of cotton aud<br />
protect this in turn from the outside air with oiled<br />
paper or anything that wdll keep out the air while<br />
the victim is being taken home or to a hospital.<br />
Bandage all dressings lightly so as to cause as<br />
little pressure as possible upon the injuries.<br />
"These porous plasters are something new."<br />
"As to how?"<br />
"After they have been used as plasters they may<br />
be put on the pianola and wdll play a tune. We<br />
have belladonna plasters comprising all the popular<br />
airs."
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 57<br />
PEALE, PEACOCK & KERR<br />
OF NEW YORK<br />
VICTOR<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
ANTHRACITE COAL<br />
GAS COAL<br />
AND COKE<br />
REMBRANDT PEALE, President. H. W. HENRY, V. Pres. & Traffic Mgr.<br />
JOSEPH H. LUMLEY, Treasurer.<br />
No. 1 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.<br />
North American Building, PHILADELPHIA,<br />
E. E. WALLING, Vice President.
58 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
The sale of coal lands and all properties owned<br />
by the Sleepy Mountain Coal Co. of M<strong>org</strong>an and<br />
Berkeley counties, W. Va., to Hay Walker, Jr., of<br />
Pittsburgh, for $250,000, by Special Master John<br />
C. Berry, has been approved by Judge Dayton, in<br />
the United States Circuit Court, at Wheeling, W.<br />
Va.<br />
Wanted<br />
Position to work at coal mine. I have had<br />
some experience in office work at coal mine.<br />
Ge<strong>org</strong>e O. Shickler, Jr., Union Bank Bldg., Pittsburgh,<br />
Pa. Phone Court 3742. 12-1<br />
Timber and Coal For Sale<br />
About six hundred acres of virgin hardwood<br />
timber, sizes up to six feet in diameter and about<br />
two thousand acres coal, upland, on railroad, in<br />
Ohio County, Kentucky.<br />
Good place for Mill Plant and Coal Mine.<br />
Please write for engagements before coming to<br />
see it, because I cannot afford to show or talk<br />
about the property without previous arrangements<br />
to do so by letter.<br />
Please address WM. M. WARDEN, Centertown,<br />
Kentucky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Besides accessible Timber Tracts and operating<br />
Coal Mines and Lands: On Rail a fine Kentucky<br />
Cannel Coal Mine in operation.<br />
W. G. HAMILTON,<br />
Louisville, Ky.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
59 mine cars, 40 inch"gauge. iy4 tons capacity.<br />
In good condition. Address U. B. Co., care THE<br />
COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
General Map of the Bituminous<br />
Coal Fields of Pennsylvania.<br />
1909-10.<br />
Knowing the location of the mines, and giving<br />
the names and post office addresses of the Operators<br />
and Purchasing Agents. With which is<br />
combined a Geological, Railway and Waterway<br />
Outlet Map of the entire Appalachian Coal Field<br />
from Pennsylvania to Alabama, giving the location<br />
and extent of all the Coal Districts. Published<br />
and for sale by BAIRD HALBERSTADT,<br />
F. G. S., Geologist and Engineer, POTTSVILLE, PA.<br />
FOR SALE.<br />
Coal yard, switch, scale, house and stable.<br />
Price $4,500. H. SOENTGEN, Ford City, Pa.<br />
WANTS TO SELL ON COMMISSION.<br />
Party in close touch with large consumers of<br />
gas slack in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jer<br />
sey wishes to establish connection wdth reliable<br />
mine on commission basis. Please give full par<br />
ticulars, analysis of coal, name, location and out<br />
fit of mine, etc.<br />
C. V. EMERICK, Easton, Pa.<br />
For Sale or Lease.<br />
For sale or will lease on favorable terms 1100<br />
acres coal land in Bell County, Ky., on Cumberland<br />
Valley Division of the L. & N. Railway. For<br />
particulars, address<br />
PHILADELPHIA VEXEER & LUMBER CO.,<br />
817 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, Pa.<br />
IF YOU WANT to buy from 1,000 to<br />
4000 acres of Coal Mining Rights in<br />
Hopkins County, Ky., directly on Louisville<br />
& Nashville R. R., at a bargain price<br />
and on liberal terms, and if you mean<br />
business, write me,<br />
I. BAILEY,<br />
Madisonville, Ky.<br />
5000 Acres of Coal Land<br />
For Sale.<br />
Located in the famous Southern<br />
Illinois field, thoroughly tested and<br />
of unsurpassed quality and quantity,<br />
with excellent shipping facilities.<br />
Surrounded with up-to-date mines.<br />
A. bargain. Full particulars and<br />
prices upon application.<br />
W. A. HAMILTON,<br />
Terre Haute, Ind.
LAKE COMMERCE DORING SEPTEMBER.<br />
Lake commerce during September as measured<br />
by the volume of freight shipments between domestic<br />
ports on the Great Lakes aggregated 10,-<br />
730,460 short tons, compared with 11,892,412 anil<br />
12,527,865 short tons shipped during September.<br />
1910 and 1909, respectively. Reports to the Bureau<br />
of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and<br />
Labor show smaller monthly figures for all classes<br />
of merchandise except hard coal and miscellaneous<br />
treight than those reported a year ago. The season<br />
shipments to the end of September totaled<br />
56,314,826 short tons, as against. 68,195,753 short<br />
tons in 1910 and 37,060,153 short tons two years<br />
ago. The shipments of iron ore during the<br />
month aggregated 5,032,948 long tons, compared<br />
with 6,009,682 long tons during September, 1910.<br />
ine largest losses are shown by Duluth and Ashland,<br />
while shipments from Superior and Marquette<br />
docks appear to have been larger than last<br />
year. The total season shipments of iron ore to<br />
the end of September are given as 24,106,818 long<br />
tons, indicating a decrease of over lo million tons<br />
as compared with the 1910 shipments. Of the<br />
total iron ore received during the present season,<br />
19,019,777 long tons are credited to Lake Erie<br />
ports and 4;322,6S9 long tons to Lake Michigan<br />
ports.<br />
The shipments of soft coal (luring the month,<br />
chiefly from Lake Erie ports, aggregated 2,314,782<br />
short tons, compared with 2,457,721 short tons reported<br />
for September, 1910. Over one-half of these<br />
shipments proceeded from Ashtabula and Toledo.<br />
The 9 months' shipments totaled 12,823,808 short<br />
tons, as against 13,697,705 short tons reported last<br />
year. Duluth-Superior and Milwaukee were the<br />
principal destinations of these shipments, taking<br />
about two-thirds of the total receipts. The September<br />
and 9 months' shipments of hard coal, 455,-<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 69<br />
716 and 3,262,880 short tons, respectively, mainly<br />
from Buffalo, Erie and Oswego, were in excess of<br />
the corresponding 1910 shipments. Practically<br />
all of this coal was destined to Lake Superior<br />
ports, chiefly Duluth-Superior, which are credited<br />
with 1,209,806 short tons and to Lake Michigan<br />
ports, chiefly Milwaukee and Chicago where 1,917,-<br />
749 short tons were landed.<br />
The vessel movement in the domestic trade during<br />
September comprised 10,158 departures representing<br />
14,025,808 net tons register, as against<br />
9,897 departures and 14,743,014 net tons register<br />
in September, 1910. Departures for the 9 months<br />
comprised 60,800 vessels of 79.551,420 net tons<br />
register, as against 59.83S vessels of 86,907,512 net<br />
tons register in 1910. It is thus seen that while<br />
the number ot active vessels increased, the combined<br />
tonnage of these vessels decreased, due probably<br />
to the smaller number of trips made by larger<br />
ore-carrying boats.<br />
SPANISH COAL TRADE.<br />
It is estimated that the consumption of coal in<br />
Spain increases by 200,000 to 250,000 tons each<br />
year. Considerably over 6,500,000 tons are now<br />
used annually. The present production of the<br />
country is over 4,000,000 tons, which increases<br />
from 400,000 to 500,000 tons every year. The importation<br />
has remained neaily stationary for the<br />
past five years, being slightly over 2,000.000 tons,<br />
with a value of $11,500,000.<br />
The importation of coke is about 300,000 tons.<br />
valued at $1,980,000. With the exception of Italy,<br />
Spain is the European country of size which produces<br />
the least coal as shown by recently published<br />
statistics, as follows: Great Britain, 200,000,000<br />
tons annually; Germany, 194,000,000; Austria-Hungary,<br />
45,000,000; France, 35,000,000; Belgium, 24.-<br />
000,000; Spain, 4,01)0,000.<br />
ARGYLE COAL COMPANY<br />
SOUTH FORK,<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF THE<br />
FAMOUj<br />
TT<br />
"ARGYLE"<br />
SMOKELESS<br />
O A<br />
PENNSYLVANIA.
60 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
PHILIPPINE COAL PRODUCTION.<br />
Considerable interest is shown in the coal situation<br />
of the Philippines by South China commercial<br />
circles, writes Consul General Ge<strong>org</strong>e E. Anderson,<br />
Hongkong, not only because of the great<br />
incerase in the imports of fuel into the islands<br />
during the past fiscal year, important in the volume<br />
of business it represents and its effect upon<br />
shipping, but also because of the fact that the<br />
islands are commencing to produce a considerable<br />
portion of their own coal supply.<br />
It is announced that the mine at East Batan is<br />
now turning out 100 tons of coal per day and that<br />
as soon as a new chute system is completed it<br />
will be able to turn out and handle economically<br />
300 tons per day, or about 100,000 tons per year.<br />
This mining enterprise, which was undertaken<br />
several years ago, at first proved a financial failure,<br />
and some time ago it was placed in charge of<br />
Mr. William E. Nolting under an agreement between<br />
the company and its creditors. This receiver<br />
or manager, in connection with Mr. E. R.<br />
Hix, a coal expert from the United States, has<br />
re<strong>org</strong>anized the business, and it is now said to be<br />
upon a paying basis.<br />
The government of the Philippines has aided tht<br />
enterprise by advancing funds against contracts<br />
for coal. The contracts for coal are now being<br />
carried out. The coal is of good quality and the<br />
MINED AND SHIPPED BY<br />
managers report that there is little or no doubt<br />
that the entire output of the mine will be taken<br />
by the government or by local consumers for the<br />
next year or more. Already, however, possibilities<br />
of a market for the fuel in near-by ports are<br />
being canvassed and the government and managers<br />
have full data carefully prepared as to the possibilities<br />
of the export trade.<br />
The import trade of the Philippines in coal has<br />
greatly expanded in the last year or so. The imports<br />
of coal into the islands in the fiscal year<br />
ending June 30. 1911, amounted to 403,146 metric<br />
tons, valued at $1,267,312, as compared with imports<br />
of 303,117 ordinary tons, valued at $972,341,<br />
in 1910, 171,088 tons, valued at $461,465, in 1909,<br />
and 213,959 tons, valued at $567,220, in 1908. Up<br />
to 19(19 Australia supplied most of these imports,<br />
furnishing 169,151 tons out of the total of 171,088<br />
tons imported that fiscal year. In 1910, however,<br />
Japan commenced to enter the trade in earnest,<br />
apparently largely because of labor troubles in<br />
Australia. For the last two years it bas furnished<br />
about half of the total imports into the<br />
islands, though British North Borneo has commenced<br />
to enter the trade.<br />
The Alex. M. Gilchrist & Sons Coal Co., Wellsburg,<br />
W. Va., has filed notice of dissolution.<br />
THE LEHIGH COAL AND NAVIGATION COMPANY<br />
SUMMIT<br />
Registered U. S.<br />
GREENWOOD<br />
Patent Office<br />
GENERAL OFFICES, 437 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA<br />
W. A. LATHROP, President ROLLIN H. WILBUR, Vice President<br />
RICHARD T. DAVIES, General Coal Agent<br />
F. N. ULRICK, Assistant General Coal Agent<br />
REPRESENTATIVES :<br />
NEW YORK: CARROLL MOORE, SALES ACENT BOSTON: 0. B. JOHNSON. EASTERN SALES AGENT<br />
143 LIBERTY STREET 141 MILK STREET
LIVINGSTON COAL MINE<br />
LEADS IN PRODUCTION.<br />
Secretary David Ross of the Bureau of Lahor<br />
Statistics. Springfield, 111., is in receipt of the<br />
following communication from T. G. Hebenstreit,<br />
superintendent of the Xew Staunton Coal Co.,<br />
Livingston, 111., relative to the tonnage of that<br />
mine:<br />
"Livingston mine hoisted during the last half<br />
of October 54,649V2 tons, working 13 9-16 days,<br />
making an average of 4,029 tons per day. Our<br />
record hoist September 29th is 4,265 tons, making<br />
1,492 dumps or hoists, loading 105 railroad cars<br />
in 8 hours. The above for your information. We<br />
claim the record for the state."<br />
Concerning the facts herein reported, Secretary<br />
Ross makes the following comments:<br />
"The statement of Superintendent Hebenstreit<br />
touching the hoisting record of that mine, which<br />
is unsurpassed in the annals of Illinois mining.<br />
is significant not only as indicating the present<br />
producing capacity of some of our mines, but as<br />
illustrating the wide divergence between mere<br />
theory and the actual facts as developed by<br />
experience. Among the demands made by the<br />
miners during the general suspension of 1897,<br />
was that for an eight-hour workday. Following<br />
the termination of that contest this was conceded<br />
and since then has formed a part of the annual<br />
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
61<br />
and biennial agreements between the miners and<br />
operators of this and competing states. Up to<br />
that time it was the general opinion that a<br />
reduction in the working hours from ten to eight<br />
per day would very materially reduce the volume<br />
of production, and, notwithstanding the presen:<br />
day demand to limit, through agreements, the<br />
output in accordance with the consumption, many<br />
mine owners opposed the shorter day for the<br />
reason that it would have that effect. Since the<br />
adoption of the eight-hour day most of the mining<br />
properties in this state have increased their<br />
output from fifty to three hundred per cent. The<br />
agencies that have made possible this augmented<br />
production were not in our theoretical conclusions<br />
taken into consideration. The early advocates of<br />
the eight-hour workday were deceived in the<br />
same manner as shown by their contention that<br />
its direct effect would be to furnish employment<br />
to more men, thereby absorbing the surplus competitive<br />
labor while maintaining a corresponding<br />
relative production. Contrary to preconceived<br />
notions, the shorter workday has resulted in not<br />
ably increased production. If we can only sue<br />
eeed in inducing the public to consider, not t<br />
supposed immediate but the ultimate results o<br />
our economic evolution, much will be accon:<br />
plished in the way of destroying blind, unreason<br />
ing antagonism to present and future industi<br />
reforms."<br />
J V<br />
Greenwich Coal & Coke Co.,<br />
Miners and Shipper* of<br />
"Greenwich"<br />
Bituminous Coal<br />
Celebrated for<br />
STEAM AND BI-PRODUCT PURPOSES.<br />
dENERAL OFFICE<br />
M|IM: CAMBRIA AND INDIANA COUNTIES, Latrobe, Penna.<br />
>L r
62 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
Atlantic Crushed Coke Co.<br />
MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF<br />
LATROBE STEAM COAL<br />
CONNELLSVILLE<br />
FURNACE nni/r<br />
FOUNDRY KK<br />
CRUSHED UUIXLl<br />
GENERAL OFFICES : - - - - GREENSBURG, PA.<br />
! AGME GOAL MINING COMPANY, 5<br />
! GREENSBURG. RA. 5<br />
! S<br />
s MINERS AND SHIPPERS J<br />
: ACME AND AVONDALE :<br />
! HIGH GRADE STEAM GOALS,<br />
5 MINES, UIMEKSBURG AND SHANNON STATION, PA. $<br />
J SLIGO BRANCH B. & A. V. DIVISION OF P. K. Ii. ^<br />
S C. J. RENWICK, Sales Agent, Prudential Building, BUFFALO, N. Y. !<br />
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{ LIGONIER COAL COMPANY, I<br />
5 5<br />
! LATROBE, PA. !<br />
§ Si<br />
I H |GH G RaDE JS TEaM (2? L !<br />
I ^ 60NNELLSYILLE APOLLO AKULLU COAL UUAL CO. 6©KE. UU. I $<br />
:<br />
J MINERS AND SHIPPERS OF i<br />
I APOLLO HIGH GRADE STEAM COALS<br />
> AND j<br />
5 JOHNSTOWN MILLER VEIN ;<br />
| COAL. \<br />
GENERAL OFFICES <strong>•</strong> - GREENSBURG. PA. 5<br />
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CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBUSX3H<br />
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3 1812 04296 1764<br />
<strong>•</strong>