i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org

i COAL TRADE CASUALTIES.
Fire, caused by sparks from an engine, destroyed
the coal tipple adjoining the roundhouse
of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh railroad, near East
Liverpool, 0., on February 17. Several cars were
also destroyed; loss, $25,000. i
—x—
By an explosion in shaft No. 1, of the United
States Coal & Coke Co., near Bluefield, W. Va.,
on February 26, twenty-three miners lost their
lives, and the mine property was badly damaged.
The cause of the explosion has not been determined.
—x—
Heavy damage has been caused by fire in the
Sumpter mines of the Tennessee Coal, Iron &
Railroad Co., in the Blue Creek region near Blocton,
Ala. All efforts to extinguish the flames have
so far been ineffectual.
—x—
The Erie coal pocket and sandhouse, at Port
Jervis, N. Y., together with 500 bushels of coal
and a number of cars, were destroyed by fire recently,
involving a loss of $100,000.
—x—
Five men were killed and considerable damage
done to mining property by a boiler explosion at
the plant of the Providence Coal Co., near St.
Clairsville. O., on February 20.
—x—
Fire, supposedly of incendiary origin, destroyed
the company store of the Pittsburgh & Baltimore
Coal Co., at its Edna No. 1 plant; loss is $8,000.
—x—
The steamer Big Kanawha was sunk and the
steamer Tacoma badly damaged by ice in the
Ohio river at Maysville, Ky., on Febuary 24.
Nationalization of The Prussian Mines.
The movement in Prussia to nationalize the
business of coal mining in Rhenish Westphalia
and Silesia is interesting as the first step in this
direction. The government has been assured that
to capitalize the mines on which Prussia depends
and make them government property would present
no financial difficulties, and that the $250,-
000,000, more or less, which may be needed for
this purpose can be had at once at very low interest,
since the security underlying bonds of this
character would be the best known. Whether the
government has any serious purpose of taking
over the coal mines or is merely putting itself
in a position to show the mine owners and the
miners what it could do if the necessity for action
in the public interest should arise, probably will
not be known until it acts.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 39
Holland has set a fine example of fidelity to
treaty obligations. Instead of waiting for the
Japs or the Russians to pounce on the contraband
coal the ships under Dutch registration are carrying,
it is employing its own naval vessels to
run them down after which the coal is confiscated
for use in the Dutch East Indies.
— o —
The Russian news censors evidently had an
inning with the preliminary report of the finding
of the North sea commission, inasmuch as they
declared the Russian position to have been sustained.
But like the Eastern war news, when
the real facts got out, the result proved just the
opposite of the first announcement.
—o—
The failures of the killing amendments to the
rivers and harbors bill, offered in the House of
Representatives by the enemies of the measure,
were by such decisive margins that the resistance
did not rise to the dignity of opposition.
— o —
A British commission on availahle coal supply
finds that the tight little island has several hundred
million tons more in sight than the reports
show that it had a quarter of a century ago.
The Blue Creek Properties.
Former Mine Inspector Roderick has completed
a report of the properties of the Blue Creek Coal
& Land Co. in West Virginia, which is controlled
by Scranton capitalists. The company owns 3,507
acres in fee simple, 11,589 in coal rights, and 2,071
in mineral rights. There are five veins of coal,
estimated to contain over 500,000,000 tons of coal.
It is not proposed by the company owning these
interests to operate its own coal lands, but to
lease its rights. For this purpose several companies
are being organized at Scranton which will
secure leases from the owners and will sink shafts
as soon as arrangements can be made. There is
room, it is stated, for 40 leaseholds, each producing
an average of 500 tons a day, and applications
have been made for leases for the majority
of these.
A new coal road to connect with the Pennsylvania
railroad will be built at once from Altoona
to Ormsbury, the latter place in Cambria county.
The new road is to be known as the Kittanning
Run railroad, and is capitalized at $100,000, the
stock being owned by Altoona capitalists. The
road will be 15 miles long and will tap new coal
territory. The connection with the Pennsylvania
will be at Altoona.