i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org
i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org
i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org
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3d THE <strong>COAL</strong> TRADE BULLETIN.<br />
the manner of its production in this paper.<br />
We have now traced coal formation through its<br />
different stages from the crude oil, and have clearly<br />
shown that all the different stages of change are<br />
now going on within the range of human observation.<br />
But where are the great forests changing<br />
into coals? Who will point them out?<br />
The writer has given the external evidence that<br />
coal is the product of natural gas and oil, the oil<br />
being the product of the gas. The internal evidence<br />
is conclusive. First, all crude oil is<br />
strongly impregnated with sulphur. All coal also<br />
contains sulphur. But no wood or vegetable<br />
growth can be found containing a particle of this<br />
mineral and it can be conclusively shown that<br />
gas and oil are the origin of sulphur. Second,<br />
no wood, wood fiber or wood coal shows any sign<br />
of melting in the process of combination; much<br />
of the eoal of commerce does. Third, wood coal<br />
is much lighter than the wood from which it is<br />
formed and shows even more distinctly than the<br />
wood, the usual growth marks of the timber.<br />
Natural coal is heavy and natural oil grows<br />
heavier all through the process of drying down.<br />
While wood grows constantly lighter during any<br />
known process of converting it into coal. Fourth,<br />
wood burns with a blue tinted smoke.. Natural<br />
gas, oil, asphaltum and coal, all, with a black<br />
smoke, depositing lampblack; and though lampblack<br />
somewhat is produced from pine pitch, none<br />
is produced from the wood itself. Fifth, wood<br />
coal leaves when burned an ash, which is a strong<br />
alkali. Neither anthracite or bituminous coal<br />
ash is an alkali, nor is alkali the product of oil,<br />
gas or coal combustion, but is a principal ingredient<br />
in wood ash.<br />
The writer submits the above as what he believes<br />
to be ample evidence to establish the fact<br />
that oil and gas are the product of nature, from<br />
which have been formed all the world's great deposits<br />
of both asphaltum and coal. That even<br />
the evidences here presentea though certainly conclusive,<br />
unless the facts stated can be overthrown,<br />
will not at once overcome the conservatism of<br />
educational prejudice in many minds, the writer<br />
is aware. But the truth backed by a vast array<br />
of facts, only a part of which have been presented<br />
in this paper, will surely prevail and science, if<br />
not at once, will surely, very soon, proclaim the<br />
truth as here presented. In future papers the<br />
writer proposes to show that natural gas and oil<br />
are also the productive force of that great variety<br />
of remarkable occurrences known as seismic phenomena,<br />
as well as hot springs, geysers and the<br />
alkali deposits of the western plains—the latter<br />
indirectly. The proofs of these will be found,<br />
nearly or quite, as conclusive evidence that this<br />
most valuable, though recently utilized product of<br />
nature, has been and still is, the principal source<br />
of the great changes in the earth's surface, as the<br />
evidence above furnished proves that it is the<br />
source, or substance from which coal has been<br />
deposited.<br />
FATAL ACCIDENT DUE TO<br />
VIOLATION OF MINING LAW.<br />
State Mine Inspector James Epperson, of Indiana,<br />
has filed his report on the recent disaster<br />
at Princeton, in that state, in which seven men<br />
were killed and five others badly hurt. Mr. Epperson<br />
finds that there was gross violation of the<br />
law by two persons—Harry Target, shot firer, who<br />
was killed by the shot which he fired, and Roscoe<br />
Hedrick, who prepared the shot for firing, but<br />
who survived the explosion. Mr. Epperson 'finds<br />
that the shot prepared by Hedrick was in direct<br />
violation of the law, in that it was placed in a<br />
solid bank of coal having no "loose end." This<br />
"loose end" is a technical mining term, indicating<br />
that, at one end of the bank or other, there must<br />
be space for the coal displaced by the shot. Where<br />
there is no "loose end," a shot fired in the solid<br />
bank cannot force the coal to either side, and<br />
must shoot backward out of the hole drilled for<br />
it, igniting gases or the coal dust in the mine.<br />
The fire, of course, consumes the oxygen of the<br />
air, and generates poisorous gases. The report<br />
recommends that Hedr'ck be held for trial for violating<br />
the law. The penalty is a fine of not less<br />
than $5, or more than $100, or imprisonment from<br />
30 to 60 days in the county jail.<br />
In the case of Jennings, the Indiana appellate<br />
court recently decided that a man, employed for<br />
the express purpose of going into dangerous places<br />
and making them safe, cannot recover damages<br />
from an employer if he is injured, because he has<br />
voluntarily encountered the dangers. In this<br />
case, Jennings was a "jerryman" in the Ingall coal<br />
mine, near Evansville, and was employed to take<br />
down loose slate from the roof of a mine. He was<br />
injured by falling slate, after he had removed the<br />
props for the purpose of making it fall, and<br />
brought suit for $10,000 damages. The appellate<br />
court held, for the ground above stated, that he<br />
could not recover. This decision wou'd apply<br />
directly in the case of the shot firer who was<br />
killed in the Princeton case.<br />
The Lackawanna county court has refused to<br />
allow a transfer to the federal courts of the case<br />
of M. J. Shea, on the result of which depends the<br />
validity of the law requiring that anthracite miners<br />
must have two years' experience in the mines<br />
of the state before being permitted to cut coal.