i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org

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