Coal mining

“ The most modern mines use fewer supporting pillars of coal, and these are of larger size, so that there is less danger of accidents. Wherever possible they use timbers of wood instead of these smaller pillars of coal. They also mine as near the top of the seam of coal as can be done safely, and so regulate the blasting that much less slack is made than by the heavy discharges. These changes in mining methods save a far larger proportion of coal, and also prevent many accidents, which are the most unfortunate feature of coal mining, and the one which should receive most careful consideration. ”

“ When it is once in contact with the oil, operating expenses are trifling, for in many cases the oil reaches the surface under natural gas pressure, and in others it has merely to be pumped. There are not the expenses for breaking rock, timbering, or haulage, which are common in coal mining.
So that in addition to being a better fuel than coal to burn under a steam boiler, petroleum mining is as healthful and safe an occupation as can be well found in contrast with the extremely dangerous work of the coal [Pg 85] miner, and it can be far more quickly and more cheaply got out of the ground. ”

“ Nearly forty different corporations and individuals are engaged in coal mining. The coals thus far commercially mined are chiefly lignite and bituminous. These coal measures lie along the base of the foothills, chiefly of the Cascade mountains. Higher up are some mines of anthracite coals, not yet on the market for lack of transportation. As far as discovered they are chiefly near the headwaters of the Cowlitz river in Lewis county. Coal forms the largest factory in furnishing steam for the mill roads. ”

“ This concentration of coal lands and coal mining in the hands of great corporations, aside from its tendency to stifle healthy competition, is productive of many benefits. Coal can be mined much cheaper when the mining is done on a large scale. ”

“ There is large scope here for the play of inventive genius. There is scarcely a mine of any importance in the entire coal region in which one cannot find some new contrivance, some ingenious scheme, some masterpiece of invention devised to meet some special emergency which may have arisen for the first time in the history of [111] mining. Yet the general features of all coal mining methods must of necessity be the same in underground workings. No one reasonably familiar with them could ever mistake a map of a coal mine for a map of anything else under the sun. ”

“ Not a few coal fields have already been exhausted, as in portions of Iowa and Missouri. Yet, in the face of these known facts, we continue to treat our coal as though there could never be an end of it. The established coal-mining practice at the present date does not take out more than one-half the coal, leaving the less easily mined or lower grade material to be made permanently inaccessible by the caving in of the abandoned workings. ”

“ The exhaustion of so vast a coal bed is a practical impossibility, and the questions that engage the attention of the mining engineer in these regions are not so much questions of the economy of coal as they are questions of the economy of labor. The coal lies near the surface, and the outcrops on the flanks of the hills and banks of the [194] rivers are so numerous that most of the mining can be, and is, done by drift above water level. The outlay of capital required in opening a mine is therefore very small, marketable coal being obtained at almost the first blow of the pick. ”

“ We can not do anything on a large scale today without the aid of this great mining industry. During last March, the English people awakened to a realization of that fact. They did not consider mining as one of the great fundamental industries, but the stopping of the coal mines for four weeks stopped all the industries of the British, and they came to the conclusion that the very life of the nation was in danger by the cessation of coal mining. ”

“ The seam is worked on successive levels, but, even then, it is impossible to prevent constant accidents from the fall of coal or the sudden collapse of a roof. Take it the world over, and ten miners are killed every day in collieries alone. I told you coal mining was dangerous. ”

“ The outcrop, the disclosures in the vicinity, and the geological formation pointed with convincing force to a workable bed of merchantable coal extending under the valley and penetrating these lands. These conditions were open to common observation, and were such as would appeal to practical men, and be relied upon by them in making investments for coal mining. ”

“ China will step up its efforts in prospecting coal resources, render support to large coal mining bases in conducting resource surveys and detailed geological surveys, set standards for commercial prospecting, improve the level of guarantee for coal resources, and steadily push forward the building of large coal mining bases. By merger and reorganization of enterprises, the country will bring into being some large coal mining conglomerates each with a total annual production capability of 100 million tons. ”

“ Yet, in the history of coal-mining, there are several cases on record in which men have been even a longer time below ground and recovered. In a French colliery, two out of thirty men who were buried for fourteen days, recovered; in a Welsh colliery, one man survived out of seventy who had been entombed for seventeen days.
A still more astonishing case occurred in a Scotch coal-mine. A big roof-fall in a pit in Ayr [Pg 100] shire had blocked off all the outlets to the shaft, save one, by which all the miners were able to escape. ”

“ When, therefore, adjacent or underlying excavations cause earth movements in a neighbor's property, litigation is likely to ensue and the geologist is likely to be called in. The long-wall method of coal mining, extensively practiced in certain parts of the United States, is slowly withdrawing support from the ground overlying the coal seams, resulting in damages to surface structures and in some cases to overlying mineral deposits. ”

“ While the enormous output of coal during the last few years has not actually crippled British fuel resources, Prof. Hull anticipates a general rise in the value of coal in the near future, on account of the great depth at which the mines will have to be worked, and the increased cost of coal mining. ”

“ It is well known that, under present methods of mining, from 10 to 75% of any given deposit of coal is left underground as props and supports, or as low-grade material, or in overlying beds broken up through mining the lower bed first. An average of 50% of the coal is thus wasted or rendered valueless, as it cannot be removed subsequently because of the caving or falling in of the roofs of abandoned galleries and the breaking up of the adjoining overlying beds, including coal, floor, and roof. ”

“ Although producing nearly a million tons annually, coal mining has not developed sufficiently to supply the needs of the country, the importations amounting to about one and a half million tons a year. ”

“ Several of the poorest grades of bituminous coals have shown remarkable efficiency in the gas producer, and lignites and peat have been used with great facility, thus opening the way to the introduction of cheap power into large districts that have thus far been commercially unimportant owing to lack of industrial opportunities. Experiments with “bone,” a refuse product in bituminous-coal mining, have given excellent results, showing an efficiency in the producer equal to that reached by good steam coal under boilers. ”

“ By the separation of seams one from another, and by varied intervals of waste sandstones and shales, such a measured rate of mining is necessitated as precludes us from entirely robbing posterity of the most valuable mineral fuel, while the fuel itself is preserved from those extended fractures and crumblings and falls which would certainly be the consequence of largely mining the best bituminous coal, were it aggregated into one vast mass. ”

“ A great drawback to successful mining in these regions is found in the total absence of fuel for smelting purposes, as the forests that once existed in the lower ravines of the metalliferous districts have been entirely exhausted, and no discovery of coal has yet been made, or is, perhaps, likely to be made, within a reasonable distance for transport. ”

“ The elimination of smoke means more complete combustion of the fuel, and consequently less waste and higher efficiency.
The investigations into the waste of coal in mining have shown the enormous extent of this waste, aggregating probably from 300,000,000 to 400,000,000 tons yearly, of which at least one-half might be saved. It is being demonstrated that the low-grade coals, high in sulphur and ash, now left underground, can be used economically in the gas producer for power and light, and, therefore, should be mined at the same time that the high-grade coal is being removed. ”

“ As consumers of coal we might do well to imitate the economy now enforced by the producers in their engineering practice. In the northern anthracite field machine mining in extracting coal from 22- and 24-inch beds, and throughout the anthracite region the average recovery of coal in mining is 65 per cent., as against 40 per cent. ”

“ I’ve been a coal miner all my life, and I’ve been thinking a lot about coal. The coal you use in your glass factories has to be mined and hauled from the mine to you. That’s what makes it cost you so much. I—I know you burn a lot of it, and this year especially, with all the labor trouble and the shortage, it is getting to be awful expensive. And—and I’ve been thinking—why couldn’t the coal be burned in the ground right where it is, and put the factory there—instead of mining it? ”

“ Mining began on the Tyne and continued on the Wear, where the industry has been largely developed. There are in all about 57 different seams in the Great Northern coal-field, varying in thickness from 1 inch to 5 feet 5 inches and 6 feet, and these seams comprise an aggregate of nearly 76 feet of coal. Taking the area of this field to be 750 square miles—a most probable estimate—we may classify the contents as household coal, steam coal, or those employed in steam-engine boilers, and coking coal, employed for making coke and gas. ”

“ Mining engineers say that on an average three feet of lumber are used in mining every ton of coal taken out. Assuming that 450,000,000 tons of coal are mined each year, this would mean that almost a billion and a half feet a [Pg 58] year are used in the coal mines, and this is about the amount shown by the government report.
After this comes wood for lath used in building. This product is usually taken from lower class wood or logging camp waste. Then comes the wood for distillation into wood-alcohol for use in manufacture and to furnish power in engines. ”

“ Mining coal is dangerous work. Any blow of the pickaxe may break into a vein of water which will burst out and flood the mine. The wooden props which support the roof may break, or the pillars of coal may not be large enough; and the roof may fall in and crush the workers. There are always poisonous gases. The coal, as has been said before, was made under water, and therefore the gas which was formed in the decaying leaves and wood could not escape. It is always bubbling out from the coal, and at any moment a pickaxe may break into a hole that is full of it. ”

“ In view, then, of these reasons, it is proper to decide that mining is a term broad enough to cover the operations of extracting coal and metallic ores from the ground and of preparing them for shipment or metallurgical treatment.
Coal is always coal, no matter in what thickness of deposit it is found. It may not be minable coal because in thin seams or because so intercalated with layers of slate or "bone," that the mine's mixture, or so-called "run of mine," is not salable. ”

“ The coal-miner was, however, still a creation of the future, and even as peat is collected in Ireland at the present day for fuel, without the laborious process of mining for it, so those people living in coal-bearing districts found their needs satisfied by the quantity of coal, small as it was, which appeared ready to hand on the sides of the carboniferous mountains. ”

“ If that is so, a nation which owes its industrial greatness to coal should consider whether it is desirable to work this under-sea coal or not, for it would appear obvious that a mine as fiery as the 1907 inquiry proved the Whitehaven colliery to be, must sooner or later be the scene of serious disaster under the given conditions. To pass to another point, a large proportion of mining accidents occur in the shafts. It would be interesting to know the ages of many of the cages and of much of the winding machinery which are employed in our coal-mines. ”

“ Those who are acquainted with the present practice of mining are aware that when an estate is taken, and about to be worked for coal, the first question to be decided is the dip of the measures, in order that the sinking may be made203 “on the deep” of the whole range. The pits are not sunk at that part of the same range where, at first sight, the coal appears the most accessible, but, on the contrary, at the deepest part. It is then carried on to some depth below the coal seam which is to be worked, in order to form a “sumpf” or receptacle from which the water may be wound or pumped. ”