Joint Appendix Vol II — Amoco Production Co. v. Southern Ute Tribe
Supreme Court brief1999
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No. 98-830
IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
OCTOBER TERM, 1998
AMOCO PRODUCTION COMPANY, on behalf of itself
and the class it represents,*
v. Petitioners,
SOUTHERN UTE INDIAN TRIBE,
and
Bruce BassitT, Secretary of the United States
Department of Interior, et al.,
Respondents.
On Writ of Certiorari to the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Tenth Circuit
JOINT APPENDIX
VOLUME II
CARTER G. PHILLIPS ** THOMAS H. SuHipps **
STEPHEN B. KINNAIRD FRANK E. MAYNES
SmDLEY & AUSTIN MAYNES, BRADFORD,
1722 Eye Street, N.W. Surpps & SHEFTEL, LLP
Washington, D.C. 20006 P.O, Box 2717
(202) 736-8000 Durango, CO 81302
CHARLES L. KAISER (970) 247-1755
ANTHONY J. SHAHEEN Counsel for Respondent
Davis, GRAHAM & Southern Ute Indian Tribe
Stusss LLP Sern P. WAXMAN **
Suite 4700 Solicitor General
370 Seventeenth Street Department of Justice
Denver, CO 80202 Washington, D.C. 20530
(303) 892-9400 (202) 514-2217
Counsel for Petitioner Counsel for Federal Respondents
Amoco Production Company f
(class representative)
( Additional Counsel Listed on Inside Cover)
* Named classnm nbers listed
in Addendum A of
Petitioners’ Brief. ** Counsel of Record.
PETITION FOR CERTIORARI FILED: NOVEMBER 18, 1998
CERTIORARI GRANTED: JANUARY 22, 1999
ORDER GRANTING CERTIORARI AMENDED: JANUARY 29, 1999
Gary L. PAULSON
Resecca S. McGEE
DAvip E. Bropy
AMOCO CORPORATION
1670 Broadway
Denver, CO 80201
(303) 830-4040
Counsel for Petitioner
Amoco Production Company
(class representative )
G. R. MILLER
MCDANIEL, Baty &
MILLER, LLC
1040 Main Avenue
P.O. Box 1157
Durango, CO 81302
(970) 247-1113
Counsel for Certain
Named Class Members
Scott B. McELRoy
ALICE E. WALKER
GREENE, MEYER &
MCELROY, P.C.
1007 Pear! Street
Suite 220
Boulder, CO 80302
(303) 442-2021
MICHAEL T. MCCONNELL
LONG & JAUDON
1600 Ogden Street
Denver, CO 80218-1414
(303) 832-1122
Counsel for R
Southern Ute Indian Tribe
OE se te -
t
B
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME I
Court of Appeals Docket Entries —.....
First Amended Complaint ................ nn.
Matthew J. Mavor Affidavit and Report ..........
Douglas M. Smith Affidavit and Report
Dan Yee Affidavit and Report ..........---....-.
Documents Regarding the John J. Patterson
ne enneite Shemas
VOLUME II
Marius R. Campbell, Contributions to Economic
Geology, 1906, Part IIl—Coal, Lignite, and Peat,
U.S.G.S8. Bulletin 316, H.R. Doc. No. 823, 59th
Cong., 2d Sess. (1907) .......
Rollin T. Chamberlin, i ae eae 8 Mine
Gases and Dust, U.S.G.S. Bulletin $83, H.R. Doc.
No. 1538, 60th Cong., 2d Sess. (1909) 00000000
Papers on the Conservation of Mineral Resources,
U.S.G.S. Bulletin 394, H.R. Doc. No. 1554, 60th
ae eee ee
Cassius A. Fisher, Depth and Minimum Thickness
of Beds as Limiting Factors in Valuation reprinted
in The Valuation of Public Coal Lands, U.S.G.S.
Bulletin 424, H.R. Doc. No. 502, 61st Cong., 2d
Sess. (1910)
401
415
473
|
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS—Continued
Horace C. Porter and F.K. Ovitz, The Escape of
Gas From Coal, U.S. Bureau of Mines Technical
SS
Robert H. Fernald, wip slid ti tei thas Doioee
and of the Internal-Combustion Engine in the Util-
ization of Fuels, U.S. Bureau of Mines Technical
(EE
Phillip J. Wilson and J.H. Wells, Coal, Coke, and
Coal Chemicals, Chemical Engineering Series
Harry Perry, The Gasification of Coal, 230 Scien-
tific American, No. 8 (Mar. 1974) .........................-.
Robert A. Myers, Coal Handbook (1981) ................
William F. Clark and Tom Hemler, Completing,
Equipping, and Operating Fruitland Formation
Coal-Bed Methane Wells in the San Juan Basin,
New Mexico and Colorado reprinted in James E.
Fasset, Geology and Coal-Bed Methane Resources
of the Northern San Juan Basin, Colorado and New
Mexico, Rocky Mtn. Ass’n of Geologists (1988)...
Jeffrey R. Levine, Coal Composition, as Related to
the Mode of Occurrence of “Coalbed Methane”
Ne CET a OA OC
NOTICE
Page
The following documents have been omitted in the printing
of this Joint Appendix. They are reproduced in the Appen-
dix to the Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari on the pages
indicated below :
9s PP
Opinion of the Court of Appeals (Zn Banc) ........
Opinion of the Court of Appeals (Panel) ...........
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS—Continued
E. Classification and Valuation of Coal Lands, 37
Pub. Lands Dec. 653 (1909) ..... 137a
F. Ownership of And Right to Extract Coalbed Gas
in Federal Coal tesa 88 Interior Dec. 538
I ae ee te Ae See 140a
G. eatin ty Guile Unitans Cites dn Oh a te
Lease for Lands in the Jicarilla Apache Reser-
vation, 98 Interior Dec. 59 (1990)... 160a
H. Department of Interior, a Manual
3 Pe EM SE, Sear Se See 178a
I. Map of Majer U.S, Coated Methane Resvuress. 18la
The following additional documents have also been omitted
in the printing of this Joint Appendix. They are reproduced
in the Appendix to the Respondent Southern Ute Indian
Tribe’s Brief In Opposition on the pages indicated below:
Act of March 3, 1909, 35 Stat. 844 (“1909 Act”). la
Act of June 22, 1910, 36 Stat. 583 (“1910 Act”). 3a
Pub. L. No. 105-367 (“Enzi Act”) 6a
Bureau of Mines, Bulletin 65 (1913) (cover page) _ 9a
Bureau of Mines, Bulletin 65, Plate I (map)... 10a
401
59TH CONGRESS DocUMENT
2d Session No. 823
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Bulletin No. 316
Series—A. Economic Geology, 98
B. Chemistry and Physics, 51
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
Georce Oris SMITH, DiRECTOR
ECONOMIC GEOLOGY
1906
Part IIl.—COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
MARIUS R. CAMPBELL
Geologist in Charge
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1907
402
Bulletin No. 316
Series—A. Economic Geology, 98
B. Chemistry and Physics, 51
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
GEorGE Oris SMITH, DIRECTOR
CONTRIBUTIONS
TO
ECONOMIC GEOLOGY
1906
Part Il.—COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT
MARIUS R. CAMPBELL
Geologist in Charge
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1907
403
CONTRIBUTIONS TO ECONOMIC GEOLOGY,
1906, PART II.
COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT.
Marius R. CAMPBELL, Geologist in Charge.
INTRODUCTION.
By Marius R. CAMPBELL.
NEED OF INVESTIGATION.
The constantly growing consumption of coal in the
United States has led to the opening of mines in almost
every State in the Union and it has also stimulated pros-
pecting to a marked degree. This condition of affairs has
created a strong demand for information concerning the
extent of the coal fields, the geologic relation of the beds,
and the quality of the coal. In the comparatively un-
known coal fields of the West the demand is for general
information regarding the extent, number, and thickness
of the beds and the quality of the coal. In the better
known fields the demand is for detailed information
which will enable the prospective operator to know how
much of any one coal bed is available, and how it lies,
so that he may locate his mine in the best position for
economic work.
404
In order to meet this growing demand the Geological
Survey has been giving more and more attention to the
subject of coal, both as regards its geologic relations and
its technology. The need for information in both branches
is imperative, for, although the amount of coal in the
various fields seems so great as to be well nigh inexhausti-
ble, the consumption is increasing so rapidly that already
the question of a future supply of fuel is a serious one
and the Government is surely justified in using every
means possible to conserve the supply for the use of fu-
ture generations. Accordingly the technologic branch of
the Survey is engaged in studying the fuel problems in
order to devise, if possible, less wasteful methods of min-
ing and more economical methods of utilizing the coal
after it is mined.
Our chief fuels are coal, oil, and wood. Wood already
is almost a thing of the past; oil, although used extensively
in some parts of the country for the production of power,
is necessarily of limited occurence and before long may
cease to be an important factor in the problem. Coal,
therefore, is the fuel of the present, and, so far as can
be seen, will continue to lead in this particular for a long
time to come.
The importance of the coal industry at the present time
is well illustrated by a comparison of the values of the
leading mineral products of the United States for the year
1905.
Values of six of the leading mineral products of the
United States in 1905."
REESE one eka eee Seibel, $476,756,963
Iron ..... SS eS OL Se eS 382,430,000
Clay products ......... POPES op as) Sv 149,687,188
I ictcsdaprerncingheint Pe ae pe Ae Ta AS 139,795,716
RII... . cssscsinsniatanigndenetharennemmesteg . 125,720,254
I RES IES perce fe 122,402,683
* Mineral Resources U.S. for 1905, U.S. Geol. Survey, 1906.
405
So far as fuels are concerned the work of the Geological
Survey may be divided into three classes—geologic, tech-
nologic, and statistical, the last of which is in charge of
the division of mineral resources. The object of this
report is to give, in a brief way, a synopsis of the results
accompanied in the various branches of the work during
the last year in advance of the more detailed reports cov-
ering the same subjects.
GEOLOGIC WORK.
All geologic work en the mineral fuels of the United
States is under the general supervision of the writer. The
work is of various grades and degrees of precision, de-
pending on the needs of the public and the condition
under which the surveys are carried on.
{n that part of the country west of the 100th meridian
the coal fields are comparatively unknown, and the work
of the Survey is largely exploratory. Rapid reconnaissance
surveys are made over large areas to determine the limits
of the field and to obtain such information regarding the
number and character of the coal beds and their attitude
as may be possible in the present undeveloped condition
of the field and with the hasty method of examination.
Where the outlines of the fields are already fairly well
known the work is largely devoted to a more or less
detailed investigation of the number and thickness of the
coal beds, the quality of the coal, and the best locations
for economical development of the field.
In the eastern fields information is needed almost as
badly as in the West, but the work is of a much more
detailed character and involves not only a thorough
study of the geologic conditions under which the coal
occurs, but also a study of the quality of the coal and its
adaptability to various commercial uses.
The reports here presented cover results obtained wholly
or in part during 1906. Geologic work has been done
in ihe various States as follows:
406
Pennsylvania.—Since 1900 the examination of the
Pennsylvania coal field has been carried on through the
cooperation of the State and Federal authorities, but the
field work has been done entirely by the geologists of
the United States Geological Survey. In this time very
detailed surveys have been made of most of the Pittsburg
coal region of the southwest corner of the State, of a
large area in the eastern part of the bituminous coal field
in Indiana, Cambria, and Clearfield counties, and a part
of the Allegheny Valley, embracing an area of about
5,000 square miles.
All coal work in this State is under the general direction
of George H. Ashley, who was assisted during the past
year by W. C. Phalen, Edwin F. Lines, M. J. Munn, and
Frederick B. Peck. Surveys were carried on in Cambria,
Clarion, and Allegheny counties, and some of the results
are given in this volume in papers entitled “Coal in the
Clarion quadrangle, Clarion County, Pa.,” by E. F. Lines,
and “The coal resources of Johnstown, Pa., and vicinity,”
by W. C. Phalen.
Virginia-Kentucky.—A reconnaisance survey was made
of a district in the central part of the Appalachian field
under the general supervision of George H. Ashley. The
building “ ~ new branch line from the Chesapeake and
Ohio Railway up Russell Fork of Big Sandy River to
the Virginia line and the beginning of construction of the
South and Western Railroad from the end of this branch
to the Atlantic coast promises to open in the near future
one of the largest and best tracts of coal land in the
central Appalachian region. In order to be able to furnish
information on this interesting and economically impor-
tant region, a detailed reconnaissance was made by Ralph
W. Stone, assisted by C. W. Dodge, on both sides of the
Virginia-Kentucky State line, and the more important
results will be found in three papers in this bulletin by
Mr. Stone entitled “The Elkhorn coal field, Kentucky,”
“Coal mining at Dante, Va.,” and “The Russell Fork coal
field, Virginia.”
io
es wittal 2 es oD Oe Oe
407
Alabama.—For several years Charles Butts has been
engaged in a close, detailed survey of the coal fields in
the vicinity of Birmingham, including much of the War-
rior basin. During the past year Mr. Butts was assisted by
Chester W. Washburne, and the work was carried to the
east into the Cahaba coal field. Time did not permit the
survey of the entire field, but the northern part was
examined thoroughly, and a brief account of the results
of this work may be found in a paper by Mr. Butts en-
titled “The northern part of the Cahaba
Alabama.” densa
Ilinois.—In Illinois the examination of the coal field
is carried on both by the State Geological Survey and by
the Federal organization, with the understanding that
each shall supply to the other manuscript reports on the
area or areas investigated. During the last year the work
of the Federal Survey was confined to two 15-minute quad-
rangles in Gallatin, Saline, White, and Hamilton counties,
and the results are embodied in a paper in this volume
by Frank W. De Wolf entitled “Coal investigations in
the Saline-Gallatin field, Illinois.”
Arkansas.—A demand for more detailed information
regarding the Carboniferous coal field of Arkansas than
is contained in the reports of the State Geological Survey
led the Federal organization to make an examination of
this field in the early part of the past summer. The
work was done by Arthur J. Collier, assisted by Carl D.
Smith, Sidney Paige, and R. D. Mesler. This work is of
especial value, inasmuch as it has established the identity
of the principal coal beds at the east and west ends of
the field, and has thrown considerable light on the distri-
bution of the workable coals, a point that has been
troubling the operators for a number of years. A brief
account of this work is given by Mr. Collier in a paper
enti*led “The Arkansas coal field.”
Montana.—The coal fields of Montana are probably
more extensive than those of any other State, but they
408
known except along the main lines of rail-
i mines have a opened, either to supply
fuel for locomotive uses or for the great copper smelters
of the Butte region. The quality of the Montana coal is
exceedingly varied, but as a rule only the better grades
are being mined at the present time.
st important piece of geologic work carried on
in ‘aes duine 1906 was the careful mapping of
the Great Falls coal field by C. A. Fisher, assisted by
W. R. Calvert, H. M. Eakin, A. J. Hazlewood, and
J. D. Pollock. Geologically this field is most interesting,
since the coal occurs in the Kootenai (Lower Cretaceous )
formation, which is not known to carry coal in any other
part of the United States, except possibly in the Black
Hills region of South Dakota and Wyoming. The field
was carefully mapped from Missouri River eastward along
the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains as far as Stan-
ford. A brief synopsis of the results is given in a paper
by Mr. Fisher entitled “The Great Falls coal field,
Montana.”
Bear Creek and Red Lodge fields of Carbon
Pin were examined by N.H. Darton, who traced the
Red Lodge group of coal beds for a considerable distance
to the point where they are concealed by the overlying
Tertiary rocks, and the Bridger coal bed from a point
near the Wyoming line northward to Joliet. An account
of this field by Mr. Darton is entitled “Coals of Carbon
County, Mont.”
t lignite field of the eastern part of the State
“saa be A.G. Leonard, assisted by W. R. Hol-
gate and W. H. Clark. This party made an exploratory
trip from Glendive to Miles City and thence northward
by way of Jordan to Hell Creek on Missouri River. An
account of this trip and of the coal beds and other strata
exposed will be found in a paper by Mr. Leonard entitled
“Coal fields of parts of Dawson, Rosebud, and Custer
courities, Mont.”
a ee Se ee
409
Wyoming.—Wyoming is one of the great coal-producing
States of the Union. This coal is extensively developed
along the Union Pacific and Oregon Short Line railroads
at Hanna, Rock Springs, and Kemmerer. It is also mined
to some extent at Glenrock and Big Muddy on the Chi-
cago and Northwestern Railway and along the Burlington
system at Sheridan and Cambria. In addition to these
well-known localities, there are immense areas of coal
land along Powder River from a point north of Casper to
the Montana line, in the Bighorn Basin, in Uinta County
north of Kemmerer, and in Carbon County west of
Rawlins.
During the past year the Hanna field of Carbon County
was rather thoroughly explored by A. C. Veatch, assisted
by Max A. Pishel, Max W. Ball, and Spencer R. Logan.
A brief account of this work is given by Mr. Veatch in
a paper entitled “Coal fields of east-central Carbon
County, Wyo.”
C. E. Siebenthal made a hasty examination of the coal
beds in the western part of the Laramie basin, and a
brief account is given by him in a paper entitled “Coal
of Laramie Basin, Wyoming.”
During 1905, A. C. Veatch, assisted by A. R. Schultz,
made an examination of the southern Uinta County field
from the Utah State line to a point north of Kemmerer.
A short account of this work appeared in Bulletin No.
285, and a full report is contained in Professional Paper
No. 56, entitled “Geography and geology of a portion of
southwestern Wyoming, with special reference to coal
and oil.” During the past year this work was carried
northward by Mr. Schultz, assisted by E. Eggleston Smith.
The country is exceedingly rough and mountainous, but
the coal fields were mapped with considerable care as
far as Snake River. This region is scarcely accessible at
the present time and little is known regarding the coals,
but in the event of the construction of a railroad line
along Snake River it seems quite possible that much of
410
the area of this field would become accessible by branch
lines from the main trunk system. A brief account of this
field will be found in a paper by Mr. Schultz entitled
“Coal fields in a portion of central Uinta County, Wyo.”
In the central part of the State there is a large syncline
of coal-bearing rocks which in most places is covered by
Tertiary sediments to such a depth that it is not accessible,
but here and there along the rim of the basin coal beds
are exposed. This is the case in the vicinity of Lander,
where there is a small coal field that was examined by
E. G. Woodruff. A very brief account of this field is
given by Mr. Woodruff in a paper entitled “The Lander
coal field, Wyoming.”
Colorado.—Through the explorations carried on by the
Colorado Fuel and Iron Company and the development of
mines in the best and most accessible fields, the coals
of Colorado are perhaps better known than those of
any other western State. Nevertheless, there are a number
of areas about which little information can be obtained,
and it has been the aim of the Geological Survey to ex-
plore these in advance of development.
The largest area of undeveloped coal lies in the north-
western part of the State, in Routt, Rio Blanco, Garfield,
Pitkin, and Mesa counties. On the completion of the
Denver and Northwestern (Moffitt) Railroad through
Routt County the northern part of this great area, or
the Yampa coal field, will be the first to be developed.
This was examined in 1905 by N. M. Fenneman and
Hoyt S. Gale, and a detailed report of their work ap-
peared in Bulletin No. 297, entitled “The Yampa coal
field, Routt County, Colo.” A brief account was pub-
lished also under the same title in Bulletin No. 285.
During the last season this survey was extended southward
across the anticline of Axial Basin to the Danforth Hills
and thence along the Grand Hogback southeastward to
Newcastle on Grand River. This work was done by
411
Mr. Gale, who was assisted by A. K. Adams, A. L
Beekly, and R. D. Crawford. A brief account of this
work is given by Mr. Gale in a paper entitled “Coal fields
f the Danforth Hills and Grand Hogback in northwestern
;
Colorado-Utah.—The great Uinta Basin, which extends
from the vicinity of Crested Butte, Colo., westward into
Utah, continues in the latter State along the south side
of the Uinta Mountains at least as far as Castle Gate.
The center of the basin is deeply covered by Tertiary
sediments, and at the western extremity these overlap
the upturned edges of the coal-bearing rocks and conceal
them so that the limit of the field in this direction is
It is generally understood that the Book Cliffs, which
beds. To supply such data George B. Ric i
by W. D. Neal and Leon J. ovate = gee ees
rapid reconnaissance during the last season from De
' River, Colorado, into Utah as far as
Sunnyside mine of the Utah Fuel Company, where
connection was made with the work of Mr. Taff, who,
ee
5
:
5
durin, 1905, made a careful instrumental su of the
Book Cliffs field from the Sunnyside mine westward to
Castle Gate, and then southward along the east front of
the Wasatch Plateau as far as Mount Hilgard, in Sevier
as
County. A report of Mr. Taff’s work was published i
Bulletin No. 285 the title “The Book. Cliffs othe
field of Utah.” A brief account of the results of the
ny last year is ag by Mr. Richardson in this
a paper entit “The Book Cliffs coal field
between Grand River, Colorado, and Sunnyside, Utah.”
Utah.—During the last year Joseph A. Taff, assisted
Carl D. Smith, examined the region about Pleasant Valen
412
in the Wasatch Plateau, much more carefully than was
possible during the previous year, and his report is em-
bodied in a paper entitled “The Pleasant Valley coal
district, Carbon and Emery counties, Utah.”
The coal fields of I-on County in southwestern Utah,
were hurriedly examined during the last year by Willis
T. Lee, who visited them and procured samples for chem-
ical analysis from the anthracite of the western extremity
of the field and from the bituminous coal east of Cedar
City. This is the most important field of the Southwest,
as it is accessible from the San Pedro, Los Angeles and
Salt Lake Railroad, and some day it may furnish fuel
to most, if not all, of the desert region of the southern
part of the Great Basin. A brief description of the field
will be found in a paper by Mr. Lee entitled “The Iron
County coal field, Utah.”
New Mexico.—The largest coal field in New Mexico
lies in the northeast corner of the Territory, but the coals
in this field are not well known, being developed only at
Durango, Colo., and Monero, N. Mex., on the northern
edge, and at Gallup, on the southern edge of the basin.
In- Contributions to Economic Geology for 1 ,
Schrader * had a brief paper embodying
«The Durango-Gallup coal field of Colorado and New Mexico;
Bull. U.S. Geol. Survey, No. 285, 1906, pp. 241-258.
413
In addition to the regular work noted above, the writer
made a hasty examination of two small coal fields in the
eastern part of the Territory—one at Capitan, in Lincoln
County, and the other known generally as the Una
Gato field, in Sandoval County. A brief account of
latter is contained in a paper entitled “The Una del Gato
coal field of Sandoval County, N. Mex.,” and of the
former in a paper entitled “Coal in the vicinity of Fort
Stanton Reservation, Lincoln County, N. Mex.”
California.—tIn general the coals of California are of
so low a grade as to be unable to stand in competition with
fuel oil. As a consequence many of the miners have sus-
pended operations. From time to time during the last
few years reports have been made of the occurrence of a
better grade of coal in Stone Canyon, in the southeastern
Range, Monterey County, Cal.” During the past summer
414
J. Shober Burrows, who has made an extended study
of methods of sampling and the results to be obtained
therefrom. A teed coreens of Gate tls wad 0
cussion of their meaning is given by Mr. Burrows in a
purposes can be made successfully from all grades
bituminous coal, lignite, and even peat. The results
these tests point conclusively to the substitution of pro-
ducer-gas plants and gas engines for the generation of
amet Ege ye Mig gh ps Be ogee ge
use at the present time. The end of the steam engine
is nearly in sight, and many people are wanting informa-
tion regarding the present status of the producer and gas
engine, in expectation of their installation in the near
future. In order to supply unbiased information to the
public on this important subject, R. L. Fernald, professor
of mechanical engineering, Washington University, St.
Louis, Mo., who has had charge of all tests made at the
fuel-testing plant on the gas producer and gas engine,
has prepared a brief statement which will be found in a
paper entitled “The present status of the producer-gas
power plant in the United States.”
Another field of investigation which promises to have
a distinct bearing on the better utilization of our coals
is that of briquetting, and the present condition of the
dustry of the United States.”
415
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
GEorGE OTis SMITH, DIRECTOR
BULLETIN 383
NOTES
ON
EXPLOSIVE MINE GASES AND DUSTS
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
EXPLOSIONS IN THE MONONGAH, DARR, AND
NAOMI COAL MINES
BY
ROLLIN THOMAS CHAMBERLIN
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1909
—— ee
416
PRINS csitctiiciisltthinindcicsiitndiinienitinanabinietiaisisicbstnitistibeinnpestn
IE, oseunemiepipaemmbiaianateliit
Explosions studied ........................ sae icone a wre
I i iahari in cease cstecinileanintieavetnibiiteldaien
I le CN oo ere tecdecncetenccncensancenspentivensccsnncenies
Possible conditions of gas in coal 00.0... .cecccccccccccccee ces
Liberation of gas by crushing coal —................................
Plan of experiments .............................. icnainandntinisadlihcitie
Nts CII iiiiocsantnminiincninaibbaisanttemaiteleniiarediii
TN DOD deticindintitrtntteetsnditittintdeitihndvininarsnteccetinihin
Gases from coal bottled in a vacuum ......................-........ 2
LEE Ln OY ee a ET TT TEE
Effect of barometric changes |...
EE eS EE Se ee oe
Character of dust deposits 2.0.0.0... seen
Cause and manner of coking —............................-..-
Loss of volatile matter 2.02020... cccocneeceeeceennneeene
Comparison of other dust samples
Restraining factors—shale and dampness ................
BZSSSRSR8 SF SSSSRES
417
CONTENTS—Continued
Practical considerations as to danger of explosions ........
Influence of seasonal change —........0...00000..
Effect of shale dust on explosions ............................. 3
Comparative inflammability of old and fresh coal dusts.
Supposed danger in old dust on
Significance of tests .......... Rs
ILLUSTRATION
FIGURE 1. Diagram showing rates of escape of meth-
ig REESE AAAS ER ES a OR
a")
SSlssaee gees
418
NOTES ON EXPLOSIVE MINE GASES AND DUSTS,
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO EXPLOSIONS
IN THE MONONGAH, DARR,
AND NAOMI COAL MINES.
By ROLLIN THOMAS CHAMBERLIN.
INTRODUCTION.
CHARACTER OF THE REPORT.
The studies herein reported were begun as a part of
researches undertaken by the United States Geological
Survey looking to the more efficient utilization of the coal
in the United States through the reduction of waste in its
extraction, and were continued as part of further researches
having regard to the conservation of the fuel resources of
this country and to the lessening of injuries and fatalities
in coal mining.
Among other phases of the general problem to be
studied were the origin of the gas which escapes into coal
mines, its modes of occurrence in the coal and rock strata,
and the conditions governing its outflow into the mines.
The subject of relative danger from destructive explosions
due to gas and coal dust in different mines belonging to
different coal fields was to be one of the principal lines
of investigation.
But this work was barely under way when the series
of unusually disastrous explosions in the Naomi, Monon-
gah, and Darr mines of Pennsylvania and West Virginia,
in December, 1907, afforded an exceptional occasion to
observe the behavior of explosions on a large scale. Be-
cause of the opportunities for study afforded by these
terrific explosions, the inquiry originally planned was di-
verted to the more specific investigation of the conditions
419
in these mines, and the examinations have been directed
toward finding those qualities of gas anc dust which were
concerned in these explosions. The following discussion,
therefore, consists essentially of a report on that subject;
but it is far from being exhaustive, and is to be regarded
as a preliminary outline of investigations which are still
in progress.
EXPLOSIONS STUDIED.
The first of the three mine explosions mentioned oc-
curred in the Naomi mine of the United Coal Company,
near Bellevernon, Pa., on Sunday, December 1, at 7:40
p. m. All the men who were within the mine at the time,
fortunately only 34, were killed.
Less than a week later there occurred in mines Nos. 6
and 8 of the Fairmont Coal Company at Monongah,
W. Va., the most disastrous mine explosion yet recorded
in the annals of American mining. The mines were com-
paratively new and well laid out. Mine No. 8 had been
in operation only about two years and was the pride of
the Fairmont Coal Company. Mine No. 6 was first
opened about four years earlier. In order to make it
possible, in case of emergency, for either mine to be
ventilated by the ventilating system of the other, the two
sets of workings were connected underground. The F face
heading of mine No. 6 led directly into No. 2 north
heading of No. 8 mine. On Friday, December 6, at
about 10.30 in the morning, an explosion of unusual
violence swept completely through both mines, pursuing
its course throughout the numerous ramifications and
bursting out of the two pit mouths, located 1% miles
apart, nearly simultaneously. The slope of mine No. 6
was only slightly damaged, but at the mouth of No. 8
the destruction was very great. The fan was wrecked, the
engine house was demolished, and mine timbers were
blown across Monongahela River. As nearly as can be
determined, 361 men were killed in the two mines by
the explosion.
420
While the inspection of the Monongah mines was still
in progress, on Thursday morning, December 19, at about
11.20, a similar explosion wrecked the Darr mine of the
Pittsburgh Coal Company at Jacobs Creek, Pa.; 238 men
lost their lives in this explosion, which in number of
casualties is second only to the Monongah disaster in the
history of American mining. Of all the men in the mine
at the time of the explosion, only one man, who happened
to be within 100 feet of the surface on an old manway
in a wet, unexploded portion of the mine, succeeded in
escaping alive.
The underground investigation of these mines was made
in cooperation with Clarence Hall and Walter O. Snelling,
of the United States Geological Survey, and James W.
Paul, now of the Survey but at that time chief of the
department of mines for West Virginia, to all of whom
the author is greatly indebted for valuable assistance,
suggestions, and advice. Mr. Paul will report on the
nature of these explosions, the precipitating causes, their
destructiveness, and the general conditions in these mines
following the disasters. The present report is confined
essentially to the laboratory examination of some of the
explosive materials collected from these mines directly
after the explosions.
GASES FOUND IN THE MINES.
METHODS OF COLLECTING.
As soon as practicable after these explosions samples
of the mine atmosphere were collected at the coal faces
and from the return air ways in various parts of the mines.
It was hoped that something as to the nature of the after
damp might be determined, but as the exploration of the
mines could be carried only where there had been a
certain amount of ventilation, the samples of after damp
were necessarily greatly diluted with air. With the aid of
breathing helmets and compressed-air cylinders attempts
421
were made to collect after damp in the tight places where
there appeared to have been little ventilation, but the
subsequent analyses have shown that the proportion of
after damp remaining was small. Other samples were
taken to deiermine the accumulation of fire damp in the
workings.
The samoles of air and gas from these mines were
collected for analysis in glass tubes of 125 cubic centi-
meters capacity. These tubes were drawn out to a 5-
millimeter bore at each end, over which was slipped a
piece of red antimony rubber tubing 5 to 6 cenitmeters
in length. Before entering the mine each tube was filled
with water, and a tight-fitting plug of glass rod was in-
serted in the rubber tubing at each end. To take a sample
of the mine air the glass plugs were removed from the
ends of the tube, allowing the water to run out and be
replaced by air, after which the ends of the tube were
securely closed by the plugs and the rubber connections
tightly wired with copper wire. Glass tubes thus sealed
were found to hold gas samples for several weeks with-
out apparent change from leakage or diffusion. However,
as a thin film of water always remains upon the walls of
the tube when the gas is collected in this manner, it is
inevitable that ‘a small amount of carbon dioxide be
absorbed. Haldane* has called attention to the fact that
when gas samples are collected in glass tubes whose walls
are moist, a small amount of carbon dioxide is absorbed
by the sodium silicate of the glass. If the water used be
clear, the gas sample loses a small amount of carbon
dioxide, but if the water used be dirty, the sample may
gain carbon dioxide from the action of bacteria. The
samples of gas collected in the Naomi, Monogah, and
Darr mines are all subject to these criticisms. Clear
water was used in every tube but one, No. 26, which had
to be refilled from a pool of standing water in the mine.
* Foster, Sir Clement, and Haldane, J. S., The investigation of
mine air.
422
Whenever the sample could not be analyzed within a few
days after it was collected, the rubber connections were
completely coated with paraffin, thus preventing with
certainty any passage of gas through the rubber.
The samples of gas obtained from these mines were for
the most part selected either from points in the workings
where there appeared to be unusual quantities of fire
damp, or where the presence of after damp was suspected.
Other samples were collected from the return air currents
to obtain information upon the general character of the
air throughout certain sections of the mines. Except in
one or two special cases, the samples were collected just
below the roof, in order to obtain a proportion of meth-
ane somewhat near the maximum present in the air. This
was thought desirable because the gas near the roof would
be most likely to be ignited from an open light upon a
miner’s cap, and because the maximum percentage of
marsh gas in an entry gives the best indication of the
danger from gas.
ANALYSES.
The analyses of the samples of gas collected within
these three mines are given in the table which follows.
The first 18 analyses were made according to the tech-
nical method of gas analysis described by Hempel.* The
remainder of the analyses, with the exception of Nos. 23
and 29, were carried on over mercury in the apparatus
devised by Professor Bone, of the University of Leeds.’
Analyses of samples of gas taken in Monongah,
Naomi, and Darr mines.
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
“Hempel, W. M., Methods of gas analysis, 1902: technical method.
* Bone, W. A., Jour. Soc. Chem. Ind., vol. 27, 1908, pp. 10-12.
423
METHANE.
It will be seen from the table that the highest percent-
ages of methane (CH,) were usually found in the samples
collected at the faces of some of the mains. Methane in
such high percentages occurred only more or less locally,
either at the high points in the roof where, owing to its
extreme lightness, it had accumulated, or as a thin stratum
of fire damp floating along beneath the roof of an entry
for a short distance from the coal face. Generally the
diffusion of the gas was found to have taken place slowly
in tight places where the current of air was slight, so that
at a few rods from the face the percentage of methane
in the air, even at the roof, was much reduced, while at
the floor there was still less methane.
But in some places the gas was found to have become
far more evenly distributed throughout the entries. In
several of the entries in the Darr mine (see analyses 21,
22, 24, and 26) fire damp was detected in such quantities
by the Wolf lamp, at distances of 75 to 100 feet from the
coal face, that it was not thought advisable to push on
to the faces even with safety lamps. Later, with an elec-
tric flash light to illumine the way, the faces of two of
these three entries were visited. Tube 28, filled with air
on January 4, 1908, from the face of No. 12 right butt,
off entry 27, contained 7.99 per cent of methane, while
tube 26, filled on January 2 at a point 80 feet from the
face of this same entry, contained 4.24 per cent of meth-
ane. The conditions were similar at the face of the main
entry. Tube 21, filled with air from the roof of the main
entry, 5 feet inby the third right crosscut, inby entry 30,
contained 4.99 per cent of methane, while tube 22, filled
a few minutes later at a point 20 feet inby the fourth
right crosscut (about 60 feet from the face of the main),
contained 6.01 per cent of methane. Two days later a
sample of gas (No. 27) was taken from the mouth of a
drill hole 5 inches in diameter in the face of the right
air course of the main entry. In this methane amounted
to 32 per cent.
424
These figures show that the percentage of methane in
the air near the roof of the gassy entries diminished
rapidly with increasing distance from the face. This was
true even in entries where the diffusion has been fair,
for the Wolf lamp at the point where tube 21 was filled
indicated gas as low as 2 feet above the floor. The high
percentages of methane were chiefly local. The main
return air currents, and in general those parts of the
entries distant from the coal face, contained methane only
in very much smaller proportions. In these passageways
the gases had become more thoroughly mixed by diffusion
as well as diluted in the draft of air, and hence here it
made less difference whether the sample for analysis was
collected at the roof or near the floor. An example of this
was shown in No. 1 left butt, off entry 30, in the Darr
mine. Tube 20, filled at the roof of the entry 20 feet
inby from entry 30, showed only 1.55 per cent of meth-
ane. At this point « Wolf lamp on a tie showed a %4-inch
gas cap, indicating from 1 to 1.5 per cent of methane.
As only a very slight current of air was moving out of
this entry, the thorough mixing of the gases was appar-
ently due largely to steady diffusion rather than to the
air draft. Tube 29, filled with gas-laden air from the
roof of entry 28, Darr mine, about 125 feet inby No. 1
left butt, contained 2.12 per cent of marsh gas. On the
floor just below nearly a %-inch gas cap was got with a
Wolf lamp. The air was moving slowly.
In the main return air ways the fire damp was more
diluted. On December 21, two days after the explosion
in the Darr mine, when the ventilation was bad, the air
from the return air way just inside of the first crosscut to
the left, inby from the swamp entry, contained 2.51 per
cent of methane (analysis 17); but the air at this same
point on January 1, when the ventilation was better,
contained only 1.50 per cent of marsh gas (analysis 18).
On January 2 the return air from the swamp entry
only 0.58 per cent of methane (analysis 23). Two days
later a Chesneau lamp registered 1.4 per cent of fire
425
where tube 18 had been filled, and 0.4 per cent in
air from the swamp entry, indicating that,
been a slight improvement in the char-
air within these two days, the figures for
18 are probably not far from the normal
Where the Chesneau lamp registered 1.4 per
fire damp on January 4, and the chemical analy-
gas collected January 2 gave 1.50 per cent, the
Wolf lamp on each occasion showed a “%-inch gas cap.
In the Naomi mine, where very high percentages of
methane were found at some of the entry faces, the main
return air current on the center main, 1,800 feet from the
mouth of the slope, contained, on the afternoon of De-
cember 14, 1907, only 0.75 per cent of marsh gas
(analysis 16).
At Monongah there appears to be much less gas in the
mines, both locally near the coal face, and in the return
air in particular. In mine No. 6 the air of the main south
return air way, 50 feet from the bottom of the shaft lead-
ing to the fan (analysis 9), and another sample from the
main right return air way, 200 feet inby a face entry
(analysis 10), contained, on December 16, 1907, only
0.22 and 0.45 per cent of methane, respectively. In mine
No. 8 a test of the air collected on December 12 from
the return air way opposite room 15 on the fifth right,
off second north heading, showed only 0.09 per cent of
methane (analysis 3). However, instead of collecting the
gas from near the roof, the tube in this case was filled
at a point about midway between the floor and the roof.
AFTER DAMP.
In all the samples of mine air collected in the Monon-
gah, Naomi, and Darr mines within a few days after the
explosions, the percentage of carbon dioxide greatly ex-
ceeded that of carbon monoxide. But it is true that none
of these samples was collected until a fair state of venti-
lation had been reestablished after the explosions, such
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426
that parties could remain in the mines for several hours.
The best of the samples was No. 17, taken from the Darr
mine by Clarence Hall on the afternoon of December 21,
two days after the explosion. While obtaining this sample
three of the party were so overcome as to be forced to
leave the mine. An analysis of this air showed 1.07
per cent of carbon dioxide and 0.61 per cent of carbon
monoxide. No other sample approached this one in re-
spect to the prominence of carbon monoxide, but even
in this one the after damp was much diluted with air.
It may be instructive to undertake a rough calculation
to show approximately what proportion of after damp is
really present. Assume that essentially all of the oxygen
of the air in the exploded portion of the mine was con-
sumed in the explosion, and that carbon monoxide was
formed because of insufficient oxygen, either directly or
from the reduction of carbon dioxide by the floating par-
ticles of incandescent coal dust. Before making a com-
putation of the proportion of after damp, it is necessary
t+ decide to which of these reactions the carbon monoxide
is to be assigned, as it makes a difference in the total
resulting amount of carbon monoxide whether the mo-
noxide be formed directly from the partial combustion of
the gas or through the reduction by the glowing particles
of coal dust of a portion of the carbon dioxide produced
in the explosion.
Beard," quoting Thomas, states that the explosion of a
mixture of methane and air at the most explosive point
(methane 9.57 per cent, air 90.43 per cent) produces no
carbon monoxide, but that as the percentage of methane
is increased above the point named carbon monoxide is
formed in ever-increasing proportion until, at what he
gives as the explosive limit, 16.67 per cent of methane
in air, the result of an explosion would be 87 per cent
monoxide and 13 per cent dioxide; while near the limit
of inflammability, 29 per cent methane, no carbon dioxide
* Beard, J. T., Mine gases and explosions, 1908, p. 130.
427
is formed. He writes the equation 2CH.+0.+4N.=—
2CO+-4H: + 4N:.
Agreeing with this in a measure is the statement of the
French fire-damp commission that the explosion of a mix-
ture of methane and air, containing 12 per cent of meth-
ane, gave rise to the following gases: Carbon dioxide,
4.8 per cent; carbon monoxide, 3.9 per cent; methane
and other hydrocarbons, 2.5 per cent; hydrogen, 3.5 per
cent; nitrogen, 82.2 per cent; total, 96.9 per cent.
At variance with this, Broockmann concludes from his
own experiments with the products of combustion of
methane and air that a pure fire-damp explosion gives no
carbon monoxide.* A mixture of air and fire damp con-
of
produces, along with steam, only carbon dioxide. Differ-
they that the
elements, carbon and hydrogen, which are combined in
is
2
present for the complete oxidation of both elements.
Spe SEITE Soe AEE we ag
* Broockmann, Niederrheinisch-WestfiilischenSteinkohlenberg-
baues, vol. 6, p. 52.
* Heise and Herbst, Bergbaukunde, vol. 1, 1908, p. 448.
* Idem, p. 463.
428
For the computation in the case in hand (analysis 17)
it will be assumed that the carbon monoxide has not been
produced directly from a partial combustion of methane
and other hydrocarbon gases, but has resulted from a
reduction of the carbonic acid by the particles of incan-
descent coal dust, according to the reaction CO,+-C=
2CO. The analysis of the return air showed 1.07 per cent
of carbon dioxide. From this are to be deducted both the
percentage of carbon dioxode in the air, 0.03 per cent,
for the after damp has been much diluted since the ex-
plosion, and also the carbon dioxide exhaled from the
coal during that time. A rough estimate of the latter can
be made, as the analyses of the gas issuing from the coal
in the form of feeders and blowers, as well as from coal
bottled in a vacuum, show that the proportion of carbon
dioxide to methane in the gas escaping from the fresh
coal of these mines is 1 or 2 to 100. As the percentage
of methane was found to be 2.51, the amount of carbon
dioxide which the fresh coal has contributed to the air
since the explosion may be taken to be 0.03 per cent.
This is the proportion of carbon dioxide to methane in
the gas from fresh coal. In the older workings of the
mine the preportion of the dioxide is greater than this;
but in the absence of data upon the ratio of these gases
escaping from coal which has long been exposed to the
air, no allowance is here made for the greater proportion
of carbon dioxide in the old entries. This leaves 1.01
per cent of carbon dioxide to be assigned to the after
damp produced by the explosion.
To produce 1.01 cubic centimeters of carbon dioxide
and 0.61 cubic centimeter of carbon monoxide from an
explosion of methane, in cooperation with coal dust whose
heated particles cause the formation of the monoxide by
abstracting oxygen from a portion of the dioxide, 2.63
cubic centimeters of oxygen would be consumed, pro-
viding that all the hydrogen of the methane was burned
‘oO water.
429
This computation does not take into account the fact
that, in addition to methane, other hydrocarbons partici-
pated in the explosion. These necessarily consisted of
relatively more carbon than CH,. But, on the other hand,
the coal-dust particles which caused the reduction of the
dioxide to the monoxide, instead of being pure carbon,
contained a certain proportion of hydrogen, a portion of
which was probably oxidized to water. These two factors
tend to offset each other. Because of their complexity
they can not be further treated here.
On the supposition that no carbon dioxide was absorbed
by the water in the mine, and that all the oxygen in the
air was cons.imed in the explosion, the volume of the
oxides of carbon in the sample collected should bear the
same relation to the amount of CO.+CO originally de-
veloped by the explosion as the corresponding volume of
oxygen, 2.63, does to 20.5, the percentage of oxygen
which is assumed to have been originally present in the
mine. This figure is taken because the coal rapidly ab-
sorbs oxygen from the air. The average proportion of
oxygen in the air of tight places in this mine was found
by a calculation from the analyses to be only 20.08 (see
p. 15); but 20.50 would seem a better figure for the
average of the mine air as a whole. The ratio~3v
is equal to 0.128. or from 12 to 13 per cent of after
damp in the sample collected.
However, this can at best be only a rough estimate, as
several uncertain factors are involved. The mine air pre-
vious to the explosion contained a small and unknown
quantity of carbon dioxide. But on the other hand, some
carbon dioxide has doubtless been absorbed by the water
in the mine since the explosion. In a measure these
factors tend to offset one another. It is also true that
other hydrocarbons, in addition to methane, were con-
sumed in the explosion, and these would unite with oxygen
430
in different proportions. But methane in all probability
contributed most.
While this sample of the air from the Darr mine after
the explosion shows that carbon monoxide may reach a
considerable percentage in after damp, the other samples
of the mine air which, however, were collected after better
ventilation had been established, showed the presence of
much less carbon monoxide, even though the proportion
of the dioxide in some samples amounted to 1 per cent.
It seems probable that some and perhaps most of the
difference was due to more thorough ventilation before
the later samples were collected, for carbon monoxide,
once removed, would not be resupplied except in very
small quantities, but carbon dioxide might have been
supplied from the coal, the lamps, etc., since the explosion.
However, the relative proportions of carbon dioxide
and carbon monoxide in after damp must always be vari-
able, depending on the ratio between the available oxygen
and the available combustible matter, gas and dust, in
the air. If the explosion were due largely to methane
in the air, in quantities not exceeding 10 per cent, and
with little dust as an accessory, little carbon monoxide
would be formed. But, on the other hand, in a dust ex-
plosion where large quantities of coal dust are present,
capable of distilling volatile hydrocarbons in volumes too
great to be entirely consumed by the quantity of oxygen
in the mine air, and where there is an abundance of hot
coal dust stirred up in the air, carbon monoxide might,
perhaps, be produced in greater quantities than the di-
oxide. A coal-dust exploion is more complex than one of
fire damp. If the explosion of the dust proceeds by rapidly
feeding the flame with combustible gases and hydrocarbon
vapors derived from it through the influence of the heat.
as is believed to be the case, there is, at first, sufficient
oxygen at hand to insure the complete oxidation of the
gases developed. Carbon dioxide and steam result. But
under ordinary conditions, with plenty of dust, the dis-
tillation of volatile matter continues, liberating an excess
431
of readily available combustible gas which, because of
insufficient oxygen, is only partly consumed. In the ab-
sence of oxygen, a portion of the carbon dioxide already
produced is reduced to carbon monoxide in variable pro-
portions, depending on the amount of red-hot dust float-
ing in the atmosphere and the length of time during which
the dust remains sufficiently heated to allow the reducing
reaction to proceed.
DEFICIENCY OF OXYGEN.
In order to ascertain the character of the mine air, irre-
spective of the after damp, a recalculation of the analysis
was made. The analyses of gas from mine feeders and from
coal bottled in a vacuum show that the proportion of
carbon dioxide to methane in the gas escaping from the
fresh coal of these mines is 1 or 2 to 100. Wherever
methane is found in the mines it is safe to assume that a
volume of carbon dioxide corresponding to 1 per cent of
the methane has escaped from the coal simultaneously
with the marsh gas. This figure, plus the 0.03 per cent
of carbon dioxide in normal air, is subtracted from the
percentage of carbon dioxide in the analysis. To be on
the rieht side, it is assumed that all the rest of the carbon
dioxide has been produced by the oxidation of CH,, as the
combustion of this compound consumes more oxygen per
unit of carbon dioxide formed than anv of the other com-
pounds which could have participated in the explosion. The
amount of oxygen which would have been required. on
the basis of an explosion of methane, to yield the oxides
of carbon found in the analysis, is then added to the
percentage of oxygen shown by the analysis. The percent-
ave of methane in the analysis, plus the carbon dioxide
of normal air and that which, on the basis of the methane
present, has been considered to have been derived from
the coal since the explosion, is deducted from the total,
and the remaining figures recalculated so as to add to 100.
432
This gives an estimate of the percentage of oxygen in
the mine air irrespective of the after damp from the ex-
plosion and the feeder gas which has escaped into the
workings from the coal since the explosion. Because of
the assumptions, these estimates give a generous figure
for the percentage of oxygen. An average of the three
analyses of air from the Naomi mine made in this way
was 20.86 per cent, eleven analyses from the Monongah
mine gave 20.72 per cent oxygen, and thirteen analyses
from the Darr mine gave an average of only 20.08 per
cent oxygen. These figures indicate a deficiency of oxygen
in the mine air which can not be attributed to the forma-
tion of free carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, unless
it be supposed that much of the carbon dioxide formed
has been absorbed by water in the mine, which seems
improbable in these dry mines. Instead, it would appear
that the coal has absorbed oxygen from the air, thus
reducing the percentage of that gas and increasing that
of nitrogen.
The greatest deficiency in oxygen occurred in the sam-
ple of gas-laden air collected near the face of the swamp
entry in the Darr mine (analysis 25). Corrected for car-
bon dioxide and methane, this sample showed the unusual
proportions, oxygen 16.13 per cent and nitrogen 83.87
per cent. This sample was also characterized by the high-
est proportion of methane (50.67 per cent) obtained in
these mines. That the diffusion of the air and gases in
this cleft in the roof had progressed slowly is shown by
the accumulation of so much fire damp, and it was
apparently because of the stagnancy of the air in this
nook that the coal was able to abstract such a proportion
of the oxygen. It must be noted that feeder gas often
contains several per cent of nitrogen, so that with 50 per
cent of methane (feeder gas) present in the air a part
of the apparent excess of nitrogen and deficiency of oxy-
gen may, perhaps, be explained by this nitrogen coming
from the coal.
433
As many of the samples of air which have contributed
to these averages, particularly those from the Darr mine,
were collected from sheltered, poorly ventilated nooks in
order to get data on the accumulation of fire damp, the
low figure of 20.08 per cent for oxygen is not representa-
tive for the air of the mine as a whole. While the loss
of oxygen is less conspicuous in the general mine air than
in pockets in the roof and in tight places where there is
little air stirring, its effect is felt throughout the mine,
and furnishes an additional reason for ventilation which
will afford a continuous supply of good air, as well as
remove the dangerous fire damp and the noxious products
of combustion.
POSSIBLE CONDITIONS OF GAS IN COAL.
The gas which escapes from coal may exist within the
mass of the coal in three possible conditions. It may be
mechanically held or imprisoned in minute pores, cavities,
or cracks throughout the coal; it may be occluded or dis-
solved within the substance of the coal; or it may be the
result of slowly operating chemical reactions, such as
those which have produced the coal from the original
vegetable matter and which, still operative, might, as a
working hypothesis, be supposed to generate gas in pro-
portion as it is given off. In the first two cases the gases
are supposed to be already existent within the coal as
gases; under the third hypothesis they are to be regarded
as now produced for the first time by chemical decom-
position of the solid coal substance. The ultimate source
of the gases may be taken as the same under each hy-
pothesis, for there can be little doubt that the bulk of
the gas given off from coal has arisen from the slow
decomposition of organic matter as a by-product in the
process which has converted vegetable humus into coal.
The first hypothesis favors the belief that the gas-gener-
ating process has been very slow and that such gas as
comes off at the present time has long been stored in
minute cavities or pores, from which it escapes when the
434
coal is fractured, as in mining operations. The second
hypothesis assumes, like the first, that the gas was de-
veloped long ago, but differs from it in assuming that the
gas, as fast as it was developed from the coaly matter,
was retained within the coal substance in solution, or
occluded, instead of being held mechanically in minute
crevices and cracks. This hypothesis is suggested by the
well-known property of various metals to occlude or dis-
solve within their mass certain gases, and by the familiar
power of charcoal to condense on its surface or absorb
many times its own volume of various gases. The term
occlusion, which Graham gave to this imperfectly under-
stood property of certain metals to absorb particular
gases, has been very loosely used, especially in mining
literature, where “occluded gas” usually means gas held
according to either of the first two hypotheses, the radical
differences between them having generally been over-
looked. By some writers, indeed, the term is intended to
carry the idea of the first hypothesis alone, the second,
that of true occlusion, being left out of account.
The third idea is only a working hypothesis which is
framed to recognize the possibility that the coal-forming,
gas-generating process is still in progress, and that the
escape of the gases is a sort of index of the present chem-
ical activity within the coal.
LIBERATION OF GAS BY CRUSHING COAL.
PLAN OF EXPERIMENTS.
To throw light on this possible threefold state in which
the gases are held in coal, and to determine the relative
importance of the three hypotheses, a series of experi-
ments was devised. In the first the coal was broken up
and crushed to a coarse powder in an air-tight receptacle,
from which any gas liberated during the process of crush-
ing can be extracted by a vacuum pump. Only such gas
as was already stored in the coal can be freed by crush-
ing it, as the process is accomplished very quickly. How
much gas might be expected to be freed from a state of
435,
true occlusion by crushing is less clear. The most thor-
oughly studied form of occlusion is that of hydrogen by
palladium. Whether palladium charged with hydrogen will
give off part of its gas at the ordinary temperature when
placed in a vacuum depends entirely on the condition of
the metal. If the palladium is in a very finely divided
state, a considerable portion of the hydrogen is given off
when the pressure is greatly reduced;* but the cast or
forged metal gives off no hydrogen whatever when placed
in a vacuum at ordinary temperatures.’ The hydrogen
begins to be evolved from the solid metal only at tempera-
tures above 100°C. It is conceivable that reducing the
size of coal fragments by crushing in a vacuum might,
in some similar way, allow the evolution of gas which
was not possible from the lump coal. But as the lumps
of coal are only crushed down to a coarse powder it
would not seem as if truly occluded gas should be freed,
to any large extent, by the coal crusher, even in a vacuum.
If crushed under full atmospheric pressure in an inert
gas, no occluded gas should be liberated. It is not at all
certain that coal behaves like palladium in these matters.
It seems, therefore, safer to conclude that by crushing the
coal and opening up many pores and cavities it is chiefly
the imprisoned cavity gas that is liberated.
METHOD OF CRUSHING.
The apparatus for crushing the coal was constructed
on the principle of the familiar steel mortar, fitted with a
long piston rod incased in a heavy rubber tubing, which,
with one end fastened to a flange at the top of the mortar
cylinder and the other wired to the piston rod near its
free end, makes an air-tight connection, and at the
same time renders the piston movable. A few vigorous
blows delivered with a heavy mallet upon the end of
the piston rod serve to crush the coal, after which the
* Moissan, Chimie minérale, vol. 5, p. 860.
> Graham, Chemical and physical researches, pp. 283-290.
436
gas liberated during the crushing is pumped out of the
cylinder through a short delivery tube, fitted with a stop-
cock.* The apparatus is intended to maintain a complete
vacuum for the short time required to crush a sample
of coal, but in practice it was found advisable, in order
to prevent a slight inleaking of air, to place the cylinder
of the crusher in a pail of water during the operation.
This crusher was able to pulverize from 50 to 100 grams
of coal at a time. The coal was crushed both in a vacuum
and under full barometric pressure.
DETAILED RESULTS.
Sample 1.—Coal collected on December 13, 1907,
from the face of No. 4 right entry, off the F-face heading,
mine No. 6, Monongah, was crushed in a vacuum on
January 27, 1908. Starting with lumps of coal of about
1 cubic inch, the material was crushed twice, the crusher
being opened after the first crushing and the finer dust
sifted out. The extent to which the coal was reduced after
both crushings was determined by sieves, as follows:
Of 100.21 grams of coal used, 20.56 grams passed through
a 30-mesh sieve, 31.26 grams passed through a 10-mesh
sieve, and 48.39 grams was too coarse to pass the 10-
mesh sieve. There was obtained 10.57 cubic centimeters
of gas at 0° C. and 760 millimeters pressure, having the
following composition:
Analysis of gas obtained by crushing coal sample 1
Per cent
(OEE DLE TRAE ARS A AT TNE PIE: 2.90
RR SET INCE AE SA. Ra RRL Data t Tadésotdiaatan 39.65
RR AER SRA AEE ARE ches te ln Tk 10.07
RSS ERENT HORN Rs AERC Aleve AM = 22 38.11
I CUI ais i cicen te cctvcrsiccwsaecncenibitnlnceinns — 9.27
100.00
@ This rock crusher has been described in detail, with a diagram-
matic sketch in The gases in rocks: Carnegie Institution of Wash-
ington, Pub. No. 106, p. 39.
437
If the gas all came from the coal which passed through
the 30-mesh sieve, the methane would amount to 0.26
of the volume of that coal. The latter figure is to be
preferred.
Sample 2.—Coal collected December 12, 1907, from
room 3 on third right, off second north heading, mine
No. 8, Monongah, was crushed in a vacuum January 28,
1908. Two lumps of coal were pulverized, in two crush-
ings, to the following degree of fineness: Of 49.13 grams
in all 20.24 grams passed through the 30-mesh sieve,
23.67 passed through the 10-mesh sieve, and 5.22 grams
was too coarse to pass the 10-mesh sieve. The crushing
liberated 11.71 cubic centimeters of gas at 0° C. and 760
millimeters pressure, which had the following composition:
Analysis of gas obtained by crushing coal sample 2
Per cent
READE i a RR AI Ain BENE 1.56
ET Se CRE Rs 40.99
8 AGE Ry 2 RE RR a MRE a RR Re 9.86
Nitrogen................. seinliiathtnitA Seitcwadstediees kekaRoa dates 87.62
TREC a sie 10.27
100.00
The quantity of methane is equivalent to 0.30 of the
coal which passed the 30-mesh sieve, to 0.14 of the
volume of the 10-mesh coal, and to 0.12 of the volume
of all the coal used.
A duplicate test with this same sample of coal, crushed
in three trials, afforded the observation that there is not
any very noticeable slackening in the gas obtained from
the second and third crushings. For the first trial the
total weight of coal is used. After the gas has been
pumped over into the receiver, the crusher is opened and
the fractured coal sifted with both the 10-mesh and 30-
mesh sieves. Only the coal coarser than the 10-mesh
sieve is returned to the cylinder of the crusher for the
second trial. The second trial thus crushes coal fragments
438
averaging about the size of a bean to fine 10-mesh coal
and dust, and as it crushes about the same weight fine
enough to pass through the sieves as did the first trial,
it is to be expected that about the same volume of
methane will be obtained. After the second trial the coal
is again sifted and that portion which is too coarse to
pass through the 10-mesh sieve is put back into the crusher
for the third trial. It is clear that some of the gas comes
from that coal which is partly crushed, though not fine
enough to go through the 10-mesh sieve, but in estimating
the volume of gas given off per unit volume of coal it
seems advisable to consider only that coal which has
passed through the sieves, for whatever gas may have
come from the coarser coal would undoubtedly be offset
by the gas still remaining in the fine coal. Crushing coal
to 30-mesh does not remove all the gas.
In the experiments with samples 1 and 2 the coal
was crushed in a vacuum and the gas brought out under
reduced pressure. To ascertain the part played by low
pressure in this process of gas extraction, and hence
whether much gas escaped from occluding bonds, samples
of coal were crushed under the full barometric pressure,
both in air and in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide.
Sample 3.—Coal from the same can as sample 1 (p.
18) was crushed in air under full barometric pressure. As
it was necessary in this experiment to discover how much
methane is liberated solely by crushing the coal, without
the cooperation of a reduction in pressure, the gas was
removed from the crusher in two portions. The first por-
tion consisted of the air and gas which was removed
by the first stroke of the vacuum pump. The stopcock
being open only about two seconds, and only about half
the contents of the crusher being removed, whatever meth-
ane was found in this portion must have been freed
from the coal without the influence of reduced pressure.
As soon as this portion could be stored away for analysis,
Gases removed after crushing coal sample 3 in air,
with their relation to the coal by volume.
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
As would naturally be expected, the percentage of
methane is higher in the second portion than in the
first, though the difference is not great. But the greater
amount of methane in the second portion was not liberated
entirely through the influence of reduced pressure, as the
had stood longer in the second case than in
first, and the element of time proves to be an im-
portant factor in the escape of gas from coal.
However, only the first portion is to be taken as repre-
senting the gas liberated during the crushing under full
atmospheric pressure. An estimate of the total volume
of gas obtained from the crusher on the basis of the analy-
sis of the first portion gave the first two columns of the
following table. A comparison of these figures with those
in the last two columns, obtained by combining the
volumes of the two portions analyzed separately, may
help to show how much gas may be attributed to the
reduced pressure.
o 2 e.
é
Relations to the coal by volume of gases removed
after crushing coal sample 3 in air.
{Tabular Matter Omitted]
The confirmatory tests were made with other samples
of coal from Monongah mine No. 6. Sample 4 was col-
lected December 16, 1907, from the face of the east
returning air way, and crushed March 10, 1908. Sample
5 was collected December 13, 1907, from the face of the
Il manway, and crushed March 18, 1908. Each of these
440
samples was crushed in air under barometric pressure,
and the gas removed in two portions. For each sample
the total volume of methane was calculated for both
portions of gas, on the basis of the analysis of the first
portion, which came over with the first stroke of the
pump. At least this calculated amount of methane must
have come off without the aid of reduced pressure. Ex-
pressed in terms of the volume of coal which was crushed
down to 30-mesh, the amount for sample 4 was 0.27,
and for sample 5, 0.79. The volume of methane actually
obtained for the two portions was, in the same terms,
0.41 for sample 4 and 0.86 for sample 5.
In the test of sample 5 the difference between the
total volume of methane actually obtained and the calcu-
lated volume which must certainly have been liberated
from the coal under full barometric pressure is small.
Moreover, only a portion of this small difference can
be attributed to the effect of reduced pressure, as other
factors, such as slow diffusion and the greater interval of
time, have helped to cause this difference.
For a series of systematic experiments to show the
amount of methane which is liberated from the same
coal under various conditions, the can of coal which was
collected from the face of the H manway in Monongah
mine No. 6 was selected (sample 5). The results of
crushing lumps of this coal are as follows, the several
tests being set forth in numbered paragraphs, with the
volume of coal crushed to 30-mesh and to 10-mesh:
1. Coal was crushed in a vacuum, but so much
water vapor was given off and drawn past the cal-
cium chloride drying tube into the pump that in
order to draw over all the gas it was necessary to
keep the pump going for nearly one hour. Hence
the time factor enters here. Ratio, by volume, of
methane to 30-mesh coal, 0.88; to 10-mesh coal,
0.33.
441
2. Coal crushed in a vacuum and the gas im-
mediately pumped off. Then a full atmosphere of
carbon dioxide was run in and pumped out, bringing
with it the last traces of methane. Two separate trials
were made, giving ratios of 0.89 and 0.83, respec-
tively, to 30-mesh coal, and 0.38 and 0.34 to 10-
mesh coal.
3. Coal was crushed in a vacuum, but
phorus pentoxide was used as a drying agent instead
of calcium chloride. Ratio of methane to 30-mesh
coal, 0.84; to 10-mesh, 0.33. After pumping out this
gas and removing it for analysis, an atmosphere of
carbon dioxide was run in as rapidly as the apparatus
i
4. Coal crushed in air under barometric pressure.
This test has been described on page 21 (sample 5).
The amount of methane was 0.86 of the 30-mesh
coal and 0.41 of the 10-mesh.
methane, 0.91 of the 30-mesh coal, 4.4 of the 10-
Tests 6 and 7 were made to determine the influ-
ence of the length of time during which the coal is
6. Coal crushed in a vacuum and allowed to
stand 3% hours with occasional pumping. Then the
442
apparatus was filled with carbon dioxide and pumped
out again. Total duration of the experiment, 4 hours,
considerably more gas was thus obtained than when
the process was completed in less than 1 hour. An-
alyzed in four separate portions. The total methane
was 1.38 times the volume of 30-mesh coal, and 0.57
of the 10-mesh.
7. Coal crushed in a vacuum. Pumping kept up
for 1 hour; then, after a short time, 30 cubic centi-
meters of hydrogen were let in and soon pumped out.
After 1% hours an atmosphere of carbon dioxide
was run in and pumped out again. Duration of ex-
periment, 4 hours. Analyzed in three portions. Total
methane, 1.39 times the volume of 30-mesh coal, and
0.53 of the 10-mesh.
These last two experiments, in which the totals include
all the methane which escaped from the coal during four
hours after the process of crushing, show that the gas
does not all escape from the coal within the first few
minutes after the coal is shattered, and that to obtain
comparative results it is necessary that the time consumed
during the process of removing the gas after the coal has
been crushed be approximately the same in all tests. In
the last test the gases pumped off during the first hour,
those brought over by the hydrogen, and those which
came with the carbon dioxide, were collected and analyzed
separately, but nothing of significance was developed
except, perhaps, the fact that the hydrogen treatment
yielded somewhat less methane than had been anticipated.
These experiments, taken as a whole, appear to indi-
cate that, in respect to the volume of methane obtained
from the coal, it makes little difference whether the coal
is crushed in a complete vacuum, or under the full baro-
metric pressure, in an atmosphere either of air or of
carbon dioxide, provided the gas in each case is quickly
pumped out of the crushing apparatus. Gas continues to
443
escape from the crushed coal at a rather rapid rate for
some time after it has been crushed, but this feature will
be considered elsewhere.
The quantity of gas immediately liberated from the coal
when it is broken up is thus largely independent of the
outside pressure. Such gas, therefore, can not be sup-
posed to have come directly from a state of occlusion,
for, without an appreciable change either of temperature
or pressure, occluded gas should not be given off in this
way, even from finely divided coal. Nor can it come
immediately from chemical decomposition of the nongas-
eous constituents of the coal. It must, instead, have been
already stored within the mass of the coal as free gas,
mechanically imprisoned in numerous pores, cavities, and
crevices, from which much of it is immediately released
as soon as the confining walls are shattered in the process
of crushing, and the pores and cavities opened to the sur-
face. Necessarily, in the process of crushing to this state
of fineness, only a portion of the gas-holding pores are
so opened as to enable the inclosed gas to escape at
once. In many others, the shattering makes it possible
for the gas to escape by slow diffusion, where before it
was securely held. Hence an abnormally rapid escape of
gas follows for a short period of time after the coal has
been crushed.
However, it is not impossible that in those tests in which
the coal was crushed in a vacuum or practical vacuum,
the reduced pressure, acting on the fresh surfaces of the
crushed coal, might have caused the escape of some truly
occluded gas. If such gas escapes from the coal, it would
be likely to come largely from that portion which was
most finely pulverized. (See p. 17.) But quantitatively
this occluded gas can not play a very important part
in the gas liberated by crushing the coal, as its liberation
is dependent on a reduction of pressure, and these experi-
ments indicate that, in the volume of gas given off, it
makes little difference whether the coal is crushed under
444
the full barometric pressure or in a complete vacuum.
Thus, while there is a possibility, and even a probability,
that some of the gas does come from a state of occlusion,
it seems more plausible to regard the main bulk of the
gas escaping from coal during the process of crushing,
and an abnormal rate just after being crushed, as being
cavity gas, whose escape is facilitated by the shattering
which the crushed coal fragments have received. The
fact that the presence of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, or
carbon dioxide in the crusher has little influence on the
amount of methane given off during the crushing, and
for a short length of time afterwards, is in harmony with
the theory that this gas escapes largely from mechanical
bonds.
GASES FROM COAL BOTTLED IN A VACUUM.
VACUUM BOTTLES.
The experiments with the coal crusher have shown how
much gas can be liberated from these coals by crushing
them to a certain degree of fineness and opening up many
of the gas-holding pores. But this process does not re-
move all the gas, nor is it the only way to extract the
gas from coal without the use of heat. To get the gas which
slowly escapes from coal, different samples of coal were
stored in vacuum bottles, from which the gas evolved was
pumped out from time to time. Each of these bottles had
a capacity of 500 cubic centimeters and was fitted with
a one-holed rubber stopper containing a short delivery
tube. Over the free end of the delivery tube was slipned
a short piece of heavy antimony rubber pressure tubing,
which serve to make the connection with the mercury
pump. A strong screw clamp on the rubber tubing closed
the way to the bottle. The stopper and rubber connec-
tions were all coated with paraffin to prevent leakage of
air. When the air from the bottle had been completely
exhausted, the clamp upon the rubber tube was tightly
screwed, the rubber tube disconnected from the pump,
'
'
445
and a plug of glass rodding quickly run into the rubber
tube as far as the screw clamp would permit. Rendered
tight by paraffin the bottle was submerged in a jar of
water until the time came to remove the gas. At any
time desired the wottle could be connected with the mer-
cury pump and the gas which had accumulated removed
for analysis, after which the bottle was agzin submerged
in the water jar.
VOLUME OF GAS.
The volume of the gas extracted from coal by allowing
it to remain in an essential vacuum for a period of time
was somewhat variable and depended on the sample of
coal, the interval of time between its removal from the
coal fragmen‘«. and the duration of the experiment. The
finer the coal the more rapidly and completely was the
gas liberated in a given period of time. At the end of
six months gas was still accumulating steadily in those
bottles which contained lump coal, and it was only in
those containing crushed coal that the escape of gas had
nearly ceased. The volume of gas from the crushed coal
ranged from 0.9 to 2.3 times that of the coal from which
it came. The lump coal yielded gas to the extent of 0.5
to 0.9 of its own volume during half a year at low pres-
sure. Because of the pressure of other laboratory experi-
ments, and the time required for the inspection of the
Darr mine shortly after the material was collected at
Monongah, more than a month elapsed between the col-
lection of the coal samples and the bottling of them in
a vacuum. These figures, therefore, do not represent all
the methane given up by the coal since its removal from
the seam, for a certain quantity of the gas may be sup-
posed to have escaped while the coal was in the collecting
cans.
To obtain data on the volume of gas lost during the
first month after the removal of the coal from the seam,
samples of fresh coal were collected in the usual cans,
which were at once hermetically sealed with a thick coat-
446
ing of paraffin, before leaving the coal face. When opened
in the laboratory about a week later, a determination of
the gas in the cans was made, after which some of the
coal was immediately placed in the vacuum bottles. In
this way all the gas escaping from the coal after the
sample was mined at the working face was determined.
A specimen of bituminous coal in the form of lumps
from the Mansfield mine at Carnegie, Pa., gave off 0.55
of its volume of gas, exclusive of nitrogen, during seven
days in the collecting can and thirty days in the vacuum
bottle. Analyses made at intervals during this length of
time indicated that gas was freed much more rapidly
during the first few days after collecting than later. But
a similar experiment with gassy anthracite coal showed
only a slight slackening in the rate of methane escape,
and this change in the rate was almost uniformly dis-
tributed throughout the period of observation.
CHARACTER OF GAS.
The coal thus bottled in a vacuum was kept under
observation for a period of half a year, during which
time the bottles were connected with the mercury pump
at stated intervals and the gas which had accumulated
was removed for analysis. Thus not only was the rate
at which the gas escaped from the coal discovered, but
the character of the gas evolved throughout this length
of time was determined. However, as the principal ob-
ject of the experiments in which these vacuum bottles
were employed was to determine the volume of methane
escaping from the coal during a given interval of time,
léss care was given to the determination of the minor
constituents, especially carbon monoxide and the ethylene
series. In some tests the absorption of the olefins with
fuming sulphuric acid, or bromine water, was omitted,
and the gases of this series were removed, together with
carbon monoxide, by cuprous chloride. Also, the leakage
of small quantities of air into the vacuum bottles was not
prejudicial to the chief purpose of the experiments, for
447
the volume of methane was in no way affected. Although
these analyses are subject to these limitations, they yet
serve to indicate pretty closely the general character of
the gas which escaped from the coal during the period
of half a year under reduced pressure. Four of these sets
of analyses of the gas from coals are given in the table
following.
Analyses of gases escaping from small lump coal bottled
in a vacuum, with relation to the coal by volume
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
The analyses of the gas from the other samples of
Carboniferous coal which were subjected to this same
treatment show similar results.° The most noteworthy
change in the nature of the gas escaping from the coal
during the period of observation was the steady decrease
in the proportion of nitrogen and the corresponding in-
crease in the percentage of methane. Much of the
nitrogen that appeared in the portion of gas removed
from the bottles at the end of the first three weeks doubt-
less came from air which adhered to the coal or was ab-
sorbed by its mass, and was not given off immediately
when the vacuum was produced. As the oxygen which
coal absorbs enters rapidly into chemical union with the
substance of the coal, the latter respires chiefly nitrogen
(with some carbon dioxide) in place of the air taken in.
The influence of the nitrogen from the air is naturally
most felt during the early part of the sojourn of the coal
in the vacuum bottles, as this nitrogen is largely held by
the surface layers or in the more prominent crevices and
lines of fracture. It therefore escapes from the coal more
readily than the gas originating in the coal, which is
distributed throughout its mass, but most abundantly in
*The Cretaceous coal from New Mexico, however, behaved dif-
ferently (giving 30 to 40 per cent carbon dioxide and only 4 per cent
methane), but that is outside the field of this report.
448
the interior of the fragments, from which escape is slow
and difficult. As this extraneous nitrogen was removed,
the percentage of the methane rose proportionately.
Methane was quantitatively by far the most important
gas which escaped from the bottled coal. After the ex-
traneous nitrogen had been removed, it ran in some tests
as high as 98 per cent of all the gas coming from the
coal. More commonly, however, it constituted from 80
to 95 per cent of the gas liberated. Methane reached its
highest percentage in the gas from anthracite coal, which
yielded only small proportions of the other constituents,
carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
In addition to methane, at least one other higher mem-
ber of the paraffin series was found. In nearly every
analysis the explosion of the residual gas with oxygen,
after the removal of the absorbable gases, produced car-
bon dioxide in slight excess over what would have re-
sulted from the combustion of methane alone. Calcula-
tions show that the excess of carbon dioxide noted can
be explained by the presence of ethane in proportions of
a trace to 4 parts of C:H. to 100 parts of CH. Other
higher paraffins may be present in small quantities, but
the computations are made on the basis of ethane alone,
as C-H.++CH. = 2C-H.. So far as the tests have been
carried, the bituminous coal has yielded more ethane than
the anthracite (one sample only). In fact, in several tests
the explosion of anthracite gas, instead of indicating
higher paraffins, suggested the presence of a small amount
of hydrogen.
Carbon dioxide was found to be a more variable con-
stituent of the gas, depending on the nature of the coal
from which it came. The various experiments with the
Monongah coal show that in most of the samples it
amounted to 1 to 3 per cent of the gas which accumu-
lated in the bottles. In the bituminous coal from the
Mansfield mine at Carnegie, Pa., carbonic anhydride be-
came much more important, reaching 13 per cent of the
449
total gas given off. But on the other hand, careful
analyses made over mercury failed to detect any carbon
dioxide in two out of the four portions of gas from the
anthracite coal of Nanticoke, while the analyses of the
other two portions revealed the presence of only small
quantities of this gas. Although the proportion of meth-
ane steadily increased as the experiment progressed, in
general the proportion of carbon dioxide fluctuated dur-
ing the period of observation.
The volume of nitrogen in the bottles fell rapidly dur-
ing the progress of these experiments. Apparently much
of the nitrogen which was obtained from coal by this and
other methods, especially that portion of the gas which
came off most readily, is not to be regarded as gas held
by the coal while in the undisturbed strata, but as
nitrogen absorbed by the coal after it became exposed to
the air in the mining operations. Some of it was derived
from air adhering to the coal and tubes in spite of the
effort of the mercury pump to remove it. The leakage
of air into the bottles could take place only while they
were out of the water jar and connected with the pump.
Hence, most of whatever inleaking air there may have
been was quickly pumped over into the gas receiver with
the rest of the gas, and was determined in the analysis
on the basis of the amount of oxygen found. Only such
air as could leak into the bottle, between the closing of
the screw clamp and the immersion of the bottle in the
water jar after sealing the rubber-tube connection with
glass plug and paraffin coating, could remain in the bottle
with the coal during the interval between tests. Absorp-
tion of oxygen from such air by the coal would leave an
excess of nitrogen in the gas. But as less than one min-
ute elapsed between the closing of the screw clamp and
the immersion of the bottle, the amount of leakage was
reduced to a small figure. The excess of nitrogen in the
analyses of the portions of gas taken at the end of the
half-year period indicated that the cvai did contain
nitrogen as a truly original gas. This may have come
originally in pat from air buried with the accumulated
450
vegetable matter and in part from the decomposition of
nitrogenous compounds in the organic matter whose
metamorphism produced the coal.
The minor constituents of the gas from coal were car-
bon monoxide and one or more members of the olefin
series, most probably ethylene.
The above figures represent the character of the gas
escaping from lumps of coal averaging somewhat less
than a cubic inch in size. The evolution of gas had in no
case ceased at the end of the six-months period. Instead,
gas was still steadily accumulating in the bottles, though
at a diminishing rate. The composition of the last por-
tion of the gas which would eventually escape, if the
experiment were carried on for a much longer period,
can only be inferred from these experiments with the
lump coal. However, from the studies on the finely
crushed coal, from which the gas escaped much more
rapidly and completely in a given length of time than
from the coarser fragments used in the above tests, more
can be learned on this question. Two representative ex-
periments with coal crushed in the rock crusher so as to
pass through a 10-mesh sieve, and then bottled in a
vacuum, may be selected to illustrate the composition of
the gas which came from the coal after the main bulk of
the free gas had been liberated and the outflow had
nearly ceased.
Analysis of gases escaping from crushed coal bottled in a
vacuum, with relation to the coal by volume.’
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
According to the foregoing table the relative propor-
tion of both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in-
«Coal from the face of H manway in Monongah mine No. 6,
crushed so as to pass through a 10-mesh sieve, and then quickly
placed in the vacuum bottle. The rate of methane liberation is
shown by curve 7 of fig. 1.
451
creased greatly during the last weeks of each experiment,
chiefly in consequence of the rapid slackening in the out-
put of methane This gas, because it diffuses and
transpires at move rapid rates than the other gases men-
tioned, escaped from the coal sooner than the less active
molecules, and hence the stored-up supply of free methane
in the coal was more quickly depleted than that of carbon
dioxide. Thus, on theoretical grounds, the coal may be
expected to give off carbon dioxide for a longer period
than methane. But these tables not only indicate an in-
crease in the relative proportion of carbon dioxide and
carbon monoxide during the latter part of the experi-
ment, but they appear to show also an absolute increase
in the volume of the oxides of carbon evolved per unit
of time. During the first few weeks after the coal was
bottled in a vacuum there was a reduction in the rate
of outflow of all the gases, but during the last ten weeks
of the last-year period the evolution of the oxides of
carbon apparently proceeded at an accelerated rate. This
feature was most conspicuous in experiments E and F,
but the same phenomenon was also shown, though in a
less striking manner, in the results of the two other simi-
lar series of analyses which furnished the data for curves
4 and 8 of figure 1.
The experiments with the rock crusher indicate that a
large part of the free gas held by coal is mechanically
imprisoned, under pressure, within the pores, interstices,
and lines of fracture of the coal. Such gas is released
immediately when the coal is pulverized and many of the
gas-holding cavities are broken open. Many of the pores
charged with gas are not opened by the crushing process,
so that much cavity gas still remains in the crushed coal.
Of the gas exhaled when the coal is placed in a vacuum,
it seems safe to assign the bulk of the methane, carbon
dioxide, and other gases which escape from the coal,
rapidly at first, but at a progressively declining rate, to
this mode of occurrence. The gases under pressure in
the interstices of the coal are supposed to reach the sur-
face by diffusion, or more strictly, transpiration, and to
452
escape until in time the gas thus mechanically held has
bled itself out. The curves showing the rate of escape
of methane support this view in regard to that gas. But
the behavior of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in
this respect appears to be different. The declining vol-
umes of these gases during the first few weeks are natural
enough, as the cavity gas comes off in greatest volume
immediately after the coal is crushed. But reasons for the
apparently increasingly volumes toward the end of the
experiments are less easily found. Possibly the increment
of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide may come from
a state of occlusion. (Charcoal, which is like coal, is
known to absorb the gxides of carbon in much greater
volume than hydrogen 4 and probably also in greater vol-
ume than methane, though the figures for the latter are
not at hand. The presumption, therefore, is that of the
coal gases the oxides of carbon are likely to be held in
greatest volume as occluded gas. But why such gas, even
if occluded, should be liberated most rapidly after so long
an interval is not apparent at the present time. Perhaps
the explanation is to be found in chemical changes. For
the present, however, the cause of this phenomenon must
be left open. Further experimentation, to determine how
generally the rule is true of different coals, is necessary
before more is made of this point.
COMPARIS WITH MINE GASES
To make a comparison between the composition of the
gas which escapes from the bottled coal in the laboratory,
and that which issues from the rock strata, a few analyses
of feeder gas from the mines may be introduced:
Analyses of feeder gas.
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
The presence of a higher member of the methane series,
probably ethane, was noted in Nos. 1, 3, and 4, but the
« Moissan, Chimie minérale, vol. 2, pp. 251-253.
453
paraffins have here been computed as so much methan
In No. 5, after the removal of the hydrogen by palladium,
the explosion indicated only methane.
A comparison of the foregoing table with that on
26, after the proper allowance is made for air and ine
gen absorbed from the air by the coal used in the labora-
tory experiments, fails to show any significant difference
between the feeder gas encountered in the mines and the
gas extracted from lumps of coal in the laboratory by
means of a vacuum. But a comparison with the table on
page 29 shows that, while the feeder gas bears a close
resemblance to the gas which is obtained from the finely
crushed coal during the first few weeks under reduced
pressure, it is quite different from the gas which is finally
exhaled from the fine coal after it has stood some months
and has lost the bulk of its free gas. The feeder gas does
not contain the high percentages of carbon dioxide and
carben monoxide which characterize the last gas to escape
from the fine coal. Feeder gas therefore represents that
portion of the gas which is first to escape from the coal
and which comes out most readily. It would seem to be
that portion of the gas which, having been mechanically
held at the outset in the interstitial spaces throughout the
mass of the coal stratum, has subsequently escaped from
the scattered pores in the coal and has accumulated along
more or less connected lines of fracture, or other places
of weakness or increased porosity. Traveling along these,
it now issues into the mine workings from distinct ori-
fices, cracks, or localized portions of the coal bed, at a
more rapid rate and in greater volume than it i
: tye phar it is elsewhere
ee. the ae of » in the form of feeders,
» Must die out long before the steady ex-
aaa me Ges Body of the coal, oles int cued oe
fracture continue to serve as paths of discharge for the
gases slowly but steadily gathering in the porous reser-
voirs back in the coal. And to judge from the slowness
with which even small lumps of coal manifest a change
in the character of the gas transpiring from them, even
454
when favored by a reduction of pressure, it would seem
that a very much longer period of time would be required
to produce the change in composition which the behavior
of the finely crushed coal suggests will ultimately occur
in the gas freed from the solid coal.
But in the case of pillars and other coal surfaces long
exposed to the the weathering action of the mine air,
there enters another factor which is absent in the vacuum-
bottle experiments—-that is, the steady oxidation of the
coal by the oxygen of the air. Experiments on coal bot-
tled in air, under ordinary barometric pressure, show that
oxygen is rapidly absorbed by the coal until, after a few
days, there remains often only | or 2 per cent of oxygen
in the free gas in the bottle. At the same time a certain
proportion of the oxygen uniting with the coal comes off
again as carbon dioxide, but this, at least during the
short time of the experiment, amounts to only a small
part of the oxygen entering the coal. Perhaps with an
abundance of air and a much longer period of time, so as
to allow the coal to absorb oxygen to its full capacity, a
much larger proportion of it might eventually reappear
from the saturated hydrocarbon compounds, as carbon
dioxide.
The feeder gas originates back in the coal seam, away
from the influence of the air, and hence it does not con-
tain carbon dioxide from the direct oxidation of the coal.
But the exposed coal surface must produce carbon dioxide
in this way and thus supply the mine air with carbonic
acid, which, though coming from the coal, is largely inde-
pendent of the free gas content of the coal. This property
appears to vary in different coals. The gassiness of a
certain coal is not necessarily an index to the volume
of carbon dioxide which may be developed from it as a
contribution to the mine air. A few analyses made in
Germany of the air from unexploded mines indicate a
higher proportion of carbon dioxide, in comparison with
methane, than is found in the feeder gas, suggesting that
the oxidation of the coal may be a more prolific source of
455
the carbon dioxide encountered in the mines than the out-
flow of the free gas stored within the coal. we
RATE OF ESCAPE
The samples of coal were kept in the vacuum
fi twenty-six weeks, or just half a year. At an pox
vals d this time the gas which had accumulated was
pumped out and analyzed. As methane was by far most
abundant gas thus obtained, as well as the most important
from the standpoint of this investigation, the volumes
of that gas given off per unit volume of coal were taken
a ine Standard. Curves were plotted, as in figure 1, to
now the rate of escape of this gas from the coal, the or-
cnethane. ane Sraph representing the relative volumes of
methane, absci i
a : Ssas expressing the progress of
Descriptions of the es of coal iti
from which the iia adiies were «ens oo
Curve. 1. Methane from coal collected from the
face of the fourth right entry, off the F face heading,
in mine No. 6, at Monongah, December 13, 1907:
bottled in vacuum January 23, 1908. ‘eet
Curve 2. Same coal as No. 1. Crushed in vacuum
on January 27 by means of coal crusher
placed in the vacuum bottle. lies
Curve 3. Methane from coal collected from room
3 on third right off second north heading, in mine
No. 8, Monongah, December 12, 1907: bottled in
vacuum January 23, 1908.
Curve 4. Same coal as No. 3. Crushed in v
in coal crusher January 28, and then placed in the
vacuum bottle. Coal passed through 30-mesh sieve.
Curve 5 Coal from the face of the east return air
way in mine No. 8, Monongah. Collected December
17, 1907; bottled in vacuum February 10, 1908.
456
Curve 6. Coal from face of right main, Naomi
mine. This is the most gassy point seen in the mine.
Collected December 14, 1907; bottled February 11,
1908.
Curve 7. Coal from face of H manway, mine No. 6,
Monongah. Collected December 13, 1907; crushed
in vacuum March 17, 1908, and immediately placed
in vacuum bottle.
Curve 8. Same coal as No. 7. Crushed in air
under fuli barometric pressure on March 18, 1908,
and immediately placed in vacuum bottle.
Curves 1, 3, 5, and 6 show the escape of methane
from lumps of coal averaging approximately the size
of a marble. Curves 2, 4, 7, and 8 indicate the vol-
ume of gas which escaped from coal crushed so that
all of it would pass through a 10-mesh sieve, a con-
siderable part of it being necessarily much more finely
reduced than this.
457
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459
The volumes of methane liberated during the process of
crushing are also included in these curves. Hence curves
for the crushed coal instead of commencing at the zero
point start at points on the vertical axis corresponding to
the volume of methane lost during the process of crush-
ing.
The four curves representing the lump coal show that
the escape of methane from fragments of coal, even in a
vacuum, takes place slowly and steadily and must in
some cases continue for a very long period of time.
Curve | is nearly a straight line, showing that the evolu-
tion of methane was nearly as rapid at the end of twenty
weeks as when the coal was first placed in the vacuum.
In the other three experiments the rate of escape declined
more rapidly.
The relation between the size of the coal fragments
and the rate of gas escape is strikingly shown by com-
paring the curves obtained from the crushed coals with
those representing the same coals in lumps. Curves 1 and
2 were parallel experiments with the same coal, as were
also curves 3 and 4. The finely~crushed coals gave out
methane at a very rapid rate for a short time after being
bottled, but the rate soon rapidly declined. In the experi-
ments represented by curves 7 and 8 the escape was ex-
ceedingly rapid during the first week after the crushing,
but had greatly slackened before the end of the second
week. Bottles 2 and 4 were not opened until the end of
the sixth week, so that these two curves are not so sharply
bent.
It is clear from these experiments that the gas escapes
more readily, and at first in greater volume, from the fine
coal than from the coarser lumps, but that the supply of
free gas held by the fine coal is more quickly depleted,
while the loss from the lump coal is more uniform. After
a time, therefore, the coarse coal gives off gas more rap-
idly than the fine. The graph shows that the curves for
the same sample of coal approach each other and will
460
in ti bly at a point
rently come together in time, proba
wre es uP ch ee
hausted. It seems probable, q ralieg Bye Mice
the coal, whether finely divided or in t howe aan
lumps, has little influence on the total amo “
pene to in a sufficiently long period of —, yer hayes
makes a very great difference in the rate a say oe
gas is given off. The phenomenon —— ot Aagg
one involving the quantity of gas stored wi sg Se
which can escape, and not one of gas generatio
the interval of time.
i f
Some of the results of these experiments on the Ben i
escape of gas from Monongah coal may be sum
in the following generalizations:
1. Reduction of pressure removes the gases from coal
slowly—a matter of weeks and months.
2. Finely powdered, fresh coal ag off pangs sang
ing Si i than the same
during six months in a vacuum oe
oal subjected to the same con IS. 4
an during a much longer period of time —
mately the same volume of gas should be expecte
come off from either type of coal.
3. Reduction of pressure, acting for only a few See
or even a few days, is far less effective in extracting
entrapped gas than crushing the coal, either in a vacuum
or under barometric pressure.
4. Crushing coal to a certain degree of agers aig
approximately the same volume of methane whet ——
operation is performed in a vacuum or In an atmosp
of air or carbon dioxide.
i f fineness of which
5. Crushing the coal to the degree of fir i
the crusher tanith removes only a minor ee
of the free gas stored within the coal. For 0 gy
i um or un
1 already crushed, either in vacuui :
pre see pressure, will yield more methane during
461
the next two weeks in a vacuum than was liberated dur-
ing a process of crushing.
PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RATE.
The escape of methane, which takes place slowly and
steadily, even from small lump coal, and at a rate that
is much influenced by the size of the coal, must continue
very steadily for long veriods of time from the solid coal
in the mines. This means that throughout every portion
of a mine, in the old workings as well as the new except
in the portion of the seam near the surface from which
the gas has been slowly escaping during long geologic
ages), a steady outbreathing of methane gas is to be
expected. This may be independent of recognizable “feed-
ers” and “blowers” and may come from the massive coal,
as well as from distinct cracks and fissures leading back to
storage reservoirs. But because this gas escapes as slowly
as it does steadily, it does not often become dangerous in
mines where the ventilation is good; but old, abandoned
workings, cut off from the rest of the mine and from the
ventilation, soon fill with methane from this continual
exhalation of gas.
A much greater danger lies in those more rapid out-
bursts of fire damp which unexpectedly flow into the new
workings when a strong blower or reservoir of gas is en-
countered. Necessarily the quantity of gas suddenly forced
into the workings must vary within extremely wide limits,
depending on the nature and extent of what may, for
convenience, be termed the storage reservoir. These so-
called reservoirs of gas are, in reality, porous portions of
the coal seam or adjacent strata, or a series of fissures,
in which the gas has accumulated and is now stored, at
many places under very great pressure. When a crack
or fissure leading back to a region of stored gas is encoun-
tered in mining operations, an outflow of gas into the
working results. Suc ten falls of rock from the roof often
open avenues of esuape for pent-up gas. When lines of
462
communication with extensive reservoirs of stored gas are
opened, large quantities of fire damp may flow into a
portion of the mine in a short time and thus render the
air in this part of the mine explosive. These lines of com-
munication may be opened either in the ordinary mining
operations or because of the formation of new lines of
fracture accompanying the natural deformation move-
ments of the strata. Settling of the overhead beds, to-
gether with a general redistribution of the strains caused
by the removal of the coal, is likely to open new sets of
fissures and seal old ones. Hence there may be periods
of more gas and periods of less gas, depending on the
local movements of the strata and the effect of such move-
ments, by opening or closing fissures, on the facility with
which the pent-up gases can find lines of egress. No ap-
peal, however, is here made to seismic or volcanic dis-
turbances in other parts of the world, whose influence on
the local conditions must be trivial.
From these experiments it has seemed safe to conclude
that the solid coal in the seam must continue to supply
methane for long periods of time. This means that as the
supply of gas collected in reservoirs is reduced by escape
into the mine, the adjacent coal has a tendency to yield
gas to replace that which is lost, until (in case the avenue
of escape is cut off by movements of the strata or other
causes) a state of approximate equilibrium is established
between the gas distributed throughout the mass of the
coal itself and that accumulating in the so-called reser-
voirs. If a reservoir of gas were tapped by boring and
the gas removed, the reservoir would, in the course of
time, be likely to become recharged, partly at least, with
more gas supplied by the adjacent coal, provided the
avenue of escape became closed. Just how rapidly a de-
pleted reservoir might be resupplied with gas, and what
bearing this factor has on practical mining, must be left
an open question for the present.
463
EFFECT OF BAROMETRIC CHANGES.
When the lumps of coal were placed in the vacuum
bottles and the air was exhausted by means of the mer-
cury pump, it was found that the reduction of the pressure
to a fraction of a millimeter caused the immediate escape
of only a small quantity of methane. The exhaust air from
the bottles of Monongah coal contained methane in vol-
umes ranging up to 0.002 of the volume of the coal.
Lumps of coal from the Naomi mine and the Mansfield
mine at Carnegie, Pa., added similarly small volumes of
methane to the exhaust air. Three samples of coal from
the mine at Cardiff, Ill., gave only traces of methane, but
a fourth, from a gassy portion of the mine, gave off
0.003 of its volume of methane. A bottle of anthracite
coal from No. 1 north shaft of the Susquehanna Coal
Company at Nanticoke, Pa., gave off methane to the ex-
tent of 0.03 of the volume of the coal while the air was
being pumped out of the bottle. The time required to
remove the air from these bottles was about twenty min-
utes. Thus a sudden drop of 740 to 750 millimeters in
pressure within twenty minutes does not bring out a very
large volume of gas. Experiments already described have
shown that time is required to bring out the gas, even
in a vacuum.
To discover how much more gas is given off from coal
under low pressure than under the full barometric pres-
sure, 20 pieces of bituminous coal from the Mansfield
mine at Carnegie, Pa., were placed in a vacuum bottle
and the air exhausted. At the same time 21 chunks of
similar size, taken from the same collecting can, were
placed in a bottle filled with air. The two bottles were
then submerged side by side in a water jar. At the end
of ten days the gas which had accumulated in the interval
was pumped out and analyzed. The coal which had been
bottled in a vacuum was found to have given up 0.25 of
its volume of methane, while methane amounting to 0.14
of the volume of the coal had accumulated in the bottle
464
that had been filled with air. A similar experiment with
two bottles of anthracite coal from Nanticoke, Pa.,
showed, after an interval of one week, exactly the same
relative volume of methane in each bottle—1.07 times the
volume of the coal. As in each experiment the volume
of methane liberated was greater than the volume of oxy-
gen which the coal absorbed from the air, the final pres-
sure in the air-filled bottles was greater than the baro-
metric pressure.
Low pressure aided the escape of gas from the bitumi-
nous coal. but it appears to have had little influence on
the liberation of gas from this sample of anthracite coal.
That identical volumes of methane should have escaped
from the anthracite coal under such widely different pres-
sures is perhaps to be regarded as largely a coincidence,
for the distribution of gas is not uniform throughout the
coal: but with about 20 fragments of the coal in each
bottle, the gas content of the coal in one bottle should
not differ greatly from that in the other. It is to be noted
that, while the total pressure in each of these air experi-
ments was very different from that in the parallel vacuum
experiment. the partial pressure due to methane alone
started at zero in each bottle and at the conclusion of the
experiment with the anthracite coal had become as great
in one bottle as in the other. Tp considering the influence
of barometric fluctuations on the volume of gas exhaled
by the coal in the mines, however, it is the total gas pres-
sure which is of significance, rather than the partial pres-
sure due to methane.
It would seem therefore that even the greatest fluctua-
tions of the barometer, which do not exceed 40 millimeters,
can not have very great influence on the volume of gas
escaping from the interstices of the coal itself. But in the
case of feeders and blowers, in which the gas escapes for
the most part directly from accumulations stored within
more or less connected systems of fissures and zones of
fracture, instead of from minute pores in the coal, the
465 .
effect of the diminution of pressure probably is more
marked. This should be particularly true wherever the
stored gas is under only a moderate pressure and the path-
way of escape into the mine workings is readily followed;
the strong blowers coming from the reservoirs far back
in the coal, where the gas is held under high pressure and
communication with the coal surface is more difficult,
are necessarily much less affected by the relatively slight
barometric changes.
Heise and Herbst bring out the point that, although
frequent measurements have shown that the gas stored
up in the fresh, undisturbed coal often is under pressure
amounting to several atmospheres, these high pressures are
obtained only by boring several meters back into the coal;
and that close to the coal face the gas is under a pressure
but slightly in excess of the barometric pressure." Blower
gas, in that portion of its course which is near the orifice,
is under only a slight pressure, so that an increase in
the barometric pressure adds resistance to its outflow,
causing it to slacken, whereas with a falling barometer the
outflow of gas must become more active. In this way the
common observation that the outflow of gas from blowers
increases with a falling barometer and slackens percep-
tibly with a rising barometer is shown to be entirely con-
sistent with the high gas pressures that have been found
to exist in the undisturbed coal some distance from the
exposed face.
_ The influence of barometric changes on the outflow of
air and gas into the active workings from old abandoned
entries which are not completely walled off from the rest
of the mine is well known and does not fall within the
scope of this discussion.
* Heise and Herbst, Bergbaukunde, vol. 1, 1908, pp. 458-461.
466
GASES OBTAINED BY HEATING COAL.
Meyer,” Thomas,° Bedson,* Trobridge,” and other inves-
tigators have extracted gases from coal with the aid of
heat, by warming the coal generally up to the boiling point
of water, and in some experiments as high as 200° C.
In many tests the higher members of the paraffin series,
such as ethane, propane, and butane, were obtained in
considerable proportions. At least one gas of the olefin
series was often present in notable quantities.
The present analyses of feeder gas from the mines and
of the gas which slowly escaped from the coal bottled in
a vacuum, as well as of that liberated directly by crushing
the coal in the rock crusher, do not reveal the presence
of any such high proportions of the heavier hydrocarbons.
But these gases were all extracted at ordinary tempera-
tures. As the constituents of coal include various hydro-
carbon compounds, some of which may be supposed to
be partly decomposed or volatilized at even moderate
temperature, there comes to mind the suggestion that a
portion of the olefins and higher paraffin gases obtained
from these European coals, instead of existing within the
coal in the free state, may have been produced from chem-
ical decomposition induced by the heat employed. To test
this possibility, parallel experiments were undertaken. A
can of fresh bituminous coal from the Pittsburg district
being selected for this test, one portion of the coal was
stored for thirty days in a vacuum bottle; a second portion
was pulverized on an anvil so as to pass through a 10-
mesh screen, and then quickly placed in a suitable glass
tube connected with the mercury pump, and the air re-
> Von Meyer, Ernst, Jour. Chem. Soc., vol. 25, 1872, pp. 798-801.
¢ Thomas, J. W., Jour. Chem. Soc., vol. 28, 1875. pp. 793-822, and
vol. 30, 1876, pp. 144-152.
* Bedson, P. Phillips, and McConnell, W., Trans. Fed. Inst. Min.
Eng., vol. 3, 1892, pp. 307-310; vol. 7, 1894, pp. 27-53.
* Trobridge, F. G., Jour. Soc. Chem Ind., vol. 25, 1906, p. 1129.
467
moved. This tube was then kept for three hours succes-
sively at 50° (water bath), 100° (boiling water), 150°
(oil bath), and 200° (metal bath). The gas obtained
during three hours at each temperature was collected and
analyzed. The same experiment was then repeated with
anthracite coal from the vicinity of Scranton, Pa. The
results, expressed in volume of each gas relative to the
volume of the coal as unity, are given in the following
Analyses of gases obtained from coal in a vacuum at
different temperatures.
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
The other portions of these two coals were kept in
vacuum bottles at low pressures for thirty days. At inter-
vals during this period the gas which had accumulated was
pumped out and analyzed, in order to furnish additional
data on the rate of methane liberation (see pp. 33-36).
The gas was pumped from the bottle containing the bitu-
minous coal at the end of each ten days; from the anthra-
cite at the end of each week, except that the fourth period
was extended to nine days to complete the full thirty days.
The following table indicates the character of the last
Portion of the gas obtained from these two vacuum bottles:
468
Analyses of gases given off by coal during last 10 of 30
days in a vacuum.
{Tabular Matter Omitted]
Ethane ..as present in the gas from the anthracite coal,
if at all, only in small quantities. In two of the four
analyses made of the gas from this coal the result of the
explosion determinations indicated a small amount of
hydrogen instead of higher paraffins. The explosions in
the other two analyses pointed to the presence of a small
proportion of ethane accompanying the methane.
A comparison of the three tables shows that for these
two coals the gas extracted by heating the material up to
200° C. is somewhat, though not radically, different from
that which slowly exudes from the coal when bottled for
a period at ordinary temperatures. The heat caused the
expulsion of such uncombined gas as was ready to escape
at ordinary temperatures, and in addition developed some
new gas from the nongaseous constituents of the coal.
Most conspicuous among these new products were the
vapors of hydrocarbons which at ordinary temperatures
are normally liquids. Benzene was probably the most
prominent of these vapors. The hydrocarbon vapors be-
gan to appear in notable quantities at 100° and increased
in importance as the temperature was elevated. The vol-
ume of ethane also rose slowly with the increase of heat,
suggesting that some of this gas did not come from a
state of mechanical imprisonment in the pores of the coal,
but was produced by chemical action induced by the heat.
Gases of the ethylene series remained unimportant, even
up to 300°, in the experiments with the anthracite coal.
The high proportions of higher hydrocarbon gases ob-
tained by Meyer, Thomas, and Bedson by heating Ger-
man and English coals up to 200° were not found in the
gas from these two samples of Pennsylvania coal. By
heating dust from the Darr mine up to 350°, however,
469
both olefins and higher paraffins, which at lower tempera-
tures had appeared only in moderate quantities, were
made important constituents of the gas evolved. (See
tables on pp. 57-58.) Such gases could have come only
from chemical action or from a state of true occlusion,
for they must inevitably have been liberated in consider-
able volume at the lower temperatures as well had their
liberation been merely a question of escape from the inter-
stices of the coal. Substantiating this view in a measure
is the testimony afforded by the vacuum bottles. These
experiments show, at least as regards the coals used in
these investigations, that the gas slowly coming off from
the crushed coal at the end of a period of six months
at very low pressures is not notably richer in the higher
members of the marsh-gas series than the gas rapidly ex-
haled at the beginning of the experiments. These higher
hydrocarbons do not diffuse and transpire so rapidly as
methane, but if they were present in any considerable
volume, mechanically held within the pores of the coal,
as is the methane, a period of six months would seem
sufficient to permit their escape in notable proportions.
470
SURVEY PUBLICATIONS ON FUEL TESTING
AND MINE ACCIDENTS.
The following publications, except those to which a
price is affixed, can be obtained free by applying to the
Director, Geological Survey, Washington, D. C. The
priced publications can be purchased from the Super-
intendent of Documents, Government Printing Office,
Washington, D. C.
Bulletin 261. Preliminary report or the operations of
the coal-testing plant of the United States Geological Sur-
vey at the Lousiana Purchase Exposition, in St. Louis,
Mo., 1904; E. W. Parker, J. A. Holmes, M. R. Campbell,
committee in charge. 1905. 172 pp. 10 cents.
Professional Paper 48. Report on the operations of the
coal-testing plant of the United States Geological Survey
at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Mo.,
1904; E. W. Parker, J. A. Holmes, M. R. Campbell, com-
mittee in charge. 1906. In three parts. 1,492 pp., 13 pls.
$1.50.
Bulletin 290. Preliminary report on the operations of the
fuel-testing plant of the United States Geological Survey
at St. Louis, Mo., 1905, by J. A. Holmes. 1906. 240
pp. 20 cents.
Bulletin 323. Experimental work conducted in the
chemical laboratory of the United States fuel-testing plant
at St. Louis, Mo., January 1, 1905, to July 31, 1906,
by N. W. Lord. 1907. 49 pp. 10 cents.
Bulletin 325. A study of four hundred steaming tests,
made at the fuel-testing plant, St. Louis, Mo., 1904, 1905,
and 1906, by L. P. Breckenridge 1907. 196 pp. 20 cents.
Bulletin 332. Report of the United States fuel-testing
plant at St. Louis, Mo., January 1, 1906, to June 30,
1907; J. A. Holmes in charge. 1908. 299 pp.
471
Bulletin 333. Coal-mine accidents, a preliminary re-
port by Clarence Hail and W. O. Snelling. 1907. 21 pp.
Bulletin 334. The burning of coal without smoke in
boiler plants; a preliminary report, by D. T. Randall.
1908. 26 pp. 5 cents. (See Bull. 373.)
Bulletin 336. Washing and coking tests of coal and
cupola tests of coke, by Richard Moldenke, A. W. Belden,
and G. R. Delamater. 1908. 76 pp. 10 cents.
Bulletin 339. The purchase of coal under government
and commercial specifications on the basis of its heating
value, with analyses of coal delivered under government
contracts, by D. T. Randall. 1908. 27 pp. 5 cents.
Bulletin 343. Binders for coal briquets, by J. E. Mills.
1908. 56 pp. 7
Bulletin 362. Mine sampling and chemical analyses of
coals tested at United States fuel-testing plant, Norfolk,
Va., in 1907, by J. S. Burrows. 1908. 23 pp. 5 cents.
Bulletin 363. Comparative tests of run-of-mine and bri-
quetted coal on locomotives, including torpedo-boat tests
and some foreign specifications for briquetted fuel, by
W. F. Goss. 1908. 57 pp., 4 pls.
Bulletin 366. Tests of coal and briquets as fuel for
on boilers, by D. T. Randall. 1908. 44 pp.,
pls.
Bulletin 367. Significance of drafts in steam-boiler
= by W. T. Ray and Henry Kreisinger. 1909.
pp.
Bulletin 368. Washing and coking tests of coal at
Denver, Colo., by A. W. Belden, G. R. Delamater, and
J. W. Groves. 1909. 54 pp., 2 pls.
473
60TH CONGRESS DOCUMENT
2d Session No. 1554
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
472
Bulletin 369. The prevention of mine explosions, by
V. Watteyne, C. Meissner, and A. Desboronugh. 1908.
108 pp.
Bulletin 373. The smokeless combustion of coal in
boiler plants, by D. T. Randall and H. W. Weeks. 1909. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
GEORGE OTIS SMITH, Director
BULLETIN 394
PAPERS ON THE
CONSERVATION OF MINERAL RESOURCES
Reprinted From Report of the
National Conservation Commission, February, 1909
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1909
474
CONTENTS
Page
aE: SIRS Eee: Spe ae sinc OUT Se 5
Coal fields of the United States, by M. H Campbell and
F. W. Parker ........... ONT AR ABTA eS Onl re 7
Estimates of future coal production, by Henry Gannett. 27
The petroleum resources of the United States, by D. T.
ise sacepsiinntnbeaaneiatestteanelactanbandiensdninsatuiadibatniat acta sos 30
Natural-gas resources of the United States, by D. T.
UN ceccinncinsnilns casita dis eal Nasa) a Cie 61
Peat resources of the United States, exclusive of
ae oe. EO ea 62
Iron ores of the United States, by C. W. Hayes ai 70
Resources of the United States in gold, silver, copper,
lead, and zinc, by Waldernar Lindgren. s—‘(‘sC~*é~i~S‘*SCS
The phosphate deposits of the United States, by F. B.
ET EE hide Se res Cs 157
Mineral resources of Alaska, by A. H. Brooks. -_—_. 172
Saas Satchel PEED ERAN CIID AIOE 9 an 209
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
PLATE I. Distribution of coal fields in the United
REET PSNI Coe peat ae eee ll 6
II. Distribution of petroleum and gas fields in
kik” anise Seeruaeaias “ ioraay 80
III. Illustration of the crowding of wells, Spindle-
IV. Production of petroleum, 1859-1907 38
V.
VI.
475
Decline in production of the New York and
Pennsylvania oil fields and its probable rate
PRUE he
Production of gold of the United States and
of the principal States and Territories, 1885-
1907
wT O Ri Ane etiitrternisneeneebaseees ann i ee
- Production of gold of the world and of the
principal countries, 1800-1906 te
Production of silver of the world and of the
United States, 1880-1907...
- Production of copper in the United States,
PE Aidinsisitieicsceikti so
. Production of zinc in the United States, 1880-
1907
RR a cae
. Curve showing production of coal, 1846.
tthe ee EET Ot Ea
2. Curve showing production of iron ore, pig
iron, and steel, 1870-1900.
476
PAPERS ON THE CONSERVATION OF
MINERAL RESOURCES.
INTRODUCTION.
is volume is a reprint of selected papers on the
Pace of mineral resources, written by members of
the United States Geological Survey in response to execu-
tive order, for the report of the National Conservation
Commission (S. Doc. No. 676, 60th Cong., 2d sess.).
Nearly all the information from which these papers a
compiled had previously been collected by the pr ys
Survey in the performance of its regular duties. Since me
organization of the Survey the mineral resources of the
nation have been the principal subject of its investiga-
tions, and the data on which are based the estimates of
the reserves of mineral fuels and ores are the results of
nearly thirty years of official work. The report on the
coal fields is practically a restatement of the information
set forth on the coalfield map published in May, 1908,
before the appointment of the National Conservation
Commission: the other inventories constitute a summation
of work in which ‘he authors had been engaged as mem-
bers of the Survey. The printing of the conservation
report has furnished an opportunity to present these re-
prints in convenient form and, as the demand for the
larger report will greatly exceed the edition —
this segregation of the papers relating to minerals wi
prove useful.
[Map of Distribution of Coal Fields
in the United States Omitted]
477
COAL FIELDS OF THE UNITED STATES
By Marius R. CAMPBELL and EDWARD W. PARKER.
INTRODUCTION
According to the estimates prepared by the U. S.
Geological Survey, the area underlain by workable coal
beds in the United States is 496,776 square miles. Of this
total area, 480 square miles contain the entire anthracite
coal fields of Pennsylvania. The bituminous coal fields
are estimated to be contained in an area of 250,051
Square miles. The grade of coal between bituminous and
lignite, which is designated by the Geological Survey as
“subbituminous,” is estimated to be contained within
areas aggregating 97,636 square miles, while the areas
containing lignite aggregate 148,609 square miles. The
coal fields are divided, for the sake of convenience in
classification, into six provinces, as follows (see Pl: I):
1. The eastern province, containing the anthracite coal
fields of Pennsylvania and the bituminous coal fields of
the Appalachian -region, i.e., those of western Pennsyl-
vania, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennes-
see, Georgia, Alabama, and small outlying areas of North
Carolina.
2. The interior provinces, containing the bituminous
coal-producing regions of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana,
western Kentucky, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma,
Arkansas, and Texas.
3. The Gulf province, containing the lignite areas of
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas.
4. The northern Great Plains province, containing the
lignite subbituminous areas of North and South Dakota,
eastern Montana, and northeastern Wyoming.
478
5. The Rocky Mountain province, containing the
bituminous and subbituminous areas of western Montana
and western Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.
6. The Pacific coast province, containing the areas of
Washington, Oregon, and California.
During the last few years the Survey geologists have
worked in all of these coal areas and have also been mak-
ing careful estimates of the quantity of coal contained in
the beds when mining first began. In making these esti-
mates care has been taken to ascertain how much of the
supply is easily available and how much is either not avail-
able under present mining and market conditions or is
available with extreme difficulty. According to these esti-
mates the quantity of coal contained within the known
area of the United States when mining first began was
3,076,204,000,000 tons. Of this quantity a little less
than two-thirds, or 1,922,979,000,000 tons, is considered
as coal that is easily accessible of minable under present
conditions, while slightly more than one-third, or 1,153,-
225,000,000 tons, is considered as non-minable under
present conditions or accessible with extreme difficulty.
It should be remembered, however, that the quantity of
coal given above as easily accessible includes the lignites
and subbituminous coals of the Western States, of which
approximately 530,000,000,000 tons, while easily acces-
sible, can not be considered available under present con-
_ ditions or those which may be expected in the near future.
This would reduce the original supply of easily accesssible
and available coal to approximately 1,400,000,000,000
tons.
The area of the different provinces and the quantity of
coal contained therein when mining first began are shown
in the following table:
Tonnage (short tons), by provinces and accessibility.
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
479
taeia) Brades and accessibility, is shown in the following
Tonnage (short tons), by grades of coal and accessibility.
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
The first mining of coal in a commerci
United States, was in whet is known as a ie
basin, a small area in the eastern part of Virginia. Small
quantities of coal had veen mined here in the latter part
of the eighteenth century and it was also in the latter
part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth
— that efforts were being made to introduce an-
- song coal for fuel Purposes. The first actual records
production of Virginia coal were in 1822, in which
year it was reported that 54,000 tons were mined. In
1820 (two years before) 365 long tons of anthracite coal
or 1 ton for each day of the year, had been shipped to
distant markets. From these small beginnings of less than
a century ago the production of coal has increased until
in 1907 the total output of anthracite and bituminous coal
approximated 500,000,000 tons. In 1837 the total pro-
duction of the United States reached, for the first time
a total exceeding 1,000,000 tons, the output being re-
ported from 4 States only—Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ken-
tucky, and Illinois—although Maryland also was produc.
ing a small quantity of coal at that time. In 1840 the
amounted to a little over 2,000,000 tons, the
1860 it was over 14,000,000 tons; in 1870 over 3
- 4 tons; in 1890 it approximated 160,000,000 oe
pe AA —_ nearly 270,000,000 tons; and in 1907 it was
b> vy tons. The aggregate production to the close
has amounted to 6,865,097,567 short tons.
480
Up to the close of 1845 the total production of coal
in the United States was 27,700,000 short tons, and since
that time the drain on the supply has practically doubled
with each decade. The total production to 1845 and
decenntially since that time has been as follows:
Short tons
Up to 1845 ee ee ee 27,677,214
1846-1855 siete 93,417,827
DEE EE Caines wee
1866-1975 _ 418,425,104
1876-1885 $47,760,319
1986-1995 ; os m i 1,586,008,641
1896-1905 ............ 2,832,402,740
1900-1907 Be mn 894,520,702
Total ..... Po a _ 6,805,097 ,567
It is estimated that for every ton of coal mined and
sold. half a ton is lost or wasted, so that the total produc-
tion of 6,.865,097,567 short tons to the close of 1907
represents an exhaustion of 10.200,000,000 tons, or 0.3
per cent of the total original supply, or 0.7 per cent of
the coal which is easily accessible and available under the
present conditions. The total supply of easily accessible
and now available coal left in the ground at the close of
1907 was 1,382,780,000,000 short tons.
Accompanying this statement two charts are presented,
one showing the production of coal annually from 1840
to 1907, the other illustrating the average annual produc-
tion by progressive ten-year periods for the same length
of time, the latter chart having been prepared in order to
eliminate minor variations due to abnormal conditions.
The average annual increase in coal production figured
from the average of progressive decades shown on the
second diagram is 7.36 per cent, and for the last five
progressive decades—1894-1903 to 1898-1907—the rate
of increase has been above that average.
481
DURATION OF SUPPLY.
The total reserve of easily accessi i
coal is estimated at 1 382,700,000,000 = .
tion that a constant output has been reached would be
utterly unwarranted. On the other hand, the adoption of
the flat rate of annual increase of 7.36 per cent would
involve the improbable assumption that the marvelous
record of the past and present will be maintained in the
future and the production would continue to approxi-
mately double every decade. Using the waste allowance
on the basis of this constant rate of increase in produc-
ton, the 1,382,780,000,000 tons available at the close of
1907 would be exhausted in one hundred and seven
years, or by 2015 A. D. Against the use of the flat rate
of increase it may well be contended that just as the rate
of increase in population tends to diminish, so this rapid
increase in per capita consumption of coal cannot per-
sist, and a constant annual production will be reached
However, the figures set fifty years ago by statisticians for
the probable constant annual production of coal in Eng-
land have already been exceeded by over 160 per ion
Mr. Henry Gannett has made an estimate b
a decreasing rate of increase calculated from —
averages of production. The use of ten-year averages
is regarded as unsatisfactory for the reason that i
of the decades may consist mainly of a period of pros-
perity, while the preceding and succeeding decades con-
tain periods of business depression. The twenty-year
period, however, is sufficently long to include a me of
prosperity with one of business depression. Taking the
four twenty-year periods since 1828, three rates of in-
crease are obtained which show a rapid decrease. The
hyperbolic curve computed from these successive rates of
increase will indicate the constantly diminishing rate of
increase for the successive twenty-year periods. The re-
sult obtained by this method is that the easily accessible
and available coal will be exhausted about the year 2027
and all coal by the middle of that century. It is recog-
482
nized that the data upon which this curve has been con-
structed are few and the curve correspondingly weak.
However. in the above estimate all of the data have been
given which it is possible to use, and this estimate is
believed to represent the best use that can be made of
the data at hand.
Inasmuch as America leads the world not only in
present production of coal, but also apparently possesses
the greatest reserve and certainly is mining coal at much
lower cost than any other country, the obvious tendency
will be for European countries to look more and more
to the United States for their coal supply. Therefore,
while our present coal production and consumption are
practically equivalent, the export of coal, unless prohibited
by federal legislation, must eventually become a factor
and increase the coal production in the United States be-
yond the demands of home consumption. On the other
hand, powerful infls ~es will come to bear upon coal
production, which fa‘ iengthening the life of the supply.
Thus it is to be hopea chat with more improved methods
in the utilization of coal the increased efficiency per unit
may act as a factor in reducing coal consumption, and
improved mining methods should likewise decrease the
waste percentage. The increased utilization of water power
should also tend to decrease coal consumption. Again, as
soon as the end appears in sight prices will rise and pro-
duction diminish, and that progressively. This interference
with the law of decreasing increase produced by growing
scarcity will of course, prolong the life of our coal re-
serves, but at the same time will greatly hamper our indus-
tries that depend on this fuel.
With so many indeterminate factors whose importance
is realized but can not be measured, prophecy must pos-
sess a questionable value.
WASTE IN COAL MINING.
The principal loss or waste attending coal-mining opera-
tions is that represented by the quantity of coal i cessarily
=
ve a foot or more of coal
as a part of the roof, because of the unstable character of
the coal, which itself does not make
a good roof. It has also been frequently the case that,
where portions of the coal bed have been of inferior
SF
3
3
:
Px
therein. has been
particularly the case in some of the coal beds of western
There are no exact figures as to the actual loss or
waste sustained through coal left in the mines in conduct-
ing the mining operations, but it has been estimated that
it amounts to 50 per cent of the quantity produced and
marketed. In some cases, through careful mining and
where the conditions are ideal for working, practically
all of the contents of the coal beds are recovered, In other
|
; not exceeded 30 per cent of the
ontents. During the days of mining in the anthra-
cite regions of Pennsylvania it was estimated that only
484
40 per cent oi the coal was marketed. This was partly
due to uneconomical methods of mining, and partly to the
large amount of culm, for which there was at that time
no market and which was piled on the ground in unsightly
mountains. At the time of the Anthracite Coal Waste
Commission, which made its report in 1893, 40 per cent
was still considered a maximum recovery. So far as under-
ground workings are concerned, there has been no revolu-
tion in the methods employed since that time, but there
has been a considerable improvement in the apyiication
of those methods, which has resulted in the recovery at
the present time of a materially larger proportion of the
coal in the ground than was the rule at that date. The
earlier methods of mining consisted in leaving compara-
tively narrow pillars, and in the mining of large rooms
the result was that the pillars were not strong enough to
stand the pressure and were crushed beyond recovery.
It is now customary to use larger pillars between the
rooms, which makes it possible to better control the roof
during “robbing” operations and to eventually recover a
larger proportion of the contents of the bed.
Material improvements have also been made in the
methods of the preparation of coal, so that a much greater
proportion of the product hoisted is now being sent to
market in merchantable condition. Part of this is due to
better and more systematic methods of handling, and part
to the saving of small sizes which formerly went to the
culm banks. The higher prices of coal and the develop-
ment of methods for using these small sizes have also
made it possible, through washing processes, to rework
the small coal formerly thrown on the clum banks, and
these are now furnishing several millions of tons of mar-
ketable coal annually.
Under present conditions, except in cases where the
surface must be maintained, it is estimated that in the
Wyoming region of the Pennsylvania anthracite field the
recovery for market is from 60 to 64 per cent. In the
485
Lehigh, Mahanoy, and Schuylkill regions the recovery for
shipment is estimated at 56 per cent.
When the Anthracite Coal Waste Commission * made its
report in 1893 the shipments of anthracite had amounted
to 820,362,995 long tons, and the total production was
estimated to have been 902,000,000 long tons. The com-
mission estimated that for every ton produced, 114 tons
were ost, and the total exhaustion was estimated at
2,255,000,000 long tons. The estimated original contents
of the field were 19,500,000,000 tons, and the estimated
contents remaining at the beginning of 1893 were 17,245,-
000,000 tons.
The commission in its report (p. 149) says:
It is to be doubted whether the total coal won when
the field shall be abandoned will exceed 40 percent of the
total contents. An estimate on that basis would show the
available marketable coal stil] now in the ground to be as
follows:
Tons
0 ETC Seer eee 1,859,000,000
PE RESEND LEER er cate 477,500,000
I 4,581,500,000
EET ST ae, Te 8,898,000,000
The amount of coal won at the modern colliery due to
improvements in mining methods, in the appliances for
handling the coal, and in the utilization of the small sizes
shows a decided advance over the earlier years of mining;
a still further advance will undoubtedly be made in these
directions, and the mining of the small beds, where a
larger per cent can be won, will all tend to increase the
total. Future estimates for a long time will in all prob-
ability show an advance in the total per cent won.
What the commission predicted in the foregoing para-
graph has to some extent already been accomplished, from
“The members of the commission were Eckley H. Coxe, of
Drifton; Heber S. Thompson, of Pottsville; and William Griffith,
of Scranton, Pa.
486
the fact that coal is now being mined from beds oe =
not considered a part of the available reserves when :
commission made its report. In mining methods, as os
viously stated, there has dlso been a markea ap haphomes ;
and the writers are of the opinion that it is safe to assu
that since 1893 the 1 ton of coal lost for every ton min ;
is nearer the actual results than lv tons lost for wom
ton mined, and at this rate the available supply at ,
beginning of 1893 would have been 8,622,500,000 he
instead of 6,898,000,000 tons. The total ingen r =
1893 to the close of 1907 has amounted to 833,18 s on
long tons, which deducted from the estimated aval ab
supply of 8,622,500,000 tons would leave as egy ol
ing available supply 7,789,312,555 long tons, it o
understood that this is only one-half of the coal left in th
ground untouched. What may be done in the bay in
the way of recovery of coal which is now considere a
absolutely necessary waste and lost for all time is, 0
course, a matter of conjecture.
mining of bituminous coal it is estimated that for
Pe 3 von of pi produced for market one-half of a —
is lost or wasted. The part of this which is 2 hate
by the coal left in the mines for pillars, etc., may be od
rially reduced, but in many cases the recovery of a _
percentage of the coal in the ground can be obtain hr
by an increased cost of mining; and this in the face o “4
over-developed properties, keen competition, and low se
ing prices is incapable of accomplishment at the gon
day unless there be concerted legislative action by the gov-
ernments of the several States.
There is another and a serious loss or waste in bitu-
minous coal mining which is, like the culm in w
anthracite fields, represented by the slack or fine coa
necessarily or unnecessarily produced in mining rye
tions. This is particularly the case when the coal ote
the “dry” or noncaking variety which can not be :
for coke making or which, because it does not fuse in the
fire box, fails to make a satisfactory steam fuel. Many
487
thousands of tons of this “slack” coal are thrown on the
ground each year, and much of it is burned in order to
prevent it from “cumbering the ground” or adding extra
weight above the mine workings. A large part of this
waste could be presented by briquetting, but the process
of briquetting adds about $1 per ton to the cost of the
fuel, which renders competition with the cheap fuel in
the shape of raw coal impossible. Two of the causes which
lead to the production of unnecessarily large quantities of
Slack are the excessive use of powder and the practice of
“shooting from the solid.” These reduce the percentage
of large-sized or marketable coal and naturally increase
the cost of that portion of the product.
Legislation prohibiting shooting from the solid, which
would provide penalties for excessive use of powder, would
have as one result a larger percentage of lump coal; and
thus in a measure enable operators to assume the addi-
tional expense involved in the briquetting of such slack
coal as is unavoidably produced.
This legislation is the province of the state governments,
and it is not too much to hope that before long laws may
be enacted against the accumulation of slack heaps or
their useless destruction by burning, and this waste pro-
hibited, as that of natural gas has been in some cases.
The question of the waste in the combustion or utiliza-
tion of coal does not come within the scope of this paper,
but as the manufacture of coke is, in reality, a prepara-
tion of the fuel for use, attention may properly be called
to the enormous waste resulting from beehive oven prac-
tice (the method commonly employed in the United
States).
In what is known as the beehive oven (so called because
of its similarity in shape to the conventional beehive) the
coal is partially consumed, or, more properly speaking,
the volatile combustible contents are consumed and all of
the valuable constituents of the coal, except the fixed car-
bon, which is left behind as coke, are wasted. These
488
wasted constituents consist of gas, tar, and ammonia. In
what are known as by-product recovery ovens, however,
the process is one of distillation and the by-products of
tar and ammonia and all of the gas, except that used for
heating the ovens, are recovered and used.
The United States is far behind Germany and other
foreign ceuntries in adopting the economies resulting
from the coking of coal in by-product ovens. In Germany
at the present time little or no coke is made except in
retort ovens. The first ovens of this type in the United
States were built in 1898 at Syracuse, N. Y. Up to the
close of 1907 the total number of this type of ovens
completed was 3,892, while the number of beehive ovens
in operation in that year was 94,746. The production
from the retort ovens was 5,607,899 short tons of coke
and that from beehive ovens 35,171,665 tons.
When the economies which may be effected by the use
of the retort ovens have been so clearly demonstrated, not
only by the plants which have been constructed in the
United States, but more emphatically through the much
more extensive development of by-product coke manufac-
ture in Europe, the condition in the United States, as
shown by the statistics for the last four years, is some-
what difficult to understand. As previously stated, the
production of coke in the by-product ovens of the United
Statcs in 1907 amounted to 5,607,899 short tons. It was
valued at $21,665,157. The total value of by-products
obtained in the manufacture of this coke was $7,548,071,
this value and the quantity being distributed as follows:
Value of by-products obtained in manufacture of coke
in retore opens in 1907.
[Tabular Matter Omitted]
The gas included in the foregoing statement is the
“surplus” not consumed in the coking process and is either
sold or used at manufacturing establishments operated in
489
connection with the coke-oven plant. In a few i
where the surplus gas is consumed by the eaihadlind ede.
panies the quantity is not measured, nor was any value
placed upon it in the reports made to the United States
Meee ce Survey. In such cases careful estimates have
7 n made, based upon the average surplus gas obtained
om similar coals used at ovens of the same type The
value, similarly estimated, has been placed at from 10 to
15 cents per thousand cubic feet.
The coal consumed in retort ovens i
to 7,460,587 short tons. The pia pill eae
beehive ovens was 54,485,522 short tons, from all of
which the possible by-products are apparently wasted
Assuming that the coal consumed in beehive ovens was of
the same average quality as that charged into the retort
ovens and that the prices would be not less than 80 per
cent of those ruling in 1907, the value of recoverable prod-
a which were thus apparently wasted last year amounted
whe merc 1 a sum equal to nearly 80 per cent of the
total value of all the coal used in beehive ovens during
the year. At the prices which prevailed in 1907 the value
of the by-products w i
little oves $5,000, # ney in beehive coke ovens was a
The value of the by-products from the i
1907 was a little more ape mae ge
Rares Epp any than one-third the value of the
It should be remembered, however, that beehive ovens
are located in the coal-mining regions and that the cost
of the coal charged into them represents only a little
— than that represented by the expense of mining the
coal, whereas in locating by-product recovery plants pro-
vision must be made for utilizing or marketing the by-
products. It is for this reason that in much the larger
number of cases the recovery plants are established nea
the larger cities and at considerable distances from the
mining regions, and the expense of transportation is added
490
to the mining cost of the coal. Hence it is that the value
of the coal charged into by-product ovens in 1907 was
$15,874,430, or over $2 per ton, while that of the coal
used in beehive ovens was $56,956,008, or $1.05 per
ton. It must also be remembered that the original cost
of installation for a by-product plant is from four to
five times that of a beehive plant of equal capacity. These
disadvantages are in turn partly offset by the higher per-
centage of yield of coke in the retort ovens and a lower
delivery charge on the coke produced. In the case of bee-
hive coke, railroad transportation expense is borne by the
coke, while in retort-oven practice all, or nearly all, of
the freight charge is borne by the coal.
The total value of the 5,607,899 tons of by-product
coke produced in 1907 was 21,665,157, an average of
$3.86 per ton. The value of the 35,171,665 tons of bee-
hive coke made in 1907 was $89,873,969, or $2.56 per
ton. If we consider that the difference in the value of the
by-product coke and beehive coke was due only to the
difference in freight charges, then the total value of the
entire product of beehive coke made in 1907 would, if
made in retort ovens close to the market, have been
$135,750,000. On adding to this the value of the by-
products that should have been recovered, amounting to
$44,000,000 at 80 percent of the market price in 1907,
the total value of the coke and by-products would have
amounted to nearly $180,000,000 instead of the value
of $89,873,969 for the beehive coke alone. The value of
the coal charged into these ovens, however, would have
been $108,879,870 instead of $56,956,008. Carrying the
hypothesis further, the difference between the value of the
coke and by-products if the coal had been coked in retort
ovens and the value of the coke alone from the beehive
ovens was, say, $90,000,000. From this should be de-
ducted the difference between what the value of the coal
would have been at retort ovens and what it was at bee-
hive ovens, i.e., $52,000,000. The remainder ($38,000,-
49]
000), less the difference in operating expenses, wear and
tear, interest on capital, etc., may be considered as ap-
proximately the actual net loss in value as the result of
beehive coke production compared with by-product coke
practice in 1907.
One of the reasons that has been given for the apparent
lack of progress in retort-oven building in the last four
years is the lack of profitable markets for the by-products
of coal tar, and this has contributed to the backwardness
of the United States in the development of the chemical
industries depending upon coal tar as a raw material, and
yet this country is importing coal-tar products to the value
of several million dollars annually. It is also well known
that the development of the coal-briquetting industry
has been retarded because of the lack of assurance of a
satisfactory supply of suitable coal-tar pitch for binding
material, and there is also an increasing demand for creo-
soting oils for the preservation of timber.
COAL SUPPLY, PRODUCTION AND EXHAUSTION,
BY STATES.
Alabama.—As far as known the earliest record of the
existence of coal in Alabama was made in 1834. The first
statement of production is contained in the United States
Census Report for 1840, in which year the production is
given at 946 tons. In 1907 the production was 14,250,454
tons, and the total production from 1840 to 1907 amounted
to 164,734,310 short tons, which represented an exhaus-
tion, including the waste in mining, of 247,000,000 tons.
The total coal-bearing area of the State is estimated at
14,430 square miles, and the original coal supply is esti-
mated to have been 68.903.000.000 short tons. The ex-
haustion to the close of 1907 represents a little over 0.3
of 1 per cent, and the production in 1907 was a little over
0.02 of 1 ner cent of the estimated original supply.
492
Arizona.—A small area of 30 square miles in Arizona
is estimated to contain 60,000,000 tons of coal, from
which there had been no production at the close of 1907.
Arkansas.—As in Alabama, the first production of coal
reported in Arkansas was in the census year 1840, when
220 short tons were reported as having been mined in that
State. The industry in Arkansas did not develop rapidly
during the early years, as the census of 1860 shows a
production of only 200 tons, and that of 1880 a total of
14,778 tons. During the last twenty years, however, there
has been a marked increase in the production of coal in
Arkansas, and the maximum output was reached in 1907,
with a total of 2,670,438 short tons. The total production
to the close of 1907 amounted to 23,756,401 short tons,
equivalent to an exhaustion of approximately 36,000,000
tons. The estimated original supply of coal in Arkansas
was 1,887,000,000 short tons, of which the exhaustion to
date represents practically 2 per cent The production in
1907 was equivalent to 0.15 of 1 per cent of the estimated
original supply. The total area in Arkansas which contains
workable coal or which may contain workable coal or
lignite is estimated to be 7,584 square miles.
California.—The coal fields of California consist of
scattered areas, of which, with few exceptions, compara-
tively little is known. The total workable area is estimated
to be 500 square miles, and the original contents of the
field 1,000,000,000 short tons. Mining in California had
its beginning, according to the records of the state mining
bureau, in 1861. The maximum production was reached
in 1880, since which time the production has been irregu-
lar and has shown a declining tendency, this being due in
the last few years to the increased production of oil in
the State and its use for fuel purposes. The total coal
production to the close of 1907 was 5,030,945 short tons,
eqivalent to an exhaustion of approximately 7,000,000
tons, or 0.7 per cent of the original supply.
le a
eo ee SPR BP are Oe SS ee PE
493
; Colorado.—Colorado is one of the Western States which
is rich in coal resources. The estimated total area of the
coal fields is 17,180 square miles, and the original contents
of these fields are estimated to have been 371,770,000,000
short tons. Coal production began in Colorado in 1864,
but it was not until 1882 that the output reached as much
as 1,000,000 short tons. Since that date there has been a
steady increase in production, until in 1907 it amounted to
10,790,236 short tons. The aggregate production to the
close of 1907 was 112,668,336 short tons, of which the
equivalent exhaustion has been 169,000,000 short tons,
which represents a little over 0.05 of 1 per cent of the
original supply. The production in 1907 was approxi-
rg 0.004 of 1 per cent of the original contents of the
Georgia.—The coal fields of Georgia are limited to a
small area in the northwestern part of the State, estimated
to cover 167 square miles and to have contained, when
mining began, 933,000,000 short tons. The census report
for 1860 contains the first authentic statement of produc-
tion in Georgia, and the output in that year is placed at
1,900 short tons. The production of the State in 1907 was
362,401 rt boo production to the close of the
year was 8,123, tons, representing an exhaustion
of 12,000,000 tons. This would still ate in the ground
a total of 921,000,000 tons, of which 650,000,000 tons
would probably be considered as the available supply, and
this, at the rate of production in 1907, would last approxi-
mate
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