Coal Wastage

Discussion of the paper of FRANCIS S. PEABODY, presented at the St. Louis meeting, October, 1917, and printed in Bulletin No. 125, May, 1917, pp. 775 to 781. THE CHAIRMAN (CARL SCHOLZ, Chicago, I11.).-Coal wastage is undoubtedly one of the most prominent topics before the coal operators of the United States today. Even those who have been in the business only 25 years, like myself, know that the exhaustion of coal is something that should and must, be curbed. If it is not, before long we shall discover that the great coal resources of the country are not what we-thought they were; we have been so accustomed to work at the best and thickest coal alone, that it will be difficult for us to realize one of these clays-and that (lay is not far distant-that we are no longer the rich nation in coal that we thought we. were. In this connection I feel obliged to attach a little blame to the Geological Survey for misleading the people. There are several members ,here who assisted in that work, and I am going to ask them to defend themselves. The Geological Survey deals with coal seams of much less thickness than we could now expect to, mine, particularly with the present high wages, excepting at a prohibitive cost. The Geological Survey, in its estimates, does not discriminate between thick and thin seams, but simply estimates our resources at so many hundred thousand billion tons of coal. I believe they include seams from 15 to 18 in thick, but you all know that a vein below 3.5 or 4 ft. is not considered economical to mine at this time. R. V. NORRIS, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.-Mr. Peabody has evidently been thinking almost entirely of Illinois conditions, with which I regret to say I am absolutely unfamiliar. In some West Virginia mines the total recovery at present is considerably over 90 per cent. and extraction-, as high as 97 or 98 per cent. are claimed.