362 ANNUAL REPORT OP THE Off. Doc. 



and gas; the coal being emphatically of more vital forethought. The 

 gas and oil are an unknown quantity, and their production may be 

 proceeding in the formations or concealed rock measures, whence 

 they are derived. Yet the loss of those valuable fuels, of inestim- 

 able utility to our manufactories and even for domestic purposes, 

 has been incalculable and to one versed in these matters and aware 

 of their importance, appalling. Carelessness and precipitation have 

 lost billions of cubic feet of gas and millions upon millions of barrels 

 of oil, which, at the present rate of production for commerce, cannot 

 be perpetual and the reservoirs are not boundless. This waste argues 

 the necessity for economy and methods that will forfend the ex- 

 haustion of this gas and oil supply in the near future. 



Admitting the urgent importance of conserving any and all of 

 our native resources, the one consideration that forces itself with 

 more pertinence upon our attention is the available coal supply and 

 the period of its probable continuance or permanence. I have given 

 this subject much earnest attention and with a wide experience in 

 the coal fields of our State as elsewhere, presume to submit some 

 estimates of our Jiituminous coal, u})on which may be based con- 

 jectural figures relative to the amount of this fuel remaining in the 

 several basins, and when its possible exhaustion may ensue, at the 

 present rate of mining, wasting and increasing demand, or, at least, 

 when it may decline to a calamity and dearth which will become an 

 occasion for regret and reproach. In the great Pittsburg Coal 

 Seam, of 1,100,000 acres, there remain 15,000,000,000 tons. In the 

 workable seams above the big Pittsburg coal, and in the upper pro- 

 ductive coal measures and local acreage in the upper barren meas- 

 ures, »o called, there are available 5,000,000,000 tons. In the lower pro- 

 ductive coal measures, from Bed A to Bed E, known as the Brook- 

 ville, Clarion, Three Kittannings, and Two Freeports, 40,000,000,000 

 to 45, 000, 000, (too tons in scams 3 feet and upwards in thickness; and 

 in the workable areas in the lower barren measures and intracon- 

 glomerate seams, of 8 feet or more, 5,000,000,000 tons. 



The total amount of commercial coal in these series is therefore 

 estimated to be 05 to 70 billion tons, in seams that are now con- 

 sidered workable for the shipment of coal, and in the finality of 

 their exhaustion or depletion, there would yet remain, in coal beds 

 say from 18 inches to 3 f(>et thick not less than 15,000,000,000 or 20.- 

 000.000,000 tons; for there are many million acres of these thin 

 seams that can be mined in the absence of thicker coal. 



Thus our ultimate coal supply, estimated I believe within safely 

 conservative limits and upon no oj)tiniistic or fabulous notions, fig- 

 ures from 80,000,000,000 to 90,000,000,000 tons. I have not made 

 these deductions upon the present standard of marketable coal in 

 our State, but in contemplation of the exigencies that may arise 

 many years hence for millions, yes billions of tons, now rejected or 

 discarded, will eventually be carefully mined and frugally used. On 

 a trip to Arizona and Mexico in 1889, for the Copper Queen Mining 

 Co., I was enjoined by Mr. W. E. Dodge who sent me, not to apply, 

 absolutely, the Pennsylvania standard, but was assured that a sec- 

 ond grade of Pennsylvania coal, as so recognized, would be accept- 

 able for smelting and other uses down there. Moreover, we are now 

 shipping to market, from big seams, certain layers of coal that were 

 formerlv left in the mine and that could not be sold 10 or 15 years 



