90 NEW MINERAL DISCOVERIES IN NOVA SCOTIA.—GILPIN. 
decreased. While of course it is possible to materially decrease 
the percentage of sulphur by crushing and washing the coal, it 
is the ambition of every mine manager to work a coal seam 
which can be charged into the coke ovens without preliminary 
treatment. While this point may not yet be actually reached 
in the Phalen seam, it is gratifying to notice that the lowering 
of the percentage of sulphur is rapidly reaching this desirable 
point. The following average of nearly two hundred analyses 
of this seam in the lower levels of the various workirgs will 
show approximately its present ash and sulphur contents :— 
Average. Per cent. 
AChR Preemie. ; Sakon Neat ae oat ree 3 92 
Sully lanier ste st, - .2-s! a aedgemeeoeteees enh hagas nh 81 
The ash varying from 2.95 to 5.20, and the sulphur from .8 to .93. 
These results compare more than favorably with the percentages 
of the corresponding impurities met in the standard American 
coking coals, and warrant the presumption that in Cape Breton, 
now that the sulphur question is removed, there are available 
unlimited quantities of the highest grade of coking coal. 
The importance of the possession of a store of such high 
grade coal is at once seen on reading an editorial in a late 
number of the Hngineering and Mining Journal, New York, 
which states that parts of the great Pittsburg coking seam show 
signs of partial exhaustion, and that leading operators in the 
coke trade are turning their attention to the acqisition of coal 
lands in Virginia as containing the next best available coal for 
coke making. 
