368 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



tlifforent companies, the supply of its excellent material cannot be relied 

 upon for a great length of time. 



xit Evanston the enormous thickness of the coal seems to promise, 

 for many years, an abundant supply of materials. But here the thick- 

 ness of tlie clay-partings and the dip of the beds cause great diffi- 

 culty of mining. A part of tiie bank has to remain for roof, another 

 part is lost by slack in the separation of the parting, andtbis bed, which 

 is also of limited extent, has to supply, on one side, the Union Pacific 

 Company, by the Wyoming Company, and ou the other, the Central Pa- 

 cific Eailroadto San' Francisco, by the Kocky Mountain Coal and Iron 

 Company. This last company's mining amounts to five huuded tons, 

 per day in the average ; that of the other, to three hundred tons. 

 Besides this, Weds of lignite have been opened by private enterprise at 

 divers places, and are worked to a limited extent, especially at Black 

 Buttes and Hallville. These and the already reported lignite-beds of 

 Point of Bocks, Creston, and Washakie, promise some further supply 

 for the future, and I have no doubt that a number of valuable deposits 

 may be still discovered in the Lignitic basin at a short distance and on 

 both sides of the railroad. It is, nevertheless, certain that if the coal 

 is not carefully Imsbauded along the Union Pacific Bailroad, there will 

 be great difficulty of obtaining a large supply in a short time to come. 

 The present production of the mine of the Wyoming Coal Company is 

 about ten thousand tons per month, while the consumption of coal by 

 the Union Pacific Kailroad averages about ninety thousand tons per 

 year. 



§ 5. Concluding Bemaeks. 



The loss of materials by mining the lignite-beds of the Eocky 

 Mountains is especially caused — 



1st. By the difhculty of sufficient roofing, on account of the scarcity 

 and of the high price of the timber used for that purpose. At Eock 

 Spring, a post six feet long by four inches in diameter costs one dollar. 



2d. By the want of good reliable miners, who cannot be induced to go 

 and live in such a rough and unsettled country but by a higher remu- 

 neration comparatively to the value of the work. 



3d. By the great amount of slack, caused either by carelessness in 

 mining a substance less hard and compact than true coal, or by disinte- 

 gration from the walls and roofs in the mines under atmospheric in- 

 tluence. This slack or small coal is always difficult to dispose of, and 

 dangerous too, being subject to spontaneous ignition, either in the 

 mines or out of them. The superintendent of the Carbon mines, Mr. 

 Williams, informed me that it was by neglect of the miners, w'ho were 

 on a strike, and during his absence, that the slack was ignited in some 

 j)art of the mines, which have continued wi fire ever since. 



The uncertainty on account of a future sufficient supply of good lig- 

 nite along the line of the Union Pacific Eailroad, and the constantly 

 increasing demand of this material for the Utah settlements, for towns 

 and stations along this railroad from Omaha to San Francisco, even for 

 the California markets on the Pacific, should induce researches by bor- 

 ings and detailed explorations for the discoveries of new deposits of 

 lignite, and especially a more careful economy in mining. The im- 

 provement of the quality of the matter and the disposal of even its 

 small parts, the slack, should be attempted by repeated experiments. 



Experiments of this kind have been made long time ago in Europe, 

 and the small coal, which by atmospheric influence soon becomes lost 



