90 NEW MINERAL DISCOVERIES IN NOVA SCOTIA. GILPIN T . 



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 searn 

 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 workings will 

 show approximately its present ash and sulphur contents: 



Average. Per cent. 



Ash 392 



Sulphur N 1 



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 Engineering and Mininfj Journal, New York, 

 which states that parts of the great Pittsburg coking searn 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. 



