312 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



ufactuFJng center of the world, and there- 

 fore that investments in its coal fields could 

 not fail to prove remunerative. The proph- 

 ecy of that far-seeing statesman was ful- 

 filled much sooner than even he expeced, 

 since Pittsburg has certainly held first place 

 among the workshops of the world for the 

 last ten years. It is not generally known 

 that the tonnage originating in the Pitts- 

 burg district and passing through it now 

 exceeds that of the four greatest seaport 

 cities of the world, London, New York, 

 Liverpool, and Hamburg combined, so that 

 not only Pennsylvania but every State in 

 the Nation is interested in perpetuating as 

 long as possible this empire of industry 

 which our wonderful natural resources and 

 the genius of the American people have 

 conquered. How long can we hope to main- 

 tain this industrial supremacy in the iron 

 and steel business of the world? Just so 

 long as the Appalachian coal field shall con- 

 tinue to- furnish cheap fuel and no longer. 

 If the wasteful methods of the past are to 

 continue; if the flames of 35,000 coke ovens 

 are to continue to make the sky lurid within 

 sight of the city of Pittsburg, consuming 

 with frightful speed one-third of the power 

 and half of the values locked up in her 

 priceless supplies of coking coal, the pres- 

 ent century will see the termination of this 

 supremacy. Many of you may not credit 

 this statement, so let us do some figuring 

 on the matter as an aid in forecasting the 

 future. All will admit that no portion of 

 the Appalachian field is richer in fuel re- 

 sources than the Pittsburg district, and if 

 we can estimate approximately how long its 

 fuel will last we will have gauged, in a 

 rough way. the productive life of the Ap- 

 palachian field. 



The Pittsburg Coal Company owned on 

 January i, 1908, according to its recent an- 

 nual report, 143,000 acres of the Pittsburg 

 coal bed, or practically one-seventh of the 

 entire acreage of this famous seam remain- 

 ing yet unmined in Pennsylvania. During 

 the year it exhausted 2,241 acres, obtaining 

 therefrom for all purposes 18,000,000 tons 

 of coal, or an average of 8,000 tons to the 

 acre, leaving in the ground about 5,000 tons 

 per acre of waste and unmined coal. Hence 

 this average of 8,000 tons may be taken as 

 a measure of the total amount of first-class 

 fuel that will be won under present mining 

 methods from each acre of Pittsburg coal 

 yet remaining unmined in the Pittsburg dis- 

 trict. 



In 1906 Pennsylvania produced 109 mil- 

 lion tons of bituminous coal, 84 millions of 

 which came from the five counties of Alle- 

 gheny, Fayette, Greene, Washington and 

 Westmoreland, which hold practically all of 

 Pennsylvania's Pittsburg coal area. In 1907 

 Pennsylvania produced 129 million tons of 

 bituminous coal, and in the absence of exact 

 statistics it is safe to say that at least 100 

 million tons of this product came from the 

 five counties in question, and not less than 

 95 million tons of it from the Pittsburg 

 seam. 



There remains unmined in Pennsylvania 

 only eleven hundred thousand acres of this 

 great coal bed or a total available product 

 of eighty-eight hundred million tons of coal, 

 measured by the quantity (8,opo tons per 

 acre), obtained by the best mining methods 

 of a great corporation during 1907. Eighty- 

 eight hundred million divided by 95 million 

 yields a quotient of only 93 as the number 

 of years this fuel in the Pittsburg seam will 

 last if the present annual production should 

 not be increased by a single ton. But who 

 is there to say that it will not be doubled 

 even within the next decade? 



The West Virginia productive area of 

 this great bed is only about the same as that 

 of Pennsylvania, so that this contiguous re- 

 gion can add only a few years to the life of 

 the Pittsburg coal production. 



It may be replied that the Allegheny 

 series of coals which underlie the Pitts- 

 burg bed may add greatly to the fuel re- 

 sources of the Pittsburg district. This is 

 an error, as the coals in the Allegheny 

 and Conemaugh series appear to thin away 

 and disappear as commercial propositions 

 when they pass beneath the principal areas 

 of the Pittsbburg coal, while the active de- 

 mand for coal at the seaboard will exhaust 

 all of the productive areas of these lower 

 and thinner coals with our present waste- 

 ful mining methods, even before the Pitts- 

 burg bed fails. 



The productive coal area of the Appa- 

 lachian basin has been greatly over-esti- 

 mated in every one of the six great states 

 through which it passes from Pennsylva- 

 nia to Alabama. The drill of the seeker for 

 petroleum and natural gas, while it has 

 wasted untold millions of precious fuel, has 

 taught one useful lesson, viz : that there is 

 a wide area, 50 to 75 miles in breadth deep 

 down in the center of the Appalachian 

 basin, that is practically barren of commer- 

 cial coal. This barren region begins with 

 the lower measures just north from Pitts- 

 burg, and embracing large portions of the 

 former supposed coal fields of both Ohio 

 and West Virginia, passes southwestward 

 into Kentucky, having a breadth of 25 miles 

 where it enters that state. 



To what extent the productive area of 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama will be 

 affected by the southward extension of this 

 barren belt, which has already cut the for- 

 mer estimates of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 

 West Virginia in half, we do not yet know, 

 but certain it is that all the great coal 

 formations, instead of holding productive 

 coal entirely across this basin, as formerly 

 supposed, are productive only as fringes 20 

 to 30 miles in breadth around the borders 

 of the basin, while the great central trough 

 is practically destitute of valuable coal. 

 Hence, with only a reasonable estimate for 

 increased coal production, if the present 

 wasteful mining methods continue, there 

 will be but little coal for manufacturing 

 purposes within 100 miles of Pittsburg at 



