OUR WANING COAL SUPPLY 



By GEN. A. WARNER 



EVERY man of intelligence and any square miles. Again, the extensive 

 scientific knowledge must agree drillings that have been made in recent 

 with the President in the supreme years show that in reality the valuable 

 importance of preserving <uir natural o>al beds throughout the most of the 

 resources; and this importance was last Appalachian field arc actually contained 

 spring emphasized by perhaps the most within a marginal belt from twenty to 

 celebrated gathering ever assembled at thirty miles wide on the eastern and 

 the White House. It seems to be con- western sides of the field in the states 

 ceded that first in importance of our of Kentucky. \Vc-t Virginia, < )hio, and 

 natural resources to be preserved are the western side of Pennsylvania, a 

 our forests. It is, however, to the ex- large elliptical area within these limits 

 tent and rapid exhaustion oi our coal containing no workable scams of coal. 

 fields that the writer wishes especially The western side of the field in IVnnsyl- 

 to direct attention. .Many years of the vania embraces the Moiiongahela and 

 earlier life of the writer were spent in Conemaugh series, and contains, in the 

 geological examinations in the Appa- Laurel Hill and ('hestnut Kidge syn- 

 lachian coal fields, from northern 1'enn- clinals, perhaps an exception to this 

 sylvania through West Virginia, Ohio, structural limitation of workable coals. 

 Kentucky. Tennessee, and Alabama, Hut it is nevertheless estimated that the 

 following the line of the earlier investi- soft coking coals contained in these 

 gations of 11. 1). Rogers in Pennsyl- synclinals, and westward in the Pitts- 

 vania and William B. Rogers in Vir- burg seam, will be practically exhausted 

 ginia. The great reports of these two in twenty-five to thirty years; certainly 

 early geologists have been the founda- in less than fifty years at the present 

 tion of all later surveys. Later the rate oi 1 consumption, 

 writer became interested in different If the Appalachian basin is viewed 

 sections of this greatest of coal fields, longitudinally any geological map will 

 by extensive drillings and shaft open- show that it narrows down as it ex- 

 ings, and early came to the conclusion tends into Tennessee and Alabama, and 

 that the number and extent of the work- in Tennessee is diveded by an anti- 

 able beds of coal in nearly the whole of clinal ridge formed by an uplift of 

 the Appalachian field had been greatly lower limestones, which divides the coal 

 over-estimated. area into two or more basins and limits 



Later examinations by eminent geol- the area of coal. 



ogists confirm this view. Prof. I. C. The question of the thickness of the 

 White, state geologist of West Virgin- coal measures and the number of work- 

 ia, in his excellent report on the coal able beds is of the greatest importance, 

 deposits of that state, cuts down pre- If a vertical section could be made that 

 vious estimates of the area of workable would expose to view the thickness of 

 coal from 15000 square miles to pos- each oi 1 the five great divisions agreed 

 sibly less than 10,000. and limits the upon by the later geologists the Dun- 

 area of the greatest and most valuable karcl on top, the Monongahela, carrying 

 beds of coal perhaps in the L'nited the great Pittsburg seam, the Cone- 

 States, namely, the great Pocahontas maugh, the Allegheny, and the Potts- 

 and New River beds, to 600 to 700 ville, down to the floor of the whole 

 542 



