NO. I FUEL ECONOMY — MITMAN IJ 



tion with the statement that in his experience the trade name coal 

 was vastly superior to New River. It happens that the trade name, 

 while originally employed to designate a coal of a certain mine, is 

 no longer appHed to the product even from a fixed district and, as 

 a matter of fact, the coal of this name has been coming for the past 

 few years from the New River District. 



Instances of this order can be added to more or less indefinitely 

 and serve to show the degree to which what passes for knowledge is 

 actually built up of notion. In times past coal has been so cheap and 

 available that there has been little occasion to give it any particular 

 consideration, which doubtless explains to a considerable degree the 

 lack of genuine discriminatory knowledge of the subject. The system 

 of marketing coal, however, has contributed largely, perhaps even to 

 being the factor generally responsible. 



The mining and marketing, more particularly the retail marketing 

 of coal, are two totally distinct industries. The mine operator is 

 utterly out of touch with retail yard operations and vice versa. More- 

 over there is no immediate connection, the two being separated by an 

 intervening middle interest. The reason for the middle or so-called 

 jobbing interest is to be found, largely at least, in the ever fluctuating 

 price of coal at the mines, and the reason for this, in turn, lies in the 

 vast extent of the bituminous coal lands coupled with the wide varia- 

 tion in producing costs. Given under production, the mine price of 

 coal takes an upward turn and as it mounts, mines hitherto shut down 

 owing to prohibitive mining costs, are able to open up. This pro- 

 cess of increasing price and increasing production continues until 

 over production is reached, when a decline in price sets in which 

 forces the little, high cost operators to shut down. This continues in 

 its turn until under production is reached, starting the cycle over 

 again. In the face of this condition at the source, any fixed contract 

 price, whatever the figure, is bound as time passes to reflect to the 

 disadvantage of one party or the other, and each is pretty apt to find 

 the means for avoiding the contract. 



The coal retailer generally buys through several jobbers, each ot 

 whom handles the product from several mine operations and, as a 

 consequence, the retail yard commonly receives coal, even of a given 

 type, from a number of mines. At best, there is a considerable range 

 that requires separation when we consider the radically distinct types 

 of coal and the various sizes, and when we add the varying products 

 from a number of mines, the range precludes the possibility of having 

 a complete separation even in the best equipped yard. 



