868 report — 1884. 



9. On the relative Dangers of Goal and Metal Mining in the United 

 Kingdom. By C. Le Neve Foster, B.A., D.Sc, F.G.S. 



Referring to a statistical table published in the reports of the inspectors of 

 mines for the year 1883, the author pointed out that the figures given for the 

 annual death-rates from accidents at mines under the Coal Mines Regulation Act 

 and Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act, viz., 2-23 and 1-64 per 1,000 respectively, 

 do not convey a correct idea of the relative dangers of the two classes of mines, 

 because the proportion of the surface workers with a small risk is twice as great in 

 the metalliferous mines as in the coal mines. A true estimate can only be formed 

 by comparing the deaths from accidents among the underground workers. The 

 average annual mortality from accidents for the ten years 1874 to 1883 then be- 

 comes 2 - 55 per 1,000 at mines under the Coal Mines Act and 2 - 38 at mines under 

 the Metalliferous Mines Act ; consequently the relative dangers are expressed by 

 the ratio 51 to 47, instead of 3 to 2, as appears to be the case when the surface 

 hands and accidents are included. 



The author also showed that though the Coal Mines Regulation Act includes 

 mines worked for ironstone, slate, and fireclay, the general conclusion would not 

 be vitiated because the largest ironstone mines, those in the Cleveland district, have 

 a death-rate which is higher than the average of the mines under this Act. His 

 general conclusions were that an average coal mine is very little more dangerous 

 than an average metal mine, and that certain mines worked for metals, such as 

 those in the Cleveland district, and the tin and copper mines of Cornwall, are com- 

 paratively more destructive of life than collieries. 



WEDNESDA T, SEPTEMBER 3. 

 The following Papers were read : — ■ 



1. The Banking System of Canada. By H. J. Hague. 



2. Prospective Prices in Europe, America, and Asia. 

 By Hyde Clarke, V.P.S.S. 



The author objected to artificial averages of prices as calculated to mislead, and 

 stated that the effect of prices was rather to be gauged by great and governing 

 commodities, such as corn, which supplies the food of labour, and steel (iron), 

 which furnishes its instruments and machines. With regard to vegetable and 

 animal commodities, and even to man, the primary influence was due to the 

 physical phenomena of the universe, and their cycles and fluctuations. He was 

 the first to point out, in 1847, the periodical laws affecting natural production, and 

 thereby, as the consequences, panics and crises. This, now dealt with as the sun- 

 spot period, had been worked out by Professor Jevons, but Mr. Clarke still advo- 

 cated the terma of his original propositions as most practically meeting the 

 requirements of economical science. Steel, reduced by the improvements of 

 Heath, Bessemer, and Siemens, and not by currency variations, from 60/. a ton, 

 and so to 40/., and now to 41. or 5/. a ton for rails, had become a factor of prices 

 under new conditions. Corn raised on prairie lands of uncropped fertility, and 

 moved by cheap transport on land and sea, must also be regarded as produced 

 under another economical standard. Therefore, so far as these elements were con- 

 cerned, in their vast field of influence they contributed to the fall in prices and 

 depression now witnessed. There was, however, a great economical event in 

 progress, and needful for contemplation, and that is the change of condition and 

 prices now going on in India, China, and Indo-China, embracing populations of 

 500,000,000. In India within our own time prices and wages had enhanced double, 

 treble, and fourfold under the operation of railways, and this must go on. If the 

 United States with 50,000,000 bad Indian prices, her trade would be a few millions 



