338 I. C. WHITE SHORTAGE OF COAL IN APPALACHIAN FIELD 



ward across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio, hun- 

 dreds of which have been abandoned in each of these three states and the 

 casing removed, probably not a single one has been so located by public 

 charts accessible to coal operators that its presence could be learned and 

 its danger guarded against after the farmers have cleared away the rub- 

 bish of derrick and drill and recovered the poisoned soil for grazing or 

 other agricultural purposes. There would have been perils enough in this 

 deeply buried Pittsburg coal area from the inflammable gases already 

 present in the coal itself, if not a single oil or gas well had ever been 

 drilled to these great underlying reservoirs to release, when abandoned, 

 the deadly forces of explosive gas into the very midst of the workers, 

 against which neither the skill of the miner nor the science of the engi- 

 neer seems able to cope. It is barely possible that the oil and gas pro- 

 ducers have thus through abandoned wells added so greatly to the perils 

 of deep mining that large areas of this matchless Pittsburg coal, as well 

 as any other beds which might underlie it in this broad oil and gas belt 

 southwest from Pittsburg, will be practically irrecoverable except at enor- 

 mous expense of life and treasure. It is needless to comment upon the 

 additional fuel shortage which such a condition would mean to Pitts- 

 burg's iron and steel industries. The mere mention of the possibility of 

 this peril ought to be sufficient to put every patriotic citizen on guard 

 against increasing this danger. Not a single string of casing that has 

 penetrated the productive coal measures in the oil or gas regions of the 

 states where natural gas is encountered in any appreciable quantity 

 should ever be pulled out until the underlying coal has been removed. 

 The oil producers are robbing the entire country of its precious fuel gases. 

 Why should they be permitted also to endanger its solid fuels ? Here is 

 some work for the governors and legislatures of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West 

 Virginia, and Kentucky that could bring no harm to legitimate oil and 

 gas interests and which may result in an immense saving of life as well 

 as of fuel resources. 



Need of Conservation 



What moral should be drawn from these facts? That homely adage 

 of our forefathers, "Needless waste brings woeful want/' is just as true 

 for communities, states, and nations as for individuals. The story of 

 "Coal Oil Johnny" is being reenacted by the Pittsburg district and many 

 other districts of our country on an enormous scale, and the final results, 

 although a little longer delayed, can not fail to be similar. On the one 

 hand we perceive our fuel resources reduced by this barren zone to one- 

 half of what were supposed to be readily and cheaply accessible, and on 

 the other, these resources so greatly depleted by unbridled waste that iD 



