CLASSIFICATION OF MINERAL LANDS. 67 



roach it. A new railroad may " make " a coal-mining district by 

 opening new markets or may " break " it by bringing in competition 

 that it can not meet. To be stable, therefore, the regulations must 

 be based directly on the intrinsic factors involved. Tracts classified 

 as noncoal land are disposed of as such without further question as 

 to their content of coal. Classification should therefore anticipate 

 and assume the ultimate coming of conditions favorable for mining 

 and marketing any coal if the coai is otherwise workable. 



If an 18-inch coal of a certain grade occurring under certain con- 

 ditions is workable in Missouri to-day, hundreds of thousands of 

 tons being mined yearly, it would appear to be a reasonable assump- 

 tion that a coal of like thickness and quality occurring under similar 

 conditions elsewhere will be workable some day and should there- 

 fore be classed as a workable coal; especially does this assump- 

 tion appear reasonable when it is considered that everywhere the 

 tendency is to extend the limits of workability. Coal mining 

 has nearly always been conducted on a very close margin. In any 

 new field — and most of the coal fields of the West to-day are 

 new — only the most accessible, thickest, and best of the coal beds 

 can be worked at a profit. Twenty years hence the most accessible 

 coal will have been largely mined out and mining will be done on 

 coal that is a little less accessible and that costs a little more to 

 mine and that necessarily will sell at a little higher price. This 

 higher price will permit the mining of other coal — a little thinner 

 and a little poorer — which could not be mined profitably to-day, and 

 the process will continue until all coal within minable limits is ex- 

 hausted. The regulations attempt to define what these minable limits 

 are, not in view of the conditions that may exist as the coal supply 

 approaches absolute exhaustion, but in view of actual practice to- 

 day under favorable conditions of transportation and of market. 



FAOTOBS INVOLVED. 

 ESSENTIALS OF WOBKABILITY. 



The workability of any coal will ultimately be determined by two 

 offsetting factors — (1) its character and heat-giving quality, whence 

 comes its value, and (2) its accessibility, quantity, thickness, depth, 

 and other conditions that affect the cost of its extraction. It must 

 be considered a workable coal if its value, as determined by its char- 

 acter and heat-giving quality, exceeds the cost of extraction, either 

 as judged by actual experience at the point where it is found or as 

 judged by actual experience on similar coals similarly situated else- 

 where. There are no absolute limits to any of the factors. The min- 

 ing of 1 inch of coal that may involve the mining of 3 feet of rock is 

 physically possible but would not pay. Most unworkable coal beds 



