DEPARTMENT OF METALLURGY AND ECONOMIC GEOLOGY. ' 247 



for the Navy by Prof. W. R. Johnson, from 1841 to 1814, was the first at- 

 tempt to systematically investigate American coals. 



During the years 1879, 1880, 1881, aud 1882 a series of experiments 

 to determine the fuel value of various materials furnished to the U. S. 

 Array was carried on by the Quartermaster-General of the Army, Gen- 

 eral M. O. Meigs, which included many American coals. 



Besides these two systematic investigations a few examinations of 

 coals from restricted areas have been made from time to time by the 

 Government, especially by engineers in the Navy. Many of these 

 tests, however, were undertaken to determine the efficiency of boilers, 

 and are only incidentally tests of coal. 



Aside from these investigations by the Government scarcely any- 

 thing has been done in this line, although occasionally boiler tests have 

 been made by private parties. While these results are interesting and 

 of use, yet the conditions of the tests were so variable that the results 

 can not possibly be connected so as to give relative results of any ac- 

 curacy, and therefore can not be used to determine the relative fuel 

 value of the coals tested. 



The experiments by Professor Johnson embraced very careful and 

 elaborate tests of the steaming power of the coals, together with chem- 

 ical analyses and some few other tests. Considering the time when it 

 was made and the condition of experimental scieuce at that period, this 

 examination was a remarkably thorough and complete one, and the re- 

 sults obtained were of great value to the ISavy. 



The experiments by General Meigs were restricted to the determina- 

 tion of the fuel value of the materials tested as compared with the 

 standard of the Army — a cord of oak wood — aud can not be consid- 

 ered as a systematic investigation of coal, so that really the only com- 

 plete examination of American coals is that of Professor Johnson, and 

 for want of better and more recent figures it is still the standard of 

 reference. 



The number of coals upon the market at that time was very small, 

 and his series embraced only forty- one mines, of which six were foreign. 

 The thirty-five American coals were about equally divided between the 

 Pennsylvania anthracite, the Pennsylvania aud Maryland bituminous, 

 and the Richmond, Va., coals, only two Western coals being available. 



Since that time the vast area of coal country, extending from Pitts- 

 burgh, Pa., to Birmingham, Ala., through the States of Pennsylvania, 

 Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and 

 Alabama, the middle basin of Ohio, Indiaua, and Illinois, and a con- 

 siderable number of coals west of the Mississippi River have been de- 

 veloped and are actively worked, so that 100,900,295 gross tons of coal 

 were mined in this country in 1884, as against less than 2,000,000 gross 

 tons in 1840. 



Aside from this large mass of new material requiring investigation 

 the methods of experimental science have greatly advanced since 1844, 



