440 GEOLOGY OF NORTHWESTERN TEXAS. 



piled into an oven with a sand floor, kept moist, and fired slowly the sulphur 

 will escape, but if a dry heat is applied at once the sulphur combines with 

 the carbon and is as injurious to the iron as if the coal in its original condi- 

 tion had been used. A simple test for detecting sulphur in coke is to throw 

 water on red hot coke, and if it gives off a smell like rotten eggs it proves 

 that it has not lost its sulphur in coking. 



I am of the opinion that our coals will make good coke upon proper treat- 

 ment in the ovens. Good coking qualities in a coal always render it more 

 valuable, because such extend the demand for it. 



ECONOMIC VALUE OF COAL. 



The economic value of a coal bed does not depend so much upon the 

 amount of fixed carbon or gas it may contain as upon its nearness to the con- 

 sumer and the cheapness with which it may be mined. A bed of coal might 

 be high in value in the heat units which it is capable of producing, yet could 

 not be mined because of the competition with other coals and the high rates 

 of transportation to market. 



The Texas coal will have to come into competition with the coal from the 

 Indian Territory and from the East, if it seeks a market in the cities in the 

 eastern part of the State, and it will probably never be a successful competi- 

 tor in these places. 



The demand for Texas coal will be in the country west and south of the 

 coal fields in the State. If the prices of coal that now prevail could be main- 

 tained the Texas coal could go into market in the eastern cities of the State 

 and be sold at a lower rate than the Indian Territory coal now sells, and pay 

 the mining company a handsome profit; but in order to sell the Texas coal in 

 the same places with the Indian Territory coal it must be put on the market at 

 a lower figure than the Indian Territory coal, because it is not supposed to be 

 as high in heat units as that coal. Recent extensive tests on the Texas and 

 Pacific Railway, however, refute this idea completely. As soon as this coal 

 would be offered at a lower rate there would be a corresponding reduction in 

 the price of coal from other localities, and the Texas coal would finally be 

 driven out of the market in the eastern cities. The first cost of mining the 

 Texas coal is greater per ton than that of the other coals, because the seams 

 are thinner. The demand for fuel west and south of the coal fields in Texas 

 is sufficient to consume all that these fields will produce, and will ever be on 

 the increase, with the settlement of the country and the opening up of new 

 enterprises. The immense fields of iron in Llano and adjacent counties will 

 require large amounts of coke for the reduction of their ores as soon as rail- 

 roads are built to them. These railroads, with others which will be built 

 across the coal fields, will consume large quantities of coal, and it will be so 



