40 COAL RESOURCES OF THE YUKON. [no. 218. 
are common in this seam. A sample of this weathered coal was 
analyzed and showed the following composition : 
Analysis of sample (No. 312) of croppings of lower coal bed, Drew mine. 
[Analyst, E. T. Allen, U. S. Geol. Survey.] 
Per criit. 
Water 14.44 
Volatile combustible matter 47. 15 
Fixed carbon 33. 77 
Ash 4.64 
100. 00 
Fuel ratio 0. 72 
This analysis shows a lower percentage of ash than the coal from the 
seam which has been worked. The higher percentage of water is in 
all probability partly the result of weathering of the coal at the outcrop. 
Coal was first discovered at the Drew mine and developed by Oliver 
Miller in 1897. Spun* reports that in that year a tunnel 40 feet in 
length had been driven into the hill on a 2-foot seam, probably the 
2-foot scam of the present mine." Drew worked the mine several 
years since that time, but it is now closed under an attachment suit 
instituted by the Northern Commercial Company. 
The equipment of this mine consists of a shaft 75 feet deep, cribbed, 
housed, and provided with steam hoisting gear. Bunkers of 80 tons 
capacity are convenient^ situated with chutes to reach the decks of 
steamers moored at the river's bank. The shaft was found to be in 
good condition and the mine free from water and of ice except for 6 
inches at the bottom. A gangway about 20 feet long from the bottom 
of the shaft crosscuts the sandstone to the coal bed, and then turns and 
follows the coal for several hundred feet. The writer was prevented 
from reaching the end of this gangway by a cave-in in the old workings, 
about 40 feet from the turn. The coal from the 2-foot seam has been 
stoped out above this gangway. An air duct which has been driven 
along the 13-inch seam represents all the work on this smaller seam. 
About 1,200 tons of coal have been taken out of the Drew mine, the 
greater part of which was used on river steamers. The coal has not 
given entire satisfaction for this purpose. This dissatisfaction was 
due, in part, no doubt, to the inexperience of the firemen and the 
unsuitable grates which were used. It is also reported that the coal 
was carelessly mined, so that as supplied at the bunkers it contained a 
great deal of unnecessary dirt, but it nevertheless sold readily at 
$15 per ton. The following statement regarding it, by Mr. H. N. 
Wood, assistant engineer, United States Revenue-Cutter Service, is 
taken from Mr. Brooks's paper on Coal Resources of Alaska (p. 504): 
My experience with Yukon coal was limited to a trial of the coal of but one of the 
Yukon River mines. This was that from the one known as Drew's mine, which is 
a spurr, J. E., Geology of the Yukon gold district: Eighteenth Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Survey, pt. 3, 
1898, p. 381. 
