coii ikk] NULATO PROVINCE, PICKART MINE. 51 
Analysis of coal (No. 253) from Pickart mine, 600 feet from entrana . 
Per cent. 
Water 1. 64 
Volatile combustible matter 24. 98 
Fixed carbon 58. 18 
Ash 15.20 
100. 00 
Fuel ratio 2. 33 
Coke compact. 
This coal has been used for steaming purposes on the river boats 
for the last five years, but the reports regarding- its steam-producing 
capacities vary greatly. Some engineers speak highly of it; others 
were dissatisfied with it. It should be borne in mind that, wherever 
coals have been tried for steaming purposes on the Yukon, the}^ have 
been burned in grates designed primarily for wood, and that the firemen 
have, as a rule, been inexperienced with coal. Further, much of the 
coal has been mined within a few feet of the surface, where it was 
frozen when extracted, and after thawing it tended to break up into 
small pieces. In very few instances has the development of the mines 
gone far enough to obtain coal unaffected by atmospheric influences. 
The entire product of this mine was sold readily at from $10 to $15 a 
ton. The coal in the small 1-foot seam mentioned as occurring above 
the Pickart bed is similar in quality to the Pickart coal. It has no 
commercial importance. The analysis is as follows : 
Analysis of coal (No. 251) from small vein above Pickart coal. 
i'rr cent. 
Water 2. 22 
Volatile combustible matter 24. 76 
Fixed carbon 50. 38 
Ash 22. 64 
100. 00 
Sulphur 0. 56 
Fuel ratio 2. 03 
Coke slightly coherent. 
Mining was begun at this locality by the Pickart brothers a in 1898. 
A drift tunnel was first started from the river bank at such a level 
that it was flooded during high-water stages. Later the present 
tunnel was driven above high-water mark. About two years ago this 
mine passed into the hands of the Alaskan Commercial Company, and 
was worked by them under the management of W. E. Williams up to 
the middle of the summer of 1902, when it was abandoned on account 
of the difficulty caused by rolls in the floor of the coal bed. The 
development and equipment consist of the two tunnels mentioned 
aSchrader, F. C, Preliminary report on a reconnaissance along Chandlar and Koyukuk rivers, 
Alaska, in 1899: Twenty-first Ann. Rept. U. S. Geol. Survey, pt. 2, 1900, p. 485. 
