100 
ALASKAN MINERAL RESOURCES IN 1905. 
MINING CONDITIONS. 
There are no serious difficulties affecting the possibilities of mining these coals. The clips 
arc so steep (10° to 60° on the anthracite, 18° to 85° in the east end of the bituminous area, 
and 20° to 44° in the west end of the bituminous area) that some method of stoping will 
have to be used. Miners who are accustomed to the steep dips in some of the coal mines of 
Washington and British Columbia will have no difficulty in this field. Drifts can be run] 
from the level of the main streams and enough coal found above drainage to supply the 
mines for some time. It will ultimately be necessary to resort to slope or shaft mining. 
These methods (or tunnels across the measures from the upper floor of the Matanuska Val- 
ley) will probably have to be used in the anthracite area very soon. There is an abundant 
local supply of wood for building and mining timber. 
It will be necessary to wash the coal from some of the scams. In this way the percentage 
of ash can be reduced from 10, 12, 15, 23, and 27 per cent to less than half and probably in 
some cases to a quarter of these figures. The tests at the coal-testing plant of the United 
States Geological Survey showed instances " where the percentage of ash was reduced as 
follows : 
Effect of washing coal. 
Percentage of ash 
in 
U;i\\ 
coal. 
Washed 
coal. 
22. 1 1 
9.42 
13. to 
7. lfi 
28 39 
7. 59 
13.81 
6.22 
10.59 
5.86 
9. 99 
6. 33 
9.75 
7. 19 
25.05 
8.14 
16.00 
10.25 
15.22 
10.28 
It is probable that with a plant adapted especially to some particular coal and with 
employees experienced in handling that coal, even better results could be obtained. 
TRANSPORTATION AND MARKETS. 
None of this coal can be used until a railroad is built to tide water. The Alaska Central 
Railway, now building from Seward to the interior, is expected to tap this coal field. The 
coal may then find a market for use as motive power on the railroad; for fuel in the towns 
and mines which may grow up along the line of the railroad and at its termini; for coke at 
the possible Alaska smelters: for bunker coal on the ocean and river steamers touching at 
the termini of the railroad, and for export. The question of markets and of competition 
with other fuels is discussed in detail in another paper, o 
" Preliminary report on the operations of the coal-testing plant of the U. S. Geological Survey at the 
Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Mo., L904: Hull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 261, 1905, pp. 60-73. 
>' Martin, G. C, Markets for Alaska Coal, pp. 18-29 of this bulletin. 
