Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1889 — OUR BLACK DIAMONDS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OUR BLACK DIAMONDS.

GREAT VALUE OF INDIANA’S COAL DEPOSIT. It Underilea About One-Fifth of the State, and the Supply Will Moot Demand* for Thousands of Tears —Clay County’s Output. Brazil, Ind., May 30.—Within the past two years Indiana has attained prominence, and worthily, too, as a gasproducing State. The extraordinary deposit of oil recently tapped at Terre Haute, and which, no doubt, underlies Clay County as well, is calling the attention of th® whole country, if not the world, to another and highly-important division of our State’s mineral wealth. The value of coal deposit, however, cannot be overlooked. A preliminary report on the coal product in the United States in 1888 shows a total of 14.5,363,744 tons, as against 129,975,557 tons in 1887. The value of the out-put at the mines in 1888 was $208,129,806, as against $182,556,837 in 1887. Indiana maintained her position as sixth among the twelve States and Territories represented—a record unbroken since the period of the first great activity in the mines in 1872. Her output was 3,140,979 tons, valued at $4,397,37D. The prices paid for mining this output were 70 and 75 cents for bituminous, and 85 and 90 cents for block—in the aggregate a good round sum afiording a support for 7,000 miners. The output, however, shows a marked de-

crease from last year, but what with natural gns, and extraordinary underbidding by Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Illinois operators, the only wonder is the decrease is not more marked. The coal area of Indiana comprises 7,000 square miles. Beginning in Warren County, it extends southward to the Ohio River, broadening as it goes, until at the river it covers Perry, Spencer, Warrick, Vanderburg, and Posey Counties. On its route it passes through Fountain, Vermillion, Parke, Vigo, Clay, Owen, Greene, Sullivan, Knox, Daviess, Gibson, Martin, Pike, Dubois, and Crawford Counties. Its length is 150 miles, its average width being about forty-seven miles. It is underlaid with twelve seams, at depths varying from the surface to 300 feet below, the average being about eighty feet. Five seams are almost constantly workable wherever met. These seams vary from one-half foot to eleven feet in thickness, with an average of four feet. The State’s coal field is divided into two zones—the eastern and the western. The eastern is a narrow strip, four miles wide on an average, and 150 long. In it is embraced all the block, or non-coking coal> suitable for the manufacture of pig for Bessemer steel. Its estimated tonnage is 7,025,356,800. The quality of this coal is pronounced by the highest scientific authority as the finest in the world. The block-coal area of Clay County alone is 300 square miles, or 192,000 acres. The total depth of coal over the area is twenty-eight feet, nine inches. This secures a product of 10,500 tons to the acre, or a total of 2,000,000,000 tons. Placing the yearly output at 1,000,000 tons for the past thirteen years, and for the seven years preceding at 500,000 tons, there yet remains 1,983,500,000 tons. At 1,000,000 tons a year output the supply will last 1,984 years—allowing only six months for strikes. Coal is not as as cheap as natural gas or fuel oils, but it is next in price, and is perhaps more to be depended upon. Indeed, with all due respect for gas and oil, the fuel, of the future may have coal as its base. . Now, the bulk iof the heat contained in coal is wasted, only about 14 per cent, of the carbon being utilized. Pulverize coal and convert it into gas and all this waste will be utilized. This subject is receiving considerable attention throughout the manufacturing world and experiments at Scranton and Chester in Pennsylvania, as well as elsewhere, seem to warrant all claims made.

Two tons of block coal are required to manufacture one ton of pig iron. The capacity of the deposit, then, is 3,512,678,400 tons of pig. This, converted into Bessemer steel rails weighing sixty pounds to the yard, or eighty-five tons to the mile of track, allowing a shrinkage of 25 per cent, to offset loss of coal and iron in the process of manufacture,

would give a mileage of 3,099,416, or about 124 times around the world! The Eastern, or block-coal zone, is, as intimated, much broader in Clay than in any other county, our area comprising about one-half of the State's entire area Brazil is thus the center and metropolis of the block-coal fields of Indiana, and is one of the best-growing little cities in the State. Some years ago, just after the excitement of the first real boom that baa struck this city had died away, a pastor of a city church, who had what is perhaps best described as a literary tendency, looked twenty years into the future. Our mines were then exhausted, furnaces closed, and the city deserted by all that had made it even temporarily prosperous. Such was the picture of a mining town. The facts are: Near the close of the calamitous twin decades. Brazil, having doubled in population meanwhile, and having early become an iron manufacturing center of a large and winding radius, is moving along at a rate bewildering to the oldest inhabitant. Col. John W. Foster LL. D., the distinguished scientist and mining economist, in a series of letters in the New York Tribune, in 1870, after unqualified testimony to the great value of our block coal, with the spirit of unering prophecy that had foretold the development of the Lake Superior mineral region, predicted for Brazil a prosperity commensurate with its advantage of being the center of the most extensive block-coal fields then known. The western coal zone embraces the rest of the State’s coal area, about 6,400 square miles. The coal is almost wholly bituminous, a small percent, only being cannel coal. There is quite a rivalry between bituminous and block coals of late. The

former is inferior. It is deposited usually in thicker veins. During the past two years it has been mined at 15 cents less on the ton than block. This gave it an advantage in some markets, but nothing serious till two years ago, when Chicago capitalists engaged extensively in coking it. The coke thus manufactured was substitued for block coal in a number of big iron mills, especially those of Chicago. This made block coal a competitor with bituminous coal, and explains why the two qualities must be mined at nearly, if not quite, the same rate. At present the block operators offer 5 cents more on the ton than the yearly bituminous yearly scale calls for. The block miners, wholly unaccustomed to such opposition, cannot see how the inferior quality can drive from the market the bjpek coal that has hitherto held its field against the world. But facts are facts, and they are frequently very subborn. The Brazil Block-coal Company operate nine block and three bituminous mines. During the past year their block trade depreciated 34 per cent., while the bituminous trade increased 90 per cent. The block operators of the State, who have a separate organization from the bituminous operators, believe that the reduction demanded by them is absolutely necessary to the block trade. A study of the coal product of the two zones is interesting. Scientific estimate places the amount of coal in a fourfoot vein at 5,000 tons per acre. This would place the yield of the entire area at 22.400,000,000 tons. What a vast power! Prof. Rogerii says: “The dynamic power of one pound of coal is equal to the work of one man for one day, and three tons are equal to twenty years of bard work of 300 days to fthe year. Each square mile of land underlaid with a single four-foot vein holds within itself the capacity for the firoduction of power which is equivalent o the labor of 1,000,000 able-bodied men for twenty years.” This road at Brazil connects with the Evansville & Indianapolis over the Brazil branch, thus connecting the lakes and the gulf. The two roads traverse the coal fields near the center from end to end. The accompanying map shows the system of switches, or rather ’branches, over fifty miles in length altogether, with which the Vandalia gathers up the coal at the various mines by means of seven switching crews, when the mines are in full blast. The map dates to 1885, but, aside from finishing the branch from Ashton to Saline City, but little change has occurred. There is a double track on the main road from Brazil to Knightsville. The crews do <ome hard work on these branches. In December they struck for the same wages paid switchmen at Indianapolis and Terre Haute, and no doubt deserved the advance.