Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1916 — TIMBERING MINES IS COSTLY [ARTICLE]

TIMBERING MINES IS COSTLY

Owners Compelled to Put Millions of Dollars Underground Every Year of Operation. Nearly 90,000,000 cubic feet of tim ber are placed in the anthracite mines of. Pennsylvania every year, if an estimate in the Colliery Engineer, lately acquired by Coal Age, that the amount of timber in anthracite mines is approximately one cubic foot for every ton of coal mined, is correct. The timbered gangways and drifts cover a vast extent, exceeding 7,000 miles, and the closely timbered shafts with their miles of heavy guide timbers which must be constantly replaced, form a large item. The total output since the beginning of anthracite mining is over 2,500,000,000 tons. A billion tons of water, or over 11 times as many tons as the coal produced during the year, must be pumped out of the anthracite mines every year. According to the chief of the Pennsylvania department of mines the timbering is an even greater expense than the pumping. The cost of placing this vast forest below ground is staggering.

The cost of the material is given as about 6.5 cents per cubic foot for round timber and 20 cents per cubic foot for sawed timber. At the lower figure this would make 90,000,000 cubic feet cost $5,850,000. In addition to this, there are millions of mine ties, and heavy white oak is used for the mine cars. The use of steel timbers, which are being adopted on account of their longevity, for main gangways, turnouts, pump rooms and shaft and slope bottoms, will add to the total cost of mining for the next few years, but will effect a final saving. Most of the timber now used in the anthracite mines is yellow pine from the South.