The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1886-05-13
Coal and coke in the virginias.

The Coal Trade Journal furnishes the
following interesting notes of the coal
and coke business in the two Virginias.-
The solution of the labor agitation at the
Flat Top mines, as given below, presents
the most sensible and feasible method to
adjust differences between employees and
employer, and if generally adopted would
prevent ruinous strikes and the distur-
Dances of industrial operations by which
both capital and labor are injured 1t is
method we suggested in these columns
some weeks ago, and the only one that can
work successfully. Mutual respect and con-
lidence will almost always dispense with ex-
IRENE resorts, and cultivate friendly and
equitable understanding between the par
tie directly interested, and meet with
popular approval. The Journal says:
At the Eagle and ST. Clair coliieries of VIM
WANT, at Eagle Station. of the Chesapeake
and Ohio Railway, and on the Great Kanawha
operation 81 coke ovens, 60 at st. Clair and a at
Eagle, making coke from the Eagle" coal bed
(the equivalent of the Clarion bed of the
Pennsylvania system), the lowest workable
bed of the middle, No. XIII, coal measures.
This coal bed is feet thick at the Eagle col
NJ.
the latter being about q mile up the river from
the former; feet of coal are won from the
former and AZ feet from the latter mine. Their
ovens produce about 100 tons of coke daily the
coal yielding 80 per cent. This coke is sold to
Ohio River, Hooking Valley, and other Ohio
blast furnaces to which it is sent by rail, by
the C. & o., by way of Ashland and 1ronton; 1t
has been used by the same consumers for a
number of years and gives satisfaction. From
200 to 800 tons of steam coal are also taken from
these mines daily. and delivered to the Chesa-
peake & Ohio Railway coal agency, most of it
The Fire Creek Coal Company, of Fire Creek
Station of Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, has
crease its coke plant to 100 ovens and enable it
to meet the increasing demand for the New
now puts out from 800 to 400 tons of coal daily:
all of this that is not cooked is shipped by rail-
much oft in box ears that have brought West
ern freight to Richmond, to Newport News, and
other G. & o. stations, to points in the West
even to and beyond st. Louis, where New River
Goals and cOkes are known and highly esteemed
for all sorts of purposes.
There have recently been quite number of
sales of New River, w Va coal lands at pool
president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, is
one of the parties to a purchase on the south
miles distant from the chesapeake and Ohio
Railway Dr.. David Ward, of Detroit, Mch
igan, has purchased q large tract on the Q. q o.
at Buffalo Creek, Just above Stone Cliff Station
the Berry Goa o GoKe G Gos OF o
purchases of coal lands adjacent to those it
now works.
The Low Moor Iron Company is discussing
the question ofmining coal for itself from land
that it leased some years ago, on very low
royalty, on the south side OF New river, where
two of the three workable beds of the New
River Goals the middle, Or Fire creek, and the
upper or M9ttall are n ffst rate condition for
it is most probable that the coal will be trans
ported across New river, to the Chesapeake and
wire rope tramway systems now coming into
use. One of these is now in successful opera
across New river to the railway The Low
Moor Iron Company is q large consumer of
coke. using about $4,000 tons year, which it
makes i'll its own ovens, at the furnace, at Low
Moor Station OF Chesapeake and Ohio Railway,
Allegheny county, Va, from coal bought from
the New river collieries. sample of the coke
made in this furnace, as analysed by j. Blodget
BrittOn, consisted of: Fixed carbon 96.7l per
cent; volatile combustible matter OH; ash,
2.s6 sulphur, O569, and water. expelled at 2l25
Fair, 0.29. OF this coke the analyst, a Phila-
delphan, said: know of no anthracite in this
State SO pure, and it exceeds any of the So
called "Connellsville cokes'' that have come to
this laboratory. Your regular quotations of the
Louisville market, suggest that New River
coEes must have some inherent and holding-on
excellencies of their own, such as the above
analysis suggests, that commend them to the
favor of buyers, else they could not command
the competitive prices that you weekly pub
The Flat Top coal field of the Norfolk and
western Railroad continues to be steady going
in it's phenomenal development. The reports
from the Lambert Point piers at Norfolk, va,
show that during the month of March eleven
steamships for European ports were loaded,
and that siXty-two vessels were loaded there
with Flat Top semi-bituminous coal, and that
the channel from Hampton Roads to Norfolk
which passes by their piers, was fairly blocked
by vessels awaiting their turns to be loaded 4
with this peerless steam coal.
Wise counse1s prevail among the miners of
the Flat Top region, falsitying the statements
of prominent technical journal that they are
the fomenterS of strikes elsewhere. When
ordered, from elsewhere, to strike last week
they suspended work for but one day during
Which they met and calmly and fairly dis
cussed the wages question with their employ
ers. the latter taking them into their conf
how much they were disposing of the coal that
was there mined and submitting whether i'll
the opinion of the miners they. could afford to
increase the rate for mining, at the same time
inviting the miners to send delegation at
their expense down to Norfolk to ascertain for
themselves the accuracy of the statements
made. Like sensible and right thinking men |
the miners decided to continue at work at the
prevailing rate. and the output of coal at The |
Pocahontas and at the Bluestone mines OF this |
region is larger than ever before and will prob
ably steadily increase, as the men working |
with hearty good will and more mines are |
being opened. The miners adopted the sug- |
gestlon of the companies and selected three |
White men and one negro (al good representa- |
tive men as they looked when | saw them on |
their way), who went down to Norfolk and for |
with Flat Top coal. They took back a most |
favorable report to their comrades and now
labor and capital are in the best of accord in |
the Flat Top field, simply because i'll a common
sense way they have come to understand their |
mutual relations.