El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-08-04

ldom. II 800 square miles; Spain, $40
square miles: Japan ., 900 square miles
France, 1850 square miles: Austris
Hungary, 1,790 square miles; Germany
ITO square miles: Belgium, 80 squar
miles.
ENGLAND'S COAL PLAYING OUT.
From the above table it will be see
thst the English coal area is small
Still England has for years been tn
world. and for years it mined NOR
than half the total amount used by tn
world The United States are nov
probably ahead of it, and we are in
creasing our product every year. Tn
English coal veins are thin. The min
ers have to lie on their sides t.
work many of them. They have dug
out the surface coal and they are nov
working at great depths. One En-
glish vein. IA! inches wide, is alread,
down over 1000 feet. Such veir
would not be worked to any grea
depth in America. The Newcastle
coal fed. which is the richest in Eng
land, has veins from thu ee to six feet
thick, while the Wales coal veins
are less than three feet in thickness.
Some of our Pennsylvania anthracite
veins runs from 80 feet to 60 feet in
thickness, while the Pittsburg blum
inOus coal veins are from to 10 feet
thick. At the present rate of mining
it is estimated that all the English coal
will be exhausted in PIP years if it is
worked down to 1000 feet, and this
will be lib feet deeper than any of the
English mines now worked. NOtwith-
-tanding the enormous amounts of coal
which we have taken out of our
anthracite region it is estimated that
We could 60 on at the present rate for
616 years.
AS England goes further down her
coal mining will become more eXpen-
sive, and her days as manufacturing
nation are, consequently umbered.
Already we surpass her a great deal
in manufacturing, aud there is no
doubt that we, with Que vast supplies
of coal and iron, are to be the chief
manufacturing nation of the future.
Our Appa achian coal fields alone
could supply the world with fuel for
centuries. They are the largest and
richest known. and they are SO situat-
ed that the coal can be shipped from
them long distances by water. From
= ittsburg coal can be carried for
eighteen thousand miles on navigable
sire lms. and the CRATE fires OF the
south blaze with the rays from the
black diamonds from Pennsylvania.
The Ohio river is the sreat coal chute
for the Mississippi valley. The coal is
carried down it in great barges pushed
by little steamers, and so fastened to-
gether that a single steamer will push
acres of coal. Loads of twenty thous.
and tons are taken. a vast amount of
coal is carried on the canals and the
great lakes form one of the chief high
ways OF the coal traffic.
The amount OF coal carried on the
railroads is aim, ST beyond conception.
The Philadelphia and Reading has
more than fifty thousand coal cars,
which are dragged by nine hundred
coal locomotives. Tn Sc cars are kept
busy in carrying anthracite coal. The
Pennsylvania railroad employs more
than seventy thousand cars for the
movement Of its Goa. and coke trade.
and the Central rail- DAD of New Jers y
carries about five million tons of an
Jhracite coal every year. More coal Is
handled a. New York that at any 9th
ar p' ace in the world except London,
mora than fifteen million tons being
IL ed or transhipp d at that point an
nualiy.
One would think there would be a
ot of money in coal for the miners.
There is not, aud it is a question wheth-
ar the present strike will materially
better matters. AS far as strikes have
5oES III pdst. thCy OScu
gaipst the working men. Some years
ago Carroll d. Wright, the United
States commissioner of labor, figured
lp the profit and loss of ten years of
in all branches OF labor. He
that the employees during
ibis time lost $4,000, 900. an average of
$40 to each striker involved, while the
employers lost a little more than half
5he amount, or $50, 1000, goo.
The coal miners live as poorly as any
other class of workmen ia the country.
For the most part they are in dirty viii
ages, Wi h narrow streets, their houses
by coal smoke. In macy
mining d etrlc;s the houses belong to
he company owning the mines, and
the miners pay rent for them, so that
when a strike occurs and they are out
Of money, they are given orders to
cave Many of the houses have moth |
ng more than two rooms and a k itchen
and IN some places the only stores at
comp lny's stores. With all this the |
A me lean miuers are far better off than
he miners of ether countries. The |
.Oal miners of Japan rec Give Ony a few
cents a day. Both women and men |
work in the mines, AMI the TO 'eign
IN ips which get coal at Japan are al
Ways loaded by women. who pass the |
coal up the sides OF the ships In bask- |
cts
Women are still used in the coal
mines of Belgium. They dress in
trousers, just like the men, and they
10 much the same work. They help
Dad the coal, and in some OF the mines
hey drag the cars from the tunnels to
The bottom of the shaft. L. Simoniu,
/ Frenchman, from whose book on
life the illustrations of
this letter are taken, describes the
horrors of their life in the mines. For
1 long time women were used in this
way in England and Scotland, and i,
was not until about 70 years ago that
parliament passed an act keeping them
put.
Children are employed in the Bel
GUM mines today. The English and
Scotch used them for years. They
were taken into the mines at Z and 8
years of age, and were kept there I'M
til they grew up. The English coal
veins are very thin and the tunn Is
were not more than yard high.
These children were used as beasts of
uarp h to 1it,1,