The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-01-04

Special Correspondence OF The Sunday Republic.
Washes. Belgium, Dec. Ill am in the
heart of one of the richest coal-mining re-
gions of Europe.
Belgium Is only about one-third the size
of Indiana, but it has deposits of coal and
iren which make It hum like a bee hive.
II 1t is the busiest workshop upon the Con-
tinent.
= 1t supports about as many people to the
square mile as any country of the world.
Its annual product CT coal amounts to
ZOO, 900 tons.
1t uses the greater part of this at home.
and also Imports fuel from Germany and
England.
At present the people are looking to the
United States as a possible source of manu-
fac curing fuel.
The day may yet come when the mills
here will be largely run through coal from
the United States.
The Belgium mining conditions are en-
tirely different from those of our country.
Our mines are near the surface.
1t costs but little to get the coal to the
cars.
Those of Belgium are far down under the
earth, and every ton has to be lifted by
machinery to the surface
Some of the mines which / visited to-day
are more than a half mile deep.
The water has to be fought at every turn
and mighty pumps are employed to keep
the works dry. -
There are tunnels cutting the earth this
way and that at a depth of 1000 feet.
Over them are other tunnels, and the
whole country is a catacomb, made by
getting out the coal. The mines have to be
timbered.
The wood is cut from the forests near by.
but the most of it is not over six inches
thick.
As it comes to the mines it looks like
telegraph poles. each fifty feet long. taper
ing to a point at the end.
Such timber stands in great stacks about
each mine.
1t is unloaded from the cars by women.
who handle the poles like so many ANA
IONS.
This coal region is far different from
those of Pennsylvania, Ohio or Tennessee.
There it is mountainous.
Here. at Washes the land Is fat. and the
only elevations are from the dumps of the
mines.
The coal here is filled with waste.
1t has to be sorted and the refuse is car
ried out upon cars.
.PyRAMIDAL PILE RISES
BESIDE EACH MINE.
There is so much of 1t that n pyramidal
mountain soon rises up beside each mine,
standing out like a black cone against the
blue sky.
There are such pyramids everywhere in
this part of Belgium.
Some of them are dead. the mines which
produced them having been worked out and
abandoned.
Others have ladders up their backs and a
framework on the top, where women push
the cars along and with a rafting sound
empty them.
Some OF these pyramids are smoking.
There is much sulphur in the coal and
spontaneous combustion often starts a fire,
which burns on for years.
ps Instances are known Of people going to
sleep on the dumps and being suffocated by
the fumes and gases.
Take your stand with me on one of these
coal mountains just outside the mining
town of Washes and look about you.
See the farms covered with rich crops,
with these coal mounds rising above them.
There is one at our right, with great bug
liks bags crawling over it.
Take your field glass and look at them.
They are not bags.
They are women, who are picking up the
coal that has been left in the waste. Be.
There comes a car along the coal noun
tain.
Two women are pushing It. and with the
glass you can almost see their muscles swell
as with bare arms they cast it on the dump.
Now look at that mound at the left.
1t is hundreds of feet high, and. like the
others about it. it IS an evidence of the
enormous waste that the miners have te
contend with.
Every bit Of coal that is brought to the
surface has to be picked over. and the