Bisbee daily review., 1911-05-31

coal i mean to say that the con- sumption for ten years ending with last year was greater than rne total consumption during the last century, If such a ratio of increase should continue. which is impossible, the life of our coal fields would be com paratively short"
 Can you tell me just where our coal fields are, Mir. DirectorT said l.
 They are to be found in all but fourteen states of the Union. They extend from Northern Pennsylvania to Oregon and from Canada to south ernmost Texas.
 Here the director sent for a map Of coal lands about four times as large as page of this newspaper. and spread out on his desk. As we looked at 1t he said:
 That great patch a. the east is i the Appalachian coal field and those spots to the right of it, at it's north ern end. are the anthracite beds of eastern Pennsylvania. It is from there that comes the chief anthracite of the country. Those beds originally contained over nineteen billion tons Of anthracite, and at the close of the year 1909 there were estimated to be over fifteen billion tons still in the ground. The Appalachian field con. rains much high-grade bituminous coal good for cooking. and it Is by far the most important coal field in the Unicn at the present time. A It. tle further over its the eastern or Illinois coal bed. It covers an area as large as the state of Ohio, and on the other side Of the Mississippi is another vast regicn underlaid with coal, while at the south are the coal fields of Texas. Our sur veyors have recently investigated the coal fields of the northwest and the Rocky mountain plateau, ana CD peciaily that upon the public lands, the title to which is still in the gov ' ernment'
 Can you give me some idea of the | coal lands which still belong to | the government? What is their ! extent?''
 Arizona's Great Deposits. They cover an area of more than i 70.000,0O0 or S0,000,OO0 acres, and they contain an enormous amount. Some of the beds are 20, 30 70 and even as high as so feet in thick ness, and in many of them there are ! several beds with clap or rock be- tween them. In the Navajo reserys- ton of Arizona we have the BiaeK Mesa coal field, which is estimated | to contain more than $500 ,OOU,O tons, or more than all the coal that ! Pennsylvania has produced or wasted up to date. Altogether it is e1.i- mated that there are almost 2,0O0,- | 000,000.000 tons of coal of one kind or another in the public land states. 1t must be remembered that great deal of this is Ignite of such low grade that it will be many yesss before it is mined"
 What Is the character of the western coal?'
 Tt is of all grades. Some of 1t is anthracite and some of it is high grade bituminous coal. We have considerable anthracite in Alaska, and also great quantities of bitumin- ous coal, which will make excellent I coke and which eventually will be used largely in the industrial de velopment of the Pacific coast states
 T understand that your geolo- gists are Issurveying and revaluing the coal upon our public lands. Can you tell me how this is done?"
 The old way of selling the coal land" replied the director, was at so much per acre, regardless of the quality or amount of coal it con-
 tained The price was fixed at S20 if the land lay within 15 miles of a
 railroad. or at s10 per acre if it
 were outside that limit. Our present
 method is 10 measure up the coal
 iH each acre and sell the land on a coal tonnage basis. Instead of getting Sl0 or S20 an acre we are now get ting $50 and $500 per acre, and some of the coal land will be worth more. Within the past two years .he survey has classified more than S,000,000 acres of coal in that way
 and has placed a value upon them of s650,000.O00.
 This added to what we have
 classified before gives us over 1s,
 COG, 900 acres already classified. the
 valuation of which, in round mum ,, bers. is s637.0O0.Ooe At the old , rates those lands would have sold
 for at least S400,0O0, 900 less, and the new valuations mean a gain to the government of about that amount But this. you must remember is the saving on only 13.000,0OO acres and we have 6O,Oe0O00 or 70.000.0o0
 acres which are yet to be priced" But how can you fix the value of the coal?''
 i We do that on a royalty basis h the first place, we figure out nov , much coal each acre contains. A be- , of coal one foot thick has abou
 i 800 tons to the acre. and if it is
 40 feet thick it would contain ~ , times that, or 72.000 tons to the acre We value it as low as half a
 cent a ton, and from that up to two
 or three cents a ton. according t1 the coal"