The Cordova daily times., 1917-08-28
ANE R|CiAH CC0ai C0AL MINERS NEEDED
 IN FRANCE
(By United press)

WITH THE BRITISH ARMIES IN THE FIELD, Aug. - (By Mail1- Sooner or later Ions. capital of Frances Black Country" or coal belt will fall before thek ever. tIghtening pressure put upon fe by Sir Douglas Haig. When this day comes America can render France and her allies no greater service than sfo send immedi ately to this region the experts neces. sary to put the coal mines in orde, in the shortest possible time.
 For three years France has been dc prived of the richest coal deposit, she possesses. In the Loire, Burgun dy Nivernais, Gard Blanzy,, d 'Aubjn Decazeyille and Carmaux, if is true there are coal mines, but these are moi to be compared with those in the nor thern part of the country around Lens This deposit runs from east to west from Belgium to Flechinelle in France and since the German occupation if is only the extreme western end of il which the French have been able tC work. And this is the hardest tc work, being deep below the surface Whereas in Belgium the coal is prac ticaily on top of thc ground. at An zin it is l20 feet deep and deeper the further west it runs. At Douai it is 4SO feet deep. at Flechinvllle about 1900 feet. The yeia of coal from the Belgian frontier to FL chfselle k about #6s afiiss long by-fb -fs9fes Wide. fsrfo to the war, of the thirty-nine millions of tons extracted from French soil three-fifths came from here. or about 25O0O,00O tons. Even with this France has always been compelled tt buy from the outside almost as mucI coal again as she produced, half O which came from Belgium - from thf country around Mons. Charleroi anG Liege. seized by Germany as her very first act of war.
 It is this country around Lens ana behind Lens to the east. which tn Prussian war lords are defending re gardless of the cost in German lives And here it is that British pressure is growing ever stronger. Every blov struck this summer has yielded a ne. gain in the direction of these coa fields and retirement anywhere iron Arras to the sea would be more in. furious to Germany from an economi cal point of view than at any othe part of the western front. Fightino in this country is extremely difficult On the sea, where British Tommie- have recently made their appearance there are sand dunes which make trenches almost impossible. Fightine there is like fighting in the heart of the Sahara desert. Further sout', along the line is water, water every where, spread out over the flat coun try Everybody knows what the conn try about Ypres is like, and around Messines ridge, while below thai comes Labasse and Lens. with tbei mountains of slag and cinders, calle 2 "Crassiers, rising nearly 200 feet oye the level country around about. and the losses" or mines, with minine
 buildings cluttered about them. al, affording the best possible obstacles from the defenders viewpoint, hiding field guns, howitzers and especially machine guns.
 Such is the country over which the
 British are now fighting. If the Ger mans are beaten back out of the coa' country they will do as they have done already at Lens: Destroy the mines by blowing them up or flooding them or both. But American miners are said to be the best to be had and Ger tainly the United States can do no bet
 ter than to send hundreds of them
 over here to reclaim the ruins fin,
 even If the Prussians do their work
 so completely as to render the mine,
 useless for the remainder of the war
 reconstruction of France and geleiun
 will depend largely on fuel supply. |