The Nenana daily news., 1919-10-04

thorough investigation"
 The cuts referred to by MT. Rich ardson were on section of the right-of-way under his supervision and graded, under contract, by W. J. Lynn and George Gotto. The outcroppings appeared on the face of the cuts and appeared to ex- tend deep into the ground below the level of the roadbed.
 The coal outcroppings were ex- amined by several practical mining men and small quantities were taken from the surface strata and burned in the stoves around the camp near 35-Mile with fair sue cess
 Early in May, 1918, W. J. Lynn went down about thirty feet with a shaft, on the roadbed close to the outcroppings shown on the cut bank. At the 25-foot level he struck a vein of Ignite about five feet thick, but the quality of the coal did not seem to be very good, the percentage of moisture being very high. When depth of thirty feet had been reached the water came in. forcing an abandonment of operations.
 A tunnel was next driven under the roadbed, well above the level of the water in the Nenana river. and vein of coal was again encoun- tered. This also proved to be very young Ignite, but appeared to be suitable for domestic fuel. A quan- tity of this was taken out and used to fire the boiler of a piledriver operating near the mine. with fair ly satisfactory results. In fact, the reports made on the use of this coal for working the piledriver in- dicated that it was slightly better than wood. which had been previ- ously used.
 Going deeper with the tunnel. Lynn encountered better grade of Ignite, with perhaps slightly less er percentage of moisture, and by way of encouraging the develop ment of a coal mine in this region, the Alaskan Engineering Commis- sion entered into a contract with Lynn on September 20, 1918, for the supply of 1000 tons of coal for use in the power plant at Nenana, and on the locomotives. On Sep tember 18th. 1918, small shipment of coal was received in Nenana from the Lynn mine, for testing purposes. and on completion of the railroad up to the mine, the first . carload of approximately 25 tons of coal was received, on November t14, 1918
 From this time on, shipments of coal continued to arrive in town and the boilers at the power plant used this fuel almost exclusively. Being very young coal. almost pea.. and containing a large percentage of moisture. its use at the power plant was not so satisfactory as was expected, but, at that, it was superior to wood in many ways. The fuel was also tried on the locomotives with varying success
 A large quantity of coal was supplied by Lynn and used by the Commission, but with the extension
 of the railroad to the Burns mine,
 near Lignite, where a better grade
 of coal was available, the Lynn mine was temporarily closed down. On Lignite Greek.
 ] The first coal used by the Alas
 kan Engineering Commission came
 from mine on Lignite creek, about
 mile and a half from the mouth
 of the creek, on its left limit A
 contract was let to Neal Van Hou-
 ten and Leonard White for the SUD-
 ply of a quantity of coal. These
 men first prospected the country adjacent to the headwaters of
 Moose creek, but failed to find any
 coal there. They then established a camp on Lignite creek and com
 menced work on the face of an
 outcropping seam on the bank of