Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-08-22
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
IN A COAL NINE

Inc hOuSenOlder is not SnOVellHS
coal in these piping times of sum
mer, but because of the strike ana
fears hat his favorite winter in
door sport will be interfered with
when the snow flies, coal has been
uppermost in his thoughts, none the
less.
A bulletin from the Washington,
ID. c., headquarters of the National
Geographic Society presents a little
known aspect of the coal industry
to stay-on-the-surface uses of this
modern necessity-the working OF
a big anthracite mine when operat-
ing at full blast. Describing a visit
to a mine in which there are eighty
five miles Of underground railway,
the bulletin says:
Need Air for Human Fuel
"One thing above ground we will
be even more vitality interested in
when We go below-the ventilating
fan, for without it W. would be in
danger of being 'gassed' in times of
peace. The fans in this mine fly
around with a rim speed of a mile
a minute. Every mine has two
shafts; the hosting shaft and the
air shaft. To keep the mine free
enough from gas to permit work in
safety, enormous quantities of fresh
air must be sent down the n open
ing and corresponding quantities of
gas-laden air drawn out the other.
ITO start on our downward jour
ney We step on the cage or eleva-
tor. the mine superintendent gives
a signal, and the floor drops. Down,
down. down we whiz oast stratum
after stratum of rock.
Mine Planned Like a City
ARRIVING at the bottom, We soon
find that a coal mine Is planned like
a city. There Is n main street, or
entry, and it has been laid out with
the nicely of a grand boulevard. Par
allel with this are other entries, and
acros these entries u other streets
at right angles, usually, which are
called headings. Lining all these
headings as houses line the streets
are chambers, or rooms, in which
the miners work.
when we stop at the bottom we
feel ourselves in a small-sized hur-
ricane. 1t Is the air rushing down
the shaft and starting through the
mine on its mission of publication.
1--WE walk and walk until we be-
gin to feel as though we might be
coming out over in China or France,
and then we come to the rooms or
chambers-for all the coal in the
neighborhood of the hosting shaft
has gone UP in heat and smoke long
before now and this mine Is far
flung.
Catacombs OF the Living
These rooms or chambers might
be monks cells in some catacomb
for the living. Here the miner bores
and blasts and digs away the coal
and loads it into the mine cars. If
he has a helper he does not need
to do the loading himself. The a
holds about 5000 pounds of run Of
the mine coal, and a miner is sup
posed to fill two of them a day.
when the a is loaded the min
err puts his number on 1t, and pres
emily, with much ado there comes
Up the heading and into the pas
sageway leading to the chamber, a
string Of mules walking tandem, or
single file, and dragging an empty
car behind. They pull out the load
ed car, set the empty one where
the miner wants it, and go back the
way they came, with the load of
coal.
There are other strings of mules,
also, and they distribute the empties
and mobilize the loaded cars from
and at given points. Then the COM
pressed air engine comes along and
makes up a train of loaded cars
after dropping one of empties ready
for distribution. The coal trains are
and one by n the cars go to the
surface, an empty coming down as
as a loaded one goes up.
How the Goal Cama tn Pc
Having seen the harvest in the
coal field, let us turn to the seed
time. Millions of years ago nature
stored away billions of tons of coal
for us, and then left us a record of
her processes written in a language
that all ages and tongues can under
stand. 1t is a story so wonderful as
almost to defy belief, and yet one
so plain to him who reads it as to
defy unbelief.
vegetation grew rankly, leaves
and stalks settled into marshes, and
were car1onized. almost as though
1t had been for Jul benefit. Those
were happy days in the vegetable
kingdom. Plant life vas quickened
as animal life Is stirred by the ozone
of the sea, for the air was laden
with unimaginable supplies of ar
bonic acid gas, which was inhaled.
by the Brobdingnagian jungle.
Indeed, so rich was the atmos-
phere in its supply of this gas that
while it made vegetation grow ex-
traordinarily rank it would have suf-
located man. Furthermore. there
was warmth exceeding anything
we know in the tropics today. and
there was moisture in abundance
D,ora {hon tha nanaf unardfhrift Af
plants could wish for.
"How amazingly dense was the
vegetation of the conforming era
may be shown by comparisons with
existing forests. Should nature, by
the process of the coal age trans
form the densest jungle in the world
today into a coal seam, it probably
would be only a few inches thick;
yet there r coal seams which are
sixty feet thick. though ten feet Is
regarded as a fine seam. and three
feet will probably produce more
than five thousand tons to the acre"