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STATISTICS OF ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES IN THE MINERAL INDUSTRIES.

With the purpose of providing reliable information as to the hazards of workmen in the mineral industries and the work to be done in lessening the death rate from accidents, the Bureau of Mines compiles and publishes reports on mine fatalities. Information as to fatalities in coal mines is collected through the cooperation of State mine inspectors.

Data on accidents in metal mines, quarries, and metallurgical plants, except blast-furnace plants, are furnished voluntarily by operators, there being no Federal law requiring the operators to report. Although these figures are not absolutely complete, they are on a comparable basis for calendar years and furnish means for an intelligent comparison of statistics of accidents in the different States.

The reports on coal-mine fatalities are issued monthly; those on metal mine, quarry, and coke-oven accidents and on accidents at metallurgical plants are issued annually. The collection and compilation of these statistics are in charge of A. H. Fay, mining engineer.

GLOSSARY OF THE MINERAL INDUSTRY.

A glossary of terms used in the mineral industry is now in press. This glossary defines more than 20,000 terms related to mines, quarries, oil and gas wells, reduction works, mineralogy and geology, including provincialisms and terms now obsolete. This work is in charge of Mr. Fay.

EXAMINATION OF MINING LAWS.

In order to promote uniformity in the mining laws of the several States, the Bureau of Mines is collecting and publishing the State laws and the court decisions showing how the laws have been interpreted. This work is essential in showing the growth of the mining laws and what provisions the courts have held to be valid and invalid, and constitutional and unconstitutional.

During the year the bulletins for the California and the Illinois statutes were published, and the bulletin for the Pennsylvania statutes is in press. The manuscript of the bulletin for the Colorado statutes is practically ready for the printer.

The law examiner, J. W. Thompson, who is in charge of this work at the Washington office, has continued to complete abstracts of the current decisions of the United States and State courts in all cases

relating to mining, and these abstracts are published regularly every four months as serial bulletins. Special effort is made to include every decided case relating to mining and so to state the point decided that laymen may readily comprehend the propositions laid down. During the year three volumes of these abstracts were published as Bulletins 152, 159, 164.

INVESTIGATION OF THE GOLD-MINING SITUATION.

In July, 1918, the Secretary of the Interior, because of the rapidly increasing cost of producing gold and the declining output of that metal in the United States, appointed a committee composed of members of the Bureau of Mines and members of the United States Geological Survey to study the gold-mining situation in this country. Hennen Jennings, chairman, J. H. Mackenzie, and Charles Janin represented the Bureau of Mines, and H. D. McCaskey and F. L. Ransome, the Geological Survey.

The report of the committee, setting forth its findings and conclusions, with proposed measures for the relief of the industry, was rendered in final form October 30, 1918, and later was published by the Bureau of Mines as Bulletin 144.

WORK OF THE SEVERAL DIVISIONS.

MINING DIVISION.

The administration of the mining division during the fiscal year was carried on through four subdivisions or sections: (1) Safety and rescue work, under the charge of D. J. Parker, mine safety engineer, aided by E. H. Denny, assistant mine safety engineer; (2) explosives testing, in charge of S. P. Howell, explosives engineer; (3) coal-mine investigations, under the charge of J. W. Paul, coal-mining engineer, the headquarters of these three sections being at the Pittsburgh station; and (4) various investigations under the direct charge of the chief mining engineer. Much of the work of the mining division is described under the chapter on the Pittsburgh station, pages 90 to 100.

WORK OF THE CHIEF MINING ENGINEER.

Apart from his administrative duties as chief of the division, George S. Rice, in compliance with a request from the Shipping Board, was occupied the first part of the fiscal year in gathering data and in preparing a report on the control of coal after the war.

Mr. Rice also prepared reports on the Stone Canyon coal mine in California, for the United States Fuel Administration; reviewed data gathered by F. T. Eddingfield, mining engineer, and J. R. Finlay, consulting mining engineer, in the Minnesota iron district and determined the scope of the technical work to be covered in Mr. Finlay's report on the leasing system for State-owned iron lands in Minnesota; planned investigations on the use of geophones in military mining, and in ordinary mining operations, with W. L. Egy, physicist, and Alan Leighton, assistant physicist; visited experimental stations and points where field investigations were in progress, and held conferences with the French High Commission and others regarding the destruction and restoration of coal mines in France.

On February 20 Mr. Rice left for Europe to gather scientific and technical data on the mining methods employed during the war in European countries and to observe the extent of the destruction in the French coal mines in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais Basins and the methods taken for restoring the mines; also, the methods of mining in the Briey iron district. He visited mines in the north, center, and south of France; made a trip through the Belgian coal field and into the Saar district; also attended an economic allied conference with German representatives at Cologne, as technical advisor on mining matters to the American economic delegation; while there he visited

brown-coal mines in the vicinity of Cologne and bituminous mines in Westphalia. Mr. Rice visited England and Scotland to observe the methods employed in typical coal, iron, and oil-shale mines. He gave special attention, while visiting the French Lorraine iron mines. formerly held by the Germans, to the industrial use of liquid oxygen explosives.

E. A. Holbrook served as acting chief mining engineer during Mr. Rice's absence in Europe.

WORK OF THE DISTRICT MINING ENGINEERS.

District A, termed the Northern Appalachian district, covers Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and eastern Kentucky. The headquarters are at Pittsburgh.

J. W. Paul, chief coal-mining engineer, had charge of the field investigations made by the various engineers and of the work pertaining to coal mining at the experimental mine.

During the first half of the fiscal year numerous mines in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia were examined and sampled in order to obtain necessary data in connection with the fuel requirements of the Navy, Tidewater Exchange, Fuel Administration, and Panama Railroad.

Detailed investigations of explosions and accidents in various mines during the year were made by the district and field engineers, and reports were furnished to the mine owners which outlined changes deemed advisable to insure greater safety. In addition, special investigations were made of the mine-water neutralizing plant at the Calumet mine of the H. C. Frick Coke Co., at Calumet, Pa., and the explosibility of dust in the mills of the Oliver Iron & Steel Co., and the Hubbard Co., at Pittsburgh, Pa.

Methods of mining employed in Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania are being studied for the purpose of determining the waste of coal in mining and of suggesting methods that may increase the recovery. In Illinois a special study is being made on subsidence of the surface resulting from different methods of mining coal, the object being to recommend a system or practice of mining that may do the least injury to the surface and at the same time insure the greatest recovery. Fires in coal mines are being investigated for the purpose of learning the conditions under which the fires originate and the methods employed for their control and extinction.

District B, termed the Southern Appalachian district, embraces North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi.

W. B. Plank, mining engineer, was appointed as district engineer, with headquarters at Birmingham, Ala., in November, 1918. He has investigated mine accidents and recommended safety measures to the mine operators. Already one large mine in the district has adopted electric safety lamps in place of the open carbide lamp. Mr. Plank is compiling data on coal-mining methods in Alabama. District C, the Lake Superior, includes northern Michigan, northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the eastern halves of North and South Dakota.

B. O. Pickard, district engineer, Ironwood, Mich., has made a survey of the Lake copper and iron mining districts, meeting mine superintendents and inspectors and investigating safety conditions. He gave considerable time to a proposed cooperation with the State industrial commission of Wisconsin, in drawing up a manual of safety regulations and rules for the mines and quarries in the State. Between July 1 and December 19, 1918, Mr. Pickard had charge of training more than 400 soldier miners at Houghton, Mich., in cooperation with the Michigan College of Mines. On June 19 a safety conference was held at Duluth, Minn., under the auspices of the Bureau of Mines, at which practically all the mining companies in the district were represented and plans were made for the furtherance of safety work and investigations.

District D, the Eastern Interior, covers Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, southern Michigan, western Kentucky, and the eastern and northern part of Missouri.

C. A. Herbert, district mining engineer, Vincennes, Ind., has been occupied in the establishment of the new mine-rescue station at Vincennes. During part of the year he acted as superintendent of the Urbana, Ill., station. At the request of coal operators in Indiana and in Illinois, he gave advice in regard to investigations of accidents and to means of preventing them. Informal cooperation was established with the State mining departments of Indiana and Illinois in furtherance of mine-rescue and first-aid training. Mr. Herbert has prepared a paper on the engineering features of the large new coal mines in Illinois and Indiana. During the year he investigated the probable value of certain coal in West Kentucky and also investigated a mine fire in North Dakota. Under Mr. Herbert's general direction the study of subsidence in the Illinois coal field has been continued and progress made on a report dealing with coal-mine fires in the Central district coal fields.

District E, the Southwestern district, includes the States of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, southern Missouri, and eastern Nebraska.

J. J. Rutledge, district engineer, McAlester, Okla., during the year rendered assistance at two mine explosions. He conducted a large

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