s - Clpdigital.org

COAL AND TIMBER
.Ma—»-W^^—aP*M ^a »» • — I ' • -l^a-al • 1-1 ' I — ! — • — ^ «• P- I ^ — ^ M— •• •• • • 1 .- - — ^ » « •• •••• -• ^ • • • >• II I H ^ I ^ ^ — • • * ^ ^ ^ S
Vol. 1, No. 1 PITTSBURG, JANUARY, 1905 #1.00 Per Year
CENTRAL MINING INSTITUTE OF WESTERN
PENNSYLVANIA
WINTER MEETING
COURT HOUSE, PITTSBURG, TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20 AND 21, 19 0 4
NOTE:—The following is a mere summary of the
work and proceedings of the Institute. A synopsis of
papers and discussions will appear in subsequent editions
of "COAI, AND TIMBER," and an official report
will be published by the Institute in its regular journal.
—Editor.
It is impossible to write a report of the
Winter Meeting of the Western Pennsylvania
Central Mining Institute which would
convey to those who were not present at
each session a realization of what they
missed. It was a successful meeting, as
the attendance was representative of all
professions and vocations which are included
in the membership of the Institute.
At no meeting of the Institute have more
important papers been read and discussed.
An attempt to draw comparisons would
be futile. Each paper and each discussion
was of vital interest to everyone present,
and as the writer was leaving the building
he heard one man say: "It is too bad that
our meetings are so short. We get together,
elect officers, attend to routine business,
etc.. and then just when we all become intensely
interested in the discussions of subjects
upon which we are all seeking information
and upon which not only our
success but our lives may depend, we have
exhausted the specified time and must
adjourn. Let us devote a week to the
meetings of the Institute, learn all we can
and thus obtain the fullest value of each
other's study and experience." This suggestion
is worthy of consideration. Every
paper read at the Winter Meeting was
pregnant with advancement in mining and
the discussions which followed were worth
hours of any interested man's time, and
that means more than dollars.
The president of the Institute, a sapient
man, ripe with experience, alert and progressive,
considered each paper and discussion,
valuable, important and timely.
When the President called the Institute
to order Tuesday morning and opened the
first session with his address he could not
conceal his emotions as he spoke of the
deaths during the past year of Selwyn M.
Taylor, Henry W. Oliver and W. A. Hogg.
Only one of these gentlemen, Mr. Taylor,
was a member of the Institute, but all
three were enthusiastic supporters of it and
the words of Mr. Keighley tell how his own
heart mourns the loss of their presence and
friendship. Even the committee appointed
to draft appropriate resolutions on the
deaths of these eminent gentlemen, at a
later session requested that each member
send a letter to the committee expressing
his personal sentiments in order, as it was
explained, that the resolutions might more
fully express the deep sense of loss which
each member felt and which the mining
interests of this district had sustained.
THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.
Members of the Institute and Friends:
It is hardly necessary for me to state that I
am glad to meet you all again as most of
you are friends of many years standing, in
fact, some of you I have known from the
days of my boyhood. I wish to tender you
the compliments of the season and express
the hope that we may all meet at our next
Summer Meeting.
The address of the President at an
Institute of this character resembles, to a
certain extent, the traditional mince pie—
it has to contain a little of everything, and
perhaps not much that is of serious weight.
There are quite a number of things that
come under the notice of a man engaged
in mining operations and coke manufacturing
during a year, that give him serious
thoughts. The general tendency of the
present time is to look forward, and no
doubt this is a very good thing to do; however,
things have occurred during the
current year that have led me very
seriously to look backward; in fact, I have
about come to the conclusion that it would
be better for all of us. and certainly very
profitable, to look backwards about twice
as many times as we look forwards.
There are a great many mining superintendents,
mine foremen, mining engineers
and other mine and coke works
officials here present, and I believe that if
they will follow my line of thinking they
146957
will likely come to the same conclusions
that I have.
Without going into this matter of looking
backward very deeply, I will single out the
professional mining engineer to emphasize
my views in this matter. I should like to
ask a member of this profession what
would become of his fore-sight if he had
no back sight? My experience in engineering"
has been that all hinged and depended
on the back-sight. In the matter of theory
and practice, it might be remarked that
theory is the back-sight and practice is
made the fore-sight.
There are other reasons why I should
be in this mood of looking backwards. I,
personally, am just about scoring the half
century mark in my life, consequently I
am at a point where I can take a very long
and a very interesting look backwards.
Again, this month marks a quarter of a
century's experience in the mines and at
the plants of the Connellsville Region, for
it is just 25 years the first of December
since I first took a part in the coal mining
and coke industry of the Connellsville Coke
Region.
It is a remarkable and somewhat singular
coincidence that the year of my coming
into the coke region was the very first
year that any attempt was made to make
a record of the statistics of one of the
greatest industries in the States—perhaps
the world. Not that I had anything to do
with the matter of statistics, for I have not
had any connection therewith. At this
date, it seems to be a very strange thing
that no one thought it worth while to keep
a record or collect statistics of an industry
of this magnitude.
The fact tbat a record has been kept
since 1880 has enabled me to note the
great and rapid strides in the developments
of the Connellsville Coke Region from 1880
to 1905. According to Mr. E. W. Parker,
United States Statistician, whom we all
know so well through his many years of
diligent and effective work in the compilation
of the mining and coke manufacturing
statictics of the United States, it appears
that in 1880 there were in existence 67