Report of the Bureau of Mines of the Department of Internal Affairs of ...

30 REPORT OF THE INSPECTORS OF MINES. Off. Doc.
Examination of Applicants for Mine Foreman and Assistant Mineforeman's
Certificates.
The annual examination for the district was held July 21 and 22
in the Municipal building, Scranton. The board of examiners was
composed of the following persons:
H. O. Prytherch, mine Inspector, Jas. Young, superintendent, P.
H. Salmon and J. li. Jones, miners.
The following persons were recommended to receive niine foreman's
certificates:
B. F. James, John R. James, James H. Brace, Thomas Perry,
Scranton; James J. Thomas, Samuel C. Evans, Taylor, and D. F.
Holleran, Pittston.
The following persons were recommended to receive assistant mine
foreman's certicates:
Rudolph Lynn, John A. Morgan, Edwin Lewis, Thos. Edwards, D.
J. Williams, Scranton; Wm. Bennett, Geo. Imes, Old Forge; D. J.
Davies, Taylor, and John J. Walsh, Pittston.
Remarks.
When a property underlaid by several seams of coal is about to be
developed, there are two very important considerations which determine
the order in which tlie seams will be mined, namely the
demand of the market and the economic mining of the seams as a
whole. In former years the market seems to have demanded the
first attenton; in later years, however, the question of mining is
forcing itself ])rominently to the front. Owing perhaps to this fact,
w^e find that the order in which the coal seams of this district have
been worked, does not tend to make the mining of the whole the least
( xpen^ive. Looking at the subject from the mining engineer's standpoint
one is
forced to admit that on this account the mining of the
remaining seams has also been rendered more difficult and less safe.
In the early da^^s of mining, the facilities for cleaning and preparing
coal for market were of necessity of a primitive kind. Competition,
however, was active. Owing, therefore, to these and other
facts, when a coal property was about to be developed, the sections
of the several boreholes were brought forward and the quality
cf the several coal seams compared, and the vein which would satisfy
the demand of the market, at the time, irrespective of its position,
was selected, and in most cases was opened and mined. Little
or no importance being at that time attached to the subject of mining
the remaining beds.
In other countries where coal is being mined at depths varying
from 1,200 feet to 2,400 feet, and where the long wall system of
mining is in vouue, the oi'dcr in which tlic beds are mined is not of