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

No. 10. THIRD ANTHRACITE DISTRICT. 69
acquainted with mining will have to admit. For instance, is the
miuius industry of the State of Pennsylvania of so little importance
to the general public that, while placing a chief at the head of this
industry, a department could not be also made which would be independent
of any other department at Harrisburg? It is at present subject
to the Department of Internal Affairs, the heads of which acknowledge
in their report that they are not versed in the mining
business sufficiently to express an opinion as to what should be done.
Yet the appointing power of the subordinates in the oflice of the
chief is refused him who should be the most competent person to
select his hclj), and so bring the bureau to that efficiency for which it
v/as intended. I likewise call attention to section 9, which reads
ajs follows: "That the mine Inspector of each district of this State
shall,
within six months after the final passage and approval of this
act, deposit in the bureau of mines an accurate map or plan of such
coal mine, which may be on tracing muslin or sun print drawn to a
prescribed scale, which map or plan shall show the actual location
of all openings, excavations, shafts, tunnels, slopes, planes, main
headings, cross headings and rooms or working places in each strata
operated, pum})S,fans or other ventilation apparatus, the entire course
and direction of air currents, the relation and proximity of the workings
of such coal mines to all other adjoining mines or coal lands,
and the relative elevation of all tunnels and headings and of the face
of working places near to or approaching boundary lines or adjacent
mines, and on or before the close of each calendar year transmit
to the chief of the Bureau of Mines a supplemental map or plan showing
all excavations, changes and additions made in such mine during
the year, drawn to the scale as the first mentioned map or plan.
such maps or plans to be and remain in the Bureau of Mines as a
part of the records of that office."
It is not my intention to enter into a general discussion of this section.
I will leave it to the criticism of the mining public, who know
how impossible it would be for the Inspector of mines to furnish the
information this section calls for, with the present facilities, time,
and helj* at his command.
All