1898 - Coalmininghistorypa.org

Official Document, No. 11.ANNUAL REPORTOK THEBUREAU OF MINESSince the last report of the Bureau was issued, our country has beeninakfng liistory rfipidly. Wliile our soldiers and sailors have broughtvictory to our arms, the commercial, agricultural, mining and manufacturingindustries of the country have been, equally successful,inasmuch as the volume of business done has been greater than everbefore. Statistics conclusively show that in commercial importancewe are between one-fourth and one-third of the entire world. Nobetter test can be found of the amount of commerce done by a nationthan the number of tons of freight carried by its railroads. The foreigntrade of every nation, consisting only of its surplus products,must be small compared to the business of the nation itself. It issaid that the Pennsylvania Railroad carries more freight than thatwhich constitutes all our foreign trade. The steam power of theUnited States, according to Mr. Mulhall, an eminent statistician, isnearly one third that of the entire world, or between one third andone half that of the balance of the world, being 14,400,000 horsel/ower, as against 50,1.50,000 for all the world. Nothing more strikingor instructive in regard to the value of coal when utilized by anindustrial community could be stated. Coal has become one of theessential elementsi of modern civilization. In fact, the i)rogressof the civilization of a country is now recorded by the amount ofcoal obtainable and employed by the inhabitants in a given time.The production of coal in the United States for the 1807 was 198,-250,788 tons, while that of the entire world was about 600,000,000tons, making our production nearly one-third as much as that oftJie balance of the globe. The coal fields of the United States comprisenearly half of those of the world, being 194,000 square miles,as against 471,800.In 1807 Pennsylvania produced 107,255,308 tons, or over 5.3 percent, of all the coal ])roduced in the United States, and in ISOS that(Vil)