Reports of the Inspectors of Mines of the anthracite and bituminous ...

No. 12.1 Third Bituminous District. 357
the Inspector is in a much better position to suggest and urge them to
employ the necessary safeguards for their protection. If these suggestions
were carried out in the right spirit by all the officials named, the
miner's vocation could be made reasonably safe. If such an idea is to
be carried out on the part of the Inspector, the state must not expect
him to do impossibilities by requiring him to visit each mine four
times a year, as the present mining act now requires.
The following table gives the number and the different classes of
accidents
:
By tails of roof,
By falls of coal, .....
Bj' mine wagons, ....
By miscellaneous causes,
Causes of Accidents for 1891.
Totals, 34
While the state is doing much to insure healthful places in which the
miners can perform their work, they, by their own actions, are doing
everything in their power to make the atmosphere of the mine unfit to
be inhaled by either man or beast. In making such a statement I have
reference to the quality of oil being burned by the workmen in the
mines. The miners in too many instances are allowing themselves to
be made the dupes of unscrupulous men who make a business of sellinga
quality of oil Avhicli is unfit to be burned in any mine. This cheap
oil is recommended by the dealers to the miners as pure lard or pure
cotton-seed oil, while it is really a mixture of carbon oil, refuse of lard
and cotton-seed and other cheap oils. It is an outrage for miners to buy
such stuff, knowing that they are injuring their health by its use.
They should be compelled to burn nothing but pure lard oil or the
purest of the cotton-seed oil. An amendment to the mining law pro-
hibiting the use of impure oil in the mines is absolute necessary.
All the mines in the district have been visited frequently during the
year and with but few exceptions tliej'^ are all in a very satisfactory con-
dition.
This has been a fairly prosperous year in the coal mining industry of
the district which is very evident from the increase in the coal tonnage,
etc. There has been some broken time at many of the mines, yet on
the whole they have been operated very steadily and the business of
the coal operators has not been interrupted by labor troubles.