September 15, 1916.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

507

MAXAs

For BELTS, ROPES, & WIRE ROPES.

MAXA LTD., 43, Cannon St., London, E.C.

J. W. BAIRD AND COMPANY,

PITWOOD IMPORTERS,
WEST HARTLEPOOL,

YHAF.LY CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO WITH COLLIERIES.

"OSBECK & COMPANY LIMITED,
PIT-TIMBER MERCHANTS,
NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.

SUPPLY ALL KINDS OF COLLIERY TIMBER.

Telegrams—“ Osbecks, Newcastle-on-Tyne.”

***For other Miscellaneous Advertisements see Last
White Page.

dfjoUmnf (hotdhtn

AND

Journal of tho Coal and Iron Trades.

Joint Editors—

J. V. ELSDEN, D.Sc. (Lond.), F.G.S.
HUBERT GREENWELL, F.S.S., Assoc.M.I.M.E.

(At present on Active Service).

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1916.

The London coal trade shows no change, and all
qualities of screened house and steam coal are in
good demand. Slacks have improved somewhat, but
there is still a great pressure to clear existing stocks.

In the Tyne and Wear markets the quotations
show an easier tendency. The supply of house coal
in Lancashire appears to be overtaking the demand.
Cargoes are firmer. Pressure continues in Yorkshire
and the Midlands, although Chesterfield reports that
prices have become weaker. In South Wales the
quotations tend to harden, whereas in Scotland the
tone is easier in consequence of the plentiful supply.

Chartering has been less active of late, but rates, as
a rule, are well maintained.

It is stated that the Departmental Committee
on Coal Mining Organisation is about to issue a
report which recommends certain steps regarding
absenteeism.

Lord Strathclyde’s decision in the Scottish miners’
wages application awards an advance of sixpence
daily from August 22, raising the day’s wage to 10s.
The advance claimed was a shilling.

Exports of coal, coke, and manufactured fuel
in August aggregated 3,665,482 tons, of the value of
£5,017,842. Similar exports amounted to 3,853,794
tons, valued at £3,471,990, and 3,209,399 tons,
valued at £2,132,329, in the corresponding months
of 1915 and 1914.

The average value of coal, coke and manu-
factured fuel exported in August was 27s. 4'5d.
per ton, compared with 18s. 0*2d. in August 1915, and
13s. 3*Id. in August 1914. The average value during
the first eight months was 23s. 10‘7d. per ton, as com-
pared with 16s. 5*3d. and 13s. 9-2d. in the corre-
sponding periods of 1915 and 1914.

Of the total exports of coal (3,419,619 tons) during
August, the mean value of the large coal was 30s. 9*4d.;
through-and-through (unscreened), 24s. 3*8d. ; and
small coal, 22s. 6’3d. The average value of all
kinds of coal exported was 27s. 0 3d., as compared
with 17s. 8’3d. in August 1915. Otherwise divided, it
realised the following:—Steam coal, 27s. HTd. ; gas
coal, 23s. 5*5d. ; anthracite, 28s. L6d. ; house-
hold, 27s. 9*3d. ; other sorts, 26s. 8 6d. The
average value of the coke exported was 34s. 7-6d. per
ton, and of the manufactured fuel 29s. 2 8d. per ton.

The executive committee of the Miners’ Federation
conferred privately with Lord Milner, who is
supervisor of several Government committees con-
cerned with the coal trade. No definite information
has been issued regarding the conference.

Conferences of coal owners were held in London
regarding Italy’s coal supply and a deputation after-
wards visited the Board of Trade to consider the
question of coal freights to Italian and other
Mediterranean ports. The provisional scheme
formulated by the Mining Association was discussed,
and a settlement is believed to be in sight, whereby
a constant supply of coal can be ensured to Italy
upon terms satisfactory to all.

Professor Boulton, in his address
National to the Geological Section of the
Uses Of British Association, drew attention to
Geological serious defects in the organisation of
Research, geological research in this country,
. particularly with regard to the devel-
opment of our mineral wealth. His remarks are all
the more useful at the present time, because they
have a far wider application than possibly their author
intended. They serve as an example of the whole
attitude of the State towards scientific research. The
Geological Survey, for example, instead of having
been allowed to develop its activities along national
lines, has practically for years been existing on suffer-
ance, and has been for a great part of the time
practically under sentence of death. It is true that
latterly there has been a notable departure from that
policy, and some sort of awakening to the true
functions of a national survey, but it cannot be said
that this Department has yet had a free opportunity
to do what it should in assisting the mineral industry
of the country. The fault does not lay in the
Department itself so much as in the want of proper
recognition of its capabilities by the Treasury. Prof.
Boulton gave more than one instance of the wrong-
headed policy which seems to permeate our Govern-
ment whenever there is any question of spending
a little money on scientific investigation, whatever
its value to the country may be.

In addition to financial starvation the Geological
Survey has also suffered from its isolation from
kindred activities in other departments. For instance,
it has no longer any control over the Mining Record
Office, that branch having been transferred to the
Home Office. Prof. Boulton calls attention to the
inconvenience, if nothing worse, resulting from this
official severance between the Geological Survey
and the Mines Department of the Home Office. It
means that there is no possibility of securing a record
of geological data in the plans of abandoned mines
which by the Home Office Regulations have to be
deposited for reference. The result is that these
plans are often deficient in the very information they
ought to convey. Apparently there is no super-
vision of these plans; or, if there is, it is not carried
out by persons with the geological knowledge
necessary for the purpose. Obviously, the informa-
tion afforded by a worked out mine, may prove to be
of the utmost importance for future development, not
only on adjacent ground, but elsewhere. Unless this
information is accurately recorded at the time, it may
be permanently lost; and there is too much reason
to believe that many of the plans in the Home Office
Record Office are worse than useless, because of their
incompleteness and inaccuracy. And one reason for
this, as alleged by Prof. Boulton, can certainly be
attributed to the fact that the Geological Survey no
longer has any control over them.

The truth is that the legitimate functions of the
Geological Survey have been much curtailed by
continual encroachments from other departments,
possibly from notions of economy, partly perhaps
through political considerations, as in the case of the
separation of the Irish from the British Survey.
The Imperial Institute runs a Colonial Survey of its
own, although Prof. Boulton points out that there is
no real need for the duplication of staff that such a
method entails.

In the United States, on the other hand, the
Geological Survey controls everything relating to the
mineral resources of the land, even including water-
supply and irrigation. Its functions have steadily
grown with the requirements of the nation ; its
activities have been fostered almost lavishly; while
the British Survey has never been free to develop
along natural lines.

It is difficult to acquit the Geological Survey itself
of some of the blame for this condition of things. It
has only of late years awakened to a sense of its true
functions. In the earlier stages of its career it was
never sufficiently alive to economic considerations.
Consequently it did not appeal very strongly to the
practical mining man or to the engineer. Nor was it
ever apparently in a position to uphold its rights
against the caprices of the Treasury, which seems to
have systematically worked to accomplish its total
extinction, in order, perhaps, to save the expense of

a separate department, with which the Government
has shown little or no sympathy.

Prof. Boulton devoted a considerable part of his
address to the subject of coalfield geology, into which
we cannot now enter further than to emphasise again
the importance of the reiterated demand for systematic
boring in order to throw light upon certain questions
to which geologists are devoting much time in more or
less idle speculation. Guessing is scarcely a remunera-
tive employment when an expenditure of 10s. a foot
upon well selected boreholes would furnish an
unequivocal answer. It may also be pointed out that
this demand for bore-hole information by geologists
is perhaps dictated more by altruistic motives in the
national interest than by a preference for so cold-
blooded a method of laying the ghosts of that
speculative imagination which has always been one
of the charms of geological study.

The First Report of the British
The Fuel Association Committee on Fuel
Economy Economy was presented on Friday
Committee, last at the Newcastle meeting. It
was wisely decided . to concentrate
attention at this stage of the enquiry upon the
immediate economic situation created by the war,
deferring to a later period the consideration of the
exhaustion of our available coal supplies. The
first portion of the report is devoted to a survey of
the coal resources of the world with the object of
showing that we have already lost the advantage we
have until recent years enjoyed of being the chief
coal-producing power in the world. That contention
cannot, of course, be denied, especially if we base
our argument upon bulk alone. But this is obviously
not the sole consideration. The question of quality
is of the first importance, and, although the com-
mittee express the opinion that the United States
compares favourably with Great Britain, and the
British Empire, both as to quality and cost of
production, we think that, from a purely commercial
standpoint, this conclusion is at least debatable. The
United States undoubtedly possesses an enormous
reserve of coal when measured by bulk alone, and
much of it is of excellent quality ; but the statistics
given in this report would have an entirely different
complexion if we confine our attention solely to that
portion of the American coal seams which come into
competition with our export trade.

This question has quite recently been examined
by Mr. Marius R. Campbell, of the United States
Geological Survey, in a paper published in the
Mining Congress Journal last month. He shows that
a very large part of the United States coal seams is
of comparatively low grade, and it is only in the
Appalachian region that the best varieties of steam
coal occur in quantity. Mr. Campbell believes that
the high-rank coal may be exhausted within 50 years
if the present accelerated rate of production is main-
tained. While, however, it cannot be claimed that
this consideration vitiates the conclusions of the
British Association Committee, it certainly does
modify the impression which that committee intends
to convey.

With regard to the next question discussed in this
report, we are in complete agreement. Both in the
United States and in Canada much care has been
bestowed upon a thorough chemical and physical
investigation of the quality of the principal coal
seams, and more complete information is available
upon these points than we possess in respect of our
own coal seams. Undoubtedly, it would be to the
advantage of Great Britain that this example
should be followed. But it is possible, even in this
case, to exaggerate the importance of laboratory
tests. In America coal mining is of much more
recent origin. The coal seams are distributed over
enormous areas, much of which has been compara-
tively recently settled. The internal demand for
fuel is growing at a rapid rate, and the commercial
value of many newly developed seams has not yet
been proved by prolonged use. In our own case, the
marketable status of our coals has been already
established by the inexorable test of competition.
While, therefore, we should cordially support any
attempt to carry out such comprehensive laboratory
and large scale tests as have been instituted in