This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... THE TRAGEDY OF THE MINE IT was about half an hour later when I reached my room, for I had stopped on the way to chat with the gate-man. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, loosening the heel of one of my rubber boots with the toe of the other, when suddenly, through the stillness of the sleeping town, from the power-house half a mile away came a low and rising note, the great siren whistle in the power-house. Almost fascinated, I listened as the great note rose higher and more shrill and died away again. One blast meant a fire in the town; two blasts, fire in the buildings at the mine; and three blasts, the most terrible of all, a disaster or trouble in the mine. Once more, after an interminable pause, the sound came again; and once more rose and died away. I did, not move, but there was a sudden coldness that came over me as once more, for the third time, the deep note broke out on the quiet air. Almost instantaneously the loud jingle of my telephone brought me to my feet. I took down the receiver: "The mine's blown up," said a woman's voice. It was half a mile between my room and the gate to the mine-yards, and as my feet beat noisily on the long, straight road, doors opened, yellow against the blackness of the night, and voices called out--women's voices mostly. The gate-man knew little. "She's let go," was all that he could say. There were two men at the fan-house, the fan-engineer and his assistant, and in a second I learned from them that there had come a sudden puff up the air-shaft that had'spun the fan backward a dozen revolutions on the belt before it picked up again. The explosion doors, built for such an emergency on the new dome above the air-shaft, had banged open noisily and shut again of their own weight. That was all....

Coal will continue to provide a major portion of energy requirements in the United States for at least the next several decades. It is imperative that accurate information describing the amount, location, and quality of the coal resources and reserves be available to fulfill energy needs. It is also important that the United States extract its coal resources efficiently, safely, and in an environmentally responsible manner. A renewed focus on federal support for coal-related research, coordinated across agencies and with the active participation of the states and industrial sector, is a critical element for each of these requirements. Coal focuses on the research and development needs and priorities in the areas of coal resource and reserve assessments, coal mining and processing, transportation of coal and coal products, and coal utilization.

Excerpt from A Year in a Coal-Mine From the window we passed along to a little inclosure directly above the mouth of the main hoisting-shaft. Sheer above it the black tower of the tipple pointed up into the hot, blue morning sky; and the dull, dry heat of the at Illinois country seemed to sink down around it. But from the square, black mouth of the shaft a strong. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

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Bitty is a canary whose courage more than makes up for his diminutive size. Of course, as a miner bird who detects deadly gas leaks in a West Virginia coal mine during the Depression, he is used to facing danger. Tired of perilous working conditions, he escapes and hops a coal train to the state capital to seek help in improving the plights of miners and their canaries. In the tradition of E.B. White, George Selden, and Beverly Cleary's Ralph S. Mouse, Madelyn Rosenberg has written a singular novel full of unforgettable characters.