it, and all is over, and the report follows, "Killed by an electric shock." Humanity demands protection for the workingmen from this most deadly agent recently introduced and employed in coal mines. I hope the time will come when compressed air," liquid air," or some other agent will supplant electricity in coal mines.

In gaseous mines, electric cutting machines or other electric motors. should never be permitted in use, as otherwise sooner or later they will be the cause of a great catastrophe.

It is impossible to say how far electricity has been the responsible cause for some of the great mining calamities of recent years, but it is an entirely safe assumption that some of the disastrous gas explosions have been due to gas or dust ignited by electric sparks. At least the same question has been raised in England, and according to an extended discussion of this subject in the Engineering and Mining Journal of May 21, 1910, on "The use of electricity in British coal mines," it was said that

During the last 12 months or more the use of electricity in mines has attracted a great deal of attention in the United Kingdom. In the present circumstances, it may be said there is a feeling of apprehension in many quarters, and the suspicion that this power has played an important part in some recent disasters is gaining ground. It is not so much that electricity in itself as a power has been blamed, although among some of the miners' organizations there has been a mild agitation in favor of Parliament being called upon to enforce the removal of electricity from dry and dusty mines. The outcome of such a procedure would simply be the strengthening of legislation in such a manner as to insure that the electrical apparatus installed in the mines would be of a greatly improved quality, which would insure greater safety.

The same article contains a quotation from an address by Mr. Robert Nelson before the Institute of Mining Engineers, which reads in part as follows:

A coal mine is the last place in the world where ill-designed electrical apparatus should be used. The risk of employing inferior Inaterial is too great to be run. The best advice should, therefore, be obtained on the design of an installation and on the purchase of apparatus. Later the most careful and competent supervision is required during progress of the work, but given due attention to these important matters successful operation in the future is much simplified. A daily test of the operation of all automatically opened circuits is advisable; but a complete test as regards the proper working and insulation of all parts should be made at least every three months, and the results recorded for future reference. It is also advisable that the danger of touching current-carrying apparatus, such as cables and motors, should be pointed out from time to time to all the workmen employed in the mine, or in some way kept constantly before them.

It is made evident by these warnings on the part of competent. mining engineers that the risk resulting from the introduction of

electricity into mines has materially increased the underground hazard, and that the true risk is unquestionably greater than the apparent risk, is measured by the recorded fatality rate due to "electrocution." The increasing importance of electrical risk in mining is made evident by the declared purpose and object of the recently established Institute of Electrical Mining Engineers in England, which sets forth that

The purposes for which the institute is established, are:

1. To consider means for minimizing the risk attending the application of electricity to the industry of mining and to promote the adoption of approved methods and devices tending to increase safety.

2. To promote the general advancement of electrical science in its applications to the industry of mining; to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas on this subject among the members of the institute and otherwise; and generally, to extend the experience, increase the efficiency, and elevate the status of those engaged in such applications.

In briefly commenting upon these principles of the new organization, the president, Mr. William Maurice, an experienced mine manager, said:

Who is there among you who can not recall accidents and narrow escapes from accidents by the dozen, almost every one of which had its origin in some form of neglect or carelessness? In fact (and it is an indisputable fact, lying at the root of the whole problem of the safe use of electricity in mines) accidents do not happen at all on account of some mysterious and incalculable property of electricity, but simply and solely for want of order, cleanliness, and common care. Merely a little elementary technical knowledge, if associated with intelligent application, would work wonders in the prevention of accidents. At many collieries there are dynamo attendants, motor drivers, wiremen, and others associated with electrical plants who have had no technical training. They have, in fact, picked up all they know in course of the performance of their work.

Thus, in its final analysis, it is largely a question of efficient labor and adequate skilled supervision, by means of which the risk due to electricity in mining can be reduced, but not done away with. The whole subject will be further inquired into by a special departmental committee, which will consider the working of existing rules for the use of electricity in British mines and what amendments are necessary to reduce the risk to a minimum. In view of what has been said by the chief mine inspector of Pennsylvania, the subject evidently demands similar public consideration in this country.

MISCELLANEOUS MINE ACCIDENTS.

Miscellaneous accidents in coal mines constitute 6 per cent of the 18,346 fatalities included in these statistics. The standard or average fatality rate for this group was 2.02 per 10,000, an item sufficiently

large to demand a more explicit statement of the facts It is often the case that the so-called miscellaneous accidents are largely of the kind that fall within the preventable class, but the mining statistics at present afford no opportunity to deal with this group in sufficient detail to determine the exact causes responsible for their occurrence. In some of the States the proportion is much larger than the average, and among others, in Alabama, 17.4 per cent were classed as miscellaneous, or 8.67 per 10.000. In British Columbia the proportion was 7.1 per cent, but in Colorado only 0.5 per cent, and in Illinois 0.2 per cent, so that it may safely be asserted that the difficulties of exact classification are not insuperable. The facts regarding miscellaneous accidents for each State are given in Table XXIII of the appendix.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF 2,660 FATAL MINE ACCIDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES DURING 1908.

During 1908 there occurred 2,660 fatal accidents in coal mining in the United States for which more or less complete information is available regarding the cause, age, race or nativity, conjugal condition, dependence, and length of mine service, which constitute the elements of every statistical inquiry into the subject of coal-mining casualties. Not all of this information is available for each accident on account of the regrettable dissimilarity in the returns, but all the facts officially returned are condensed in the analysis which follows and the statistical tables included in the appendix. The ages of the killed, for illustration, are given in only 2,269 accidents out of the 2.660 included in the present investigation, but the difference in numbers, of course, does not impair the value of the age distribution as given below:

PERSONS KILLED IN COAL MINING IN THE UNITED STATES, BY AGE AT DEATH, 1908.

It is extremely significant that there should have been 10 deaths. at ages under 15 and 232 deaths at so early an age as 15 to 19 during the course of a single year. Similar information has not

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heretofore been made public and the table is therefore a most useful contribution to the problem of child labor in its relation to child life. () The details of age distribution, by single years, are given in Table I of the appendix, but it may here be stated that of the age group 15 to 19 there were 13 deaths at age 15, 34 at age 16, 38 at age 17, 58 at age 18, and 89 at age 19. Unfortunately the number cmployed at these ages is not known, but the facts stated suggest the necessity of a full return of persons employed in coal mining by single years of life at ages under 21. Such a return is called for by the highest considerations of public policy as a necessary basis for the calculation of the true fatality rate among young persons employed in a decidedly dangerous industry. Errors in age returns are common, but they tend to equalize themselves in the age groups adopted for the present purpose, so that the preceding table may be safely accepted as an approximation to the truth. The table brings out the fact that coal-mining fatalities occur most frequently in the age period when life has its highest economic value and when the resulting loss to the community is most serious in the form of dependent widows and orphans, on the one hand, and the absolute loss of slowly acquired labor efficiency on the other. Of the 2,269 deaths at specified ages, 56.7 per cent occurred between the ages 25 and 44, while 13.6 per cent of the deaths occurred at ages 45 to 64, inclusive, and 0.8 per cent at ages 65 and over.

The age distribution of the killed naturally varies considerably in the different employments. The average age at death for all occupations was 31.8 years, but the average has been as low as 18.1 years for trappers, and as high as 33.6 years for miners. The details, by occupations, are given in Table II of the appendix. The table is of considerable interest, in that it brings out the manysided character of coal mining as carried on under varying conditions throughout the nation, and while some of the names of occupa

a The following account is from the Annual Report of the Mine Inspector for Maryland, for the year ending May 1, 1910, p. 16:

"John Hogan, a miner, aged 14 years, residing with his parents at Frostburg, was killed instantly by a fall of roof composed of rock and coal at mine No. 10, Tyson, of the Consolidation Coal Company, near Eckhart, on November 22, 1909. This boy was working with his father in a room where the roof had to be shot down for height on the roadside. The system generally practiced in this kind of work is the miner puts up what is called breakers before he shoots; in this case this was not done and from the effects of the powder from the last shot, which loosened the roof all over the place, which was 21 feet wide and 16 feet from the last prop to the face, made the place unsafe and in no condition to work under. They were working near the face when the roof fell, injuring the father and killing the son. It was very sad to see such a bright little life crushed out in such a manner. John was well liked by all his little friends."

the 2,000 deaths aprel lining 108 Italia wens de cuits of average lifetime as the result of calming fatalaes is of most serv ous economic and social significance. If the facts wery clearly real ized, it would be diffult, indeed, to induce young men to enter so per ilous a vocation, except as an inevitable alternative as a matter of self support. The waste as measured in years of human life umple a very material destruction of national wealth. Although it is not possible to assign a definite monetary value to a human life, it requires no discussion to sustain the view that the loss involved in the de true tion of human life as the result of coal mining ewaalties is ab oluto