SYSTEMATIC MINING.
We wish, however, to call particular attention to this important subject, as one of the most interesting questions connected with the mining economy of the anthracite regions.
To the landed proprietors it would save millions of dollars per annum, and to the mining operators perhaps not less; while the miners themselves would be benefited by all that benefited their employers, and would feel more secure in life and limb while engaged in their dangerous occupation. We think the advantages so plain and so numerous that even the prejudiced must admit the desirableness of the improvement. The diffi culty, we apprehend, will be that of comprehension: our mining managers are not all engineers, and not generally conversant with plans and paper descriptions; what they know they have acquired by a long experience, and they know, too, that the plans to which they are wedded by a life-long practice are practical in a measure,—that they answer the purpose; while new theories and new plans are to them alike suspicious and untried.
We hope, however, that none will refuse to learn, and that no practical miner will be found to defend our present barbarous, wasteful, and dangerous system, in opposition to the improvements of the deep English collieries, where more coal is produced from a three-feet seam of coal than we can get out of a five- or perhaps a six-feet seam, and at much less cost, even when the rates of labor are compared; where the mines are three times as deep as ours, on an average, and where the gas is constantly pouring forth in a thousand jets, under a tension much greater than any thing we have yet found in any of our deepest mines.
The subject is certainly worthy of consideration and study. But little attention has been given to it. Our miners seem to rest satisfied with the old system, now obsolete in Europe, and have never sought or thought of improvement; and we presume it will be difficult now to change the system, unless those most interested will give the matter their attention.