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Show PREVENTING DISASTERS. In Us effort to stop the appalling loss of life in the coal mines of the country, the United States government is meeting with much success. An experiment ex-periment station, under the direction of the technologic branch of the United Unit-ed States geological sunroy, has been in operation at Pittsburg. Pa., with tho purpose of discovering the causes of mine disasters and suggesting a remedy. Already at the experiment station two discoveries have been made which will tend to decrease the number of deaths In tho mines. It has been demonstrated dem-onstrated that a number of tho so-called so-called "safety" explosives are anything but safe, in fact the statement Is made that with the present explosives used in mining, the miner takes his life in his hand every tlmo he touches off a fuse. It is t'no purpose of the government govern-ment to continue these experiments until tho explosives of the country are standardized in such a manner that tho miner will have a definite idea what these explosives will do. The most Important and far-reaching experiments so far are those In which It has been definitely shown that coal duBt is an explosive equally as dangerous danger-ous as tho deadly damp. This has been a mooted question among engineers engi-neers and miners alike, both insisting insist-ing that it is Impossible to explode coal dust unless there Is gas present. That the coal dust will explode in a mine where there Is no gas has been repeatedly shown to several hundred operators and miners at the testing station. Th experts at the station are now bending their energies to discover some method by which this dust can be prevented from being a serious menace to the miners. Experiments in wetting It have been going on for some time, but nothing of a very definite defin-ite nature has as yet been learned, unless un-less It Is the fact that the coal dust does not ignite when there Is a great amount of moisture in it. In 1907, more than 3,125 men were killed In tho coal mines of the country a death rate of 4 86 for eery 1,000 men employed. This is from three to four times as many men per thousand as are killed in any coal-producing country of Europe, where experimental stations such as the one In Pittsburg have been In operation for several years. |