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1911-1919 7 miles which are producing 50,000 tons of coal daily…On November 12, 1917, the Orient mine made its record run (which is also the record for this field) of 5,508 tons of coal dumped in eight hours—this on a sin- gle-cage hoist. On the day this writer was at the plant, 4,900 tons were hoisted in eight hours; this coal was loaded by 441 miners, or an average of about 11 tons per loader," world-class numbers at the time. Harris wrote that the most notable change in mining practices in Illinois was "the adoption of the panel system by the more progressive operators." At Orient, "the rooms are turned on 40-ft centers— 18 ft pillar and 22-ft room; they are worked to a depth of 250 ft each panel has 16 rooms on each side of the double stub entry. A pillar of coal 20 ft wide is left between the ends of the finished rooms and the main entries are protected by pil- lars 150 ft in width. The 16-room panels are separated by 50 ft of solid coal." Orient's coal was cut "by 35 Sullivan shortwall mining machines. The Sullivan Machinery Co. of Chicago, Ill., states that the use of mining machines in the United States has advanced from 545 machines in 1891, when 6,211,732 tons (or 6.66 per- cent of the entire output) was won by machines to 16,198 machines in use in 1911 (the latest year reported), in which 283,691,493 short tons (or 56 percent of the total production) were mechanically mined." Note that by 1918, at the time Harris was writing, that number was much higher as mechanization would become dominant by 1920. gSurface Mining: Electric Shovels vs. Draglines While the new Ziegler No. 2 mine yard was being built using a Marion steam shovel and a Bucyrus dragline, surface mines in Kansas and around the nation were experi- menting with steam and electric machines made by both producers to uncover, hoist and load coal from shallow deposits. In the January 4, 1913, issue, Coal Age reported on stripping operations in the coalfields of southeast Kansas being per- formed by the world's largest steam shovels yet in operation. "There are now working in the district about 20 shovels, having an average dipper capacity of about 3½ cu yd. The most spectacular work is being done on the land of the Central Coal & Coke Co., where there are two firms near together under contact. One of these is now erecting the third of three Bucryus shovels and the other has just completed the second of two Marion shovels. Shipped out in nine cars, it took three weeks time to erect the Marion shovels, but it was worth it. Wielding a 5 cu yd dipper capacity and a 90 ft boom, these two machines were larger than their Bucyrus competitors that only had 3½ cu yd buckets and 75 ft booms." Neither of the booms on the Marion shovels turned independently, "but the upper frame carrying the machinery rests on 45 12-in. rollers. The Bucyrus shovels are mounted in a similar manner and this fact makes it unnecessary to turn the shovel at the end of the cut. Author C.M. Young reported that one Marion machine "has excavated a pit 92 ft wide and 24 ft deep, pil- ing the excavated earth on the top of the bank at one side. This gives an idea of the magnitude of the machine." Though small- er, the Bucyrus "3½ yd shovel, removing 20 ft of overburden, will uncover about 6,000 tons per month of coal 3 ft thick." That was state-of-the-art in 1912. Six years later in the February 16, 1918, issue, L. W. Nickel, serving in the U.S. Navy at the time, filed a report on the electric control of a dragline excavator. After review- ing a recently installed machine at the Locust Mountain Coal Co. in the anthracite fields near Shenandoah, Pa., Nickel con- cluded that the dragline possesses "certain obvious advantages over the steam shov- el…electrical driving permits operation with fewer men and insures against delays arising from cold weather." The excavator in question was stripping a coal bed of 14 to 30 ft in depth. "With the dragline in posi- tion, it is possible to take a cut 150 ft in width. Spoil banks are always dropped on the surface which does not contain coal; that is the excavator is always placed direct- ly over the vein and is followed by a steam or electric shovel. The dragline method of stripping has been found to be much clean- er than any other, as no rock or dirt is spilled on the coal when once it is cleaned." Also, an electric machine required smaller crews in comparison to a steam shovel: "no fireman, coal passer or pipe man is needed…The only labor required for the operation of this machine is the dragline operator, an oiler and a few men in the pit." The dragline Nickel witnessed in operation had "a turntable 24 ft in diameter, a 150-hp hoist motor and a 75-hp swing motor. The turntable consists of 40 open hearth steel rollers revolving between two 90-lb rail cir- cles, 24 ft in diameter, one attached to the bottom of the revolving frame and one to the top of the base." The machine was able to strip 256,710 cu yds at an average cost of 4.23c per cu yd, Nickel wrote. Photograph of the world's largest steam shovel on a stripping operation in Kansas. *Coal Age, January 4, 1913 40 www.coalage.com 100th Anniversary Special Issue Toward the end of the decade in May 1919, S.B. Creamer of Cambridge, Ohio, reported on the steam and electric shovels then in operation at an unnamed Ohio August 2012