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Excerpt from The Coal Mines: Containing a Description of the Various Systems of Working and Ventilating Mines, Together With a Sketch of the Principal Coal Regions of the Globe, Including Statistics of the Coal Production Most of the matter composing the following pages was prepared for publi cation two years ago, but, on my appointment to the office of Mine Inspector of the State, the work was laid aside for want of time to complete it. It is now offered to the public in its present form in the hope that it will in some degree supply a want long felt by practical men in the United States. I am aware that the work is both too brief and imperfect, but hope its publication may induce some one more competent to prepare a more elaborate volume on the subject. The business of coal mining will continue to be, for several centu ries to come, the main industry of our country, for coal is the main-spring of modern civilization. Less is known, because less is written, on underground coal mining than on any other subject. 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.