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Caption: Book - First Years of Engineering Experiment Station (1906)
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18 ILLINOIS ENGINEERING EXPERIMENT STATION square miles, producing coal. A medium grade of bituminous coal is mined, suitable for the production of power, being used mostly as a steaming fuel by railroads and manufactories. Outside of Pennsylvania, which is preeminently the first state in coal mining, Illinois leads in t h e production of coal, yielding about one-eighth of t h e entire quantity mined in the United States. The following table shows t h e production of coal in t h e leading coal states during 1902 and .1903: PRODUCTION O F BITUMINOUS COAL I N T H E U N I T E D STATES Bank 1 2 3 4 State Pennsylvania Illinois West Virginia Ohio United States 1902 98,946,000 30,031,000 26,162,000 23,929,000 258,372.000 1903 103,000,000 34,955,000 26,882,000 24,573,000 277,077,000 Increase Per Cent 4 15 2.7 2.6 6.7 •The following statistics for t h e y e a r ending J u n e 30, 1903, Will give an idea of t h e magnitude and importance of t h e coal industry in Illinois: During that year there were 935 mines in operation, giving employment to 35,000 miners and 15,000 employees o t h e r than miners. T h e total product was 35 millions of tons, valued at more than 36 millions of dollars at t h e mines. Bailroads.—In t h e a g g r e g a t e of its railway mileage, Illinois holds first rank among t h e states of t h e Union, although Texas is a close second. T h e rapid development of railroads in Illinois is doubtless due to some extent to t h e early establishment of Chicago as a distributing center of eastern products to t h e west and southwest. Chicago became t h e outlet of t h e traffic by way of the Great Lakes, and when t h e era of railroad building succeeded, naturally became a great gateway between eastern and western t r u n k lines. A s a result, Illinois is traversed by railroads in all directions. T h e accompanying charts show t h e growth of mileage in Illinois since 1850 and t h e mileage in several states. THOUSANDS OP MILES o 2 i e 8 10 k MILEAGE GROWTH OF ILLINOIS STEAM RAILROADS
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