workable. Of these, three are probably much more important than the others. Owing, however, to the varying charater of the formation and to the way coal beds come together and separate, it is plain that no hard and fast classification can be made, and the following scheme. seems sufficient for the present: Upper Rider, Upper Verne, Lower Verne, Middle Rider, Saginaw Coal, Lower Rider, Lower Coal. Taking these in their order, the Upper Rider is probably a split from the Upper Verne. The Upper and Lower Verne usually come close together

No clinkers; light brown smoke.
Light clinkers; smoke medium.
Clinkers bad; heavy, dark smoke.
Light clinkers; smoke medium.
No clinkers; light smoke.
No clinkers; light brown smoke.
No clinkers; smoke medium.
Clinkers and smoke medium.
Clinkers and smoke heavy.
No clinkers; very little smoke.
No clinkers; heavy smoke.
No clinkers; very little smoke.
Clinkers medium; smoke heavy.
Clinkers and smoke medium.
Clinkers and smoke bad.
No clinkers; smoke medium.
No clinkers; smoke medium.
No clinkers; very little smoke.
No clinkers; smoke heavy.

and are mined together in the Wenonal and Handy Brothers mines. The Michigan Coal and Mining Company formerly mined the lower, but have changed to the upper. The Monitor and Bay mines are probably working upon the upper seam, and the Pittsburg Amelith shaft is on the lower. The Grand Ledge, Sebewaing, Owosso, and Jackson workings are at about this horizon.

The quality of the Upper Verne appears to be generally the better of the two. It is duller, but has less sulphur. These two seams are thus seen to have considerable extent, although their thick

HISTORY.

The southern portion of the coal field was the first part of the State to be settled. The Jackson district was the first to become a coal producer, in 1835, though the neighborhood of Grand Ledge presses it hard for this honor, coal having been produced here in 1838. The Jackson field was for a long time the only one which was quoted for commercial production, and the light, rather superficial gas coal, high in sulphur, which is found there was taken to represent the Michigan coals in general. In 1878, however, the Corunna Coal Company be

gan prospecting in the neighborhood of Corunna, and work has continued there ever since. In 1889 coal was struck at a depth of 85 feet in a well put down in the southern part of Sebewaing, and the Saginaw Bay Coal Company was formed for its development. Much difficulty was experienced with water, as this is a region of strong artesian wells. After a few years this company was succeeded by the Sebewaing Coal Company, and this, too, succumbed on account of the water, but mining is still continued by the Michigan Standard Coal Company, and the J. C. Liken Coal Company has been recently organized.

Coal was encountered in many of the old salt wells, including the first one put

cadent, and the twin industry of salt manufacture bade fair to share its fate unless some other source for the cheap fuel which had been furnished by the waste of the lumber could be found. The Saginaw Board of Trade spent more than $1,000 in boring for coal, with hopeful but hardly satisfactory results. Boring had also been done in Bloomfield, east of Saginaw, which resulted in finding coal, but not under very favorable conditions. The impetus toward successful coal mining at Saginaw was really given by a well for water, put down in the southeast part of the city in 1895. On the strength of this report the Saginaw Coal Company was organized to do further boring. This proved a suc

the Saginaw seam. Since then four other shafts have been put down in the vicinity of the Somers No. I shaft.

Entire independent is the history of the Verne mine and the Colcord mine on section 23 of Albee Township, east of St. Charles. These were the nrst mines worked in Saginaw County, but being on the Verne seams, far from railroads, and operated by people of little means, and the quality of the coal being much the same as at Jackson, they never proved successful, though the Verne is still supplying the local trade on tribute. About the same time an attempt was made not far off, at Elk, Genesee County, to start a mine by a slope.

The Monitor, the first of the coal mines of Bay County, was started by the coal struck in a well put down for water at Zill Brothers' saw mill in 1893.

STATISTICS OF MINE PRODUCTION.

A glance at the statistics shows a very rapid growth in the industry in Michigan, and also shows that the growth is very largely confined to a few concerns. The following tables give the essential facts:

LOCATION AND CHARACTER OF MARKETS.

Reports from the various mines show. that the local market is, for most of the mines, especially the smaller ones, a most important one; in fact, this may be said to be true of all except the Bay City, Saginaw, and St. Charles mines. Many of the mines, such as those at Jackson, Grand edge, and Verne, load directly into wagons and have no railroad trade. Even in Bay County, a very large proportion of the coal is taken by the alkali works, shipbuilding, and other industries, and the Saginaw coal is the only one that goes far afield. A glance. at the map shows that the coal does not work far south. but rather to the north

west, the result being that it does not come into competition with the Ohio coal and stands an even advantage as regards. freight rates. In fact, since there are many empty cars to be hauled west, the railroads can afford to carry it across Lake Michigan and in the direction from which the wheat comes east at the very lowest rate. In consequence we find it spreading as a counter current into Wisconsin, Minnesota, and even as far west as the Dakotas. The car ferries across Lake Michigan are very important in this distribution.

Reports from the various mines are not sufficiently full to warrant a statement regarding the different grades of the product. From a half to a third of the output is slack, which is burned at the mines or used in factories. The lump is used on railroads and for domestic use. The coal exported from the State has not exceeded 100,000 tons a year.

PRODUCTION OF COAL IN MICHIGAN BY DECEN

I went to a party with Janet,
And met with an awful mishap,
For I awkwardly emptied a cupful
Of chocolate into her lap.

But Janet was cool-though it wasn't-
For none is so tactful as she,
And, smiling with perfect composure,
Said sweetly, "The drinks are on me!"

Graham Fortescue was standing in the passage gazing meditatively at a pair of tiny brown boots outside the door of bedroom No. 47. He had arrived at the Beau Rivage, Lucerne, the evening before, and was on his way downstairs to breakfast when the boots attracted his attention.

He was a good deal of a dreamer was Graham, and inclined to speculation about people whom he met, and to weaving stories round any of their peculiarities he chanced to notice, and these dainty little boots of polished brown leather gave to the curious kink in his imagination the promise of a dainty little lady of refinement whose acquaintance ought to be well worth the making. He had forgotten all

about his breakfast and was lost in admiration of the boots, when the door of No. 47 opened slightly, a shapely hand and arm peeped out, and as the owner of them reached down for her property Graham caught sign of a thick wisp of dark brown hair with golden glints in it, of long eyelashes and of a dimpled cheek.

He knew of course, that it was quite ridiculous, but still the vision of that shapely hand and arm and the remembrance of those tiny boots quite spoiled his appetite for the Swiss rolls and mountain honey, and caused his coffee to get cold before he drank it.

Five minutes after, with a blush which which would have done no shame to the cheek of a youth of oneand-twenty, he was inquiring at the desk as to the identity of the fair denizens of No. 47.

"No. 47 is empty, sir. Mlle. de Reol and her aunt, who occupied it, have just left for Andermatt."

Graham spent a wretched afternoon, and though he had intended staying at Lucerne at least a week, when evening came the knowledge that there was a train which would enable him to make the Andermatt connection and get

there that night became too much for him, and so he left.

At Andermatt, after he had been to three hotels and searched the registers, he found the name for which he had been hunting at the Krone. But Mlle. de Reol and her aunt, the Comtesse de Challemel, had gone on to the Furka, and, with a muttered exclamation at the persistence of his ill luck, Graham, after a hasty luncheon, caught the afternoon diligence and followed them.

The day had been quite warm at Andermatt, but on the Furka, when they got there at about 7 o'clock, Graham and his fellow travelers found themselves wrapped in heavy clouds, distilling icy moisture, and were cold and hungry. Dinner and a bed interested Graham Fortescue more than evening than the owner of the brown boots did.

Besides, there was but one hotel perched up on the Furka Pass, 8,000 feet above sea level, and he had seen the dainty boots before a bedroom door as he was taken to his own.

He slept late, for the walk to Andermatt and the drive through the clouds had tired him, and when he went down to breakfast he saw that the brown boots had disappeared. They and their owner were not in the breakfast room nor were they on the stretch of road in front of the hotel. Mlle. de Reol and her aunt had gone on by the early stage to Gletsch, and there would be no other stage until the afternoon.

"Walk down?"

"Oh, yes; the walk down was a steep but very pleasant one, and monsieur would have a splendid view of the Rhone glacier as he went."

At Gletsch he found there was but one hotel, the huge Hotel du Glacier du Rhone, with its 200 bedrooms and its twentieth century comfort. He dined there in the big dining room, but caught no glimpse of the enchantress who like some modern will-o'-the-wisp was leading him across the valleys and

mountains of Switzerland. On his way to bed again, however, wandering along the passages of the great hotel, he saw her boots; not brown ones this time, but green shagreen leather, yet daintily and unmistakably her boots, before the door of No. 89. There was another pair of boots beside them this time-great boots with nails in them, almost a man's boots he thought with a shudder. The aunt's, no doubt.

In the morning he had missed Mlle. de Reol and her aunt again. They had taken a private carriage on to the Grimsel and to Meiringen, a carriage with six horses, and Fortescue's funds did not permit of such a luxury.

He followed them to Meiringen, however, by post and missed them there again. He missed them at Brienz, wasted two days at Interlaken, only to learn when he had hunted up their names at every possible hoteland there were at least thirty first-class hotels there-that the two ladies had gone on to Paris, and there, of course, to find them would be quite impossible.

He spent the evening debating what he meant to do, and finally, although he had to laugh at the absurdity, he left for Paris the next morning, attracted thither like the needle of a compass by the magnet. As on the evening of his arrival Graham sat sipping his after-dinner champagne at the Cafe de la Paix Jacques de Brimaud, a comrade of the old art student days whom he had not seen for years, came up and greeted him. Jacques was in evening

dress and "desolated" that he could not spend what was left of the evening with "ce cher vieux Graham," but he had an engagement to take tea with old friends of his family, la Comtesse

de Challemel and her so charming niece, who had just returned home from Switzerland. There was no need for de Brimaud to tell Graham Fortescue that last piece of news, and it was with a quite unusual bashfulness and color reddening his already sunburnt face he suggested that perhaps his friend, Brimaud, might take him with him and present him to the countess and her niece.

And an hour later Graham Fortescue was being introduced to Madame la Comtesse de Challemel and to mademoiselle, her niece; but as he bowed over the dimpled hand of Mlle. Lucie de Reol Graham grew pale and his heart hurt him. Those were not the feet which had been cased in the brown bootlets of his dream, for Mlle. de Reol, charming though she was, wore what the trade would call small sizes. And peeping out on to the footstool in front of the countess's arm chair was a

dainty red morocco slipper.

The boots-the brown boots and the boots of green shagreen-upon which Graham had built up a whole romance, belonged to the aunt, not to the niece, and the objectionable hobnailed ones must have been Lucie de Reol's.

He did not tell the aunt and niece the story of his chase of them until some time afterward, for Graham's holiday grew longer than he had intended and he spent many pleasant evenings at the pretty house looking out upon. the Parc Monceau. When his tale was told another story had been told as well, a question asked and answered, and, after all, the wisp of thick brown hair with golden glints in it was Lucie de Reol's if the wee boots were not. and it is now the property of Mrs. Graham Fortescue.