Mr. E. W. Parker, of the United States Geological Survey, who served
by appointment of President Roosevelt as one of the anthracite strike
arbitrators, recently called the attention of the Washington State
Press Association to the fact that Pennsylvania, Illinois, Colorado and
Washington are the chief coal-producing States in the four longitudinal
sections or belts of the United States from east to west and that each
of these States takes the lead in manufacturing among all the States in
its section. Washington has incalculable supplies of coal of excellent
quality for producing heat and generating steam. The coal is stored in
the Cascade Mountains and the mines of Pierce, Kittitas and Southern King
Counties are in close and direct railway communication with TACOMA. It
is said that the cars loaded with coal at fifty mine openings in Western
Washington, would run by gravity into TACOMA by simply unloosening
the brakes. TACOMA has huge bunkers for coaling steamships and a line
of colliers plies constantly between this port and San Francisco. The
best, if not the only coking coal yet mined in Washington is found in
abundance in Pierce County within thirty miles of TACOMA. But fuel from
the waste of the great lumber mills is so abundant and cheap in TACOMA
that the tremendous advantage of her proximity to the rich coal fields of
Washington is not as yet fully realized.