The Ruhr Coalfield and its Exploitation

Abstract

IT would be unfair to describe the report of a technical mission to the Ruhr Coalfield^* merely as a valuable supplement to the well-known Reid Report on coal mining in Great Britain (see Nature, 155, 685; 1945, yet this is undoubtedly one purpose of this careful and detailed examination of the best mining practice in the Ruhr. One of the conclusions of the Reid Committee was that “the layout of the Continental mines with straight level roads driven through the strata provided a foundation for the reorganisation of the underground workings”, and records of output per man-shift confirm that Ruhr mining methods should prove worthy of study. In 1938, under mining conditions comparable with those prevailing in Great Britain, the Ruhr coal miner produced 30.5 cwt. per man-shift; in the same year the British miner produced 23 cwt. per man-shift.