Excerpt from Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Mines, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, for the Year Ending 1898 Sm: In compliance with the statute relating to mines and mining, I have the honor to submit to you the twenty-fourth annual report of the Department of Mines and Mining as provided by section 293 of the Revised Statutes. I regret the impossibility to file the report at an earlier date owing to the inability to secure te liable returns from the operators of the State. Numerous failures and assignments, whereby property was placed in the hands of the court, caused vexatious delays. Again, during the early portion of the time devoted to the work, the writer's time was absorbed in making inspections in the several coal fields, thus retarding the work to this late period. 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.