Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/505

Rh miners, 280,638, only 9 per cent., were paid less than $1.75 per day; 20 per cent, were paid less than $2.00 per day; 58 per cent, were paid less than $2.50 per day; and 95 per cent, were paid less than $3.50 per day. The rates of pay for anthracite coal mining (employing 69,691 men) were very much lower than the rates for bituminous coal mining. Thirty-one per cent, of the anthracite coal miners received less than $1.75 per day; 46 per cent, received less than $2.00 per day; 74 per cent, received less than $2.50 per day; and 95 per cent, received less than $3.50 per day.

The production of iron ore involved the employment of 38,851 men. These were paid less than $1.75 in 22 per cent, of the cases, less than $2,00 in 37 per cent, of the cases, less than $2.50 in 78 per cent, of the cases, and less than $3.50 in 99 per cent, of the cases.

Among the 36,142 wage-earners engaged in gold and silver mining, 2 per cent, were paid less than $1.75; 8 per cent, were paid less than $2.50; and 67 per cent, were paid less than $3.50, There is thus a marked variation in the wage rates paid for mining in the different mining industries. The fairest comparison, if a comparison between wages in manufacturing and wages in mining industries is to be made, must recognize the geographical wage variations. Most of the wages from manufacturing industries relate to the North Atlantic and the North Central States. An examination of the figures for mining shows that the wage rates paid in these states are considerably lower than the wage rates in the Western States, where smelting and refining are the chief mining industries. Two fifths of the wage-earners employed in mines and quarries in the United States were in the North Atlantic States; a third were in the North Central States; and only an eighth were in the Western States. The great bulk of the mining work la therefore carried on in the North Central States,

The wages in the North Atlantic Division relate to coal mining, chiefly. They are somewhat lower than the wages reported for the North Central States, as appears in the following comparison:

Although these figures for mines and quarries are so far out of date that no well-marked conclusions may be based on them, they indicate that in the mining industry wage rates are comparatively similar to the rates in the manufacturing industries in like geographical sections.