BLACK POWER

[Music] [Music] so this appalachian valley holds part of the earth's greatest mineral treasure 50 billion dollars worth bituminous coal it lies in seams from one inch to seven feet thick sometimes twenty layers in a single west virginia or pennsylvania hillside these are the world's most productive coal deposits how do we find a coal mine we drill through the rock to test and if the core promises a rich enough yield we'll build a coal mine here hollow out an underground city we'll tap the earth for black power we've mined here for centuries dug 20 billion tons before we're through the experts say we'll dig a thousand billion more there'll be a coal mine here there'll be miners men who move mountains men who don't mind if their clothes and bodies are black and grimy just so long as they get out cold [Music] these are prudent men carrying their own tiny lights to guide them in the darkness of their work proud men aloof independent fiercely democratic kindly men soft-spoken humorous they know better than anyone the hazards of their life but this is their work work for strong men who fear no peril in the earth's dark depths [Music] this is a coal mine you are looking at the newest cell of a vast honeycombing operation rock floor rock ceiling coal between and you loosen it gently if you know how with an explosive better know how there's a mountain on top of you [Music] now the jaws of a 20th century steel dinosaur eat into the fallen cold and fill a five ton mine car in 30 seconds it's part of the modern miracle of mechanized mining typical of american industrial ability with 300 000 fewer miners than we had in 1917 we get out more coal than ever this is a mining town of ten thousand people it is the center of operations for ten mines one company owns the mine streets everything it rents the miners houses sells them electricity all at low costs [Music] if you're a married woman in a mining town you'll do your work while your man digs coal [Music] you may have room for a little gardening you'll almost certainly raise the most usual crop babies and later on send them to schools often provided by the mine companies these organizations find that it pays them to set up good recreational facilities for miners children quite naturally there's another side to the picture in towns like this where the coal has petered out most of the miners moved on into the ghost town came certain ones who simply needed shelter a place to live to rear their children [Music] small business here if any one man and one horse haul another ton out of the mountain one eye is for daylight and one for the dark both man and beast know their job know every foot of that hole where they fit snugly between floor and ceiling sometimes a little operation like this will make a man a fair living more often not nevertheless individual coal miners run hundreds of america's 8 000 mines [Music] better than 20 of today's tonnages are gouged out of the earth by strip mining instead of digging down or in you shovel off the top and what a shovel it digs up and dumps aside as much as 80 feet of earth to reach a five-foot seam of coal but consider an acre of coal five feet thick yields eight thousand tons a thirty two thousand dollar crop per acre [Music] a street sweeper belongs on a street well this is a street flat black dusty and a hundred million years old coal is the railroad's heaviest tonnage and the railroads are still one of coal's biggest customers but economy dictates that this mighty bulk also ride by water here on the great lakes coal begins a lake-born voyage west to the central states east to canadian ports no shoveling no laborious handling here giant machines tip cars as if they were children's toys no expensive delays the trains can hurry back for new loads [Music] yes call it coal if you want so common and cheap you wouldn't stoop to pick a piece from the street or call it power black volatile magical power flowing floating rolling from mine to city from hills to mills smelters furnaces factories to turn the wheels of the vast complex mechanism of which you are apart millions of tons each year go to steel mills like this one where 1500 furnaces turn coal into coke a prime ingredient in steel making here the coal doesn't burn it bakes 18 hours at 2000 degrees this helps save the steel mills 24 hour a day appetite huge converters cook iron limestone and coke into steel at the heart of these seething flames is coal a prodigious serpent through the ages the mightiest source of power on earth [Music] you