Report about ocher or ochery earth, "a natural mineral pigment composed largely of clay permeated with hydrated iron (ferric oxide)" (p. 2). It includes information about the uses of choer, substitutes, artificial ocher, mining and local deposits, import and export of ocher, and related information.

From Introduction: "Coal dust as an agent of widespread explosions had been under suspicion, and watering to allay the dust was recommended by some mining engineers but the watering of coal-mine dust was adopted in comparatively few mines of the United States and Great Britain, and had not been introduced widely in any country except Germany. Rock dusting, another method of preventing explosions of coal dust, was early tested with success by the Bureau of Mines in its first gallery at Pittsburgh and, beginning in 1911, at the experimental mine, Bruceton, Pa."