SPECIAL RULES. § 23. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or negligently: 1. To injure or tamper with any appliance or machinery. 2. To use or carry an open light, pipe, cigarette, cigar or matches in a mine, section of a mine or place worked by the light of the safety lamp, provided, however, it shall be lawful to have a lighting devise in a locked safety lamp. It shall be unlawful to use or carry an open light or lighted pipe, cigar or cigarette or fire in any form within 5 feet of an open package of explosives. 3. To open any locked safety lamp without permission from the proper authority. 4. To handle or disturb any part of the hoisting machinery without proper authority. 5. To obstruct or cause any obstruction in any air current or to leave open any door or other means provided to control the air current or to perform any act that will interfere with the ventilating current of the mine without permission to do the same from the mine manager. 6. To deface, pull down or destroy any notice board, danger signal, special rule or record book. (b) No person shall be permitted to or shall enter, work in or about a mine or mine buildings, tracks or machinery connected therewith while under the influence of intoxicants. (c) Every miner shall sound and thoroughly examine the roof of his working place before commencing work, and if he finds loose rock or other dangerous conditions, he shall not work in such dangerous place except to make such dangerous conditions safe. It shall be the duty of the miner to properly prop and timber in a skillful and workmanlike manner in order to secure his place for his own safety with the materials and timbers provided therefor by the operators in lengths as required by the present mining law. The miner shall have the necessary tools to enable him to comply with the provisions of this section. (d) It shall be the duty of every operator to post at some conspicuous point at the entrance to the mine, in such manner that the employees of the mine can read them, rules not inconsistent with this Act, plainly printed in the English language, which shall govern all persons working in the mine. And the posting of such notice, as pro. vided, shall charge all employees of such mine with legal notice of the contents thereof. (e) It shall be unlawful for any person to disobey any order given in pursuance of this Act, or to enter any place against a danger signal without permission from the mine manager, or to do any wilful act whereby the lives or health of persons working in mines or the security of the mine or the machinery thereof are endangered. (f) No mine employee shall enter or leave a mine without indicating the fact of entering or leaving said mine by some suitable checking system provided by and under the control of the mine manager. (g) No person, except the person necessary to operate the trip or car, shall ride on any loaded car or on the outside of any car, or get on or off of a car while in motion. 7. To run any man trip in excess of the speed determined by the State mine inspector or to allow more men to ride in any one car than the number ordered by the State mine inspector except in an emergency. 8. To have keen edged tools in the same cars in which men are being hauled to and from their working places. 9. Any person violating the special rules shall be fined for the first offense not less than five dollars ($5.00) and not more than twenty-five dollars ($25.00) and for any subsequent offense not less than twentyfive dollars ($25.00) or more than one hundred dollars ($100.00) or may be imprisoned in the county jail not to exceed 30 days as provided for in the Mining Law. 10. It shall be unlawful to change, exchange, substitute, alter or remove any number or check or other device or sign used to indicate or identify the person or persons to whom credit or pay is due for the mining of coal in any car or appliance containing the same, with intent to cheat or defraud any other person of the value of his services for mining the coal contained in such car or appliance, and it shall be unlawful for a person with intent to cheat or defraud any other to place any number, check or other device or sign upon any car or other appliance loaded by any other person in or about the mine. Any violation of this provision shall be deemed a larceny, and upon conviction thereof shall be punishable as provided in the general statutes of Illinois with respect to larceny. § 1. APPROVED June 25, 1923. FIRE FIGHTING EQUIPMENT AND RESCUE STATIONS. § 6. Coal mines developed after passage of Act. (SENATE BILL No. 375. APPROVED JUNE 26, 1923.) AN ACT to amend section 6 of an Act entitled "An Act to require fire fighting and other means for the prevention and controlling of fires and the prevention of loss of life from fires in coal mines." Approved and in force March 8, 1910. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: That section 6 of an Act entitled "An Act to require fire fighting equipment and other means for the prevention and controlling of fires and the prevention of loss of life from fires in coal mines," approved and in force March 8, 1910, be and the same is hereby amended to read as follows: § 6: The following requirements also shall apply to all coal mines developed within the State of Illinois after the passage of this Act: Provided, that paragraphs (a) and (b) shall not apply to mines where ten (10) men or less are employed. (a) The hoisting shaft and the air and escapement shaft designated as such under the law in shaft mines and the air and escapement shaft nearest the main opening in slope or drift mines, shall be of fireproof construction not less than six (6) inches in thickness except that cage guides may be wood. All drifts and slopes that are opened after the passage of this Act must be of fireproof construction for a distance of three hundred (300) feet from the entrance: Provided, that this section shall not apply to shafts in actual course of construction at the time this Act takes effect. (b) The roof and walls of the passageways leading from the bottom of the hoisting shaft and the air and escapement shaft designated as such under the law, within a distance of three hundred (300) feet from the bottom of either of said shafts, shall be of fireproof construction, except that the coal rib or pillar may be used as a wall in such passageways. (c) All underground stables and the openings therein shall be of fireproof construction. Stables in mines opened after the passage of this Act shall not be located between the main and escapement shaft, or in direct line on the ventilating current or on passageways leading to the escapement shaft or shafts. (d) At mines constructed in conformity with the requirements of this section of this Act, the fire-fighting equipment described in section 2, and the fire drill described in section 5 of this Act shall not be required, except that there shall be kept at convenient places. designated by the minemanager, throughout each mine, one not less than two and one-half (22) gallon chemical fire extinguisher, or its equivalent as approved by the Department of Mines and Minerals, and one not less than six (6) gallon hand-pump bucket, for each fifty (50) employees in the mine with a minimum of six (6) extinguishers and six (6) pump buckets, and such extinguishers and buckets shall be kept filled and ready for use: Provided, that in mines employing ten (10) men or less underground, the chemical fire extinguishers shall not be required. APPROVED June 26, 1923. OPERATING OIL OR GAS WELLS. § 1. Amends sections 2, 3 and 4 and the § 2. Amends title. title of Act of 1911. AN ACT to amend section 2, 3, and 4 and the title of "An Act in relation to sinking, filling and operating of oil or gas wells," approved May 16, 1905, as amended. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly: SECTION 1. Sections 2, 3 and 4 of "An Act in relation to sinking, filling and operating of oil or gas wells," approved May 16, 1905, as amended are amended to read as follows: § 2. It shall be the duty of any person, firm or corporation having the custody or control of any well drilled for gas, oil, water or for any other purpose, and of the owner of the land in which such well is drilled, when the drill hole penetrates a coal seam four feet or more in thickness and more than one hundred feet below the surface to file in the office of the recorder of the county in which said well is drilled and in the office of the Department of Mines and Minerals within fifteen days after completing said well a statement and map giving the location and depth of every well so drilled. The map filed shall be an accurate survey locating the well with reference to section corners or known land marks, and shall be made and certified to by the county or some other competent surveyor. The county recorder shall file and enter and index. same in the records of his office relating to the titles to real property. § 3. Before the casing shall be drawn from any well for the purpose of abandonment thereof, which has been drilled into any gas or oil bearing rock, it shall be the duty of any person, firm or corporation having the custody or control of such well at the time of such abandonment, and also the owner or owners of the land wherein such well is situated, to properly and securely stop and plug the same in the following manner: Such hole first b solidly filled from the bottom thereof to a point at least twenty feet above such gas or oil bearing rock with sand, gravel or pulverized rock, immediately on the top of which filling shall be seated a dry wood plug not less than two feet in length, having a diameter of not less than one-fourth of an inch less than the inside diameter of the casing in such well. And above such wooden plug such well shall be solidly filled for at least twenty-five feet with the above-mentioned filling material, immediately above which shall be seated another wood plug of the same kind and size as above provided, and such well shall again be solidly filled for at least twenty-five feet above such plug with such filling material. After the casing has been drawn from such well there shall immediately be seated at the point where such casing was seated a cast-iron ball or tampered wood plug at least two feet in length, the diameter of which ball or the top of which wood plug shall be greater than that of the hole below the point where such casing was seated, and above such ball or plug such well shall be solidly filled to top of well with the aforesaid material. Before the casing shall be drawn, for the purpose of abandonment, from any well drilled for gas, oil, water or any other object, and penetrating a coal seam, of four feet or more in thickness and more than one hundred feet below the surface the hole shall be plugged in the following manner: Such hole shall first be solidly filled from the bottom thereof to a point twenty-five feet below the bottom of the coal seam with sand, gravel or pulverized rock, immediately on top of which shall be seated a dry wood plug not less than two feet in length and having a diameter not less than one-fourth of an inch less than the inside diameter of the casing. The hole shall then be filled for a distance of fifty feet with a mixture of concrete, consisting of sand and broken rock not greater than one-half inch in diameter or with clean sand and gravel with not less than one-fifth in volume of cement to be mixed and placed in accordance with the best practice. If possible the hole shall be entirely free from water when the concrete is placed. The casing shall be withdrawn as the concrete work proceeds. The work herein required shall be done under the supervision of the county mine inspector or if there is no mine inspector then some person designated by the county board. § 4. The person, firm or corporation owning or having control or custody of any such well or the land in which any such well is situated shall file or cause to be filed in the office of the recorder of the county in which any such well is located, within fifteen days after the same has been plugged as provided in section 3, the affidavit of the county mine inspector or person designated to supervise the work and the owner of the land in which the well is situated, which affidavit shall be recorded in the record books in the office of the recorder of such county, and shall set out in detail the manner in which such well was plugged, the depth of each such wood plugs and iron ball below the surface of the ground, and the record of such affidavit shall be prmia facie evidence in any court of a compliance with the provisions of this Act. § 2. The title of this Act is amended to read as follows, "An Act in relation to the sinking, filling and operating of wells for oil, gas, water or other purposes.' APPROVED June 27, 1923. |