This book provides a background and an empirical approach to basic design of hard-rock/coal pillars in room-and-pillar mines, and stimulates more advanced studies. This is accomplished in "four concise parts", and the inclusion of "many solved numerical problems based on actual laboratory and field observations" throughout the book illustrate how the interpretations and evaluations of tests results can be applied to engineering analysis, and how the mining engineer can tackle design for mines wh ...