Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/589

 ANTHRACITE 553 or bringing his new " stone fuel " into notice. In 1814 two arks of coal reached Philadelphia, of five which were started from the mines, and these two cargoes were sold to Messrs. White and Hazard at the Schuylkill Falls wire manufac- tory, at $21 per ton. But previously, in 1812, Col. George Shoemaker of Pottsville had taken nine wagon loads of coal from his mines at Centreville, near Pottsville, to Philadelphia, and had disposed of two loads at the cost of transportation to these gentlemen, who desired to succeed in using it at their manufactory. Mr. White and his firemen spent half a day in the attempt to burn it without success. At noon they closed the furnace doors and went to their dinner in disgust with " stone coal ; " but on their return they were astonished to find the doors red-hot and the furnace in dan- ger of melting. Since then anthracite has been a desirable and eminently available fuel for all purposes. Col. Shoemaker, however, had dis- posed of the other seven loads to others who did not succeed in making the coal burn, though this was the free-burning red-ash vari- ety, and they obtained a writ from the city authorities for his arrest as an impostor and swindler, who had sold them rocks for coal. The Lehigh navigation was improved in 1820, and during that year 365 tons of anthracite which heads the column of the trade was sent to Phil- adelphia and sold at $8 50 a ton. From this time the anthracite trade has steadily increased. Previous to 1847 most of the Lehigh coal was obtained from the open quarry in the mammoth or E bed (not an accumulation of beds, as is generally supposed), on the spot where the coal was first discovered. In 1847 about 2,000,000 tons had been sent from this quarry, and 30 to 40 acres had been excavated from the bed, which is here 50 ft. thick. Since this date the quarry method has been abandoned for regular mining operations by tunnels and slopes. The original "Coal Mine Company" leased in 1817 their whole property and privileges to Messrs. White, Hazard, and company, for 20 years, at an an-- nual rental of one ear of corn ! but they were bound to deliver for their own benefit 40,000 bushels of coal annually in Philadelphia. These gentlemen formed their interests into a stock company the "Lehigh Coal Company" and also organized the Lehigh navigation company, afterward incorporated as the Lehigh navigation and coal company, and subsequently changed to the Lehigh coal and navigation company. The stock of the old coal mine company was bought up by the new organization. At first the shares, representing 50th parts of the whole property, were bought at $150 each ; the last brought $2,000. The number of tons shipped by the Lehigh canal in 1871 was 740,630, and the total amount by canal from the commencement of the trade is 26,139,540 tons, of which, how- ever, a considerable portion was mined in other regions. The Schuylkill canal was projected in 1814, and so far completed in 1822 that 1,480 tons were shipped over it to Philadelphia. Since then 28, 700,015 tons have passed through it, of which 1,010,171 tons were shipped in 1871. The first railway built in the United States, ex- cept one of three miles at Quincy, Mass., was a gravity road from the Lehigh quarry at Sum- mit Hill to the canal at Mauch Chunk, a dis- tance of 9J m. This was used from 1827 to 1872 for the transportation of anthracite; but on the completion of the Nesquehoning tun- nel through the Locust mountain the old gravity line was abandoned as a coal road, and is now devoted to pleasure excursions, for which it has long been famous on account of the novelty of the ride and the picturesque grandeur sometimes beauty of the rapidly changing scenes. The view from the top of Mt. Pisgah, which towers over the waters of the Lehigh, is remarkably wild and grand. The numerous railroads built as feeders to the Lehigh and Schuylkill canals and the principal trunk lines will be found in an accompanying table. The Philadelphia and Reading railroad, opened from Pottsville to Philadelphia in 1841, had trans- ported 62,128,735 tons of anthracite up to 1872, of which 4,584,450 tons were shipped during 1871. The Lehigh Valley railroad was opened from Mauch Chunk to Easton in 1853, and trans- ported 2,889,074 tons in 1871, and a total of 22,981,252 since its completion. This line has since been extended through the Wyoming valley and into the state of New York, on the line of the Susquehanna river. The Lehigh and Susquehanna railroad, opened from the head of navigation on the Lehigh into the Wyoming region in 1846, was extended to Easton as a great trunk line in 1867, and during the next year 1,058,054 tons were transported over it. The term " Lehigh coal region " originally designated only that portion of the southern anthracite field which extended from Tamaqua on the Little Schuylkill to the Lehigh river ; but since the completion of the Beaver Meadow and Hazleton feeders to the main line of canal the name has been applied to all the small middle basins, of which there are six, though three of these the Little, Big, and Lower Black Creek basins are on a tributary of the Susquehanna, and cannot properly be termed Lehigh basins. They produce a hard, dense, amorphous coal, resembling the original Lehigh coal in both feature and character. The geology of these small basins is similar to that of the E. end of the southern and middle anthracite fields. They are long, narrow, canoe- like troughs, nearly parallel in strike with them- selves, and with the larger fields to the south, north, and east. The upper productive coal bed in these small basins is E. No. 3 in the preceding analytical table represents the gen- eral type of these basins. The small percent- age of ash, however, is an exception. The number of collieries in these anthracite regions in 1871 was 437, and their entire production, in- cluding home consumption (not in the tables), was 17,000,000 tons ; and 52,227 men and boys were employed in and about the mines.