Mauch Chunk, 3 month. 12, 1831. 
I PROPOSALS. 
| \ JILL be received at the office of the Lehigh 
Coal and Navigation Company, (at this place) 
I on or before the 25th inst. for perferming the follow- 
lling Ww ork, ViZ. 
i For quarrying coal at the great mine. 
| Do hauling do to summit. 
Do building box boats. 
| Do rigging do do complete. 
| Do making scoops, oar pins, cabins, &c. 
| Do hauling out rafts of lumber ard piling; 
Do suzy plying rail road wagons for coal. 
| Do do do do for dirt. 
Dotransporting coal from Riauch Chunk to 
| South Euston §c. a r the Company’ sbox boats. 
|| None need apply but those who can satisfy the 
Acting Manager that tbey are able and willing to ful- 
fil their contracts themselv es, and not by sub-contrac- 
ors. 
| All particulars will be @ade know n  Telating to the 
\works, by applying to the Company’s Agent at the 
mines, or to the Actijy9 Manager at Mauch Chunk. 
| JOS”. AH WHITE, Acting Manager. 
| March 15, 1°)31.—1t. 
N. B. Printed blanks for proposals will be furn- 
lished at th.e Company’s office 
er 

Figure 12.—ADVERTISEMENT REQUESTING BIDs, March 28, 
1831. (Mauch Chunk Courier.) 
Benjamin Silliman, reporting on the quality and quan- 
tity of the coal at this new deposit, stated that “the coal 
appears to be of the finest quality, and some of it, in the 
high lustre and perfection of its fracture, exceeds any- 
thing I have elsewhere seen.” He estimated that “when 
all the beds are perforated there can be no doubt that 
the entire thickness will exceed two hundred feet, which 
is about three times that of the great mine at Mauch 
Chunk.” ** 
The managers immediately started plans to locate a 
railroad from this new deposit to the landing at Mauch 
Chunk. The road, completed in 1833, included three 
inclined planes and the entire road from the mine was 
descending.*® The design of the self-acting planes was 
such that the descending loaded wagons returned the 
empty ones to the top of the plane. 
During 1831, the company began to negotiate con- 
tracts for the mining and transporting of coal to the 
“ BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, ‘‘Notes on a Journey from New 
Haven, Connecticut to Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania” (Ameri- 
can Journal of Science and Arts, vol. 19, no. 1; New Haven: 
H. Howe, 1830), p. 18. 
L.C.N.C., Annual Repor y 1833 (Philadelphia: James 
Kay, 1834), p. 9. 

Figure 13.—DeEscENDING COAL AND MULE Wacons. The 
artist has added two mules to the usual complement of 
four per wagon. (T. L. Mumford, The Switzerland of 
America, 1883, p. 15.) 
landing at Mauch Chunk. Advertisements appeared 
requesting that proposals be submitted to the company 
to perform other needed services, such as sorting the 
coal before loading, loading into wagons, and loading 
the boats at Mauch Chunk.** 
The location of coal deposits near the surface per- 
mitted the mine operators to hold down labor costs. 
Quarry operations permitted the use of common 
laborers at a wage rate lower than that paid to the 
underground miners required in the Schuylkill field. 
The wage differential during this period ranged from 
a low of approximately 18 cents per day in 1831, to 
a high of 33 cents per day in 1845. Calculations using 
this labor differential on a per ton basis revealed that 
a reduction of from 10 to 25 cents per ton could be 
effected by employing common labor. 
An inventory, conducted by the acting manager, of 
equipment at the company mines in 1831 contained 
the following items: °* 
Total Company 
33 Horses 
115 Mules 
9 Oxen 
30 Canalboats 
* Mauch Chunk Courier, March 15, 1831. 
*“L.C.N.C., Annual Report for 1831 (Philadelphia: W. F. 
Geddes, 1832), p. 9. 
ULETIN 252: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 
