THE C0NNELL5VILLE COKE REGION. 



BY FREDERICK EDWARD SAWARD. 



[Frederick Edward Saward, editor of the Coal Trade Journal, is the leading Ameri- 

 can aulliority on the coal trade of the United Staters. He is the autlior of many 

 articles on the subject not only for his own periodical, but in the magazines and 

 technical reviews, and his thorougli mastery of the topic has made the Coal Trade 

 Journal the most widely known publication in its line in the world.] 



It is said that when Mark Twain passed through the 

 Connellsville coke region, he remarked that it looked Hke 

 hell with the Ud off. Other people have, perhaps, not ex- 

 pressed themselves so warmly or so positively, but they have 

 in some way conceived that the Connells\dlle coke region is 

 a most disagreeable section; in fact, the general opinion, 

 except among those who have ascertained by personal in- 

 vestigation, seems to be that those portions of Fayette and 

 Westmoreland counties that are the seat of the greatest coking 

 operations on the face of the earth are a wild, desolate countr}- , 

 inhabited by a race of beings but little removed from the 

 status of the savage. 



The facts are that the Connellsville coke region is one 

 of the most beautiful sections of southwestern Pennsylvania. 

 It is not only rich in the mineral that is now^ one of the factors, 

 if not the factor, that makes possible the supremacy of a 

 nation, but it is rich agriculturally. Its wide valleys and 

 rolling uplands jdeld a wealth of grasses, grains, and fruits 

 that is unrivalled by any other section of the United States. 

 It is historic ground — the land of NemacoHn, the Indian 

 warrior; through it passes Braddock's road, near which the 

 unfortunate general was buried after the disastrous reverse to 

 the British arms at Braddock's field, July 9, A. D. 1755. 

 The great national pike from Cumberland to Wheeling, which 

 has been likened unto the Appian way, passes through its 

 heart; and it is watered by the tributaries of the Monongahela 

 and Youghiogheny, supplying it with the finest of water from 



Vol. 6-13. 



193 



