210 FIRESIDE SCIENCE. 



ing hills are full of it, and it crops out at various 

 points, showing what a wealth of the mineral re- 

 poses below. Scattered up and down the valley 

 are seen the huge coal breakers, which dot the 

 landscape almost as thickly as do the windmills in 

 Holland. Coal, coal, nothing else but coal is 

 thought of or talked about, and the pretty city of 

 Wilkesbarre is the centre of the great industry. 

 We are pleased to accept the kind invitation of Mr. 

 J. H. Swoyer to visit the celebrated Enterprise 

 Colliery, in Pleasant Valley, which is under his 

 direction, and witness the operations of mining, 

 crushing, screening, and preparing coal for the 

 market. With Mr. Patten, the gentlemanly super- 

 intendent, for a guide, we descend the " slope " 

 and penetrate into the side of the mountain, and 

 grope our way through the grim passages made by 

 the miners in order to reach the deep coal seams, 

 hundreds of feet below the surface. Small cars, 

 black as the coal itself with dust, rumble along the 

 excavations, drawn by mules, conveying the coal to 

 the great shaft over which is built the breaker, and 

 here it is hoisted by steam power up to daylight. 

 The reflection occurs that this remarkable sub- 

 stance, which is in itself only solidified sunlight, 

 has rested in its dark abode for uncounted ages, 

 and not a beam of light has shone upon it until 

 to-day, since the floods of the carboniferous epoch 



