102 



ANTHKACITE COAL IN THE UNITED STATES. 



[1854. 



purposes of two smaller. It is divided into two channels by a 

 partition, called a brattice, made of iron plate or otlur fit mate- 

 rial, and running down from the top to the bottom. One of 

 tlie channels serves as the smoke-flue. This arrangement is ob- 

 jectionable on several accounts. 



8. In imitation of this, a single short tube of metal, divided 

 by a brattice or partition of metal into two channels, has been 

 fixed through the ceiling of rooms, stables, &c., to ventilate 

 them. It is much better than an open pane in the window, or 

 a hole in the wall — and either of these is much better than no 

 ventilation at all ; but it has many faults. It has no source of 

 heat immediately in one channel, like the mine-shaft, to make 

 it draw strongly. The most impure air approaching the open- 

 ing to pass out is always rubbing against, and mingling in a 

 degree with the new air passing in. It injects and extracts 

 much less strongly than the twin tubes described above, at No. 

 5. When there is little wind, and little difference of tempera- 

 ture in the two channels, there is little or no action. With 

 closed doors and windows in the rooms below, and a strong fire, 

 both channels become inlets of cold air. • The cold air entering 

 by it is not difi'used in the room, and may prove hurtful, like 

 that from an open window. Yet, with all these defects, it will, 

 in certain cases, prove a useful aid, because it is a high open- 

 ing to the external air, and has tranquil action. The model 

 containing one or more burning candles, to represent men, which 

 has been used to illustrate its action, is calculated to give to 

 ordinary observers a very fallacious notion of its nature and 

 power. 



Anthracite Coal in the United States. 



There are few subjects in the history of mining operations 

 more remarkable than that of the anthracite coal field of Penn- 

 sylvania. For a century and a half after our countryman, 

 William Penn, had founded that colony, and established 

 that commonwealth, wood was the only fuel known to its pop- 

 ulation ; but in time increased cultivation cleared away the 

 forests, and Providence directed attention to the vast beds of 

 coal to be found in the mountain ranges of the Schuylkill. 

 The old German residents long laughed at the idea of making 

 fires with what they called " black stones," and the adaptation 

 of anthracite to the purposes of domestic fuel was generally 

 ridiculed. The same silly prejudices still prevail in Ireland, 

 where the anthracite abounds, and the inhabitants unaccount- 

 ably prefer to expend the resources of their country in import- 

 ing an inferior fuel to employing their own. Perseverance 

 and science in the United States, however, overcame every 

 difficulty, and by the use and constructien of improved stoves, 

 on new principles of strong draught and ventilation, anthracite 

 coal is now burnt in the American cities with as much facility 

 as bituminous coal is with us, while its radiation of heat and 

 consequent power of imparting warmth are far more intense. 



The anthracite coal trade of Pennsylvania is of recent crea- 

 tion, -while its rapid and progressive advance in that state alone 

 is a source of wonder. It commenced in 1820, in which year 

 the quantity of Pennsylvanian anthracite sent to market was 

 365 tons. In 1830, ten years after, it reached 174,734 tons. 

 In 1840, another interval often years having elapsed, it reached 

 865,414 tons, and in 1853 it swelled to the prodigious amount 

 of 5,195,151 tons. The value of this mineral fossil fuel is 

 every day winning its way with the people, who are adapting 

 it to their wants and their comforts, so that the demand is 

 dailv increasing with more than progressive rapidity. For the 



express purposes of furnishing supplies to meet the demand, 

 railways have been laid down, others are in course of formation, 

 and still more have been projected. We are beginning to 

 follow the example of the Americans in using authracite coal 

 in our steam-ships — lor instance, in the Great Britain, for 

 her voyages to Australia ; and it is not impossible that before 

 long their methods and appliances for using it will be adopted 

 for domestic purposes in many districts. 



We are enabled to present to our readers a very interesting 

 detail of a recent visit to the coal field of Pennsylvania. The 

 coal bed lies in a range of the Blue Jlountains, and is found 

 on the north side, extending from east to west about 70 miles, 

 varying in width from 6 to 12 miles, while on the south side 

 there is nothing seen but mould and red shale rock. When 

 digging in the very centre of the summit, a black line was dis- 

 covered, running along the range east and west, which is, in 

 fact, a line drawn by natui'e, dividing the coal from the stony 

 rock. The face of the country, with the exception that the 

 hills are higher, resembles the coal and iron region of the 

 Forest of Dean, in Grloucestershire ; the coal dips in various 

 angles from the horizon, and in no instance horizontally, as in 

 some coal fields in England. The seams and veins the best of 

 which are about 60 feet wide and 12 feet thick, converge 

 towards a common mass at the eastern end of the range, near a 

 portion of the mountain called Maunch Chunk. Here, except 

 the outside covering of rock and earth, the masses of the hills 

 are solid coal, so much so, that a slice of the hill is cut away, 

 exposing the coal, where is is actually quarried like stone, 

 instead of being reached by subterraneous galleries and shafts, 

 as at Pottsville. Many of the shafts in the latter district are 

 1000 feet deep, while a few are horizontal tunnels running 

 into the mountains, while in some of the colleries there are 

 horizontal tunnels, and then deep and perpendicular shafts 

 crossing them. The mines are valuable in proportion as the 

 coal is above or below the water-level of the springs. 



The vast expanse of the galleries and shafts, of course, re- 

 quires large quantities of timber for shores and props, and all 

 the large timber in the vicinity of the collieries has been long 

 exhausted. Although the neighbouring mountains would ap- 

 pear to be covered with trees, they are as yet too young and 

 too small to be of much use, and timber for the use of the 

 mines — and a few large ones will recjuire a forest — has to be 

 hauled for 15 or 20 miles, the expense of which exceeds that 

 of the trees. The water raised from those mines is impreg- 

 nated with iron and sulphur, and one feature in these valleys 

 strikes the stranger with surprise — that is, that millions upon 

 millions of tons of coal dust, or as it would be called in Eng- 

 land small coal, are collected in heaps, apparently valueless. 

 Hitherto these vast mounds of refuse, being anthracite, have 

 been almost useless ; had they been bituminous they would 

 have been mixed, and converted into some kind of fuel ; but 

 we are told that as yet in America, means have not been 

 adopted to render the small anthracite available for that pur- 

 pose. Both in Wales and in Ireland it has long been the 

 practice to mix the small anthracite with clay, which mass is 

 then rolled into fire-balls, and used by the farming classes as 

 fuel. Large quantities of it are also employed in the burning of 

 lime for agricultural purposes, uses to which it will probably be 

 hereafter extensively applied as cultivation spreads in America. 

 3Iost of the collieries of Pennsylvania are worked upon royal- 

 ties — that is, a coal company paj's the owner of the land and 

 mine at the rate of from 25 cents to 40 cents per ton for all 

 raised, the company paying all the mining expenses, the land- 



