36 The Coal Mines of the United States of North America 



Mountain at its greatest elevation. From the basin, when 

 thus reached, the coal is transported by stationary power a 

 distance of nine miles to the navigation at Mauch-Chunk. 

 There is nothing in the States that surpasses the enterprise 

 here exhibited, to overcome the obstacles presented by the 

 surface of the country between these mines and the river 

 Lehigh, and nothing would have justified the outlay but coal 

 mines. The mines in this district are worked like an open 

 quarry on the slope of a mountain, and the coal is conveyed as 

 stated by a self-acting railroad down a declivity from 100 to 

 140 feet per mile to the canal. This navigation was completed 

 in 1820, and 3657 tons delivered that year in Philadelphia, and 

 in 1847 the quantity increased to 643,272 tons, and the trade 

 has been increasing at a ratio, per annum, of twenty per cent. 

 The capacity of this navigation by the Delaware division of 

 the Pennsylvania canal and the Morris canal has been con- 

 sidered fully equal to the transport of a million and a half tons 

 of coals, 



2. The Schuylkill district is the centre of the basin, and is 

 very extensive, embracing more than one-half of the entire field, 

 viz., the mines of Tamaqua (which adjoin the Lehigh mines), 

 Tuscarora, Port Carbon, Pottsville, Minersville, and Tremont. 

 In this anthracite coal-field of Schuylkill county, whose outlets 

 are at Mount Carbon, Port Carbon, Schuylkill Haven, and Port 

 Clinton are one hundred and eleven collieries, of which fifty-eight 

 are red ash coal and fifty-three white ash ; sixty-two of these col- 

 lieries are working coal out above water-level, and forty-nine 

 below water-level. There was shipped from this region a 

 total of 2,450,950 tons in the year 1852. The thickest vein 

 worked is thirty feet, and the smallest two feet. 



3. The Swatara district commands a rich and most 

 valuable portion of the coal-field, and is. mined through the 

 channels of the Union Canal Company, and Susquehannah 

 and Tidewater Canal. It averages about eighteen miles long 

 by six broad, containing 69,120 acres of coal-land. In this 

 mining district are seven hills from 300 to 800 feet in height, 

 running parallel, or nearly so, separated by narrow valleys, 

 which in some places, remote from the streams, are nearly 

 level with the mountain ridges, but which near the gaps are worn 

 down by the water-courses which drain the coal-basin. In these 

 high ridges are deposited the veins of coal ; they are called the 

 Sharp Mountain, the Red Mountain, the Coal Mountain, the 

 Little Lick, the Big Lick Mountains, the Thick Mountain, 

 and the Broad Mountain. The Swatara river or its branches 

 are broken through all these ridges, oxcept the Broad Moun- 

 tain, at which it penetrates. The coal of the Sharp Moun- 

 tain is of the red ash variety. It is a free burning coal, ignites 



