312 COAL OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



and widely-extended manufacturing establishments 

 of the West. Without coal they could not exist. 

 It thus constitutes the lifespring of western Penn^ 

 sylvania, and the pedestal of her great manufactu- 

 ring emporium, Pittsburg. This city alone and its 

 environs, in 1835, contained 120 steam-engines for 

 the various manufactures of iron, steel, glass, cot- 

 ton, salt, brass, white-lead, flour, oil, leather, &c. 

 These engines consume annually nearly 3,000,000 

 bushels of coal. 



The coal consumed for every purpose in and 

 about Pittsburg has been estimated at 7,665,000 

 bushels, or 255,500 tons. At four cents a bushel, the 

 price now paid in Pittsburg, it would amount to 

 306,512 dollars. Besides this, great quantities are 

 shipped to Cincinnati, New- Orleans, and the inter- 

 mediate places, where it is sold for from 5 to 10 

 dollars a ton. Large quantities of it are also con- 

 sumed in the western counties of Pennsylvania in 

 the manufacture of salt, as there are more than 100 

 salt-manufacturing establishments in that region, 

 and many others going into operation, which pro- 

 duce annually more than 1,000,000 bushels of salt, 

 and consume 5,000,000 bushels of coal. The total 

 amount of anthracite and bituminous coal at pres- 

 ent derived from the coal-beds of Pennsylvania 

 cannot fall much short of 2,000,000* tons annually, 

 being about one twelfth as much as the total annual 

 roduct of all the coal-fields of Great Britain, nearly 

 alf as great as that of all the rest of Europe, and 

 about equal to that of France. 



These facts, elucidating the immense mineral 

 wealth of the great and justly called keystone state, 

 open to the imagination a long vista of power and 



* The coking process is now understood in Pennsylvania, and 

 it is found that the bituminous coal is quite as susceptible of 

 this operation, and produces as good coke as that of Great 

 Britain. Indeed, it is now used to considerable extent in some 

 of her iron manufactures 



