CUMBERLAND COAL. 
315 
minous coals, is still sufficient to produce a ready 
combustion, which is very enduring on account of 
the large quantity of carbon. In general, this coal 
burns with little or no odour, and exhales so little 
smoke or fume, that it does not line the chimney 
with any combustible matter ; the chimney, there- 
fore, needs no cleansing ; no exhalation is emitted to 
soil the furniture of a room ; and it is even asserted, 
that any white substance held in the current of a 
chimney contracts no fuliginous tint from the burn- 
ing of this coal. In a grate it kindles easily, and 
burns with a degree of vivacity intermediate be- 
tween that of bituminous coal and anthracite, while 
the heat and its endurance are in the same relation ; 
it lasts through the night, affording a mass of fire 
in the morning which is easily revived by adding 
more coal. 
It possesses the usual slaty structure of the bitu- 
minous coals, is intensely black and brilliant, and is 
preferred by those who have used it both to the an- 
thracite and the common bituminous coals. Pro- 
fessor SiUiman, from whose late able Report to the 
New- York and Maryland Coal and Iron Company 
we have obtained these 4'acts, remarks, that the dis- 
covery of this coal " is a very important acquisition 
to the nation. It has for ages reposed, almost un- 
known, in the bosom of its native mountains, and 
would still, as regards the public, have remained a 
sealed treasure, had not the great canal opened a 
channel, by means of which it will soon be brought 
into the market, and placed in competition with the 
coal of other regions."* The above description will 
also apply to the coal found in the Savage Mount- 
ain, on what is called the Howell Estate, in the 
same vicinity ; which embraces three distinct beds 
of from three to twelve feet thick, also associated 
* This coal-field rests upon old red sandstone, and this upon 
Iransition limestone, full of encrinites and trilobites. 
