The Sun.
London, England, 1854-10-11 00:00:00

Till ANTH.RACITE COAL OF PENN-

SYLVANIA.

POTTSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA, U.S., SEPT. 18.—The
anthracite coal trade of the United States is altogether of
recent origin, but it has increased with a rapidity perhaps
altogether unexampled by any similar mining traffic in the
world. Before, however, entering into its growth and ex-
tent, it may not be amiss to appropriate a few lines to the
various coal regions of the earth, so that your readers will
have an opportunity of judging of the extent and import-
ance of the coal-beds of Pennsylvania, and indeed of all the
United States, by that best test of admeasurement —cum-
raison.
Among the greater wants of mankind, next to food and
raiment, we .may regard fuel as the most necessary.
For a century and a quarter after the founding of the
colony and commonwealth of Pennsylvania by William
Penn, wood was the only fuel need by the people ' - but
the wonderful increase of population has actually
cleared the forests for many miles around the towns,
and even villages ; the wood, which years ago was cheap,
is now extravagantly dear—quite beyond the reach of
families of ordinary means. It was at this moment of
growing scarcity that Providence directed the attention
of some of the citizens of Schuylkill county to the vast
veins and beds of anthracite coal that are imbedded
in their mountain ranges. At first a doubt was felt and
expressed as to its adaptation to the purpose of fuel, and
the idea was muted and ridiculed. The old German resi-
dents could not realise the possibility of making fires with
what they called " Mack stones." But the experiment was
made, and with partial success. Necessity is the mother
of invention, and science will conquer many difficulties.
Gradually stoves were constructed, on new principles
of strong draft and ventilation, and now anthracite
coal is burnt with as much facility as bituminous,
while its radiation of heat is much more intense. In the
invention of these stoves, which have done so much for
the coal regions and the comforts of the people, the
names of Messrs. Warnick and Leibrandt, of Philadelphia,
merit hanourable mention ; for had it not been for the
science, thought, and enterprise of such men the wealth of
the Pennsylvania mountains might yet have remained for
ages comparatively useless. But turn we to a few appro-
priate statistics.
The coal product of the world for 1853 is estimated by
able statisticians at 75,000,000 tons, of which amount
40,000,000 tons are produced by Great Britain (the Practical
Mechanics' Journal says, only 32,000,000), at least 9,000,000
by the United States, France 4,500,000, Prussia 3,500,000,
Austria 700,000 tons, and Belgium 5,000,000. It will thus
appear that the United States ranks second already among
the coal producing countries, although her mines,
especially the anthracite, are but the discovery of yester-
day, comparatively speaking. It is generally believed that
because Pennsylvania furnishes by far the largest quantity
of coal for consumption and export, that her coalfields are
the most extensive in the Union. This, however, is far
from being the case. Ont of 12 coal producing States, she
only ranks as No. 8 on the list, having the smallest coal
area of all except four. Yet by diligence, skill, and enter-
prise she mines at least two-thirds of the whole that is dug
in the United States. In this connection lam enabled to
give you an interesting table of all the

COAL-FIELDS OF THE UNITED STATES.
Area of State. Coal areas. Proportion
Sq. miles. Sq. miles. of coal.
1. Alabama
2. Georgia
3. Tennessee
4. Kentucky
5. Virginia
6. Maryland 10,829 ... 550.... 1-20th.
7. Ohio 38,850 ... 11,900 ... 1-3 d.

States.

8. Indiana
9. Illinois
10. Pennsylvania
11. Michigan
12. Missouri

. 34,800 ... 7,700 ... 1-sth.
. 59,130 ... 44,000 ... 3-4th.
43,969 ... 15,437 ... 1-3 d.
.. 60,820 ... 5,000 ... 1-20th.
. 60,324 ... 6,000 ... 1-10th.

It will be seen that the aggregate area in the 12 States
is about 565,000 square miles, of which 133,000 miles, or
nearly one-fourth, are composed of coal-beds. More of
these beds are bituminous than anthracite; for example,
all in Vire,crinia are bituminous, and all in Pennsylvania
west of the Allegheny mountains ditto ; while nearly all
east of the mountains is anthracite; and as this latter is
the minerrl that supplies the cities of Philadelphia and
New York, and finds its way to tide-water for export, I
will sketch a brief synopsis of the birth and progress of its
mining and traffic, showily, a growth as rapid and magical
as any of the fabled changes effected by the wonder-
working lamp of Aladdin.
It was not until the year 1820 that any of this valuable
mineral was conveyed to Philadelphia, and then only 365
tons of which remained useless in coal-yards, and was
generally regarded as incombustible, the grates then used
being only adapted for wood or bituminous coal (the lat-
ter imported) as fuel. Skill, however, in the construction
of fire-places with powerful drafts, and still more of stoves
as I have already shown, soon overcame all difficulty, and
in the following year 1,073 tons were sent to Philadelphia.
Thence it increased rapidly; but it was not until the year
1840 that it reached 1,000,000 tons, and last year, only 13
years thereafter, the amount sent to tide-water reached
5,195,151 tons, per Reading Railroad, Schuylkill Canal,
Lehigh Canal, and other navigations. From all the in-
quiries I can make in these regions, there is reason to be-
lieve that more than 6,000,000 of tons will be sent to tide-
water this year. From the western side of the Alleghe-
nies, I learn that 34,000,000 of bushels of bituminous coal
were sent to Pittsburg in 1853 ; and when the products of
Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, Kentucky, s;c., are tarn
into account, there is reason to believe that the yield of
9,000,000 tons in 1853 for the entire -United States is rather
below the mark. I may remark, en passant, that the
neighbouring state of Maryland sent more than half a mil-
lion tons of coal to market last year. But here is a com-
plete table of the

PENNSYLVANIA ANTHRACITE SENT TO MARKET FROM THE
COMMENCEMENT OF THE TRADE.
Total. Year.
365 1838
1,083 1839
3,720 1840
7,101 1841...
11,103 1842...

Year.
1820..
1821..
1822..
1823..
1624..

Total.
739,292
819,327
865,414
958,899
1,10 4,001

1825 34,893)
1326..
1327 63,434 184,
1823 77,5161 1846.
1829 112,083 1847
1820 174,734 1848 ..
, 1831
183, 363,87 l
1833 487,748
1834 376,633
1835...... ....
1836 682,4281
1837 881,4761 43,060,491
The annual increase in the demand for coal for consump-
tion in Philadelphia, and export therefrom, is estimated at
600,000 tons, so that if the supply should meet the demand,
the trade must continue to augment with a rapidity in fu-
ture equal to that of the past, particularly as there will be
a railroad completed in the spring that will convey the coal
direct from the Mauch Chunk (Lehian) mines to New -York.
At present there are three great lines of conveyance for
coal from the mines to Philadelphia :-
1. The Reading Railroad, including branches, 92 miles in
length, having its tide water terminus at Richmond, which
is a part of the city of Philadelphia.
2. Schuylkill Canal and branches, terminus at the
Schuylkill wharves, Philadelphia.
3. The Lehigh Canal and Navigation (including a State
canal), terminating at Bristol, 16 miles above Philadelphia,
on the east bank of the Delaware.
These besides minor avenues of coal conveyance.
But before I dwell upon the traffic and facilities of
these communications, allow me to transcribe roughly
a few notes made in the mining regions. The coal beds
and veins are made in the " Sharp" or South Mountain,
a range or spur of the Blue Ridge, extending from
east to west about seventy miles, and varying in width
from six to twelve miles. It is singular that all
the coal is found on the north side of the moun-
tains, while on the south side these is nothing but mould
and red shale rock. An experienced miner informed ma
that in the very centre of the summit, and running along
each range from west to east, a black line was discover-
able, always by a little digging, which was in fact nature's
dividing line between the coal and the stony rock. The
whole region is mountainous, intersected by romantic
valleys and streams, while along the sides of the hills run
railroads, and still lower canals, some of which are from
single mines. The face of the country is exceedingly like
the coal and iron region of the Forest of Dean, in Glouces-
tershire, except only that the hills are two or three times
higher even than those near St. Briavel's. Along the
entire range of mountain, the coal is found in seams and
veins, dipping in various angles from the horizon, and no-
where horizontal, as in the coal-fields near Bristol ; but
these seams and veins, the best which are about 60 feet
wide, and 12 feet thick, converge towards a common heart
or solid mass at the eastern end of the range, at and near
a portion of the mountain called Mauch Chunk. Here, ex-
cept the outercoat of rock and earth, the masses of the hills
are solid coal, so much so that a slice of the mountain is cut
down, exposing the coal, whence it is actually quarried
like stone, instead of being reached by shafts and subter-
ranean galleries, as at and near Pottsville. This Mauch
• Chunk coal is conveyed to Philadelphia by the Lehigh
Canal and Navigation, and is reputed to be the very best
that reaches the market. I was particular in inquiring into
the rate of wages, and learn that mere labourers are now
getting from $1 to $l, per day, whereas three years ago
they only received from 872 c. to $l. There is quite an out-
cry in New York and Philadelphia in relation to the pre-
sent high price of coal (s6i per ton of 2,000 lbs. in Phila-
delphia, and sil in New York), but really, under such an
advanced pressure of wages, to say nothing also of increased
rates of freight, it is difficult to see how a reduction can be
effected. Many fortunes have been lost in coal lands, and
in the search for coal. I met with one gentleman who had
spent $40,000 in sinking shafts, and that, too, without
finding a seam, while many after encountering vast ex-
penses, had only bit upon small and comparatively thread-
like veins. But a rich seam is
a fortune. Many of the
shafts are a thousand feet d
the while aewhorizontal
tunnels are
e"'
tunnels into the body of mountains. In other mines
there is a horizontal tunnel,
and then a deep and nearly
perpendicular shaft. One
'-
zontal shaft, at the end of mountain I visited had a hor i
w
lar shaft of nearly 800 feet, but
was a deep perpendicu-
dust. At this mine it would no coal except in small
be
necessary, on hitting a
seam, to sink a third shaft of the
same angle as the dip
of the coal—that is, to follow the
em
valuable in proportion as the coal is above Mines, too, are
or below the
water level of the springs. The most valuablesive are the St. Clair mines. It ought l)e and
exten-
sive
that there is now an additional expense in mini n
- mentioneded
com-
pared with a few years ago, owing to the fact
that th props and shores required for the galleries and shafts of thee
l
mines have literally used up all the large timber.n he-
vicinity, and although the mountains are covered
with
trees, yet they are now all small, and I am assured thath
timber for the use of the mines—and a few mines will use
up a forest—is hauled for fifteen or twenty miles. Thuse
the hauling:, costs more than the trees. A majority of the
population here is foreign—from Wales, England, Scotland,
Ireland, and Germany. Miners of skill get much more
than labourers, and generally realise from $2O to $3O per
week, and they usually work by piece or quantity, at sti-
pulated prices per ton or per yard, with the operaters.
I visited an extensive mine belonging to Mr. George H.
Potts, and the nature of the coal, the angles in which it
lay, and the modus operandi of working the pit, extract-
ing the coal, and afterwards breaking it into different
sizes by a coal-cracking mill, screening and sifting it from
the dust or small coal, were all ably explained to me by
Mr. A. Madison, formerly of the county of Durham, Eng-
land, but who had been for nineteen years an overseer in
the Schuylkill mines. And, ah ! the fatal explosions of
fire-damp prevail here as in England, and my friend Mr.
Madison lost a beloved brother by this death-blast only a
.ew..,d,ays jpafore I saw him. The descent into this
s77minstavas a shaft 1,000 feet deep, at an angle of ap-
pftrently-55 degrees, and with double railway. To
";*/:. IciOli.. delielt.: wag like gazing into the mouth of an
:".''7l .4*111f6 at.-.: ilt the foot of this terribly steep de-
,r •it 41 iiii,..%.:,,,. , ;
ii..4t.4)
--1\,,pN:t...„,7:5... ,°*•.74,`.4:4-. /
(

1843... 1,233,539
1844 .. 1,631,669
2,023,052
1846.....
1847....
1848
1849 3,242,866
1850 3,356,899
1851 4,429,458
185`)
1853 5,195,151