The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-26 00:00:00

Pittsburg, United States.

(From the Pittsburg Mining Journal.)
The evidences of the great wealth of this Ame.

rican interior city is summed up thus :

TILE COAL TRADE.
The coal fields surrounding Pittsburgh are
15,000 square miles in extent. The developed
fields lie along the Monongahela, Youghioheny,
and Allegheny Rivers, and along sections of the
Pennsylvania, Connellsville, and Pittsburgh and
Steubenville Railroads. The collieries of the Mo-
nongahela, which mainly furnish the markets with
" Pittsburgh Coal,'" are about 70 in number, cover-
ing 12,894 acres, and valued at $4,809,875. They
employ 3,485 hands. It is estimated that they have
furnished, in the last twenty years, 13,097,581 tons
of coal. The value of tolls collected from shipments
of coal in the several pools of the Monongahela
slack water, during 1865, was upwards of $85,000,
an increase of $45,500 in two years.
The coal freights of the Youghiogheny are
brought to this city by the Connellsville Railroad.
There are 22 colleries along this road. They em-
' brace 3,929 acres, and are valued at $1,000,000.
They employ 900 men. From these colleries the
average amount transported over the Connellsville
Railroad, for the past five years, has been about
2,000,000 tons, worth $5,000,000.
In the hills immediately circling the city there
are some ten or twelve coal works, covering an
area of 1,570 acres, valued at $1,256,000, and giv-
ing employment to about 1,500 hands. Several of
our rolling mills across the Monongahela, in Sligo
and Birmingham, are supplied directly by col-
lieries a few feet above them. Graff, Bennett,
and Co., who consume nearly 10,000 bushels a
day, mine their coal in the adjoining hill-side.
These " city mines" furnish nothing for outside
markets. They yield a yearly product of 3,000,000
bushels, all of which is consumed by our rolling-
' mills and iron works.
The collieries that border the Pennsylvania Rail-
road from this city to the " foot of the Mountain "
are not usually classed as in Pittsburgh measures,
though the most valuable lie nearest this city. The
bulk of the trade goes east. Those immediately in
the vicinity of the city cover about 1,000 acres all
told, employ 400 hands, and send to this market an
annual average of about 4,500,000 bushels. The
Allegheny Valley collieries, though neither very
numerous nor productive, extend over a large tract
of territory, perhaps 1,500 acres, and employ about
500 hands. From these collieries the Allegheny
L Valley Railroad brought to this city, last year,
I about 70,000 tons. These coal lands are considered
exceedingly valuable, and but for the limited facili-
ties for transportation at the very season when their
product is most called for they would no doubt be
extensively worked.
The exact depth and value of the coal measures
surrounding Pittsburgh, it is impossible to figure.
But the upper seam alone averages eight feet in
thickness. An industrial writer figures its contents
at 53,516,430,000 tons, which, at $2 per ton, would
be worth $107,032,860,000. The number of col-
lieries at present in operation in the Pittsburgh coal
field, embracing the whole range which we have
described, is 103 ; bands employed 6,424 ; value of
lands, $7,589,700 ; value of annual coal product,
$5,000,000.