The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1897-09-15

Ihave Just spent a few days at the
United States geological survey in
Washington, writes Frank q. Carpen-
ter, looking up facts about coal min
ing. The geologists know more about
coal than any one else. They can tell
you just how the world looked when
coal was made, and they describe how
there were ages Of luxuriant growth
consisting of pine trees, fir trees and
all kinds of mosses and plants, which,
dying down year after year, became a
! great matted bed of vegetation. They
tell you how this bed was bottled up
by being covered up with rocks and
how it finally turned into coal. They
can tell you just how this happened
and how long it came to pass before
Noah was q baby or Cain killed little
Abel outside the Garden of Eden.
Men lived for thousands of years
upon the earth before they knew that
coal was good to burn. All the iron
made before the days of the middle
ages was with charcoal, and fairy
tale is told in Belgium of how poor
blacksmith discovered the first black
diamonds. He found that he could
not get along, for it took so much time
to make his charcoal for his furnace.
He was Just about to commit suicide
when q white bearded old man APP
peared at his shop and told him to go
to the mountains near by and dig out
the black earth and burn it. He did
so, and was able to make horseshoe
at one forging. This is the Belgian
story of the discovery Of coal The
first coal found in America was near
Ottawa, Illinois. 1t is mentioned by
Father Hennepin, French explorer,
who visited there in 1879. The first
mines worked were about Richmond,
Va. This coal was discovered by a
boy while out fishing.
He was hunting for crabs for bait in
small creek, and thus stumbled upon
the outcroppings of the James River
coal bed. Our anthracite coal fields
have perhaps paid better than any
other coal fields of the world. They
were discovered by hunter named
Nicho Allen, when George Washing
ton was President. Allen encamped
one night in the Schuylkill regions,
kindling his fire upon some black
stones. He awoke to find himself al
most roasted. The stones were on fire,
and anthracite was burning for the
first time. Shortly after this COM
pany was organized to sell anthracite
coal 1t was taken around to the black
smiths, but they did not know how to
use it, and it was very unpopular
Some of it was shipped to Philadelphia
by Colonel Shoemaker and sold
there. 1t was not at all satisfactory,
and writ was gotten out from the
city authorities, denouncing the
colonel as knave and scoundrel for
trying to imposed rocks upon them as
coal. Still Philadelphia has largely
been built up by anthracite coal, and
80, 900, 900 tons of this coal were taken
out of the Pennsylvania fields in 1896.
Since then some of these coal lands
have been sold as high as $1,000 an
acre, and the Philadelphia and Read
ing Company in 1871 paid $40, 900, 900
for 10000 acres of coal land in this
region. As q sample of the amount of
business done in anthracite coal, the
Delaware and Hudson Canal Company
paid 50, 200, 900 in one year for mining,
and their coal sales that year amounted
to more than $40, 900, 900.
1t is hard to estimate the enormous
amount of money the United States
makes out Of its coal. We get more
than three times as much out of our
coal mines as out of our gold mines,
and the silver metal is not in it with
the black diamonds. There is little
region in eastern Pennsylvania. about
hundred and twenty miles from
Philadelphia and not more than two
hundred miles from New York, which
produces every year coal to a greater
value than all the gold mines of the
Rockies, Canada and Alaska. 1t is
our anthracite coal fields which turn
out between 80, 900, 900 and go, 900, ,OOO
tons of anthracite every year. We
have in addition to this hundred and
thirty odd million tons of bituminous
coal annually. We have, in short, the
biggest and best coal measures ON the
globe. 1t is estimated that our Goa
east of the Rocky Mountains covers
1872, 900 square miles, and within the
past few years coal has been found in
many parts of the Far West. Colorado
will eventually be great manufactur.
ing State on account of its coal
Utah has large coal fields, and SC
have the States of Montana, Washing
ton and Wyoming. We are now get
!. ting something like 10000, 900 tons o.
coal year out of Indiana, Kentucky
and Illinois, and the great Appalach
ian field produces more than foul
, times this amount. There is NOR,
,, good burnable earth in the Appalach