El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-08-04
FACTS ABOUT BLACK DIAMONDS.
Oar Coal Product Worth More Than
Cur Gold ana Silver.

| have spent the last few days at tn
United States geological survey lool
ing up facts about coal and coal mil
ing. The geo OgistS know more abou
coal than anyone else. They can tie
you Just how the world lOoke whe
coal was made, and they describe ho'
there were ages of luXuriant growtl
consisting of pine trees, FIR trees an
all kinds of moses and plants, whic
dying down year after year, became
great matted bed of vegetation. The.
tell YOU how this bed was bottled up r
being covered up with rocks and HOY
it finally turned into coal. They Cal
tell you just when this happened ant
how long it. came to pass before Noai
was baby or Cain killed A bel outs i'd
the garden of Eden.
HOW COAL WAS DISCOVERED.
Men lived for thousands of years up
on the earth before they knew tina
coal was good to burn. All the iron
made before the days of the middle
ages was with charcoal, and a fairy
tale is told in Belgium of how a pool
blacksmith discovered the first black
diamonds He found that he could not
get along, for it took so much time tt
make bis charcoal for his furnace. He
was Just a 1out to commit suicide when
Il white bearded OLD man appeared al
his shop and told him to go TO the
mountains near by and dig out the
b ack earth and burn it. He did so,
and was able to make a horse shoe at
one forging. This is the Belgian
story of the discovery Of coal. The first
coal found in America was near OF
tawa Ill. 1t is mentioned by Father
Hennepin, French exp orer, who
visited there in 1879. The first mines
worked were about Ricnmo "a, Va.
This coal was discovered by boy
while out fishing.
He was hunting for crabs for bait in
a small creek, and thus stumbled UPON
coal bed. They were discov-
cred by a hunter named Nicho
Allen. when George Washington was
pr side1t. Allen enramp d one night
in the Schuylkill regions, kindling his
fire upon some black stones. He awOke
TO find hims-lf almost roaS led. The
stones were on fire, and anthracite
was burning for the first time. Shortly
after this com pany was COTTON up to
sell anthracite c"al. 1t was taken
around TO the blacksmiths but they did
not know how to use it, and it was very
unpopular. Some of it was shipped TO
Philadelphia by Colonel Shoemaker
aud sold there. 1t was not at all salts
factory and writ was gotten out from
the city authorities denOuDcing the
colonel as a knave and scOundrel for
trying to impose rocks upon them as
coal. Still Philadelphia has been
largely built up by anthracite coal, and
30, 600 900 tons OF this coal were taken
out of the Pennsylvania fields in 1896.
Since then son4e of these coal lands
have been sold as high as loo
an acre. and the PhiladelL hia and
Reading company in 1871 paid SIC, 000,-
900 for lOU, 0UU acre. of coal land / n this
region. As d sample of the amount OF
business done in anthracite coal, the
Delaware and HUDSON Canal company
paid So, 900, 900 III one year for mining.
AID their coal sales that ar amounted
to more than $40, 100000.
WE BEAT THE WORLD.
1t is hard to estimate the enormous
amount OF money the United States
make out of their coal. We got more
than three tim. S as much out of our
coal mines as out of our gold mines,
and the silver met ii is not in it with
the black diamonds. There is a little
re gion in Eastern Pennsylvania, ABOUT
d hundred and twenty-five miles from
Ph lade lphia and not more than Two
hundf ed miles from New YORK, which
produces every year coal to q greater
value than all the gold mines OF the
nj AldSbd
1t is our anthracite coal fields which
turn out between $4,000. 900 and 6O.OUO,-
900 tons of antracite every year. We
have in addition to thi- a hundred and
thirty odd million tons Of bituminous
coal annually. We have, in short, the
biggest ard best coal measures on the
globe. II Is es mated that our Goa
east of the Rocky mountains covers
1872, 000 square miles, and within the
pas. few years coal has been found in
many parts of the Far West. Colorado
will eventually be great manufactur-
ing state on account OF It's coal.
Utah has large coal fields, and so
have the states of Montana, Washing
ton and Wyoming. We are now get
ting something like 2O,0J0,0OO tons OF
and Illinois, and the great Appalachian
tie produces more than four times this
There is more good burnable
earth in the Appalachian mountains
than anywhere else in the world. The
coal is easy to get at, the veins are
thick and in some mines they are al
most on the top of the ground. They
are better than any other coal fields In
this respect, with one single exception.
This is the new coal field in Alaska,
which, one of the geological survey
GGllS NE. COiHt5 OiH oECI VIC
water, so that the coul can be dug
down and almost fall into the ships be-
low.
This Alaskan coal will probably be
used to supply the Pac fic trade, and
its importance will be- appreciated
when it is remembered that the largest
fleet that sails the Pacific is the coal
fleet Most of the coal from that re-
giou comes from Australia and japan.
Much Australian coal is brought to
San Francisco. During my travels in
Japan l visited one coal mine which
had 80 miles of tunnels under the sea,
and [ learned that the Japanese were
making great deal Of money out OF
their coal
They were shipping it to China, not
withstandiDg the TACT that the geolo
gists say that China has some of the
largest coal fields in the world. |
doubt the extent of the Chinese fields.
The people are thrifty, and it is cur
ious that they do not use the coal if
they have it. They are among the
most economical of people, and in the
different Chinese cites coal is so val-
liable that it is ground to dust and then