Evening star., 1897-07-31

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 when this happened and how long it
came to pass before Noah was a 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 10 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 ne 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 a white
bearded Old man appeared at his shop ami
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 a horse
shoe 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 Henne-
PIN. a French explorer, who visited there
IN 16i9- 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
OulCIOppISS Ol lllS 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 Nieho Allen. when George
Washington was President. Allen en-
camped one night in the Schuykill regions
kindling his fire upon some black stones
lie awoke to find himself almost roasted.
The stones were on fire. and anthracite
was burning for the first time. Shortly
after this a company was organized to
sell anthracite coal. 1t was taken around
TO the blacksrliths. but they did not know
how to use il, and it was very unpopular.
Some of il was shipped to Philadelphia by
a Colonel Shoemaker and sold there. 1t
was not at all satisfactory. and writ was
gotten out from the city authorities, de-
nOuncing the colonel knaVe ana scoun-
as coal. Still Philadelphia has largely been
built up by anthracite coal and .00o0.G00
tons of this coal were taken out Of the
Pennsylvania fields in 1896.
Since then some of these coal lands have
been sold high as s1,2D an acre and the
Philadelphia and Reading Company in
ISL paid Siowo,UO for 100000 acres or
coal land in this region AS Il sample of
the amount of business done in anthracite
coal, the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Company paid S5,e1.ooo in year for
mining. and their coal sales that year
amounted to more than slO,Uo,00O.
We Beat the World.
1t is hard to estimate the enormous
dInOuht OI money lllS Hlteu States makes
out of its coal. We get more than three
times 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 a hundred and twenty-five miles from
Philadelphia and not more thar two hum
dred miles from New York. which pro-
duces every year coal to a greater value
than all the gold mines of the Rockies
Canada ana Alaska. Ii is our anthracite
coal fields which turn out between $1,000
TOO and ti.Gb,sS tons of anthracite every
year. We have in addition to this a hun
dred and thirty odd million tons of btu
minCuS coal annually. We have, in short
the biggest and best coal measures on the
globe. II is estimated that our coal east