The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-02-22
NO ANTHRACITE AFTER eoea.
Interesting Calculations by Lacka-
wanna Valley Operator.

Waund Ndlley operator.
Scranton Letter in the Sun.
"Of course" said Lackawanna val
ley coal operator who has a turn for
statistics, 'iC won't make a great deal
of difference 10 us what kind of fuel
people then on earth will be using, but
you may set it down for fact that
posterty won't broil it's chops nor toast
its shins Ivy the heat of anthracite coal
later than the year 2O6S. I have figured
it all out and know what I am talking
about.
Everybody knows, or ought to know.
that there is no anthracite coal worth
speaking about outside of Pennsylva-
mia, ana only in this favored corner Of
pennsylvania, at that Now, the bound
aries of the anthracite coal area are
defined with such mathematical GER
tinty that. basing my calculations on
the known or estimated depth dip,
thickness, and extent of the coal de-
posits l am able to figure out that be-
fore any anthracite coal was talxer from
our mines we had the neat little stOr-
age there of 1900 O00 900 tons to draw
from.
The anthracite coal trade was born
in 1920, and the market demand being
then as much as one ton day. the
busy operators then in the field sent
800 tons from Carbon county, down the
LehiSh and Delaware rivers to supply
that demand. Then. in 1922. Schuylkill
county began to deluge the country
with anthracite. and threw something
like 1,5OO tons ON the market that year.
In 1929 the Delaware and Hudson
Canal company began tearing up the
coal veins on the northern boundary OF
the field in Luzerne county, and sent
to New York all of 1000 tons in twelve
months, These three counties mark
eted 350O 900 tons in the ensuing ten
years, but during the ten years follow
ing that decade they sent out over s.
900, 900 tons. At the end of thirty years
they had taken out of the mines and
sold 25.000,0 600 tons. At the beginning
of the civil war there had been but
80 000,000 tons removed from the orig
inal deposit, leaving a hole in the big
pile under ground something like what
a mouse hole in a cheese would be in
comparison. But with the coming of
the war anthracite begaE to boom, and
in ten years 10000, 900 tons more were
mined and sold than had been handled
in all the forty preceding years of the
trade. Since then the value of anthra-
cite coal has been so generally recog-
nzed that at the close of business in
1898 the deposit had been reduced by
not less than 1000, 900, 600 tons.
Just imagine a diagram to repre-
sent the $4,000, 900. 900 tons that we start
ed out with devided into lots of $780,
100000 tons each, or one tWenyt-siXth
of the whole. Two of these lots or
squares in the diagram would show the
hole we have been Seventy-eight years
in digging in the pile, so that you can
see what there is left for future re-
quirements. According to that, it looks
as if posterity would be pretty we'll
fixed for anthracite, after all, doesn't
it? There are twenty-fOur sections left
which say at seVenty-five years apiece,
would carry anthracite fuel along for
100 years to come. But, unfortunate
ly for posterity. we are using more
than 30,000.000 million tons a wear at
present ourselves, a percentage of in
crease which enables me, basing my
calculations on the natural necessities
of the future, to figure with ease that
on the first day of January, 1910 an
other section of the diagram would be
marked off. showing the total of 1,5OO,-
900, 900 tons would have been removed
from the original deposit OF coal. That
will leave still the comforting pile of
l. 500, 900 tons. But just see how
posterity will get away with that tre-
mendous heap of coali
II am willing TO give posterty the
benefit of any possible doubt on the
subject of the future increase in the
use of anthracite, and will stop at an
average annual output Of - 900 900 tons
from the year 1910 until the last year
of the anthracite age. Now see, when
the year 1910 comes we will have been
ninety years in reducing 1900, ,O0O, 900
tons of anthracite coal to ashes and
cinders. Then posterity gets in its
work and in great deal less than
twice ninety years will have exhaust
ed the pile, Eleven billion five hun
dred million tons of coal, used at the
rate Of 75,0O0OOO tons a year. will last
only 153 years and three months, and,
taking all things into consideration,
posterity will therefore carry its coal
scuttle to the bin for the last time,
say, about April !, @063."