commenced in 1837. From that year to 1842, inclusive, a period of six years, the aggregate sent to market was

The Buck Mountain contains four coal seams, the thickest being twenty-two feet. The company here sent down

There now exist facilities, by means of several railroads, and by the Lehigh Navigation on the east, by the Schuylkill Navigation on the south, and the Pennsylvania Canal on the west, for transporting to tidewater an unlimited supply of mineral fuel, unsurpassed in point of purity, probably, in the world. So late as 1834, the Coal Committee reported to the state legislature that "the whole quantity of coal mined in this middle anthracite region, was estimated at only five hundred tons, which were hauled in wagons to supply the neighbouring districts." What has been accomplished since, appears from the preceding notes.

III. THE NORTHERN OR WYOMING, WILKESBARRE, AND LACKAWANNA, ANTHRACITE REGION.

In the western half of this elongated basin, the coal formation occupies the beautiful valley of Wyoming; the remainder extends eastward to the Carbondale works, the coals of which almost entirely go to New York, and are of first rate quality.

*

In geological character this is but a repetition of the first and second coal-fields below, although it has been less disrupted. Mr. Logan constructed a transverse section in 1842. Mr. Featherstonhaugh had made one in 1830. Here are several coal seams, varying from three to thirty-two feet thick; but their number is not yet fully ascertained. Near Wilkesbarre, the principal coal mine or bed, consists of a series of layers, amounting to twenty-nine feet thickness; of which only eighteen feet are, or lately were, worked. This is mined by leaving pillars of fourteen or sixteen feet square, and the coal is extracted by blasting; commencing with the upper seams. There are several mines towards the west from this position; some of which are accessible from the Susquehanna river. They are worked by means of open galleries, twenty to twenty-four feet in height. These are generally of the denomination of red or gray ash coals; those to the eastward are commonly of the white ask kind.

It was formerly thought that the Wyoming coals were inferior in quality to those of the other districts. This evil reputation was, in great measure, derived from the impolitic method of mining, during the early years of coal operations in this valley, whereby much inferior coal was permitted to go to market. Where regard is had to a proper selection of the purest seams, or parts of seams, the coal is entitled to a character equal perhaps to that of any other. In fact, there is here, as in every part of the anthracite fields of Pennsylvania a great variety of coal, even in the same general seam.

The existence of this combustible was, apparently, known much earlier than that of the southern coal-fields; and we are informed

Silliman's Journal, 1830. Also, Hazard's Register, Vol. X., p. 319.

that it was furnished to the United States armory at Carlisle, in 1775 and 1776; but that it had been in use since 1768, in small quantities.

Carbondale is the most important working point from the Lackawanna region, at its northeast end; from whence, in 1829, a railroad and the Delaware and Hudson Canal were opened to convey the coal to the Hudson river, and thence to New York; the amount transported the first year being 7,000 tons.

In 1834 and 1845, the capital invested in this coal undertaking, was stated to be as follows:

Table of the amount of Anthracite exported from the Northern Basin or

Division.*

The quantity thus far registered, as sent from this region between 1829 and 1846, inclusive, is 3,732,686 tons; which is evidently less than the amount exported from the basin, besides the home consumption. It is impossible to tell the amount which passed down the river.

Report Reading Railroad, January 10th, 1853.

† Pottsville Miners' Journal, January 14th, 1854. Delaware and Hudson Canal Company.

Reading Railroad Report.

Pennsylvania Coal Company's Report.

Lehigh Company's Reports.

In 1828, there was but a solitary house on the site of Carbondale. It contained in 1833, 2000, and in 1840, 2,398. persons, chiefly employed by the company, or in transportation, &c.

There is no description of fuel for the use of the Hudson river steam vessels, in higher repute than the Lackawanna coal.

The Coals of the Lackawanna or Carbondale district are transported to New York by the Delaware and Hudson Canal, 108 miles; railroad, 18 miles; and river navigation, 91 miles. Total, 217 miles.

The coals of the Wyoming district descend the Susquehanna 194 miles, to tide at Havre; the returns are from the Canal Commissioners reports; distributing coal at numerous points along the river.

The Lackawanna is considered the lightest of the white-ash coals that come to market; the usage of the trade formerly assigned thirtythree bushels to the ton; Schuylkill thirty, and Lehigh twenty-eight bushels. Our tables of specific gravities of the whole series of Pennsylvania anthracites will, however, best exemplify this.

Mr. Logan, in a communication to the Geological Society of London, in 1842, states that he had taken some pains to construct a section of the Wyoming basin, at Wilkesbarre; and furnishes the details of the formations there. The coal beds he estimates at 14 or 15 in number, with an aggregate thickness of 70 to 80 feet.

The Pennsylvania Coal Company at Pittston are preparing new openings, in addition to those worked last season. They estimate their productions for the present year at 750,000 tons, which is an increase of 237,000 tons on their last season's business. 1854.

We beg leave to make a few brief extracts from the able Report of Prof. H. D. Rogers, on "The Geological and Mining Resources of the Lackawana Basin, which includes the lands of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Rail-road Company," 1854; referring the reader to the Report, for more extensive information.

"It is impossible to estimate with precision, until researches now in progress are completed, the total thickness of the coal measures in the deepest parts of the Wyoming and Lackawanna basin, nor to count with accuracy the number of the available beds of coal in those localities. For my present purpose, that of a general sketch of the geology and vast mining resources of this valley, it will be sufficient to state here, that exact measurement has already disclosed, in the vicinity of Wilkesbarre, the widest and apparently the deepest portion of the coal-field, the existence of from 1000 to 1,200 or more feet of coal-bearing strata, and the presence within these of sixteen or eighteen separate beds of coal; two or three of them being compound seams of great size, and about ten or more of the whole series being permanently of ample dimensions for profitable mining. This depth of the coal measures, and the number of the contained coal

seams grow less, of course, from the centre of the basin towards its two margins, and also towards its two contracting extremities.

"On the Scranton Anthracites.-In the immediate neighbourhood of Scranton, a portion of the Coal Basin, where the coal measures are unusually well developed by natural features in the topography, and through the researches directed by the companies, the coal rocks, counting from the upper surface of the Seral or lower conglomerate to the highest sandstones of the plateau south-west of Hyde Park Village, disclose, upon careful measurements, an aggregate thickness of about seven hundred feet; and in this depth of strata the whole number of coals, large and small, amounts to no less than twelve, not estimating as separate seams any layers which might be regarded as subdivisions of compound beds. The assembled thickness of these twelve plates of anthracite is not less than seventy-four feet, taking for some their mean, for others their minimum, dimensions; and the thickness available for market, under judicious mining, I would estimate at thirty-nine or forty feet. These aggregates, arrived at through careful personal observation and many patient measurements, exhibit certainly an unusual amount of coal in so moderate a depth of strata, being nearly eleven feet of the former to each one hundred feet of the latter; or of good saleable coal, the high proportion of six feet to every one hundred feet of rock.

"The proportion of solid carbon,-the amount of which in coals, from the best practical researches on fuel, must be accepted as very nearly the measure of their absolute heating strength,-is, in the instance of these Scranton anthracites, about eighty-seven to eightyeight per cent. of the whole mass, a ratio only about two per cent. less than distinguishes the dryest or least gaseous varieties in the Lehigh coal fields, while the difference is amply compensated for in the gain of this amount of ignitible, inflammable gases-hydrogen and carburetted hydrogen,--which serve materially to increase the promptness of kindling, and rapidity of burning, or the total amount of heat evolved in a given time.

"With a view to exhibit more distinctly the excellences of the class of free-burning white-ash anthracites, such as those I have above described, I will conclude this essay, with a condensed survey of the principal qualities essential to a good fuel for producing steam, or for domestic uses:

"1. It should possess great actual heating power.

"2. As far as consistent with the foregoing, it should kindle quickly, and burn fast, generating the largest amount of heat in the shortest time.

"3. Its earthy matter should be small in quantity, and difficult to fuse; it will thus make little clinker, demand but little raking of its fires, and undergo but little waste in consequence.

"4. It should contain but little sulphur.

"5. The volatile ingredients of the coal should be free inflammable gases, not bituminous matters forming smoke; and they ought to be barely abundant enough to assist rapidity of combustion, as the