Years. In the subjoined statement we have shown the amount of tonnage, owned, registered, and enrolled, of three of the principal commercial ports of the United States, at stated periods, whereby the contemporaneous advance of their trade is made apparent-compiled from official returns. Ports. 1839. 1843. 1844. 1845. 1810.* 1831. 1834. 1846. Tonnage. Tonnage. Tonnage. Tonnage. Tonnage. Tonnage. Tonnage. Tonnage. New York, 268,548 286,438 359,222 430,000 496,965 525,162 625,875 655,695 Boston, 149,121 138,174 212,536 203,615 201,323 210,885 227,994 241,520 Philad'a, 125,258 79,968 85,520 96,862 104,340 | 114,894 147,812 148,058 For the more complete illustration of the relative commercial importance of these ports, we have added a table of their foreign arrivals and coastwise arrivals respectively, during the years subsequent to 1810.† The later years are from the Philadelphia Commercial List. Foreign Arrivals. No. of American and Foreign Vessels. From this view, it is seen that in the greatest increase in the number of foreign arrivals, Boston stands the first, while New York is the second; and on that of coastwise arrivals, if we include the coal trade, Philadelphia considerably outnumbers those of the two other ports. The apparent diminution in the coastwise arrivals at Philadelphia, from 1843 to 1846, is owing to the omission of all the small craft which it had been customary to include. So great are the discrepancies among these statements, that it is impossible to know which to select. There seems no rule observed, by which the actual state can be known through the returns, which can be increased or diminished *Seybert's Statistical Annals, p. 308. + Hazard's U. S. Register; Philadelphia Commercial List, and other sources. Commerce of Boston, Hunt's Merch. Mag., Vol. X., 1844. Commercial List, Jan. 16, 1847. Commerce of Philadelphia-Custom-house returns. at pleasure, according to the number of the smaller vessels incorporated therein. As far as the port of Philadelphia is concerned, the annual returns in the table are exclusive of all ships, barques, brigs, and schooners, in the service of the U. S. government. They are also, with the exceptions marked, entirely independent of the enormous amount of coastwise shipping engaged in the coal trade.* These we have given, where we possess the data. Statement of the enrolled and registered tonnage of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia-employed in the foreign and coasting trade, including temporary registers, and exclusive of the fisheries :† omitting fractions, distinguishing the foreign from the domestic tonnage. 1846-tonnage owned by New York, 655,695; by Massachusetts, 541,520; by Pennsylvania, 148,058. national Note. In commercial navigation, the registration or enrolment of ships at the custom-house, is designed to entitle them to be classed among shipping, and to enjoy the privileges of the country and port, to which they belong, and in which they have been built. Licenses are granted under certain regulations; among which are their limiting the vessels to certain maximum proportions, and not to be squareThese licenses contain an accurate rigged vessels, or propelled by steam. description and admeasurement of the vessel, the names of which may not be changed, and their owners must give security by bond as to the employment of the vessels, which are restricted to the uses assigned.‡ *The returns for these years in the table are from a statistical statement in the U. S. Gazette, Feb. 17, 1847. In Bicknell's Reporter they are thus stated-in 1845, 4620; in 1846, 7046. + Seybert's Statistical Annals, p. 321-324, and subsequent sources. McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary. Number of Clearances and Entrances of Vessels engaged in General Commerce, for the year ending June 30th, 1847, from the following Ports.* Note. In the scale of importance, of the American ports, New Orleans ranks as No. 3, and Baltimore No. 4. Steam Engines employed in the Coal business in Schuylkill County,† In the valley of the Schuylkill were, in 1847, 324 miles of railroad and 108 miles of canal; in constructing of which have been expended upwards of $19,000,000, while the improvements in railroads and canals, in connection with the transportation of anthracite in the Lehigh Valley, is ascertained at $7,045,000; in other avenues $8,000,000; and in the whole more than $37,000,000. In justice to individual enterprise, at an early period of the employment of an almost untried combustible, we are bound to note that in January, 1825, Messrs. Jonah and G. Thompson of Philadelphia, completed for their Phoenix Nail-works, on French Creek, a steam engine in which anthracite was employed. We understand this was the first successful application of this fuel to the generation of steam.‡ EMPLOYMENT OF ANTHRACITE IN IRON MAKING. In the "Revue Generale de l'Architecture," M. Michael Chevalier published in 1840 an account of the anthracite basins of Pennsylvania. His statements contained nothing particularly remarkable, save that they brought down the condition of the operations in coal to a later period than that of Mr. Packer's report in 1833, upon which they are obviously based. He remarked, that the Americans have found out the means of making anthracite available, not only for manufacturers,-but what was equally novel, * Official Returns. + From the Pottsville Mining Journal, Jan. 23, 1847. Also, annual reports of the Pottsville Board of Trade. Monthly American Journal of Geology, G. W. Featherstonhaugh, Vol. I. p. 72, 1831. for domestic purposes: so that it has not only almost superseded the use of wood in eastern Pennsylvania, but in most towns and cities along the Atlantic shore. New applications of anthracite are discovered, and the Pennsylvania iron masters, in imitation of Mr. Crane, have successfully applied this combustible in their furnaces. For domestic purposes its use has been greatly aided by the employment of stoves, the adaptation of which to this species of fuel has been advancing, from year to year, in a continued series of improvements, until there is little left to amend or desire. After enumerating some of the difficulties attendant on its first introduction, and on the acquiring a knowledge of its properties, which were made apparent almost by accident, M. Chevalier adds," Mr. Wetherill, one of the principal manufacturers in Philadelphia, showed me in 1835 the place where, twenty years before, he had dug a hole to bury the anthracite, then looked upon as incombustible refuse."* In relation to the present estimation in which anthracite is held, we may trace its growing importance in exact proportion as, year after year, new methods of application were, almost involuntarily, invented, and as one difficulty after another was surmounted. Long within the experience of the present writer, large areas of Welsh anthracite land heretofore neglected and commanding only insignificant prices, have acquired a value wholly unexpected. It is no farther back than 1828 that we find Mr. Bakewell, a geologist of no slight eminence in his day, lamenting that the quality of the Welsh coal was "so inferior," and, in fact, so impracticable as to be of little comparative use.† Let us hear what is now said of this formerly despised combustible, by an intelligent authority writing from the same region:-" Anthracite may be termed a native mineral, containing ninety-four to ninety-six per cent. of carbon; burning without smoke or clinker in the grate, and almost wholly free from sulphur. One hundred tons of this anthracite are equal, in effect, to a hundred and forty-four tons of bituminous coal. Therefore, it enables steam vessels to carry, in the same space, nearly twice the quantity of effective fuel; while the use of anthracite in these vessels lessens the cost of stoking five-sixths. The wear and tear of bars, boilers and furnaces, owing to the absence of sulphur, is less. Furnaces of the same dimensions yield, on the average, forty per cent. more iron with anthracite, without any additional cost for labor. Anthracite pig iron is found to possess greater strength and tenacity than any other. In re-melting, the iron runs more fluid, and is very strong-a union of qualities most desirable, but seldom met with; and, owing to the intense and continued heat of anthracite, some of the richest iron ores, not fusible with bituminous coal, are now easily smelted."‡ The rapid progress made in the manufacture of iron in America, by means of Pennsylvania anthracite, since the commencement of the process in 1840, and even during the subsequent years of unexampled prostration in every department of business in this country-especially unpropitious to the introduction of a new branch of manufacturing industry-attest the growing importance of this description of fuel. In this State no less than thirty-six furnaces have been erected during this interval, and several others are reported to be in progress. Those completed yielded in 1845-6, at the rate of 107,200 tons per annum of anthracite iron: being one-third of the * Revue Generale de l'Architecture, 1840. Bakewell's Introduction to Geology, 3d edition, p. 181. entire production of pig iron in the United States heretofore. In 1846, the production of 43 anthracite furnaces was estimated at 119,437 tons. To this statement must be added a corresponding proportion of refining, puddling, rolling mills for bar and railroad iron, and other works, in which this fuel is now solely used.* The Board of Trade of Schuylkill county published the following statement of the number of furnaces and rolling mills in Pennsylvania and New Jersey which employed anthracite as a fuel, and were in operation previously to April 1846: premising that there were only four anthracite furnaces in activity prior to 1842: 42 furnaces, producing of pig iron per week, 2360 or 122,720 annually. 27 rolling mills, manufacturing annually, 114,500 It has been somewhere maintained that coal which yields a red ash never works well in blast furnaces, in consequence of the sulphur it contains. It is urged that this sulphur can never be effectually gotten rid of, except by the complete combustion of the coal and of the sulphuret of iron which prevails-the process of coking, whether in ovens or pits, only reducing the per to the pro-sulphuret. White ash coals, it is therefore suggested, should always be selected for blast furnace work, whenever practicable. We conceive that these observations were intended to have reference to the varieties of Welsh bituminous coal in the iron districts, and does not apply to anthracite here. If so, no comment is needed. In Pennsylvania, the subject of the comparative values of red ash and white ash anthracites used in blast furnaces, has been discussed by practical persons, most of whom conceive that the one is equally advantageous with the other. In one respect the preference is given to the white ash variety, on account of the greater density and compactness of its structure than the red ash coals, which are softer, and are supposed to make a less strong fire. But with respect to the theory that red ash coals contain more sulphur than the white, it has yet to be proved that in an equal average weight of each there is any appreciable difference, taking one coal seam with another. It is well known that the white ash coals of Pennsylvania contain a larger amount of carbon than the red ash species, and that their specific gravity or density is correspondingly greater. The excess of carbon in the one being balanced by an increase of earthy and ferruginous matter in the other, Yet this excess of earthy matter, containing among other materials a small amount of sulphuret of iron, is very insignificant, and would scarcely produce any perceptible difference in the iron produced by the agency of that variety of coal. To ascertain the respective amounts of ashes in these two classes of anthracite, we have consulted a variety of tables of analysis of Pennsylvania coals-the results are as follows: Twenty-three analyses of different white ash coals give an average of ashes, Twenty-one analyses of red ash coals in Schuylkill region, Per Cent. 4.62 7.29 The red ash has, therefore, only about two and a half per cent. more of *Letter of the Committee of the Iron and Coal Trade of Pennsylvania. + Fourteenth Annual Report to the Coal Mining Association, Pottsville, April 1846, p.9. Data for the use of blast furnaces, by S. B. Rogers, Nant-y-glo. |