stream had attained the usual high-water mark, that the arks were cut loose, and, each equipped with six men, began at once the descent of the rapids. Now the torrent roars-the waves and whirls dash madly around the boats; the men at the oars, with faces wild with animation and excitement, and with muscles full distended, run to and fro upon their narrow platforms; the pilot, with energetic motions and speech, addresses the steersman-the steersman, with like gesticulation and vehemence of manner, responds to the pilot-and then all hands make desperate plunges at the oars! Now the boat, shaking and cracking, swings its cumbersome form around a villainous rock; now it sheers cff, in a counter-current, toward the shore, and then bending round, again dashes forward into the rolling waves, when-cr-a-sh! je-boom! it rises securely upon a ledge of rocks half concealed beneath the surface of the water! A moment serves to contemplate the wreck, and then the men, seizing oars and plank, make good their exit to the shore-leaving the broken and dismembered ark to its fate, and the cargo to the curious speculations of the cat-fish and eels. Of the six which embarked, but two reached Philadelphia, and even these presented a very dilapidated appearance. The coal, naturally enough, excited some attention; but it seems that purchasers were not numerous, and the demand was for specimen lots only. After keeping the stock on hand for a considerable time, a sale was finally effected to the municipal authorities, who were then working a steam-engine in Broad Street to pump water into elevated tanks for the supply of the city. But all their attempts to burn it proved unavailing. Disgusted with what they esteemed a nuisance, they caused what remained of it to be broken up and scattered over the foot-walks of the grounds. And here and thus ingloriously terminated, for a period of seventeen years thence ensuing, the operations of the "Lehigh Coal-mine Company." The brief and romantic experience it had thus undergone, one might readily infer, would have checked the ambition of others disposed to embark in the same business. But some men are fond of adventure, and there is always a degree of fascination in mining pursuits. When, therefore, coal was found in 1810 in the vicinity of Pottsville, a number of sanguine individuals again identified themselves with the discovery. The blacksmiths of the neighborhood experimented upon it, and happily with complete success. Here was a clear gain; it was now rendered certain that the coal would burn, or could be made to burn. And an intelligent chemist in Philadelphia, in assaying it, found that there was inherent in it the most extraordinary heating power, and procuring specimens to operate on a large scale, he subjected it to various tests to enable him to arrive at its economic value as a fuel. The heat he thus obtained was astonishing-platina itself the men shut fast the furnace door, pulled on their coats, and proceeded to their meal. Returning at the usual time, their consternation may be imagined as they beheld the furnacedoor red hot, and the fire within seething and roaring like a tempest! They stood before it like men paralyzed, and when, after a time, they could summon courage enough to pry open the door, the white glare of the flames was beautiful to behold. Never before had such a fire been seen. And from that moment the secret of treating anthracite coal became known—it only required to be let alone. The result of this trial having been communicated to the press, it was soon after followed by other reports of similar satisfactory character. In fact, as the learned Dogberry would have remarked, "the coal having now proven itself to be coal, it came near being thought so." The Schuylkill navigation, although completed in 1818, was in such bad repair that, for several years following, it was practically useless for coal transportation. The work, probably as the natural concomitant of the want of capital and experience at that early day, was incomplete, and unable to withstand the violent freshets to which the river was exposed. But by this time wood and lumber had advanced rapidly in value the former sometimes bringing sixteen dollars per cord in Philadelphia. The forests in the vicinity of the larger towns were fast disappear could not have withstood its flame; and as there was now no earthly doubt as to the real nature and value of the mineral, it only remained to devise some process for burning it with facility. In the autumn of 1812, a meeting was held in Philadelphia to adopt measures for the improvement of the navigation of the Schuylkill, "whose trade had already become important to the city, and might be rendered much more so in view of the recent discovery of coal-mines at its head." A charter was granted in 1814 to a joint-stock company, and operations were subsequently begun to improve it as proposed. In the mean time, no little interest had been awakened on the subject of coal in Schuylkill County, no doubt in consequence of the success which attended its use there by the blacksmiths; and the late Colonel George Shoemaker, who had made openings on his lands near Pottsville, was persuaded to send a lot of it to Philadelphia. He loaded eight or ten wagons in 1817, and then set out, at the head of his teams, full of hope and honest confidence. But the previous failure of the Lehigh coal was still within the memory of many persons, and the Colonel was received with some coolness, if not with rigid scrutiny. He was questioned by one, and cross-questioned by another; but unreservedly guaranteeing to all, as he did, that the "stones" would burn, he began to enlist some customers. Several tons were disposed of to the nail-works at Fairmount; three or four tons went to Dela-ing; the suffering of the poor, during the inware County, while the balance was sold out in small quantities to blacksmiths and private consumers in the city. A few individuals who had thus purchased, and who had heard of the Lehigh affair, did not succeed in igniting it, and Under these circumstances our friends of the the result was that they became highly indig- "Lehigh Coal-mine Company” appeared once nant. Instead of receiving any commiseration more in the field. They shipped, in 1820, 365 from their friends, they were rather taunted tons, and in the year following, 1000 tons. for their verdancy in being made the dupes of a 1822 their shipments reached 2240 tons, and in transparent Dutch knave and swindler! The 1823 it was again doubled. This looked a litstorm gathered so suddenly, and began to rage tle like business; and the two companies, in with such fury around the poor Colonel, that he view of the brilliant career now opening before had barely time to make a retreat. Writs had them, determined to merge themselves into one been issued for his arrest on the charge of swin-corporate body, under the title of the "Lehigh dling, and he only evaded the "lynx-eyed vigi- Coal and Navigation Company," and supplying lance" of the officers of the law by describing themselves with a large additional capital, they a circuit of some fifteen miles radius on his re-entered at once upon the execution of such turn home. But while the affair was still the town-talk, an incident occurred which completely turned the tables upon the quidnuncs, and placed the Colonel and his coal in a favorable light before the world. The proprietor of the Fairmount nail-works, with some of his men, had been engaged during the whole morning in the vain endeavor to fire up a furnace with the coal. They tried every possible expedient which skill and experience in other fuels could suggest. They raked it, and they stirred it up, and poked it, and blew tremendously upon it with blowers. They persevered in the task-they manipulated with courage, with desperation-but it appears that all would not do. At length the signal for dinner was given, and utterly sick and tired of the stones, and with no complimentary epithets, clemency of the winter, became severe and unavoidable, and the necessity for providing a substitute for wood was rendered daily more apparent. In works of improvement as were deemed essential to the future accommodation of the increasing trade. As nature had not furnished an adequate supply of water to the Lehigh to maintain an even and regular stage, it became necessary to resort to artificial contrivances to check the rapidity of its flow. This was accomplished by the construction of dams in the mountain division, in which were erected sluice-gates, by whose aid the water could be retained in pools until required for use. When the dam or pool became full, and the water had overflowed long enough for the levels below to acquire the usual depth, the sluice-gates were let down, and the coal-boats, which were kept in readiness, passed over the dams in the artificial floods thus let loose. The boats used in this descending navigation were square boxes, or arks, generally about 18 feet wide and 25 in length. At first two of them were joined together by hinges, so as to allow them to bend up and down in passing over the sluices; but as the boatmen became more accustomed to the work, and the channels continued to be improved from time to time, the number of sections thus lashed together was increased until their whole length often reached 180 feet. They were piloted and steered with long oars like a raft. Machinery was devised for jointing and putting together the planks of which the boats were made, and the men were so expert at it that five of them could put together one of the sections and launch it in forty-five minutes. Boats of this description were used until 1831, when the coal production had increased to such an extent that the boats employed to transport it, had they all been stretched out into line, would have reached over fourteen miles in length. And upon the completion of the Pennsylvania Canal in this year, the Lehigh was converted into a slack-water navigation, with locks and towing-path for horses. It has been operated in this way ever since, with no less advantage to the public than to the company themselves. Another important improvement was the construction of a railway, nine miles in length, from the river to their mines on the summit of the mountain. This was begun in January, 1827, and finished in the month of April following— the route having been previously used as a wagon road. With the exception of a similar road in the quarries of Quincy, Massachusetts, it was the first railway operated on the American continent. And although it was not intended for miscellaneous traffic, it may be termed the nucleus around which subsequently sprang into existence the magnificent railway net-work that now binds together, in iron grasp, the States of the Federal Union. For a long time it attracted visitors from every portion of the country, and whenever a railway was proposed, a preliminary committee was appointed to examine and report its characteristic features. It had an inclination from the mines to the river of something like one hundred feet to the mile. While the loaded cars, therefore, descended by their own gravitation, mules were employed to haul back the empty ones-they themselves descending in cars specially adapted to their accommodation. And it is said that they used to enjoy the ride amazingly, expressing their approbation of the arrangement by all such tokens as long-eared animals might be expected to use. They learned to regard the privilege of riding down as an inalienable right, and no earthly pretext, neither severe nor mild measures, could induce them to return on foot! At the river the railway terminates on the side of the mount ain at an elevation of nearly two hundred feet In 1830 the annual production of the Lehigh Company exceeded 41,000 tons; in 1840 it had swollen to 225,000 tons; and in 1850 to over 722,000 tons. The cost of maintaining horse-ous thin strips of slate power on their railway for a trade of such mag- and impure coal, as nitude became a very serious item. More than indicated by the white five hundred animals, with perhaps one-fourth streaks. At some places that number of drivers and grooms, were at one the top covering did time employed in the service of hauling back not exceed four or five to the mines the empty cars. And as locomo- feet, but for the most tive power was not thought practicable on a part it averaged from road of such severe grades, it was determined twelve to eighteen. As that another track should be built for the re- all this earthy materiturn of the empty cars, to be operated both by al had to be excavated gravitation and stationary steam-power. The and removed, the proshutes for transferring the coal from the cars to cess of quarrying was the bins were accordingly abandoned (or par- found to be quite as tially so), and, by means of an inclined plane, expensive, after all, as the loaded cars themselves are now sent down that of subterraneous to the canal, where, supported on trestle-work working. And when erected over the bins, the coal is emptied into it was found that the them directly from the cars. The empty cars top covering continare then hauled to the foot of another plane a ued to increase in thickness, from the antishort distance above, where they are hoisted to clinal axis which the stratum formed, it was the very peak of the mountain, accomplishing concluded to abandon the quarries in favor of a height of over 750 feet perpendicularly, in a the other mode, which requires the removal of length of 2250 feet of plane. Arrived at the nothing but the coal itself. The excavations summit of the mountain, the cars descend for a in the quarries were conducted in platforms, of distance of six miles by gravitation, and then which there were five or six. They were penmounting another plane again descend to the etrated in every direction by railways, over mines. With the aid of three planes, and the which the cars were brought in and loaded, and steam machinery which operates them, the whole the refuse slate and dirt removed. The coal business of transferring the coal from the mines was thus fully exposed to the light of day, and to the canal boats, and of returning the empty the various avenues were all strewn with imcars, is now performed, and that in a very safe, mense heaps and masses of it. Some of the expeditious, and economical manner. huge breasts at which the miners were employed presented an appearance singularly and highly picturesque. Towering fifty to sixty feet in the air, entirely separated and isolated from the adjacent strata, with their tops still covered with forest foliage, and the trunk of an old tree occasionally left standing as a kind of monumental relic of the past, these gigantic mural breasts of coal had a dark, sombre, cyclopean aspect; while the ring of the drill, the sharp glance of the miner's pick, the rumbling noise of passing cars, the rattling of coal shovels, and the general buzz and circumstance of activity every where around-all awakened in the visitor sensations at once peculiar, novel, and interesting. Professor Silliman thought that they had much the "appearance of a vast fort, of Until the year 1847, the Lehigh Company procured all the coal which they sent to market from their celebrated open quarry on the summit of Sharp Mountain-being the identical vein or deposit originally discovered by Ginther. This quarry for many years constituted a great curiosity, and, in connection with the gravity railway, attracted thousands of visitors. The vein of coal, including the accompanying seams of slate, was at one spot nearly seventy feet in thickness, though the average did not probably exceed fifty feet. The excavated portion embraces an area of ten acres, and from this source there were mined and sent away about 850,000 tons of coal. Estimated at the ordinary value of coal as it lies in the ground, viz., thirty cents which the central area was the parade-ground, and the upper escarpment the platform for the cannon." And the comparison was à propos; for there was employed in the mineral garrison an army by no means insignificant in number or strength, and all equipped and armed with the implements of industrial war. The coal trade of the Schuylkill region commenced in 1822, when fifteen hundred tons were shipped to Philadelphia over the Schuylkill Canal. This work, however, still continued in a bad condition for navigation until, in 1825, it underwent some important repairs. In that year the trade reached 6500 tons, and in the following one nearly 17,000 tons. In 1827 the production was again doubled, and the shipments from the two regions amounted to more than 60,000 tons. The coal trade had now been thoroughly inaugurated. Hearth-grates and stoves of an improved structure, expressly adapted to the use of anthracite, were every where introduced, and its future destiny as a mineral fuel became at once as plain as the noonday sun. The public mind was not only aroused, but became intensely excited upon the subject. The valleys and mountains of the Schuylkill were explored, and when it was ascertained that a vast extent of country abounded in the combustible-that the quantity was seemingly inexhaustible-that instead of but two or three veins, there were in all probability a hundred, and these conveniently accessible to navigation from every point-when all this became manifest, the speculative spirit which burst forth scarcely knew any bound or limit. The wild and precipitous mountain lands which previously did not realize the taxes assessed upon them were now eagerly purchased, and assumed an extraordinary value. Towns were laid out-roads were cut through the forests, over the mountain peaks and along their narrow gorges-railways and canals were projected-coal-mines opened-all was conceived in the spirit of speculation, and executed under the impulse of its excitements. Such was the demand for houses that, in many instances, the lumber was wrought into shape in Philadelphia and sent by canal to the coal region, ready for the joiner. Whole villages along the road-side thus sprang into existence like mushrooms, or as if by the power of magic. The taverns were all crowded, and their walls strewn with colored maps and lithographs. All the adventurers of the large towns flocked to Pottsville, like so many bees around their queen. They had only to go there to be transformed into millionaires. Fortune had seated herself upon a throne of anthracite; she held her court levees among the rolling mountains, and to be crowned with her favor it was only essential to appear in person. Many of them, indeed, realized handsomely-for they could hardly do less as the mere instruments of transfer from one party to another. But the great Moguls of the daythose whose destiny it seemed to be to head long lines of millionaire descendants-appeared with their pockets stuffed with agreements of purchase; with leases of mines, plats of towns, surveys for railways, and various pamphlets and memoranda bearing upon the resources, productive capacity, and future destiny of the coal region and the coal trade, and of certain tracts of land and town lots in particular. These gentlemen, with an easy and impressive dignity of manner, could show you at a glance the number and thickness of the veins, and their dip |