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MOUNT PISGAH PLANES AND THE GRAVITY RAILROAD, MAUCH CHUNK.

exclusively until the partial construction of the Lehigh railroad in 1846. But it was not until its completion in 1855, that this began to be an important outlet of the coal region and a powerful competitor for the trade with the canal.

A considerable amount of anthracite finds a market on the borders of Chesapeake Bay, being transported from the mines near the Susquehanna river by the Susquehanna tidewater canal, and by the Northern Central railroad. Its consumption is extending in this region by its use in the blast furnaces in the place of charcoal, for smelting iron ores, and the receipts of this fuel in the city of Baltimore are about one-sixth of those of the semi-bituminous coals of the Cumberland region, which are brought to the city by the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and the canal. The receipts during the years named below were as follows:

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The principal outlet of the Northern coalfield had been from 1829 to 1850 by the Delaware and Hudson canal. Since 1847 there have been taken every year to the Hudson river by this route from about 440,000 to 499,650 tons, except in 1855, when the quantity was 565,460 tons. number of railroads now connect this basin with the central railroad across northern New Jersey, and in other directions it is connected both by railroad and canals with the Erie railroad to the North and the Susquehanna river to the South-west. As large an amount of coal is now transported over each one of three of these lines as by the Delaware and Hudson canal.

The various railroads and canals which have been constructed with especial reference to the transportation of anthracite, are more than 48 in number, and have cost over $260,000,000. Most of them are presented in the following table; of some of them only those portions which may fairly Anthracite......... .257,334 325,129 270,240 806,494 be counted as constructed for coal pur

1857. Tons.

1870. Tons.

1860. 1869. Tons. Tons. Bituminous.. .443,782 897,684 1,882,619 1,717,075

701,116 722,813 2,152,909 2,022,571 poses :—

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COAL MINING.

Coal-beds are discovered and worked by different methods, varying according to the circumstances under which they occur. In regions where they lie among the piles of strata horizontally arranged, and passing with the other members of the group upon a level or nearly so through the hills, their exact position is often detected by their exposure in the precipitous walls of rock along the rivers; or it is indicated by peculiar indentations, known as "benches," around their line of outcrop, caused by their crumbling and wearing away more rapidly than the harder strata above and below them; and again by the recurrence of springs of water

and wet places at the foot of the benches, which point to an impervious stratum within the hill that prevents the water percolating any further down; and lastly, in the little gorges worn by the " runs," the beds are often uncovered, and loose pieces of coal washed down lead to their original source above. However discovered, the method of working them is simple. A convenient place is selected upon the side of a hill, and an excavation called a drift, usually about four feet wide, is made into the coal-bed. The height of the drift is governed by the thickness of the coal-bed and the nature of the overlying slate. Miners sometimes work in drifts only 24 feet high. Coal-beds three or four feet thick are very common, and are

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