TRANSPORTATION OF COAL TO MARKET. The first anthracite from the Schuylkill mines was brought to Philadelphia in wagons. The navigation of the river and canal was hardly practicable for boats previous to the year 1822; and though from that year anthracite was conveyed to Philadelphia and the trade continued to increase, it was not until 1825 that a large amount of coal could be transported by this route. The effect of these improvements was experienced in the transportation of 6,500 tons in 1825; in 1826 it increased to 16,763. As for successive years the trade steadily and rapidly increased in importance, the capacity of the canal proved at last insufficient for it, and the Reading railroad was laid out for its accommodation, and constructed with a uniform descending grade from the mining region at Pottsville to the Delaware river. It was opened in 1841, and proved a formidable competitor to the Schuylkill canal, but the increasing trade has surpassed the capacity of both these routes. Other lines have been constructed, till now there are six or seven railroads engaged almost exclusively in the transportation of the anthracite and semianthracite coals from the mines. * of anthracite to Mauch Chunk, nine miles from the mines, was by wagons. The Mauch Chunk road, completed in May, 1827, was made with a descending grade, averaging about 100 feet to the mile, so that the loaded cars ran down by gravity. Each train carried down with it in cars appropriated to this use the mules for drawing the empty cars back; and it is stated that after the animals once became accustomed to the routine of their duties they could never be made to travel down the road if accidentally left behind. The trade before many years outgrew these increased facilities of transporting the coal, and it was found essential to return the empty cars by some more economical method. On account of the heavy upgrade, locomotives, it was concluded, could not be advantageously employed, and hence a system of inclined planes and gravity roads was devised, by which the cars hoisted by stationary power to the summit of the planes and thence descending the gravity roads might be returned to the mines. In the accompanying sketches a part of this arrangement of roads is exhibited. ་ The high hill called Mount Pisgah, above the village of Mauch Chunk, is the terminating point at the Lehigh river of the long As seen by the table, the first shipments ridge called Sharp Mountain. The lower of anthracite were from the Lehigh region, road seen in the sketch is called the loaded two years before any were sent from the track. The cars come by this from the Schuylkill. The transportation was effected mines, and being let down the inclined plane by arks or large boxes built of plank, and at its terminus, their loads are discharged inrun down the rapid and shoal river with no to the great bins over the edge of the river. little risk. To return with them was im- They are then hauled a short distance to the practicable, nor was this desired, for the foot of the long plane that reaches to the arks themselves were constructed of the summit of Mount Pisgah, and by the staproduct of the forests, which in this form tionary steam engine are drawn up in about was most conveniently got to market. As six minutes to an elevation 850 feet above the coal trade increased in importance, the that at the foot. The length of this plane Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, to is 2250 feet. From its summit the empty insure greater facility in running the arks, cars run down the inclined road constructed constructed dams across the shoaler places along the south side of the ridge, and at the in the river, by which the water was held distance of six miles, having descended about back, thus increasing the depth above. As 300 feet, they reach the foot of another inthe arks coming down the river reached oneclined plane at Mount Jefferson. This plane of these dams, the sluice gates were opened is 2070 feet long, rising 462 feet. The asand the boats descended to the next dam below. At first two arks were connected together by hinges at the ends; subsequently more were thus joined together, till they reached nearly 200 feet in length. In 1831 the slack-water navigation of the Lehigh was so far perfected, that it was used by canal boats ascending and descending through regular locks. Up to the year 1827 the transportation 1 cent is accomplished in three minutes, and from the top another gravity road extends about a mile, descending 44 feet to the Summit Hill village. From this point branch roads lead to the different mines in Panther Creek valley, and all meet again in the loaded track road by which the cars return to Mauch Chunk. The transportation of coal from Mauch Chunk was conducted by the river and cânal 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: Bituminous. A 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 be counted as constructed for coal pur 1857. 1860. 1869. |