Anthracite coal

“ Our fields of bituminous coal are yet too distant from dense population, and too far removed from easy communication, to be looked to at present, but unless modes be invented by which the anthracite coal can be used without mixture in the [Pg 379] blast furnace, these will become the ultimate seats of the manufacturing industry of the United States. ”

“ Anthracite coal has the highest amount of fixed carbon. This is the reason why it makes the best fuel, for fixed carbon is the substance which holds the store of imprisoned sunlight, liberated as heat when the coal burns. Tremendous pressure and heat due to shrinking of the earth's crust have crumpled and twisted the strata containing coal in eastern Pennsylvania, and thus changed bituminous coal into anthracite. Ohio beds, formed at the same time, but undisturbed by heat and pressure, are bituminous yet. ”

“ Thus we see that from a purely selfish point of view, and quite irrespective of our duty to our fellow-citizens as regards polluting the atmosphere, anthracite is preferable to ordinary coal on economical grounds, supposing we can obtain it at the same price as bituminous coal, which is now the case. ”

“ Many grates and stoves have been devised for burning anthracite for domestic heating, and some of them are successful and economical; but, in view of the national prejudice in favour of a bright and open fire, it is not likely that anthracite will ever replace bituminous coal to any great extent in the British Isles, where the great coal-fields undoubtedly are the natural sources of fuel. ”

“ Bar iron, anchors, chains, steamboat machinery, and wrought-iron of every description, has more tenacity and malleability, with less waste of metal, when fabricated by anthracite, than by the aid of bituminous coal or charcoal, with a diminution of fifty per cent. in the expense of labour and fuel. For breweries, distilleries, and the raising of steam, anthracite coal is decidedly preferable to other fuel, the heat being more steady and manageable, and the boilers less corroded by sulphureous acid, while no bad effects are produced by smoke and bitumen. ”

“ COATING WALLS OF A MINE WITH CEMENT
To prevent coal-dust explosions
DRILLING IN COAL FOR BLASTING
“Anthracite” is the hardest of coals. It was formed from bituminous coal under the crushing pressure due to the upheaval of mountains or by the intense heat of adjacent molten rocks. Most American anthracite is mined in eastern Pennsylvania. The largest deposits in the world are found in China. Anthracite burns slowly, with little smoke. It is well adapted for domestic use on account of its cleanness, but is not an economical fuel for steam-raising or general manufacturing. ”

“ From what precedes it seems to result, then, that anthracite is in a much less appreciable state of preservation than cannel coal, and that it is only rarely, and according to locality, that we can discover vegetable organs in it. Soft coal comes nearer to amorphous carbon. ”

“ Anthracite contains from 90 to 94 per cent of pure carbon, bituminous coal from 70 to 85, and much of this being combined with hydrogen burns away as flame. On a rough average we may say that the fixed or solid carbon capable of burning with a smokeless flameless glow, amounts to 65 per cent in ordinary British bituminous coal, against an average of 92 per cent in British anthracite. The advantages of anthracite as a fuel for open radiating grates are nearly in the proportion of these figures. ”

“ It is said that anthracite contains a much larger proportion of these gases than do bituminous or other coals, but that being hard it holds them more tenaciously, and is therefore worked with less risk. ”

“ The anthracite coal strike, which was at first a strike of the miners against the operators, has therefore now become a strike of the operators against the public.
"The situation thus created amounts to an attack upon millions of anthracite users in Pennsylvania and other States, who are thus deprived of their customary fuel. The whole future of the anthracite industry is threatened by popular resentment and the use of substitutes. The prosperity of the anthracite region, now and hereafter, hangs in the balance. ”

“ Yes: it is the carbon of coal without the hydrogen, and so it does not burn with a flame; the flame of a fire is the burning of the hydrogen which escapes from the coal or wood when it is heated, and its burning, as it rises, makes the flames that leap up and curve about so in a fire. The anthracite coal is coal which has had most of the hydrogen driven out by heat. ”

“ Most of the anthracite coal is used in houses, and householders will not buy it unless the pieces are of nearly the same size and free from dirt, coal dust, and slate. The work of preparation is done in odd-shaped buildings called "breakers." One part of a breaker is often a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet in height. The coal is carried to the top of the breaker. ”

“ Aside from the fact that anthracite is not met with solely in the lower coal measures, but is found in the middle and upper ones, and that bituminous coal itself is met with quite abundantly in the secondary formations, and even in tertiary ones, it seems to result from recent observations that if vegetable matter, when once converted into lignites, coal, etc., be preserved against the action of air and mineral waters by sufficient thick and impermeable strata of earth, preserves the chemical composition that it possessed before burial. ”

“ Hard coal is also used on the roads, which have convenient access to the anthracite regions, like the Lackawanna and the Reading; but other companies maintain that the cost of the coal and of changing their boilers prohibits the introduction of anthracite. ”

“ The use of hard coal has become so well-nigh universal in the eastern towns and cities that one hardly understands how the community could become accustomed to the use of soft coal; yet the available supply of anthracite in America is so small that, unless some other fuel be discovered, the use of bituminous coal must prevail within seventy-five years at the most. The anthracite fields of Pennsylvania will be exhausted within seventy-five years, even though the annual production should not exceed that of 1901—which is improbable. ”

“ TO EXTINGUISH A COAL FIRE.—Many persons who burn anthracite coal in their chambers, have suffered great inconvenience from not knowing how to extinguish it before they go to bed. The process is very simple, and always successful. ”

“ Within 100 miles of the coast are millions of tons of anthracite coal near Cupisnique and Huayday; millions more back of Chimbote and along the Huailas Valley, anthracite, semi-anthracite, and bituminous with many veins 41⁄2-13 feet thick. Higher in the plateau region are deposits of soft coal near Oyón, Cerro de Pasco, and at Jatunhuasi. The de Pasco coal, 35 per cent carbon, must be washed before coking in the smelter. Forty per cent of the material is rejected. ”

“ So that if it should happen that the anthracite coal owners choose to stop the world's sup- ply of anthracite coal and let the fields lie idle for a few generations, they have today, under the existing law, a right to do it and a right to all the force in the land to protect them in that right. ”

“ Chemists tell us that coal is chiefly constructed of carbon, compounded with oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. There are many varieties, but all may be classified under two general headings—bituminous and anthracite. Bituminous coal contains a large amount of a tarry substance, a kind of mineral pitch or bitumen, which burns with a brilliant flame and a black sooty smoke, exceedingly rich in carbon. Anthracite coal is hard and stone-like in its texture, burning with scarcely any flame and no smoke. It produces a fire of intense heat when it is once ignited. ”

“ The carboniferous measures are the highest and latest geological formation in the great coal fields of the United States. Therefore where the strata have not been disturbed by flexure the coal seams lie near the surface. This is generally the case in the bituminous districts, and it is also partially true in the northern anthracite coal field. Deep mining is necessary only in the middle and southern anthracite coal fields, where the folds are close and precipitous, and the deep and narrow basins formed by them have been filled with deposits of a later geologic age. ”

“ It is true also that the dust of bituminous coals is much more liable to be explosive than the dust of anthracite. No well authenticated instances of coal dust explosions have been reported from the anthracite regions, while in mining soft coals they have undoubtedly occurred. ”

“ No one, having once seen and examined an anthracite coal breaker, could ever mistake one for a building erected for any other purpose. These breakers have a character peculiarly their own. They are the most prominent features in the landscape of every anthracite coal region, where they tower up black, majestic, many-winged, and many-windowed, in the range of almost every outlook.
When the mine car full of coal is hoisted to the head of the breaker it is run by two headmen from the carriage across the scale platform to the dump [185] shute bars on to which it is dumped. ”

“ Anthracite coal kindles slowly, and burns with little flame or smoke, but its vapor is sulphurous, and on that account it should never be burned in an open stove, nor in one with an imperfect draft. Its heat is steady and intense. Bituminous coal ignites readily, burns with considerable flame and smoke, and gives a much less intense heat than anthracite, Lignite, or brown coal, is much less valuable as fuel. Coke is useful when a short, quick fire is needed. Kerosene and gas are convenient and economical fuels. ”

“ Provided, That any producer of anthracite coal who incurs the expense of rescreening it at Atlantic or Lake ports for transshipment by water may increase the price thereof by not more than 5 cents per ton of 2,240 pounds. Producers of anthracite coal specified in paragraph 4 of these regulations shall not sell anthracite coal to producers of anthracite coal not specified in paragraph 4. Dealers and selling agents shall not sell coal produced by the producers included in paragraph 4 on the basis of the prices fixed at the mine for coal produced by producers not specified in said paragraph. ”

“ By the use of vapour with it, the anthracite appears to be freed from all its defects as a smelting and engine coal, and being a much more pure and powerful fuel than the flaming coal, there seems no reason to doubt that in it we have a manufacturing power that would supply us for generations. ”

“ The first cause is probably the most important, and this is particularly true of anthracite coals where a sliding scale of prices is used according to the season of the year. While market conditions serve as one of the principal reasons for coal storage, most power plants and manufacturing plants feel compelled to protect their coal supply from the danger of strikes, car shortages and the like, and it is customary for large power plants, railroads and coal companies themselves, to store bituminous coal. ”

“ Modern screening and washing plants, especially when the small coal forms a considerable proportion of the output, are large and costly, requiring machinery of a capacity of 100 to 150 tons per hour, which absorbs 350 to 400 H.P. In this, as in many other cases, electric motors supplied from a central station are now preferred to separate steam-engines.
Anthracite coal in Pennsylvania is subjected to breaking between toothed rollers and an elaborate system of screening, before it is fit for sale. The largest or lump coal is that which remains upon a riddle having the bars 4 in. ”

“ ANTHRACITE, Stone Coal, Kilkenny Coal, or Culm, is a variety of coal differing from the common or bituminous kind in containing a larger proportion of carbon in its composition ; that element being present in anthracite to the extent of from 90 to 95 per cent, of its entire mass, while the carbon in bituminous coal usually varies from 75 to 90 per cent. Anthracite is further distinguished by its compactness, high specific gravity, bright lustre, which is frequently iridescent on the natural surfaces, and its conchoidal fracture. It does not soil the fingers when handled, like ordinary coal ”

“ Taking the coal measures of South Wales and Monmouthshire, we have a series of accumulations in which the coal-beds become not only more anthracitic toward the west, but also exhibit this change in a plane which may be considered as dipping south-south-east, at a moderate angle, the amount of which is not yet clearly ascertained, so that in the natural sections afforded, we have bituminous coals in the high grounds and anthracite coals beneath. ”

“ After a long period of trial in England the superiority of coal over other fuels was recognized, and stone coal, as the harder form was commonly known, came into general use. In America bituminous, or soft coal, was mined to a slight extent in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The form now commonly used in house-heating furnaces, anthracite, for a long time baffled the colonists in their efforts to make it burn. The knowledge that an anthracite fire is most effective if not continually poked is said to have been acquired generally by accident. ”