Anthracite

“ In anthracite the amount of carbon is still increased, while that of hydrogen and oxygen has become proportionally less, and the volatile matter is reduced to a minimum. Hence pure anthracite is debituminized and burns without any flame. The anthracite of Pennsylvania becomes harder and more free from gas in proportion to the distance of the basins eastward from the Allegheny mountains, where its beds are folded in more numerous and sharper flexures. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no other deposit of anthracite in the United States, aside from some wholly unimportant patches in North Carolina, New Mexico and Colorado, so unimportant that all combined would yield hardly enough for one year's consumption. Europe has very little anthracite. Most of the Welsh coal is bituminous, the anthracite of the South Wales field being confined to the western end of that field. The Worm basin of Prussia yields perhaps 2,000,000 tons per annum of a semi-anthracite ”

“ It acts by forming a small quantity of glassy silicate of alumina, which binds the whole of the clay together by its fusion when heated.
Londoners, and, in fact, Englishmen generally, have hitherto regarded anthracite as a museum mineral and a curiosity, rather than an everyday coal-scuttle commodity. If it is to be the fuel of the future, it is very desirable that we should all know something about its merits and demerits, as well as the possibilities of supply. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A greater hardness is due to the presence of earthy impurities. The densest anthracite is often of a semi-metallic lustre, resembling somewhat that of graphite. Bright, glance or pitch coal is another brilliant variety, brittle, and breaking into regular fragments of a black colour and pitchy lustre. Lignite and cannel are usually dull and earthy, and of an irregular fracture, the latter being much tougher than the black coal. Some lignites are, however, quite as brilliant as anthracite; cannel and jet may be turned in the lathe, and are susceptible of taking a brilliant polish. ”

“ Caking coal and the varieties of coal which exist between it and anthracite, are familiar to every householder; the more it approaches the composition of the latter the more difficult it is to get it to burn, but when at last fairly alight it gives out great heat, and what is more important, a less quantity of volatile constituents in the shape of gas, smoke, ammonia, ash and sulphurous acid. For this reason it has been proposed to compel consumers to adopt anthracite as the domestic coal by Act of Parliament. ”

“ The fact that the great supply-field of natural gas in Western Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, and Eastern Ohio, is a bituminous and not an anthracite region, does not, of itself, confute that theory; as the argument for it is, that the gas may be tapped at a remote distance from the source of supply, and, whereas anthracite is not a gas-coal, while bituminous is, we are told to suppose that the gas which once may have been a component part of the anthracite was long ago expelled by Nature, and has since been held in vast reservoirs with slight waste, awaiting the use of man. ”

“ The accumulation of vegetable matter now constituting this vast bed of anthracite, may perhaps, before it was condensed by pressure and the discharge of its hydrogen, oxygen, and other volatile ingredients, have been between 200 and 300 feet thick. The origin of such a vast thickness of vegetable remains, so unmixed with earthy ingredients, can, I think, be accounted for in no other way, than by the growth, during thousands of years, of trees and ferns, in the manner of peat,—a theory which the presence of the Stigmaria in situ under each of the seven layers of anthracite, fully bears out. ”

“ Apart from the fuel values represented by the “smokeless fuel analogous to anthracite” the gas and benzol, the ammonium sulphate, and tar have unique values as fertilizers, and the source of those mineral elements from which our dyes and a large part of our modern medicines are made. The process used to extract these commodity values is similar to that which nature used in making anthracite, except that the volatile matter which the geological revolution drove off into the air is collected and utilized. ”

“ The principal use of anthracite is as a smokeless fuel. In the eastern United States, it is largely employed as domestic fuel, usually in close stoves or furnaces, as well as for steam purposes, since, unlike that from South Wales, it does not decrepitate when heated, or at least not to the same extent. For proper use, however, it is necessary that the fuel should be supplied in pieces as nearly uniform in size as possible, a condition that has led to the development of the breaker which is so characteristic a feature in American anthracite mining (see Coal) . ”

“ The coal breaker is an institution that is peculiar to the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania. Its need was made manifest early in the history of anthracite mining, its development was rapid, and it has now come to be wholly indispensable in the preparation of anthracite coal for the market. It is very seldom indeed that one sees this coal in the shape and size in which it was mined. All anthracite coal for domestic use is now broken, screened, and separated into grades of uniform size before being placed upon the market, and this work is done in the coal breakers. ”

“ 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, 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 ”

“ Anthracite, or Stone Coal.
Professor Silliman's last journal contains a very important article, illustrative of the practical application of this mineral; and the vast quantities of it that may be found in Great Britain renders the information highly valuable to our manufacturing interests. In no part of the world is anthracite, so valuable in the arts and for economical purposes, found so abundantly as in Pennsylvania. For the manufacture of iron this fuel is peculiarly advantageous, as it embraces little sulphur or other injurious ingredients; produces an intense steady heat ”

“ An experienced geologist will not fail to refer to their proper horizon a group of coals of Carboniferous age any more than those of the Cretaceous or Tertiary.
Anthracite--In the ages anterior to the Carboniferous, the quantity of land vegetation was apparently not sufficient to form thick and extensive beds of peat; but the remains of plant-tissue are contained in all the older formations, though there only as anthracite or graphite--the last two groups of residual products. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Anthozoa, an′tho-zō-a, n.pl. another name for Actinozoa, one of the three classes of Cœlenterates, including sea-anemones, corals, &c. [Gr. anthos, a flower, zōa, animals.]
Anthracene, an-thra-sēn′, n. a hydrocarbon obtained as one of the last products in the distillation of coal-tar, of value as the source of artificial alizarin. [Gr. anthrax, coal, and -ene.]
Anthracite, an′thras-īt, n. a kind of coal that burns nearly without flame, smell, or smoke, consisting almost entirely of carbon, and not readily ignited.—adjs. Anthracif′erous, yielding anthracite; Anthracit′ic.—n. Anthracit′ism. ”

“ If we conceive the anthracite cleared of all but its last atoms of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, till it has become all but pure carbon, it would become—as it has become in certain rocks of immense antiquity, graphite—what we miscall black-lead. And, after that, it might go through one transformation more, and that the most startling of all. It would need only perfect purification and crystallisation to become—a diamond; nothing less. We may consider the coal upon the fire as the middle term of a series, of which the first is live wood, and the last diamond ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Third Experiment, Carbon monoxide (CO) .--The tube A was filled with anthracite in the manner described for the second experiment, and heated to drive off the volatile matter, before the ore was placed in the upper tube, B, and the anthracite was divided from the ore by means of a piece of fine wire gauze. The lower tube, A, was heated to the temperature of white heat, the upper one, B, to a temperature of bright red. ”

“ It is a significant fact, and one which proves that the various kinds of coal which are found are nothing but stages begotten by different degrees of disentanglement of the contained gases, that where, as in some parts, a mass of basalt has come into contact with ordinary bituminous coal, the coal has assumed the character of anthracite, whilst the change has in some instances gone so far as to convert the anthracite into graphite. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence we see that any effort to define or describe coal, lignite, or anthracite accurately must be a failure, because neither has a fixed composition, neither is a distinct substance, but simply a conventional group of substances which form part of an infinite and indivisible series. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In some places the coal at the base of a hill may be anthracite, while that on the outcrop above it may be bituminous.
An artificial anthracite may be made by heating coal in a closed vessel of sufficient strength to resist the expansion of the gases that are formed. ”