anthracite coal far exceed all others combined, an infinite source of wealth, of which the reader can begin to approximate some idea when informed there are in the different veins as you descend ninety feet of coal, and of a market value of more than $40,000 in every acre after reserving the pillars. These coal deposits in the valley all lie in a basin apparently forming the bottom on which rests the superincumbent rocks and soils, and reaching up on the sides only to the high table lands, a proof that at one time, in the long geological past, the entire country hereabouts, for hundreds of miles, covering the entire State and extending into other States, was all underlaid with the same strata of coal, which have been carried away from the uplands by the disturbances of the earth, and thus leaving for us only a very small portion of the once vast deposit.

Coal was found in outcrop in the valley when the white man first came. Obadiah Gore and others of the first blacksmiths in the county used it in their shops. During the Revolutionary war coal was shipped in arks and Durham boats to Carlisle, in this State, where the continental authorities established an armory. Of course all this quarrying in the other century was from outcrops and strip mining entirely. These shipments continued through the war for independence, long enough to demonstrate that it was a merchantable article that the outside world wanted, and that possessed values that would repay transportation. The trade increased slowly after the close of the war, but by whom shipments were continued is not now fully known. Some of the chroniclers of the early times place the commencement of the coal trade down the river from this point as beginning in the year 1820, with a shipment that year of 365 tons. However, after this statement was published, John B. Smith published in the Record of the Times, October 27, 1874: "I see you make a statement in your daily that the coal business opened in 1820. Abijah Smith [his father] purchased an ark of John P. Arndt November 9, 1807, and ran it to Columbia from Wilkes-Barre, loaded with coal. From that date Abijah and John Smith ran several arks yearly to 1826, loaded with coal for the market. In 1811 and 1812 they ran 220 tons of coal to Havre-de-Grace, had it unloaded on the schooner "Washington," and sold in New York, the bills for which were rendered by the commission merchant in 1813."

Some one has said that history is agreed fiction, and the history of the discovery and the use of coal here is certainly a verification of the fact that much fiction finds its way to the printing office. One of those has found its way into the last United States census report (1890) where, without stating it as a fact, the commencement of the coal trade is dated from 1820. Whereas the above shows that it was commenced in 1807. Mr. George B. Culp, in an address before the Historical Society, June 27, 1890, not only confirms the above, but year by year gives the amounts shipped from the Wyoming region to 1820 as follows:

Mr. F. E. Saward, in The Coal Trade for 1891, states that the northern anthracite coal field is the largest anthracite basin in the world. It has long been known as the Wyoming. Its coal production since 1860 is as follows:

1860. 1870..

Tons. 2,914,817 1880. 7,974,666 1890.

Tons. 11,419,270 18,657,694

To mine this coal requires the services of over 50,000 men and boys, and this number is steadily increasing rather than diminishing.

Mr. Culp curtly disposes also of the story of Philip Ginter being the discoverer of coal in the anthracite regions. In the legislature in 1891 a bill was introduced to appropriate $2,000 for a monument to Ginter as the discoverer of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania. The fact simply was Ginter discovered coal in Carbon county, but himself stated that he had heard of it over in Wyoming" before finding it. In a foot note Mr. Culp gives the following:

"The Lehigh region is great in making claims. For instance, on April 23. 1891, in the senate of the State of Pennsylvania, Senator Rapsher, of Carbon, called up the following bill on third reading:

"AN ACT appropriating the sum of $2,000 for the erection of a monument to the memory of Philip Ginter, the discoverer of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania.

"SECTION 1, Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania in general assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that the sum of $2,000 be appropriated toward the erection of a suitable monument to commemorate the memory of Philip Ginter, the first discoverer of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania, to be paid to the committee in charge upon the warrant of the auditor-general.

"Senator Hines, from our own county, asked leave to strike out the words 'the first,' because Philip Ginter was not the first discoverer of coal.

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'Senator Rapsher, in reply, said: 'Mr. President, the historians, like men, sometimes differ on that particular point, as to whether Philip Ginter was the first discoverer or not, but I think all the historians agree that Philip Ginter was the first authentic discoverer of anthracite coal in what was then Northampton county, a hundred years ago the first of next September, and it was the inception of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation company, and was the beginning of the anthracite coal traffic in Pennsylvania, and because the anthracite coal interest was of so much importance to the State credit in our section, this could be granted without any great strain on our consciences.'

"Senator Green, of Berks, where they have no coal, said: 'Mr. President, I think we ought to have a discoverer of coal, and we might as well have him now as at any other time, so whether it is Mr. Ginter or somebody else, makes very little difference to me. I am willing to concede to that gentleman that claim. I am willing to go further: I am willing to take the word of the senator from Carbon for it. If he thinks he is the discoverer of coal, I think so.'

"Fortunately the bill was defeated in the house of representatives. Now, what was in this bill? First, to get $2,000 out of the State treasury to perpetuate a falsehood. This under false pretences.

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Second, To place on record the further falsehood that Philip Ginter was the (first) discoverer of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania. Mr. Ginter, himself, did not claim that he was the discoverer, because he had heard of stone coal over in Wyoming.'

"Mr. Rapsher is certainly mistaken when he says that historians differ as to whether Philip Ginter was the first discoverer or not. No, they do not differ. All historians agree that Mr. Ginter discovered coal in what is now Carbon county, in 1791, and that he was not the first discoverer of anthracite coal in Pennsylvania. Ill-informed people may think he was, but intelligent people know better. Mr. Rapsher states that the discovery of coal a hundred years ago the first of next September (1891), was the inception of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation company, and was the beginning of the anthracite coal traffic in Pennsylvania. The Lehigh Coal & Navigation company was incorporated February 13, 1822, and if its inception was in 1791, it took it a long time to be born-even thirty-one years. The beginning of the coal trade was not on the Lehigh, but was on the Susquehanna, and commenced

in 1807. Do not let this be forgotten. Senator Green thinks we ought to have a discoverer of coal.' 'Whether it is Mr. Ginter or somebody else makes very little difference to (him) me.' Most noble senator, you certainly do not speak the words of truth and soberness. In a work gotten up by the Central railroad of New Jersey, in 1891, I read the following: 'Mauch Chunk is in the very heart of the anthracite coal regions, and is also the birthplace in America of the black diamonds.' Considering that coal was discovered on the Susquehanna in 1762, and on Bear mountain, nine miles west of Mauch Chunk, in 1791, Mauch Chunk is a queer kind of a birthplace. It goes on the principle, claim everything for Lehigh.

"What surprises me, is that nothing in particular is claimed for the Schuylkill region. About all the worthies who make up tables and pyramids are Pottsville gentlemen, like Bannan, Daddow, Sheafer, et al. They are probably not familiar with the history of the State, and least of all, with the coal trade and its beginning in the Wyoming region. With a new generation of better informed gentlemen Wyoming will probably have justice done her in the future."

Mr. Stewart Pearce says that Col. George M. Hollenback sent two four-horse loads of coal to Philadelphia in 1813, and that James Lee, during the same year, sent a four-horse load from Hanover to a blacksmith at Germantown.

The blacksmiths of this region early learned the use of anthracite coal. Obadiah and Daniel Gore were smiths, who came from Connecticut as early as 1768 and became owners of coal lands near Wilkes-Barre.

As a local fact it may here be parenthetically stated that Jesse Fell was the first to burn coal in the county in a grate as common house fuel, and the pioneers who came here and found the coal knew nothing of its history in other places and that so far as using it for domestic purposes or in grates, they made their own experiments, and in this line Mr. Fell was the successful leader. Mr. Culp, however, gives many reasons for his belief that it was first burned in grates in Wilkes-Barre by Jacob Cist. There are authentic letters showing that anthracite coal was successfully burned in grates in Philadelphia in 1802 and in 1803. He further says that it was burned in grates in Wilkes-Barre from 1803 by Mr. Cist, and continuously since.

The prolonged and very uncertain controversy on the first discovery of coal in this section seems a matter of difficult settlement. In regard to the finds of Ginter and others, there are of course fictions always creeping in, and what is true and what is not is now difficult of ascertainment. The claim made for Philip Ginter is, that being a poor pioneer hunter, by accident he discovered coal where a tree had been torn up by the roots in a storm, in the year 1791. It is said this was the first of its known existence in that locality near Mauch Chunk. This may all be true, but it is strange, to say the least.

Obadiah and Daniel Gore had used coal in their smithy in Wilkes-Barre as early certainly as 1770, twenty years before Ginter's find. They found this coal a frequent outcrop about the foot of the hills around Wilkes-Barre. It was well known there was plenty of coal here in the Wyoming valley as early as 1766, and it was known in Bucks county as early as 1760-thirty-one years before Ginter's discovery. The record evidence of its existence in Wyoming is in an official letter to the proprietaries, Thomas and Richard Penn, Spring Gorden, London, by James Tilghman, their agent at Philadelphia. In his letter to the Penns, after much other business he says: "He went up the northeast branch as far as Wyoming, where he says there is a considerable body of good lands and a very great fund of coal in the hills which surround a very fine and extensive bottom there. This coal is thought to be very fine. With his compliments he sends you a piece of the coal."

"The bed of coal, situated as it is on the side of the river, may some time or other be a thing of great value."

This letter is still extant and in excellent preservation. To this Thomas Penn