There are three distinct trades in anthracite. The first one is that where the coal is sold just as it is brought from the pit. This is termed Through Culm, and is used for lime-burning. This coal is inferior in quality to that from which the large coal has been removed, and is sometimes called Bastard Stone-coal. The trade in the Neath district is exclusively of this kind. In Swansea and Llanelly it is partly of this kind and partly of the kind where the large coal is picked out and sold as stone-coal for the various purposes to which that coal is put, the small pieces being left for shipment to places where it is required for lime-burning, under the name of stone-coal culm. No “through culm” is shipped from Pembrokeshire. Four thousand tons almost in the condition of dust are annually shipped from Swansea, under the name of Lambskin, being sent to Cardiganshire, where it is used solely for mixing with clay. This mixture, which is known under the name of Fireballs, is used for household purposes. This mixture, made of the ordinary stone-coal culm, is also in very general use throughout parts of Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.
Anthracite coal is found in this country at Bideford in Devonshire, at Walsall in Staffordshire, in the western divisions of the South Wales coalfield, in Ireland, and near Edinburgh. It is very abundant in America. In the ‘Transactions of the American Geologists’ it is stated by Professor Roger that in the great Apalachian coal-field, 720 miles in extent, with a chief breadth of 180 miles, the coal is bituminous towards the western limit, where it is level and unbroken, becoming anthracite towards the south-west, where it becomes disturbed. Anthracite coal is also found in the coal-measures of France, more particularly in the departments of Isère, the high Alps, Gard, Mayenne, and of Sarth. About 42,271,000 kilogrammes (of 22,046 avoirdupois pounds each) form the annual yield. Anthracite is also obtained in Belgium. “Anthracite is not an original variety of coal, but a modification of the same beds which remain bituminous in other parts of the region. Anthracite beds, therefore, are not separate deposits in another sea, nor coal-measures in
another area, nor interpolations among bituminous coal; but the bituminous beds themselves altered into a natural coke, from which the volatile bituminous oils and gases have been driven off.”—Lesley on Coal.
| Locality. | Name of Coal. | Carbon. | Volatile matter. | Ashes. |
| Bituminous. | ||||
| Birtley Works, Newcastle-on-Tyne | 60·50 | 35·50 | 4·00 | |
| Alfreton, Derbyshire | 52·46 | 42·50 | 2·04 | |
| Anthracite. | ||||
| Neath Abbey | Pwlferon Vein, 5th bed | 91·08 | 8·00 | 0·92 |
| Swansea | Peacock Coal | 89·00 | 7·50 | 3·50 |
| Ystalyfera | Brass Vein | 92·46 | 6·04 | 1·50 |
| Cwm Neath | Nine-feet Vein | 93·12 | 5·22 | 1·50 |
| France | Anthracite, common | 79·15 | 7·35 | 13·25 |
| ” | Côte-d’Or | 82·60 | 8·60 | 8·80 |
| ” | Mais Saize | 83·80 | 7·50 | 9·50 |
| Pennsylvania | Beaver Meadow | 92·30 | 6·42 | 1·28 |
| ” | Shenoweth Vein | 94·10 | 1·40 | 4·50 |
| ” | Black Spring Gap | 80·57 | 7·15 | 3·28 |
| ” | Nealey’s Tunnel | 89·20 | 5·40 | 5·40 |
| Massachusetts | Mansfield Mine | 97·00 | 10·50 | 3·00 |
| Rhode Island | Portsmouth Mine | 85·84 | 10·50 | 3·66 |
| Westphalia | Shafberg, Alexander Seam | 82·02 | 8·69 | 9·29 |
Anthracite, the exclusive employment of which is for iron-making, steam engines, and for domestic uses in the United States, was some 60 years since regarded as incombustible refuse, and as such looked upon as rubbish and thrown away.
The foregoing analyses of bituminous and anthracite coals will sufficiently show the difference between the two.
Principal Localities of Anthracite and Anthracitous Coal.
Europe.
| Specific Gravity. | Weight of a cubic yard in lbs. | ||
| South Wales— | Swansea | 1·263 | 2131 |
| Cyfarthfa | 1·337 | 2256 | |
| Ynscedwin | 1·354 | 2284 | |
| Average | 1·445 | 2278 | |
| Ireland— | Mean | 1·445 | 2376 |
| France— | Allier | 1·380 | 2207 |
| Tantal | 1·390 | 2283 | |
| Brassac | 1·430 | 2413 | |
| Belgium— | Mons | 1·307 | 2105 |
| Westphalia | 1·305 | 2278 | |
| Prussian Saxony | 1·466 | 2474 | |
| Saxony | 1·300 | 2193 | |
| Average of Europe | 2281 |
America.