Press Illustrating Service
SHAKER SCREENS IN A TIPPLE HOUSE
The coal passing over screens is graded according to size
“CUTTER BAR” AT WORK
The bar, with its cutting chain of teeth, makes a horizontal cut deep into the bottom of the seam of coal. Blasting then does the rest
The age of the steam-engine is also the age in which the use of coal has become widespread, and the output of coal is a faithful index of industrial progress. Although the Greek writer Theophrastus (about 300 B. C.) mentions the use of coal as a fuel, and its use was also known to the ancient Britons and the Chinese, it was virtually unknown throughout the Middle Ages. The first record of coal mining in England is of the year 1180 A. D., and coal was first shipped to London in the year 1240. It was long known as stone-coal, pit-coal, etc., to distinguish it from charcoal; also as sea-coal, on account of being carried to London by sea. Bituminous coal was first mined in America in 1750, near Richmond, Virginia. Anthracite was discovered in Rhode Island in 1760, and in Pennsylvania in 1766, but for many years its value was not recognized. As late as the year 1812 Colonel George Shoemaker, of Pottsville, was treated as an impostor and threatened with arrest for attempting to sell a few wagon-loads of anthracite in Philadelphia; methods of burning it were not understood, and it was declared to be merely “black stone.” In the year 1820 only 365 tons of anthracite were sold in this country, as compared with the present annual output of about 90,000,000 tons.
Before the days of the railway coal was shipped mostly by water in rough boats called “arks,” which floated down the rivers to the seaboard towns. As it was impossible to return against the current, the ark was sold with the coal at its destination. A great many arks were wrecked in transit, and the whole process of transportation was a costly one. Only with the introduction of steamboats, canals and railways, did the coal industry assume serious proportions.
The production of coal in America has grown at an amazing rate. In the year 1868 Great Britain produced 3.6 times as much coal as the United States, and the output was also exceeded by that of Germany. In 1899, the United States took the lead. At the present time, with an estimated production for the year 1917 of 643,600,000 tons, the United States is producing nearly half of all the coal mined in the world. Great Britain ranks second, closely followed by Germany.