USA > Pennsylvania > Carbon County > History, government and geography of Carbon County, Pennsylvania > Part 5
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When the Panther Creek Valley was connected with the Lehigh System by the Nesquehoning Railroad, which passed through the tunnel to Lansford and Tamaqua, the original gravity road and the Switchback became useless to the company for hauling coal. The Switchback was then leased by the Reading Railroad and is now used by thousands of visitors yearly to take a novel pleasure trip to and from the coal mines.
THE LEHIGH AND SUSQUEHANNA RAILROAD.
A heavy and continuous rain commenced on the afternoon of June 3, 1862, and did not stop until about five o'clock on the morning of the 5th. There was a great flood in the Upper Lehigh Valley, and as a result most of the costly canal improvements above Mauch Chunk were destroyed. Dam No. 4 at White Haven contained many logs. This was torn away by the unusual flood of water. The water and logs thus left free, started going down the valley and gathered force as they went. In their mad rush down the valley they either damaged or tore away all the dams between White Haven and Mauch Chunk.
The damage to the company's property was so great that it was considered useless to try to make repairs. The people in the Lower Lehigh Valley opposed the rebuilding of the dams because of the danger in which they placed them and their property. In consideration of these facts, the Legislature granted the company the right to build a railroad from White Haven to Mauch Chunk to connect with the road which had been built from White Haven
46
HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY
to Wilkes-Barre. This road was called the Lehigh and Susque- hanna Railroad. The road was soon built and operated by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, when it was leased to a company operating a railroad in New Jersey. Since then it is known as the Central Railroad of New Jersey.
THE NESQUEHONING VALLEY RAILROAD.
The act allowing the building of this railroad was passed over the Governor's veto in May, 1861. The road was to begin at the canal landing near Nesquehoning Creek and extend to the head waters of this stream. The act also allowed it to connect with branch roads. It was soon built and then carried the coal form- erly carried by the gravity road, previously described. It was soon joined with the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad and became a part of the Jersey Central System in 1871. In 1866 there was carried over this road more than 322,229 tons of coal. In 1862 it was continued from Hauto to Tamaqua.
THE LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD.
A bill allowing the building of this railroad was passed by the Legislature in 1846. Its building was delayed until 1851, when one mile of it was built near Allentown so as not to allow the charter to expire. About this time Hon. Asa Packer, a prominent citizen of Mauch Chunk, became the purchaser of nearly all of the stock which had been sold in order to get money to build the road. He engaged Mr. Robert H. Sayre, who had been engaged with the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company as surveyor, and the location of the line was soon selected.
Judge Packer volunteered to build the road on condition that he should receive in payment for the work the company's stocks and bonds, and his offer was accepted. Work on its building. was begun at each end, Mauch Chunk and Easton.
Many difficulties had to be overcome. In many places the rocks raised directly from the water's edge of the river to great heights. It was finished on September 12, 1855. The road was
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OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
4
a decided success from the beginning. A second track was built in 1865. It is now one of the great railroad systems of America and one of the trunk lines between the Great Lakes and New York City.
The Beaver Meadow Railroad was first used in 1836. It is the oldest steam railroad in Carbon County. It extended from Beaver Meadow in Banks Township to the Lehigh River, a dis- tance of about twenty miles.
In 1853 the Beaver Meadow Railroad Company was allowed to take such steps as would be necessary to avoid the use of inclines which were considered dangerous. Accordingly, a rail- road was begun in Weatherly in the direction of Hazleton. In order to build the road it was necessary to make a grade of one hundred and forty-five feet to the mile. In 1866 it became a part of the Lehigh Valley System.
The Mahanoy Division was begun in 1837, but not completed. In 1837 the Quakake Valley Railroad Company was allowed to build a road from the Beaver Meadow Railroad to the junction of the Quakake and Black Creeks. The road, about 1860, was bought by Judge Asa Packer and its name was changed from Quakake Valley Railroad to Lehigh and Mahanoy Railroad and this was later changed to Mahanoy Division.
The Mahoning Railroad Company was incorporated in 1859 and given power to build a railroad from Tamaqua by a practicable route through the Mahoning Valley to any point of the Lehigh Valley Railroad north of Lehigh Gap. Grading was commenced near Lizard Creek, and completed for a distance when the project was abandoned. The building of what is now called the Lizard Creek Branch was begun in 1889 and finished in August of the following year.
48
HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY
CHAPTER II. GEOLOGY OF CARBON COUNTY.
In the last chapter the development of the railroads was the chief subject of consideration. The building of the railroads was very closely related to the coal industry. The mining of coal and preparing it for the market is the principal industry of the county, and to understand this an elementary knowledge of the geology of the county will be very desirable. An attempt has been made to make the discussion that follows so simple that it may be understood by those who never studied the subject. The mining of coal and the whole coal industry will mean much more to those who will first master the simple lessons in geology which are contained in the discussion which follows.
Stratified rocks are such as occur in layers. They are usually formed by water which deposits one particle of earth upon another and these particles later are cemented together into stone. The layering is seen even in the large conglomerate rocks which are formed in so many parts of the county.
All the rocks coming to the surface in this county are, or were at one time, stratified. The names of the periods with their accompanying thickness will appear in the following table. Much money has been spent by the nation to make the geological surveys by which much of the knowledge which we have was procured. In order to understand the whole it will be best to understand the story from the beginning as the scientists give it to us.
Though to us the rocks seem solid and lasting, there must have been a time when they were not what they are now. A careful study of the sun, to which our earth is closely related, leads us back to the very remote ages when the earth was a part of the great world mist from which the sun and our planets are supposed to have formed.
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OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
Years and years ago, as has just been stated, there was a time when the earth was not. In those long gone ages the sun and the moon and millions of stars in the heavens were an uncol- lected cloud-like mist, which, gradually cooling, started to collect and revolve. Ages passed and the cooling and contracting con- tinued, as also did the revolving. From time to time the outer rings of this contracting cooling mass were thrown off, and, in accordance to regular laws, formed the planets and stars as we know them. Our earth is one of these planets and there was a time when it formed a part of the cloud-like misty mass of which the sun is now the center.
There must have been a time when the materials of which the earth is composed had been contracting so long that it was largely a molten mass, of which the surface at least was liquid. As the centuries passed by, the surface of this revolving fiery ball cooled off; a hard crust was formed; and this was the beginning of rocks, sand, and mud as we know theni to-day. Geologists tell us that when the first crust was formed the heat was at least forty times as great as it is on the hottest summer day. This hot, barren, crust-covered mass, was surrounded by a dense fog through which the sun could not shine; for all the water of our rivers, lakes, and oceans was hung in the air, as is the water of our clouds to-day. The carbon, from which the coal and other compounds have since been formed, was also suspended in the air. When the ocean was first formed by condensation from the encircling clouds, its temperature was probably five hundred degrees; and there was an atmospheric pressure of probably four hundred pounds to the square inch, or more than ninety times what we have to-day.
During this exceedingly long period the crust kept growing thicker and heavier. The inside portion became cooler and con- tracted. In order that the outside crust might fit this constantly decreasing inner portion, it had to form creases and wrinkles, just as does the skin of an apple when the inside is allowed to dry and take up less room. After the water had done its work of depositing the layers of rock, particle by particle, one on the top of the other on the bottom of the sea, the shrinking began. The
50
HISTORY COVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY
shrinking was due partly to the contracting of the interior, and also to the escape of the watery vapor and gases. The wrinkles became our mountain chains. Our mountains are the folds and creases which were made in the outer crust of this county, thus forming the mountains as they were after the great Appalachian Uplift. It was the giant forces of frost, of wind, and of water that wore, and cut, and sculptured them into the forms as we know them to-day.
As wrinkles appeared in the contracting crust, they were worn off by the hot waves, and carried in particles to lower places in the valleys to form new rocks. The new rocks thus formed, must have extended around the globe and are the underlying rocks of all the later ages. Of these first rocks, none are visible in Carbon County, but they furnished the material out of which the rocks and hills surrounding us have been formed. These first formed rocks are distinguished from rocks later formed, in that they have no impressions, marks, or remains of animals. Neither are the rocks having the first and lowest forms of life to be found in our locality, so a study of them will be omitted.
How old the world upon which we live really is, is a matter about which men have long disputed and upon which they are not yet, by any means, agreed. Sir Edmund Halley, the discoverer of the comet, that visited us in 1910, devised a way of determining the age of the earth by computing the amount of salt which the ocean contained, and expressed the opinion that the earth was much older than was usually supposed. Darwin thought an estimate of 200,000,000 years too small. Sir Archibald Geikie figured the age between 160,000,000 and 600,000,000 years. Prof. Willard Reade calculated the age at 95,000,000 years, and our own great scientist, Prof. J. D. Dana's calculation reached 48,000,000 years.
The scientists of to-day compute the age by reckoning the rate at which the surface matter is worn away by the rain, rivers, frost, ice, and winds. Prof. Frank W. Clark, of the United States Geological Survey, estimates that about 2,000,000,000 tons of surface matter are worn away every year. At this rate one foot of the surface above the ocean is washed into the sea
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OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
every 27,660 years. From such reckonings the conclusion is drawn that the earth is very old, and that man's occupation of it is but a day's span as compared with the eons which have elapsed since the first consolidation of the rocks with which the geologist is acquainted. Not above 70,000,000 nor below 55,000,000 years is their last verdict as to the number of years that one must go back to get to the beginning of our old "mother earth."
This time the geologists have divided into periods as follows: THE AEONS, ERAS, AND PERIODS AS RECOGNIZED IN GEOLOGY.
I. ARCHAEAN TIME .- I. Eopaleozoic Section.
1. Cambrian Era.
1. Lower Cambrian, or Georgian, Period.
2. Middle Cambrian, or Acadian, Period.
3. Upper Cambrian, or Potsdam, Period.
Age of Invertebrates.
2. Lower Silurian Era.
1. Canadian Period.
2. Trenton Period.
II. Neopaleozoic Section.
1. Upper Silurian Era.
1. Niagara Period.
2. Onondaga Period.
3. Lower Helderberg Period.
Age of Fishes.
2. Devonian Era.
1. Oriskany Period.
2. Coniferous Period.
3. Middle Devonian, or Hamilton, Period.
4. Upper Devonian, or Chemung, Period.
3. Carboniferous Era.
1. Subcarboniferous Period.
2. Carboniferous Period.
3. Permian Period.
Age of Acrogens, or Age of Amphibians.
III. Mesozoic Time.
1. Triassic Era.
2. Jurassic Era.
3. Cretaceous Era.
Age of Reptiles.
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HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY
IV. Cenozoic Time.
1. Tertiary Era.
1. Eocene Period. Age of Mammals.
2. Miocene Period.
3. Pliocene Period.
2. Quaternary Era.
1. Glacial Period.
Age of Man.
2. Champlain Period.
3. Recent Period.
II. PALAEOZOIC ERA .- I. Carboniferous Period
Thickness
XIII. Productive Coal Measures. 975
XII. Pottsville Conglomerate. 880
XI. Mauch Chunk Red Shale. 2170
X. Pocono Sandstone and Conglomerate. 1255
II. Devonian Period.
IX. Catskill Sandstones. 7145
Chemung Shales and Sandstones Vergent 1290
Portage Shales and Flags
Genesee Slates and Shales
290
VIII. { Hamilton Sandstones and Flags Cadent 760
Marcellus Shales and Slates
800
Upper Helderberg Limestone
[Caudi Galli and Schoharie Grits Post-Meridian . absent
VII. Oriskany Sandstone. 340
III. Upper Silurian Period.
VI. [ Lower Helderberg Limestones and Shales
295
Onondaga Shales
V. Clinton Red and Gray Shales 2000
Medina Sandstones .. 665
IV. Oneida Sandstones and Conglomerates. 460
IV. Lower Silurian Period.
III. Hudson River Slates
Utica Slates
II. Trenton and Calciferous Limestones
I. Potsdam Sandstone -
Not exposed in Carbon Co.
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OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
The oldest rocks of the county are those found on the summit and composing a greater bulk of the Kittatinny Mountain. This formation (No. IV in the foregoing table) is called the Medina and Oneida sandstones and conglomerates. In the valley between the Blue and Stony Ridge are to be found the limestones (VI) and shales (V) that are next in age. It is the rocks of this water lime group that are impure magnesian limestone. Owing to these impurities, the quick lime made from them will set under water, and is therefore used for hydraulic cement. It is the same series of rocks that when water, lodged around them, is obtained through boardings, it will yield one bushel of lime to thirty-five or forty gallons of water.
Stony Ridge is formed of the oldest layer of rocks (VII). It is called so from Oriskany in New York, where it begins. It consists of colcareous or lime-like sandstones.
The Chemung, Portage and Genesee rocks are exposed along the Lehigh River immediately north of Lock No. 7 of the Lehigh Canal. The upper Chemung and Hamilton form ridges; the Genesee and Morcellus form valleys; and the Portage form valleys and knolls. The Portage and Chemung rocks near Mauch Chunk have a thickness of 7,500 feet. The oil wells of the western part of the state are supplied from rocks of this upper Devonian strata. In 1891 the wells near Bradford in Mckean County yielded five and one-half million gallons of oil, and in Alleghany ten and one-third million. The oil is supposed to come from organic material. Gas is always above it.
The Catskill shales and sandstones consist of alternating red, gray, and green sandstones and shales. It is usually found forming ridges and hills with intervening valleys along the foot of mountains consisting of Pocono sandstone. It extends from near the Lehigh Valley Railroad station to about one thou- sand feet south of Long Run. The lower part of the formation is flaggy. At other places men have quarried stones from it twenty- five by fifteen feet by eight inches. They outcrop one mile below Packerton, but are not extensively quarried.
The Pocono sandstones (X) are the next oldest in the group. They are sometimes called subcarboniferous rocks. They consist
54
HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY
of massive white, gray, and yellow conglomerates with thin beds of sandy slate and shale included. Throughout the entire state this group of rocks is mountain making. It forms Mahoning, Kettle, Nesquehoning and Pocono Mountains. Glen Onoko gorge is cut out of the middle rocks of this formation.
The Mauch Chunk red shale is so named on account of its red outcrop in the vicinity of Mauch Chunk. It consists of a series of soft red and yellow stones easily eroded and always forming a valley. The axis of these rocks crosses the Lehigh River about eighteen hundred feet north of the Mauch Chunk bridge. They outcrop at Coalport, the Kettle, Mauch Chunk Creek and Nesquehoning Creek.
The base of the carboniferous areas is the Pottsville con- glomerate which contains beds of coal. The rocks of the coal measures are generally sandstones; shales, and conglomerates. They occur in various alternations with occasional beds of coal between them. There are generally about fifty feet of rock to one foot of coal. The coal beds often rest on beds of grayish or bluish clay, called underclay, which is filled with roots or stems of plants. The layer above, especially if shaly, is filled with fossil leaves and stems. Occasionally, as in Ohio, logs fifty to sixty feet in length are found scattered through the sandstone beds, looking as if the forests had been swept from the hills and laid into the sea.
The coal bed which is the highest and was last formed in the county is to be found at Lansford between the railroad station and breaker No. 9.
The general condition of the coal veins as shown by the Lans- ford tunnel is as follows:
Feet
Shales, Slates, and Sandstones.
300
Coal bed.
1
Slate.
56
Sandstone.
13
Coal.
4
Sandstone.
59
"G" coal bed
6
Sandstone
33
Conglomerate
65
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OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
Feet
Sandstone.
51
Slate.
11
"F" coal bed, Red Ash, or Primrose.
16
Sandstone.
9
Coal bed.
2
Slate.
52
Coal bed.
1
Sandstone
63
Coal bed
1
Conglomerate.
37
Sandstone
28
Slate.
7
Sandstone.
33
Mammoth coal bed, or E, D, and Cross cut.
50
Sandstone and Slate.
29
Coal bed.
3
Slate and Sandstone.
34
Buck Mountain coal bed
11
Sandstone and Conglomerate.
40
Coal bed.
1
Sandstone and Conglomerate.
868
Coal bed
1
Conglomerate and Sandstone
770
Total thickness. 1855
Coal is found in the county in three different localities. The eastern end of the Panther Creek Valley basin is in Mauch Chunk Township. The southern, eastern, and greater portion of the Beaver Meadow basin is in Banks and Lausanne Townships. A very small portion of Silver Brook basin is in Packer Township. The one first mentioned is by far the most valuable.
Coal varies in quality. . That which burns with but little flame and yields about five per cent. of gas is anthracite, and that which burns with a bright yellow flame and yields from twenty to fifty per cent. of such gas is bituminous. Good anthracite contains from four to eight pounds to the hundred of unburnable matter and bituminous from about one to six.
About one and one-half miles north of the crest of the Blue Ridge to the east and west of the river as far as the eye can reach, extends Stony Ridge. It is sometimes known as "Devil's Wall."
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HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY
This ridge is a very marked feature of the county. Its summits and sides are covered by broken bowlders of Oriskany sandstone. The strata forming its bulk reveal the accompanying formations, as they are in the Ziegenfus and Rutherford tunnels.
Marcellus Slate
598 feet
Cement. -
45 feet
Upper Helderberg Paint Ore. 2 ft. 10 in.
Clay. 6 feet
Oriskany Coarse Sandstone and Conglomerates 162 feet
Flinty Sandstones (Fossiliferous) 19 feet
Number VII.
Iron Ore. 6 feet
Flinty Sandstones. 22 feet
Shale and Sandstone 140 feet
The Marcellus shales are in varying positions and are very much crushed. At one place in which they are exposed they are 1,370 feet thick. They are quarried at several places in the county for roofing slate but not extensively. They do not have many of the admirable qualities that are possessed by the slate in the quarries south of the Blue Ridge.
The Upper Helderberg, Oriskany sandstone, and Lower Helderberg formations in the southern portion of the county deserve special mention.
The upper portion of the Upper Helderberg, as is shown by the table, consists of hydraulic cement varying in thickness from one to fifty feet. It is a very hard, fine-grained limestone. The cement rocks have been quarried for many years. All the masonry of the Lehigh Valley Railroad has been laid in cement made from them. The durability of this work is a sufficient recommendation as to its quality.
Immediately between the cement and paint ore there is a layer of clay about six inches in thickness. The paint ore at some places consists of a single seam and at others two. It averages about two feet in thickness, varying from six inches to three feet seven inches. The paint ore is a dull blue color, is sandy, magnetic, and has not the least appearance of anything from which paint could be made. It contains quite a large amount of iron pyrites and as the seam approaches the outcrop the amount of iron increases. Occasionally a layer of iron will be found in the paintore.
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OF CARBON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
Immediately between the paint ore and the Oriskany sand- stones is a stratum of clay varying from two to eight feet in thick- ness. This clay is generally in two parts, one in blue and the other yellow. Both are not always present, but when they are the blue is always nearest the paint ore.
Number VII, as Oriskany sandstones at Stony Ridge, con- sists of sandstone beds and underlying shales averaging about four hundred and eighty feet. The rocks vary in coarseness from fine sand to pea conglomerate held together by a limy cement. In many places at the outcrop, the cement has weathered away, leaving the summit of the hill to consist of large deposits of sand which have been extensively quarried. The flinty beds vary in thickness and contain fossils.
Strata VI, the Lower Helderberg limestones, are found along the valleys of the Aquashicola and Lizard Creeks. It is exposed below Bowmanstown and quarried at Hazard. It was from this strata that much of the lime formerly burned in Carbon County was obtained.
Formation number V, the Clinton red and gray shales, and formation number IV are plainly exposed along the Lehigh Valley Railroad and have their outcrop along the Aquashicola Creek. It is the Clinton Ore Sandstone of this formation that forms the ter- race on the north side of the mountains which may also be seen in the western portion of the Lizard Creek Valley. It is owing to this terrace that the ridge has sometimes been called "Devil's Wall."
Much more could be said on this interesting and profitable study. Space will not permit a completer discussion. This must be left until the subject of geology will be taken up as a separate study in the High School.
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HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND GEOGRAPHY
CHAPTER III. HOW COAL WAS FORMED.
At the time coal was formed there could not have been any mountains or deep valleys and the climate seems to have been about the same all over the earth. It was much hotter than any climate known to-day. The air contained a large amount of moisture and carbonic acid gas. This gas is poisonous to man but forms the food of plants. During the carboniferous or coal period, plants flourished in great abundance. Nothing can be found in our tropical regions that will compare with it. Ferns, rushes, club masses and horse tails grew to giant sizes. The trees and rushes were closely crowded together and vines covered their trunks and hung from their branches. Everywhere the forest was so dense that one could not look through it and the sun's rays never reached the ground. There were no flowers and no plants with small stems or delicate leaves. In the forest, jungles, and floating islands from which coal was formed, there were more than two thousand plants of different kinds. Of oaks, palms, and maples there were none, neither was there any grass. Ferns were very abundant and often grew to a height of forty or fifty feet. Lepidodendrons grew in the marshes. Their trunks were scale covered, peculiarly marked, and their leaves were fern like, often exceeding a foot in length. Plants grew as if the spring, for which the earth had been waiting for millions of years, had arrived all unexpectedly. The excessive heat, moisture, and carbonic acid gas made all plants grow to gigantic size as if the whole earth were a great, rich greenhouse.
The trees often fell over and were carried to the swamps by the freshets and there securely packed in the slush. After the forests had flourished for a long time, some mighty force caused the land on which they stood to sink below the level of the sea. Trees fell and were covered with sand and mud. As the ages
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