History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 49

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 900

USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 49
USA > Pennsylvania > Lackawanna County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 49
USA > Pennsylvania > Wyoming County > History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 49

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The contact of the Umbral series with the conglomerate under the centre of the coal basin is brought to view at the Salem Company's colliery, below Shickshinny, the line of juncture being forty or fifty feet above the level of the river, on the nearly vertical escarpment there pro- duced undoubtedly by the erosive action of the stream, which flows directly athwart the axis of the coal basin,

187

THE "FALSE COAL MEASURES"-ROCKS BENEATH THE COAL.

having cut through all its measures, and to a considerable depth in the Umbral red shales. The barren coal mea- sures of the Vespertime series have been for many years a delusion throughout the regions surrounding the coal fields. Specimens of very bright and pure coal have been presented from time to time which were obtained from rivulets and streams outside of the coal basin, and in many instances, at cost of much toil and expense, the vein has been traced out and found in places, with the normal accompaniments of slate, fireclay and rock; but in no instance around the Wyoming coal field have these beds been found more than a few inches in thickness. Professor J. P. Lesley remarks in regard to these false coal measures (which he prefers to call the Proto-carboni- ferous, instead of the Vespertine), as follows:

"The false coal measures, as they have been called, the coal of No. XI, the Vespertine coal of Rogers, or, as it should properly be called, the Proto-carboniferous formation, overlies the third great sandrock of the four, precisely as the black slate of No. VIII. has been said to overlie the Oriskany sandstone, and as the great coal measures will be seen to overlie the conglomerate. This was a second and more successful effort of nature for the preservation of fuel for man, whose coming was fore- seen. But still the conditions were not sufficiently ful- filled over the whole area to do more than give promise of a better future. Portions only of the earth were steady enough just at the level of the sea neither to drown the vegetation nor expose its soil. One or two beds, irregu- lar and very thin, were everywhere indeed produced, and in one region a series of such beds of which two or three are large enough to work. But even these were almost wholly ruined by succeeding earthquake undulations, which slid their floor and roof upon each other, dislocat- ing the layers and grinding the coal to powder.

" Everywhere along the inside foot of the mountains of X., from the Catskill to their extreme south limits; and everywhere in the body of the Alleghany mountain, these thin seams have been at different times discovered, and locally noised about. Hunters, lumbermen and land agents have picked and pried into them. Lands have been sold to eastern companies upon a faith in them, but they have never paid. In the gorge of Tipton creek, which descends from the Alleghany mountain upon the Little Juniata and the Pennsylvania Railroad near Altoona, one of those beds of coal appears six hun- dred feet beneath the base of the true coal measures, and nearly three feet thick. Those who believe this to be the lowest of the true coal beds made extensive arrange- ments for an eastern trade, and justly anticipated a pros- perous adventure; whereas the whole carboniferous form- ution is there not only at the summit but behind the summit of the mountain."

The first effort at coal formation above referred to by Prof. Lesley is the carbonaceous slates of Prof. Rogers's Post Meridian series, or No. VII. of the original nota- tion of the Pennsylvania survey, which are the equiv- alents of the slates at the base of the Upper Helder- berg group of the New York survey, and in which a

thin seam of coal is found in the shore-hills of Lake Erie.

Resting upon the Umbral series is the prominently marked seral conglomerate, the millstone grit of the European system, the base or floor of the coal formation in all its extent. Westward, throughout the greater por- tion of the bituminous coal regions, its equivalent is a silicious sandstone. A gradual decrease in the size of the constituent water worn materials of this deposit is observable. Along the south and east limits of the anthra- cite coal fields many of the rounded masses in the rock exceed a diameter of six inches, as at Mauch Chunk, in the Sharp mountain; while around the Wyoming basin the size of the pebbles does not often exceed that of a pig- eon's egg; further to the westward, even in the adjoining county of Sullivan, the pebbles of the conglomerate, though of the- same white and gray quartz kind as those of the Wyoming rock, are much less in size. This de- crement is found to be in a general way continuous to the westward, until, as above stated, a quartzose sand stone of particles of varying degrees of comminution holds the stratigraphic position of the conglomerate. Upon this fact, in view of a simple dynamic law, rests the rational theory that the course of the distributive currents that prevailed during the period of deposit of the materials of this great and wide spread rock were from the east and south; and in accord with this view we find that the deposit changes, not only in the size of its constituent materials, as above stated, but also in their lithologic characters, which towards the southern border of the field are largely made up of the softer felspathic and aluminous rocks, that by the attrition of further transport would have been in a great measure reduced to mere sedimentary matter. Again, in further accord with this theory, we find that the thickness of this deposit lessens in its sweep toward the north and west. At Pottsville and Mauch Chunk it is respectively 1,030 feet and 950 feet thick, while under the Wyoming basin its average thickness is about 140 feet and in Sul- livan county it is reduced to about 40 feet. In the Wyoming basin it is composed of two sets of strata. The lowest set is made up of com- paratively coarse pebbles, from almond size down to sandy particles of white and gray colors, with irregular layers of coarse-grained sandstones throughout the mass. The average thickness of this lower set may be taken at seventy-five feet. The upper set is about of the same thickness, but the pebbles in it are of less size generally, and the mixed sandstone layers are of a darker gray color, while the different layers are less massive. The line of separation of these two deposits is generally indicated by the interstratification of a small seam of carbonaceous slates and smut with occasional thin seams of coal (the A seam of the Rogers report). The slates, as also the rough surface of the conglomerates in contact with these slates, bear distinct impressions of fossil coal flora.

The more sandy portions of the conglomerates make a very durable building stone, and where a fine dress or finish is not required the cost does not exceed much

188

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

that of the softer micaceous sandstones of the region. The white silicious kinds have been quarried to a consid- erable extent in the Nanticoke gap, and at the southerly end of the basin, for hearth stones at furnaces, on account of their strong resistance to the effect of heat.

The peculiar characteristics of this rock would alone distinguish it among its associates; but apart from these its outcropping around the Wyoming basin can to a great extent be determined even in the distant view, as its white, rugged and broken terminal lines toward the sum- mit of the near mountain are in strong contrast with the sombre hues of the underlying Umbral rocks and the for- est shades, through which at many points it may be seen. While, as above stated, this formation varies greatly in thickness, it is yet a safe inference that there is not in the northern coal field an area of coal, be it ever so small, that has not for its base or floor the conglomerate rock in greater or less integrity of form or composition. There is no rock of greater persistence and none more uniform in mineral constitution, being of silex to the exclusion of almost all other mineral. The form, as has been stated, varies from pebble to sand, and this quite locally in places. Thus the valuable greenish-brown stone of Campbell's ledge, extensively quarried for building purposes, in all probability will prove to be in the stratigraphic position of the lower and coarser strata of the seral pebble con- glomerate; for in Solomon's gap there is a sandstone of the same color and composition, of circumscribed extent which is seen distinctly blending in each direction into a true pebble conglomerate, the lowest of the series.

The rocks of the true or productive coal formation, in general, differ so much from those beneath them as to be readily distinguished. There are, however, found among them some beds in local positions which approxi- mate the form of the true conglomerate so far as to be distinguishable except by means of the accompanying measures. Purely silicious sandstones form but a small proportion of the great mass of this formation, and may readily be determined as belonging to the coal by their comparatively thin and irregular stratification.

Alumina predominates in the composition of the coal measures, both in combination and in mixture with silex in the harder rock; while the carbonaceous slates and the shales consist almost purely of this mineral.

The rock strata of the upper or later deposits are in general the most friable and soft, in consequence of the greater amount of alumina contained in the bond or mat- rix, and the mica which enters largely into the composi- tion of these upper measures.

Much labor and thought has been expended in the effort to identify the several seams of coal in their extent throughout this basin, and to determine their synchron- isms with the seams of the other anthracite regions. In part only have these efforts been successful, and this mainly in the higher and more productive beds of the series; not alone for the- reason that these seams have thus far been the principal grounds of mining operations and explorations, but mainly that they are the most per- sistent and even deposits of the group. Referring to the

several seams below the nearly central seam, called at Wilkes- Barre the Baltimore, and in Pittston the Fourteen- Feet vein, Prof. Rogers makes the following remarks:

" This group exhibits greater fluctuations in the dimen- sions and quality of the coal beds than any other sub- division of the whole coal formation. These fluctuations, it is appropriate to add, belong equally or in a greater degree to the rocks which fill the intervals between the coal beds. It would seem as if the physical conditions under which these earliest coal strata were deposited were more inconstant than those which belonged to the later stages of the formation. The spaces over which the nearly perfect state of repose of the surface prevailed necessary to the accumulation by slow growth of the vegetable peaty mass producing each seam of coal were, evidently, of a narrower geographical extent than after- ward; and the currents and disturbances of the earth's crust which buried these successive peat swamps under the clayey, sandy, and even coarse gravelly strata that rests upon or between them were obviously much more violent than in the middle and final ages of the great coal period.

" Nowhere, perhaps, in the anthracite country are the proofs of this instability of the surface during the first stages of the coal formation more con- spicuously manifested than in the Wyoming and Lacka- wanna basin. Here we find in certain neighborhoods in the same few hundred feet thickness of the lower coal strata as many as ten or twelve separate beds of coal, while in other localities there exist not more than half or even a third of this number; and, what is more material, the very same individual bed which in one quarter pos- sesses an ample or indeed superabundant thickness is in another only a dwindled seam, too thin or too impure for profitable mining. Without attempting any close contin- uous tracing of the several coals, which can only be done when the district shall have become much more exten- sively mined, I may exemplify the variability of these coal measures by appealing to the very different types which they assume in the three meridians of Solomon's gap, southwest of Wilkes-Barre, Spring brook, southeast of Pittston, and the vicinity of Scranton.

" At Solomon's gap the group of lower white ash coal measures, extending from the foot of the mountain north- west across the basin to the edge of the diluvial flats of the Susquehanna, includes in a thickness of 900 or 1,000 feet as many as thirteen beds of coal of various sizes from one foot to nineteen feet; and the total thickness of coal, fit and unfit for mining, embraced by this section may be estimated at nearly 84 feet. But out of this ag- gregate quantity thie thickness susceptible of being profit- ably wrought does not probably amount in all to more than 45 or 50 feet. Traced east and west these coal beds undergo, even in the space of two or three miles, some very remarkable variations. Thus the fifth in position from the bottom enlarges in that distance from a thick- ness of 17 feet at Solomon's gap to the noble bulk of 28 feet opposite to Wilkes-Barre, beyond which neighbor- hood it seems again to decline even more rapidly than

189

VARIATIONS IN THE COAL MEASURES.

towards the southwest. These fluctuations arise partly through the coalescing of two or more beds into one; or, conversely, through a splitting and diverging of the thicker seams into two or three thinner ones; or partly, again, by the gradual alterations of size of the same coals independently of such unions and subdivisions.

" If we turn now to the district of Spring brook we shall find all the features of the formation so altered as to present not one subdivision, neither coal bed nor other stratum, which we can recognize or identify as a member of the series visible in the vicinity of Solomon's gap. In a total thickness of several hundred feet of coal measures, embraced between the outcrop of the main Pittston seam and the conglomerate of the mountain to the southeast, only six coals in all, according to the largest estimate, have ever been brought to light, after close and persevering researches, and only two of these appear to have a size and purity adapting them for successful mining. There would seem to take place between the neighborhood of Solomon's gap, or Wilkes- Barre, and this quarter a progressive impoverishment of these lower strata in the number and size of their in- cluded coal beds, and likewise in the rocks themselves, which thin down considerably. As a consequence this portion of the southern skirt of the valley contains no collieries of any magnitude.

"Another and opposite change back to a very productive condition of the coal measures is exhibited as we continue our progress along the same side of the basin northeast up the Lackawanna valley to the vicinity of Scranton."

Later observations have served to show a general cor- rectness in these remarks, especially in reference to the great inconstancy of these lower seams. But the cause assigned for these irregularities-the slow undulatory movements, during the periods of deposition, in the planes upon which these measures were formed-may not be accepted, even though taken in connection with the idea of a probable great auxillary cause, that of currents and floods. That these wave-like creepings were con- fined "to narrow geographical extents," as suggested, is not in accord with the now admitted synchronisms, and the consequent idea of an original unbroken level spread of the forming measures throughout the most remote known limits of the anthracite coal formation. The agreement as regards position in the series, the order of inter-stratification of the slates with the coal of a seain, the specific characteristics of these materials, fracture, lustre, etc., and other data, have now become so familiar to practical investigators that with much confidence they may pronounce as to the identity of either of the princi- pal seams of the series, whether in the northern, the middle, or the southern anthracite coal fields.

While this degree of certitude may not be assumable in reference to some of the lesser seams, still the idea of circumscribed formations, isolated minor basins, is at variance with the conditions of these seams as observed in their outcroppings, however remote they may be from the centre of the basin. They do not present the indi- cation of volumes vanishing by the shoaling of basins, or

any other appearance of terminal limits than those due to violent rupture and abrasion. The seams of coal cut by mountain gorges can be seen to preserve their thick- ness up to their present broken termini, be these ever so near the summit of the mountain upon which they spread. And this remark will apply equally to both sides of the basin.

Nor do we find in the working of these seams any evi- dences of limited basins ,of formation. If the seam proves to be of irregular thickness, the cause is as often idicated to be from the roof as from the floor, and in many instances from both roof and floor. An impinge- ment above or from below, or in both directions of the enveloping rocks, to the extent in some instances of an entire squeezing out of the thin plastic or pulpy coal mat- ter, is not uncommon, particularly in the smaller lower seams; but these prove to be only interruptions and not termini of the seams. These conditions have been proved at a number of mines in this region, and over a compar- atively large mine area, even in the bottom seam; es- pecially in the old Lee mine at Nanticoke, now being operated extensively by the Susquehanna Coal Company.

While we may not explain in a fully satisfactory man- ner the causes of these minor deviations, as the splitting or division of a seam of coal into two or more seams and their coalescence again within limited areas, yet it will be admitted as possible that they may have been from causes independent of those great seismic or plutonic rupturing forces from which resulted the mountain and the vale, subsequent, however, to the formation of the coal. The subsidence of limited areas after the growth and accumulation of a certain amount of coal forming material, in consequence of the shifting and underlying sands, the removal of mineral matter by solution, the action of sub-currents of water, the further solidifying and shrinkage of underlying earthy and vegetable mat- ter, would all be within the scope of possible causes; re- quiring, then, to complete the conditions only the prev- alence for a time of a turbid flood over the depressed area, and a succeeding growth or accumulation of the coal forming materials.

These views are in accord with other evidences sup- porting the theory of the contemporary formation of the coal of Pennsylvania and the original continuity of the several fields the one with the other, over a then level area probably of much greater extent than is indicated by the present very irregular ruptured limits. The great spread of the underlying Umbral measures through much of the now coalless areas that separate these regions, supporting as they do in many places isolated tracts of the seral conglomerate-from which, presumably, the coal has been removed by denudation-is a circumstance strong in evidence of a former uninterrupted spread of the coal formation; a continuous marsh or boggy expanse, supporting a growth of vegetation rapid beyond that of the present most luxuriant districts of the tropics, and in atmosphere reeking with warm moisture, impenetrable to the rays of the sun and surcharged with carbon to an extent that precluded the existence of vegetable life other than that of the flowerless and fruitless endogen, the

190

HISTORY OF LUZERNE COUNTY.

palm, the fern, the club-moss and their congeners, and of animal life of higher organizations than those of the dragon-fly, the beetle and the myriapode.

Surface explorations to determine the position of a seam of coal in the order of the series for the purpose of identification may in some instances be readily accom- plished, but in others it is found difficult and at some localities impossible, in consequence of hid- den outcroppings, increase of the number of outcrop- pings by divisions of the seams, the distortion and dis- guise of seams by changes of the volume and quality of the coal, &c. Still, by careful attention to all the features of the seam in question, its accompanying slates and partings, the order of superposition of its beds of bony coal and its checkered coal, its basal fire-clay and its fos- sils, as above stated, the assemblage will in most in- stances prove the means of identification of the seam in other and remote localities.

STATEMENT OF SYNONYMS.

Local Names of Coal Seams of the Wyoming Coal Basin.

As noted in Geology of the State by H. D. Rogers.

K seam,

6 1

The Primrose seam.

The Holmes seam.

Mammoth seam.

Wharton or Skidmore seam.

At Scranton, the I

The C seam.

seam. At Solomon's Gap, the C seam, At Scranton, the K seam. At Wilkes- Barre, and general- ly, the Bottom Red Ash seam, .

The Buck Mountain seam.

By this method of comparison of the seams of the

Wyoming basin with those of the middle and southern coal fields, the foregoing most generally accepted conclu- sions have been reached in reference to coincidence of periods of formation and identity of seams in the several anthracite coal fields of the State.

The A seam, as above stated, is in the conglomerate, and not of workable dimensions or quality.

The lower part of the B seam yields a red ash, hence its name. This property it has throughout the basin, wherever tested, while all the other coals, with very few and quite local exceptions, give a white or gray ash; and in this respect differ from the coals of the other regions, which to a great extent from the higher seam yield a red ash.

Carbondale.

Scranton.

Pittston.

Wilkes-Barre.

Plymoutn.

Feet.

O O

The I seam.

Orchard seam.

As above stated, seams of coal vary much, even within short distance, both as to thickness and quality; therefore a general statement will only present an approximate aver- erage. These figures represent the thickness of the seams in their entirety; the included slates and bone coal or refuse vary greatly in even the same seam in different localities. Deductions are further increased by the waste of some tiers of good coal, often left in the mines be- cause of a little more work required in their separation from slates, their checkered fracture or want of lustre; much of which waste is in consequence of strong compe- tition in a generally overstocked market. The average deduction to be made in estimating the product of a seam would probably be not less than twenty-five per cent. of the thickness above given.

As before remarked, the entire depth of the coal meas- ures over the conglomerate varies greatly in the different sections of the Wyoming coal basin; towards the north- east end, as at Carbondale, its depth is probably not more than 250 feet; while at Scranton and the district below, as far as Pittston, it is of more than double this depth. At Wilkes-Barre the depth is over 1,200 feet, which depth increases to the section approaching the Dundee shaft, about a mile to the northeast of the town of Nanticoke, where within the narrow limits of less than a mile the great depth of 1,500 or 1,600 feet takes place. From this section southwestward the basin shoals, so that near the town of Nanticoke its depth does not probably exceed 900 feet; and this decrease of depth

At Scranton, C seam. At Wilkes-Barre, the Abbot seam, .. At Wilkes-Barre, Bow- kley. At Plymouth, the Gould seam. At Scranton, the D seam At Wilkes-Barre, the ) Hillman. At Ply- mouth, the Lance. At Scranton, the E At Scranton, the F seam. At Wilkes- Barre, the Slocum seam, at Plymouth, not worked, . . At Carbondale, the ) Main or Big seam. At Scranton, the G. At Pittston, the Fourteen-feet seam. At Wilkes-Barre, the Baltimore seam. At Plymouth it includes the Cooper and the Bennet seams,

Names of the same Seams in the Mid- dle and South Coal Fields.

At Scranton, H seam. At Solomon's Gap, the Ross seam. At Plymouth, the Wal- ler seam,

191

MIDDLE COAL FIELD BASINS.

continues on to the southwest in the manner hereinbefore mentioned, so that on the diminishing terminal area of the Salem Coal Company, west of the Susquehanna river, the two remaining seams, B and C, are included in a depth of measures not more than 50 feet; while, as before stated, at the distance of about a mile westward from the river these measures rise out and vanish.

The latest deposits of coal of the series, and the greatest exhibit of denudation, exist in a very limited district, the ridge which stretches from North street to Mill creek, between Main street and the river, in the city of Wilkes-Barre. Here the seams J and K are found, but not elsewhere throughout the valley. There are rea- sons for the inference that these deposits took place at or very near the close of the carboniferous epoch; as on the summit of the ridge, near Mill creek, there is a deposit of impure reddish-brown limestone in which may be seen many traces of purely marine fossils, while in a black slate at no great distance below, but above any deposit of coal, we find marine fossil shells, the Pecten imbedded with the Modiolia; as may be seen by many specimens in the cabinet of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society at Wilkes-Barre. This, then, would seem to be the horizon of another formation-the Permian limestone and the new red sandstone-and the period of the first

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History of Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wyoming counties, Pa.; with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers, Part 49

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York Publication date: 1880 Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co. Number of Pages: 900

Author: Munsell, W.W., & Co., New York
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: New York, W.W. Munsell & co.
Number of Pages: 900