USA > Pennsylvania > Lackawanna County > The Wyoming Valley, upper waters of the Susquehanna, and the Lackawanna coal-region : including views of the natural scenery of northern Pennsylvania : from the Indian occupancy to the year 1875 > Part 14
USA > Pennsylvania > Susquehanna County > Susquehanna > The Wyoming Valley, upper waters of the Susquehanna, and the Lackawanna coal-region : including views of the natural scenery of northern Pennsylvania : from the Indian occupancy to the year 1875 > Part 14
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"The foregoing is given as the most plausible theory of the origin and formation of coal, and, while difficulties may suggest themselves to the reader, still that coal is derived from the vegeta- ble kingdom admits of no doubt. This is one of the well established facts in geology. The pre- cise character of the process by which the change is brought about may not be perfectly under- stood, and there may here be room for further examination to fully solve this interesting prob- lem. But no one can be long among the coal- rocks without recognizing the work of an Al- mighty Hand. With our feeble powers we can only see some of the means He used for the ac- complishment of His purposes, and beyond that we must admit that, in some respects, the world of the past is as mysterious as the world to come."
CHAPTER XIX.
THEORIES CONCERNING COAL.
"Than this
A faculty diviner still is his;
For he hath on the walls of science stood,
Gray walls, whose towering turrets well-nigh reach
The prophet's dome of inspiration: there
With all the book of space before him spread,
Hath read its starry pages, and transcribed
Its wonders to the waiting world below !
But now endowed with all the powers of earth,
The forro majestic, and the strong right arm, With intellect to penetrate the skies,
T'unriddle the enigma of the stars,
Must cast aside his dusty strength, and lay
His little knowledge humbly bv, and take
The tender innocence which childhood wears,
And he shall be invested with the power,
The majesty and wisdom of the immortals."-Thomas Buchanan Read.
Mr. Samuel Harrics Daddow, of Scranton, one of the editors of Daddow & Bannan's "Coal, Iron, and Oil," and who is considered one of the best of coal writers, has written for Appleton's "Amer- ican Cyclopedia," the article "ANTHRACITE" in Vol. I, and that of "COAL" in Vol. IV, from the latter of which we extract that portion of the text which bears upon the question of origin and formation.
"The formation of mineral fuel, and the man- ner in which it is stratificd among the rocks, are still problematical. Numerous theories have becn advanced, which, however, are generally the opposites of each other, and none of them have been commonly accepted. Though many well established facts have been developed, but few of them can be reconciled with the prominent the- ories of coal formation, unless arbitrary or un. natural processes are employed. Some draw their conclusions from the existing conditions of the earth and the atmosphere, and infer that the processes of the present day were those of the prim-ordial ages, with but little modification ; while others argue that the natural phenomena or conditions of the past were different from those of the present, and draw their conclusions from geological and scientific facts no less evi-
dent than those inferred by the former theorists ; thus tracing the creative agencies from the past to the present, inferring them from present data instead of accepting the present as the normal condition.
"On some important facts they mcet and agree, but generally disagreement is paramount. The prominent theories of coal formation are briefly given in the following statements :
"1. The drift theory. This supposes that the ancient flora, growing on the low, swampy shores of rivers, lakes, and scas, including both arbo- rescent and aquatic plants, was torn from its hab- ital by floods or inundations, drifted by streams, tides, and waves far into shallow lagoons or seas, and deposited at the bottom as the nucleus of a coal bed, to which constant accumulations were added by the same means; presuming that veg- etation would not decay in water, and that the inud and silt always accompanying such drift would not mix with the vegetable matter as sed- iment. Coal, however, is not mixed promiscu- ously with earthy impurities, but regularly and uniforinly stratified between the sedimentary rocks. Or it is supposed by some that the con- stant drift of forest trees into the estuaries of riv- ers, such as the drift of the Mississippi to its delta
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THE WYOMING VALLEY.
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in the gulf, and the drift of the Red river in Ar- in perpetual summer, and under a warm and kansas, has been the means of accumulating coal beds. These views, however, may be considered obsolete, though prominent in our text books, and still adhered to be a few eminent geologists.
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2. The peat-bog or marsh theory. This sup- poses that the vegetation which produced coal grew on the edges of shallow lakes or seas, or even farther in toward their interior, and that it was deposited where it grew. This is modified by some, who believe that coal was produced chiefly by land plants, and that these were gath- ered into the coal basins by the overflow and in- undation of the land caused by earthquakes or other paroxysmal violence ; thus accounting for the interruption of vegetable growth, of the rma- tion of the rocky strata, and the alternate beds of coal, slate, shale, clay, limestones, and sand- stones. Whether the one or the other of these views be adopted, an earthquake is necessarily evoked by the theorists. They presume that the sea is depressed or deepened to form the rocky strata, and elevated to form shallow marshes or bogs, in which vegetation again takes place, to be followed by successive interruptions and growths for each successive coal bed, while the growth of vegetation may be admitted ac- cording to this theory. The formation of the rocky strata and the alternate elevation and de- pression of the coal basins are unnatural, and cannot be accepted as geological facts, or even tolerated beyond a mere conjecture.
3. The marine theory. This supposes that sea- weed, or the hydrophites generally, formed coal ; or, more comprehensively, the aquatie plants which grew up through the water, or had their roots in water. Among these were the ancient tree ferns, club mosses, sigillaria, lepidodendra, calamites, and perhaps the early coniferæe, all of which had long stemless trunks and wide spread- ing tops; and are supposed to have grown ju deep water, with their roots in the mud of the bottom, or the fire clays of the present day, and their branches on the surface of the water. These grew in water surcharged with carbonic aeid, and perhaps with hydro-carbon, spreading their magnificent palm-like tops in an atmosphere abundantly charged with their elements of growth
forcing temperature. The plutonic or internal heat of the earth produced this temperature, which was uniform during all seasons, both in the water and the atmosphere ; while the influence of the sun could have had little effect through the haze of gaseous vapor, steam and smoke. Under such eircumstances, the most favorable to vegetable growth, the plants absorbed in their cellular tissue resinous juices or hydrocarbon oils, instead of the hygroscopic matter which we now term sap. The rank and magnificent flora of the carboniferous eras, growing under these favorable conditions, must have been luxuriant beyond comparison ; but to show the fecundity of sea. weed at the present time, we may cite the vast accumulations of the insignificant hydrophites in the great Sargasso sea, which Humboldt comput- ed to cover 260,000 square miles of the surface of the ocean, in places so dense as to arrest the progress of vessels. In the former theories, the coal is supposed to be the result of the carbon- ized woody fibre of the plants. In this, the res- inous sap or hydrocarbon juices are presumed to aid in the production of coals, and the land plants, or arborescent flora found in the rocky strata, to have had little influence in producing this result. This part of the theory scems natu- ral and probable, but the same difficulties in the formation of the strata exist, when referred to abrasion of the shores, by tides or waves, or the detrition of the old rocks by streams.
4. The petroleum theory. This supposes that the hydrocarbon juices of the plant, forced out by the pressure of the strata and water under which it exists when deposited at the bottom of the coal basins-rose to the surface as petroleum, and floated beneath the foliage of the plants where they existed, but spreading cvenly and uniformly on the surface of the water, whether covered by vegetation or not. This accumula- tion of oily matter would preserve the success- ive growth of the plant, which added continually to the mass; and finally this would become heavier than water by the volatilization of the hydrocarbon, by the oxidation of the vegetation, and by the accretion of earthy matter from the dust and ashes of the atmosphere, produced by
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THEORIES CONCERNING COAL.
many active volcanoes. This theory is compar- atively modern, and has been supplemented by the volcanic theory, which seems necessary for its proper solution, in the formation of the rocky strata, because it is apparently impossible to reconcile the wide distribution and uniform strat- ification of beds of pure coal, clay, slate, lime, and sand, without admixture or change of hori- zon, by the drift theory. But the volcanic theo- ry of sedimentary formations has given rise to a new or mineral theory for the production of pe- troleum and its resulting bitumen or coal. We give the latter in advance of the former.
5. The mineral theory. This is but crudely defined, but the main arguments used in its sup- port are these : Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, the constituents of coal, are constant elements in nature, and do not owe their exis- tence to subsequent processes. They perform important functions in the creation of animal and vegetable life ; and this fact proves prior exis- tence. The organic processes are not necessary to their union, either as hydrocarbon or carbonic acid, or the many other compounds, as water, air, &c., which they form. The union of carbon with hydrogen and oxygen required perhaps the intense heat of submarine volcanoes or other causes, in which water is decomposed and carbon disengaged from the rocks of molten lava. The examples of present volcanoes are cited in proof, because petroleum is found floating near them when they exist in or near water; while volcanic regions of the present time abound with asphalt or bitumen. It is maintained in Daddow and Bannan's "Coal, Iron, and Oil," that the petrole- um or bitumen thus formed aided in the produc- tion of coal, in connection with the vegetable oils described above.
6. The volcanic theory. This does not relate so directly to the production of the material forming coal, as to the manner in which the strata containing it were formed. To describe .this exhaustively would be to take in the whole science of geology. Briefly, the facts and argu- ments may be thus stated : All the scdimentary strata of the earth were formed in water. The first or earliest were crystallized by heat, and contain no fossils ; but when subjected to heat,
as in some portions of the anthracite coal mcas- ures, and in many other places, the latter scdi- mentary rocks, which contain fossils are crystal- lized, or metamorphosed, as it is generally termed, which means that they have becu altered by heat or other causes since their formation. But according to this theory, all the great crys- tallized sedimentary rocks owe their characters to volcanic influences or plutonic heat during the period of their formation, except such local strata as may owe their erystalline structure to other eliemical action. This theory that all the older sedimentary rocks were formed by the flow of lava into the great bodies of water which cover- ed the earth before its mountains had any form beyond mere outline, and before rivers could have flowed, or valleys existed as dry land; be- cause it is one of the facts of geology that the- great or older sedimentary rocks were deposited in almost horizontal planes, and that their edges. have been uplifted, and their planes plicated or folded more or less, as the subsequent effects of contraction. The stratification of more recent formations on the upturned edges of the former indicate these relations. It is consequently in- ferred that the sediment could not have originat- ed from the drift of rivers or the abrasion of shores, because these had but a limited if any existence, and could not have produced the vast accumulations of strata which form nine-tenths of the earth's surface. But even if such sources existed, they could not produce the sedimentary strata, with their beds of ore ane coal, clay, slatc, lime, sandstone &c, in their uniform order. The crystallization was effected by intense heat acting on the deposited material, liquefying the silicate and other bases in connection with the alkalies or acids, and thus not only forming the harder rocks of the earth posterior to the gran- ite, &c., but also crystallizing many of them. The material forming this strata were almost ex- clusively volcanic, thrown into the water in a molten condition, and almost instantly shivercd to atoms in contact with water, which must have been more or less heated and agitated under these circumstances. The natural result of such action would do to form the strata as they now exist, in great plates of sandstone, or shales,
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06.
THE WYOMING VALLEY.
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clays, and slates, according to density ; while the thickness and the texture of the strata would depend on their remoteness from the volcanic sources. It is known that waves and tides will distribute mud and silt to a great distance, and that liquid silicate will float in water. The winds have also been known to carry the dust and ashes of volcanoes over a thousand miles, and many hundreds of miles in blinding clouds ; and it is also known that volcanoes existed in almost countless numbers in the early stages of the earth's history, while trap or plutonic rocks have flowed from the liquid interior of the earth through still more numerous vents. But in ad- dition to those extinct volcanoes, and trap or basaltic dikes now exposed to view, a far greater number are covered and concealed by the strata which they produced or by subsequent forma- tions. Limestones were formed by the combi- nation of the liquid silicate or calcium with car- bonie acid, during all periods of the creative ages, but the greater masses anterior to the coal, when the carbon was abundant and united read- ily with the oxygen of the decomposed water ; but during later stages, when hydrogen became less volatile, union with this element was fre- quent where the intensity of the heat did not prevent it. From this union we have our nests and pockets of graphite or coarser plumbago in the granite and gneissic rock. At a later age, during periods of repose and reduced tempera- rure, aquatic plants, the fercoids or sea algæ, be- gan to grow, the fossils of which are found in the Silurian, and more abundantly in the Devonian roeks ; and during the carboniferous eras, both aquatic and terrestrial plants acquired their most luxuriant growth, while animal life had an al- most contemporary existence. At this time a large portion of the earth's surface was dry land ; but it is evident that the Appalachian and many other mountains in North America had but a limited existence as mere ridges, if indeed they
existed at all, and the larger portion of our con- tinent was covered with water. Consequently neither river or valley existed to any great ex- tent. The vast area from the Blue Ridge to the Rocky mountains was one continuous sheet of water at the commencement of the carboniferous
era, with perliaps a few anticlinical ridges stand- ing as islands above its surface. After the depo- sition of the carboniferous limestone these islands became more numerous, and the sea more shal- low. The thickness of the coal measures indi- cates their depth at this period in the east, while in the west the additional rocks of the Permian and other formations reposing on the coal meas- ures indicate greater depth. The depth of the basins at the commencement of the coal era could not therefore have been greater than at present, though it might have been considered less, because it is a recognized fact that the con- tractions of the strata lifted the edges of the ba- sins and depressed their synclinals, while the an- ticlinals have been likewise lifted or plicated since the deposition of the coal measures. Thus the growth of the coal plants must have been in the water of this wide sea, and around its low and swampy shores, into which neither river nor wave could convey drift or detritus; it was too expansive for any such theory. Yet in this wide sea, which for convenience we may call the Ap- palachian, the millstone grit was deposited from shore to shore; while the Potsdam and other rocks occupied a still greater area, and could have been derived from no other than volcanic or eruptive sources. By this theory it is claimed that every developed fact of geology can be ac- counted for and reconciled with the deduced or theoretical conclusions ; while other theories re- quire unnatural or abnormal processes which are only conjectural.
"It may be concisely stated that all these the- ories contain some elementary facts. In study- ing the smaller coal fields of Europe the drift theory seems probable ; but in the great Ameri- can coal fields this oldest and most popular the- ory is entirely inadequate. The peat-bog or marsh theory was invented to take the place of the former, and out of this grew the marine the- ory. These modifications, however, cannot be exclusive. A small portion of the sediment was derived from detritus, but a larger amount must have been volcanic. In many of the European coal fields trap rock was intercalated as beds, or injected as dikes posterior to the formation of the coal strata ; and this action was more
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THEORIES CONCERNING COAL.
frequent during the coal period than since. Whether either or both the drift and volcanic theories be accepted, arborescent plants, growing on the shores or in the shallows, would be gatti- ered either by the inundations caused by volcanic violence or by drift, and would mingle with the aquatic plants in the deeper water. Thus the four modes would combine in the formation of coal; and while no single theory would be ex- clusively correct, each would be partially so. But while the mineral theory may or may not partially account for the production, it requires the petroleum theory to simplify and combine the four former theories ; because, however the coal flora was precipitated, it must have been in mingled and irregular masses of mud, graphite, eoal, and silt, just as we now find the earliest deposits of carbonaceous matter in all coal fields, unless we accept the formation of petroleum or resinous oils from the flora, condensed beneath the weight of rocky strata and water.
"In support of the mineral theory is the fact that all coal beds are largest and most productive in those portions of the coal fields where the temperature has been comparatively high. Where this was intense, the coal has been par- tially reduced to graphite ; and where low, the coal beds are thin, as we shall notice in the se- quel. But the petroleum and the resulting bitu- men, which seem to form the purer and semi -- erystalline portions of all eoal beds, may have been exclusively derived from the expressed res- inous juices of the plants; though the several classes of eoal, so striking in cannel and the common bituminous varieties, seems to be due more to their chemical composition than to their mechanical structure. We find abundant proof that the coal plants contained but little woody fibre. The earliest fossil flora bas left mere prints or impressions on the rocks, while the latest coal plants have left only a small film of carbonaceous matter even around the immense flattened trunks of the calamites, the lepidoden- dia, or other large species ; but when found erect, or only partially flattened, the bulk of the tree is not carbonized wood, but a cast of its former self, filled with the rocky material with which it is surrounded. It thus seems evident
that the primordial flora was composed of com- paratively soft, pulpy, and cellular tissue, or that the trunks were hollow and reed-like in struc- ture, and that their pores, if not the pith, were filled with resinous sap. It seems evident that plants of this kind could not have produced our immense eoal beds by the carbonization of their woody fibre, because they contained but little if any hard wood or lignite. They grew in water, and did not require strength. Their wide-spread- ing tops on the surface, and their own buoyancy, supported them. Consequently, if coal or bitu- men did not result from the expressed juices of the coal plants, it is difficult to conceive how our fossil fuels could have accumulated except from more strictly mineral sources. The aborescent flora required and did contain much more hard fibre, even during the coal period, than the hy- drophites ; but the area of their growth must have been exceedingly limited when the entire horizon of the carboniferous rocks was under water. But as it is impossible to determine how many of the coal plants were of terrestrial growth, it is equally difficult to ascertain their influence in the formation of coal. It is proba- ble that the largest portions were imbedded in the rocky strata rather than in the coal, because they must have been torn from their places by violence, and promiscuously scattered during seasons of repose. The consistency of plants de- pends on rapidity of growth is not as hard aud dense as that of slow maturity ; while the aquat- ic plant rarely produces the hard wood of the arborescent. Tropical climes produce dense masses of foliage, luxuriant and of rapid growth, bnt most of it low, weak, and of equally rapid decay ; while temperate regions produce tall for- est trees, hard, strong, and durable. The natu- ral productions of to-day indicate the results of greater temperature and are almost exclusively aquatie habitat for the vegetation of the primor- dial ages. But if the ancient flora had not some preserving element, such as petroleum would fur- nish, the magnificent vegetable productions of the coal era would decay as rapidly as the tropi- cal aquatic plants of to-day. The arborescent or forest trees of the present time are undoubtedly more massive, or contain more hard wood, than
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THE WYOMING VALLEY.
those of the coal period, and an acre of ordinary forest will produce more charcoal or carbon now than the same area would have produced then ; yet it would require 74 mature growths of a for- est embracing 65 trees per acre, cach containing 240 cubic feet of solid timber, to produce 1,613 tons, or one foot of coal ; and assuming the pe- riod of each mature growth to be 100 years, it would require 7,400 years to produce a single
coal bed 3 feet thick. Hard wood would be reduced, according to Dana, three-fourths in weight and seven-eights in bulk, to form ordina- ry bituminous coal. It seems evident therefore that our great coal beds could not have resulted exclusively from the woody fibre of the coal plants, which must have been almost entirely aquatic."
1
CHAPTER XX.
ANTHRACITE-NORTHERN COAL FIELD EMBRACING WHAT IS KNOWN AS THE WYOMING, LACKAWANNA, SCRANTON AND WILKES-BARRE REGIONS.
"Glorious shapes have life in thee, Earth and all earth's company ; Living globes which ever throng Thy deep chasms and wilderuesses."-Shelley.
"Many a fathom dark and deep I have laid the book to sleep : . Ethereal fires around it glowing, * * + * Lend thy hand and thou shalt spy Things ne'er seen by mortal eye."-Sir Walter Scott.
Anthracite coal is found in an area of about 470 square miles, in Luzerne, Carbon, Schuyl- kill, Northumberland, Dauphin, and Columbia counties in the State of Pennsylvania, of which there are three great divisions, which are named from their locations- the first or Southern, which lies principal'y in Schuylkill county, often called the Schuylkill region, the second or Mid- dle (often included in the Schuylkill) which occupies the Mahouy and Lehigh regions, and the Eorthern coal field, in Luzerne county, which embraces what is known as the Wyoming, Lackawanna, Scranton, and Wilkes-Barre re- gions, and upon which the attention of the reader is requested through the dull rut of statistics.
The area of the Northern coal field is 198 square miles, or, perhaps a plainer way for an American boasts an allodial title to the soil, ... 126, 720 acres.
All other coal is bituminous, or, as it is some- times expressed soft coal, anthracite being de- nominated hard. The latter is the most con- densed variety of mineral coal, containing the largest proportion of carbon and the smallest quantity of volatile matter. Excepting the dia- mond, anthracite is the purest form of carbon in its natural state.
Mr. Daddow, whose authority was in the pre- ceding chapter referred to, gives the following in relation to anthracite :
"The best specimens contain 95 per cent. car- bon, but the average production of the purest beds of this coal will not exceed 90 per cent., and generally not more than 80 to 87 per cent. of carbon. The volatile matter in the densc, hard varieties is almost exclusively water and earthy impurities, but in common varieties the volatile portion consists of water, hydrogen, oxy- gen, and nitrogen ; while the ash or inconbusti- ble matter contains oxide of iron, iron pyrites, silica, alumina, magnesia, lime, &c. The grada- tion of anthracite is arbitrary ; there is no fixed limit in the descending scale at which anthracite becomes semi-anthracite. A coal containing 80 per cent. carbon may be and often is termed anthracite, while other coals containing 85 per cent. carbon are truly semi-bituminous.
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