DISTRIBUTION OF COAL 9 tion they furnish the basis of great industrial activity. They represent enormous values in themselves, they support a large body of laborers, and they enter so extensively into modern production that many manufactories are sure to spring up in the neighborhood. The result is rich and densely settled areas, numerous cities, and the various important influences which naturally accompany them. Most parts of the United States are near coal deposits, but the richest coal-bearing area is that lying chiefly on the western slope of the Alleghanies extending from northern Alabama in the southwest to southern New York in the North. This belt at the southern part is about thirty miles broad, but near the northern end it spreads out in a great bulb reaching from Cumberland, Maryland, to Newark, Ohio. The deposit in most of the region is bituminous, but in the northeastern part, near Scranton, Pennsylvania, is a rich anthracite field, an area of four hundred and seventy-two square miles, which surpasses in mineral wealth any other region of the same size in the world. The anthracite coal fields were discovered in 1790 by a hunter whose strange stories of stones that burned in his campfire attracted attention. Investigation revealed on the Mauch Chunk a hill of excellent coal fifty feet high with a surface of forty acres. It was long before the people came to understand the use of anthracite, or Discovery of "stone coal." Tradition relates that when it was first Anthracite. offered for sale in Philadelphia in 1812 purchasers were unable to burn it and drove the seller out of town for a swindler. Another story is that an iron manufacturer not long after this tried to use it in his furnace. All the forenoon he poked at the fire to make it burn, but had no success. Finally he closed the furnace door in disgust and went to his dinner. On his return the coal was burning brightly; he had left the drafts open, and the accident is supposed to have revealed the secret of the use of anthracite coal. At any rate, this fuel has been widely used in America from about 1825. Most of the Alleghany coal fields are bituminous. The best portion of them is around Pittsburg, where there are, also, good deposits of Coal Deposits. of iron ore and limestone necessary for iron smelting. Other Distribution rich portions of the general field are in eastern Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Georgia, and Alabama. Another considerable bituminous coal field is the Central. It lies in Indiana, Illinois, and western Kentucky, with sporadic deposits in some of the neighboring states. Its total area is fifty thousand square miles, and the block coal which it yields is very satisfactory for furnaces. In the Rocky Mountains are much lignite and some bituminous coal. On the Pacific coast are moderate deposits in California, Oregon, and Washington; and recent investigation has shown valuable deposits in Alaska. The coal supply of the United States is greater in proportion to the national area and more accessible than that of Europe. We have one |