15
HISTORY.
It is the conglomerate that forms the roof of the Lackawanna tunnel at Nay Aug, and is again cut by this railroad on the west side of the valley, at Leggetts Creek Gap.
As before stated, this rock forms the floor of the coal basin. No coal exists below it; therefore all the coal under the city of Scranton is to be found in the rocks which fill this trough or basin and overlie the Pottsville conglomerate. The coal is deposited in parallel layers or beds, known locally as “coal veins,” that are approximately parallel to the conglomerate floor, and lie deepest in the central part of the basin. They extend with persistence and considerable regularity from outcrop to outcrop, except where they were removed with other rocks during the surface erosion of past ages.
In all, there are 11 principal coal beds under this city, known by names as follows, beginning with the highest:
The Eight-Foot coal bed, which is present only in two small areas or islands under the highest part of the Hyde Park hill.
The Five-Foot and Four-Foot beds, which are only in the hill top on the west side from Dodge to Marvine, above the level of the Lackawanna River.
The Diamond and Rock beds, which are on the west side only of Lackawanna River, under Bellevue, Hyde Park, Providence, and parts of Keyser Valley.
The Big or Fourteen-Foot and New County beds, which extend under the whole west side, and also become surface beds on the east side at the National colliery, near the south line of the city; also under the central city and hill section, nearly to the Moses Taylor Hospital.
The Clark, Dunmore No. 1, Dunmore No. 2, and Dunmore No. 3 beds, which extend under the whole city from Nay Aug Park to the West Mountain.
For the thicknesses of these several beds, the distances between them, and their relative positions in the coal measures, the reader is referred to the columnar section sheets contained in Plates 1 to 24 of this report.
HISTORY.
EARLY DEVELOPMENTS.
The late Dr. B. H. Throop reported to an industrial convention at Tunkhannock, in the year 1842, that the Lackawanna Valley from Archbald to Pittston “contains upward of one hundred coal mines opened, and many of them are made at present a source of profit both from domestic and foreign markets. There are sent some five or six thousand tons of coal annually by sledges and wagons to the States of New York and New Jersey, in exchange for salt, plaster, etc.” 97821°—Bull. 25—12--2