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. of Coal Most of the Alleghany coal fields are bituminous. The best portion of them is around Pittsburg, where there are, also, good deposits of iron ore and limestone necessary for iron smelting. Other rich portions of the general field are in eastern Ohio, West Distribution Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Georgia, and Deposits. 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 square mile of coal for every ten square miles of surface: Europe has one for one hundred and eighty-eight. Besides this, our seams are thicker and nearer the surface. In industrial endurance we are, therefore, likely to surpass any other continent, except Asia, where China has immense beds. These coal beds bring the Orient into the range of world politics, and are apt to bring our own Pacific coast into close relations with that part of the world in the future. Iron Works. Iron ore was worked in most of the colonies before the revolution. At that time furnaces were fired with charcoal, which was plentifully obtained from the forests. Most of the enterprises were small. There were smelting furnaces, bloomeries for the production of wrought iron, and hammers for making bars; and the total output gave the colonists a large part of their iron implements, and iron in some forms was sent abroad. Roebuck's invention in 1760, by which coal was used in blast furnaces, and the introduction in 1790 of the steam engine to operate the blast caused a revolution in iron mining. Charcoal furnaces were discarded, and the iron industry in the United States was confined to the regions which yielded mineral coal. Western Pennsylvania became á very important center of the industry, and northern Ohio in the Cleveland region, where the rich ores from Lake Superior could meet by water transportation the coal from the Alleghany coal region, became not only noted for the earlier forms of iron working, but it became the home of many factories established to produce the articles in which iron is the chief material. The same thing may be said of other regions, as West Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and northern Alabama. The Alleghany and Central coal fields, and the regions contiguous to them, seem, therefore, to be one of the most important underlying physical factors of our history, and one which will probably gain influence in the future. Mineral Oil. Coal oils are abundant in the upper Ohio valley and are found in paying quantities in other regions, as Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas. In regions where there has been little geological disturbance they accumulate beneath the surface in great lakes. There is, also, in the Ohio valley and extending eastward into Virginia, an area of oil-bearing shale as large as the states of New York and Pennsylvania combined. It is one hundred and fifty feet deep and ten per cent of it is oil. If satisfactory means can be found to extract this product, it will become a vast resource when the oil deposits proper are exhausted. Gold. Gold in lodes is found on the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to central Alabama. Before its discovery in California in 1849 it was mined profitably in the southern part of this eastern belt, but the greater productiveness of the western fields has made it nearly unprofitable to work the eastern mines. All the Cordilleran region contains gold, and its discovery in California led to great results. EARLY MAN IN NORTH AMERICA Silver. II Very rich mines have been opened in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and other neighboring states. The last notable gold area discovered in America is the Klondike fields, opened in 1897. Although they are in Canadian territory access to them is through Alaska, and the historical results in that territory have been important. In 1859 two prospectors, Comstock and Jenrode, found a rich silver region on Mount Davidson, at what is now Virginia City, Nevada. Rapid developments followed, other regions were discovered, and it was at length seen that in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming were vast deposits. This development, with the progress of gold mining, gave a strong stimulus to the settlement of the mountain region. Railroads were built, the Indians were pressed back, states were created, and important industrial and political consequences followed. Water power. The natural conditions in the United States which most affect manufactures are factory power and labor supply. In the earliest times the most important form of the former was waterpower. In New England the coastal plain is narrow and comparatively precipitous. Here water-power is excellent, and it was utilized long before the revolution. The coming of steam power lessened New England's advantage in this respect, but did not remove it entirely. As the coal supplies are reduced, waterpower, whose force is constant, must tend to recover something of its former superiority. South of New England the coast plain becomes wider and the rivers have less fall. In the Carolinas the plain is so level and the evaporation through the long summers so great that water-powers are not very important, and only on the largest rivers is there a constant supply throughout the year. Generally speaking, the region between the Appalachians and the Rockies is level, and good water-power is scarce; but there are exceptions, the most notable being Niagara Falls, where there is great possibility for service. That part of the Pacific coast which lies between the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada Mountains has good water-power. The Willamette near Portland has a fall of forty feet which produces energy equal to a million horsepower. EARLY INHABITANTS The Cala veras Skull. The most recent investigations have tended to show that man existed in England, Germany, and Java either within or before the glacial period, the basis of the contention being the discovery of very early skulls. His earliest authentic traces in America do not point to so remote a period. We have, however, a disputed claim, which, if conceded, would give the American man a very early origin. In 1866 workmen digging a mine-shaft in Calaveras county, California, reported the discovery of a human skull in goldbearing gravel of what is generally held to be the pliocene age, although |