Anthracite Region of Pennsylvania

Abstract

I N EASTERN Pennsylvania the great geanticline formed by the f olding of the Appalachians plunges to the northeast and the surface formations become progressively younger. This explains the presence of the coal measures which elsewhere in the Folded Appalachians have been eroded away. It is the occurrence of an unusually valuable type of coal that furnishes the key to the geography of the Anthracite Region (Figure 1). Structurally the area is similar to the Ridge and Valley country to the west and south, and the parallelism of pattern that results from the structure is characteristic of both. But the use made of the Anthracite Region is so different from that of the remainder of the Ridge and Valley area that it is beyond question a world apart. It is a world of narrow valleys clogged by great mine buildings, vast piles of waste, and an intricate rail net (Figure 2). Crowded within it is a population of more than a million people. Here is not an agricultural landscape interrupted by sporadic evidences of mining, as is sometimes the case in mining regions. With the exception of the Wyoming Valley (the Northern field of Figure 1) the Anthracite Region has never been an agricultural land, and perhaps it never will be one. People first come to most of it with the definite purpose of mining coal, and coal mining today either directly or indirectly supports nearly every person in the region. The Anthracite Region presents primarily a coal mining landscape, but the unusual value of the coal and the physical difficulties of mining it have resulted in denser settlement than is characteristic of most mining regions. It is unusual among coal fields, too, because the nearly parallel ridges have imposed upon the area a rigidity of pattern. Crowded northeast-southwest trending valleys alternate with unused, poorly forested ridges. The anthracite has been eroded from the anticlinal ridges and remains only in the synclinal valleys, so that intensity of use is set in sharp contrast to land that can be classed almost as waste. Mines and mining towns are strung along the valleys, threaded together by railroads and highways. Sometimes the towns are set so closely that they merge without a perceptible break in urban development. From the mine openings great piles of waste are growing. Some appear as symmetrical cones, but others, the great majority, are elongated with a trend similar to that of the ridges and like them tend to show evenness of summit level. On either side of the valley, where the coal seams come to the surface, great red and yellow gashes frequently streak the ridge slopes. Here crop falls and occasional stripping operations (Figure 3) have added their long vivid strokes to the picture. Even the small wigwams of the bootleg mines seem to carry out the linear pattern (Figure 4). Their ramshackle workings may be seen straggling along the line of coal outcrop on company land that is being held for future mining or, perhaps, is being attacked from below by regular mining methods.