THE HAZLETON BASIN.
The town of Hazleton is near the middle of the Hazle ton basin, and is 15 miles from Penn Haven, on the Lehigh River, with which it is connected by rail. This is the largest of the Lehigh basins, and is about 13 miles long by one mile wide as a maximum. It contains about 10 square miles of'coal formation. The eastern extremity is at the old Buck Mountain mines, some six miles fiorn Rockport, on the Lehigh, and the western point near the Schuylkill county line. This basin lies in Luzerne county, while the Beaver Meadow lies in Carbon and Schuylkill.
The accompanying section though the basin at Hazleton does not repre sent the measures above the Mammoth, which appears to be barren, with the exception of one small seam some 4 feet in thickness.
It is singular that the 900 feet of coal measures overlying the Mammoth here should contain no workable coal, while in every other locality in the anthracite regions the same thickness would bear at least four or five work able veins, and in some instances double the number of seams, small and large. The strata and appearances of the measures are certainly of the coal-bearing order, and every indication would suggest the existence of coal above the Mammoth. There are only two solutions : it either does exist and has not been developed, or the measures overlying the Mammoth are not in reality as thick as they would appear, but are doubled by a singular process at this peculiarly deep portion of the Hazleton basin, since it is not generally as deep in other parts as in the vicinity of the Diamond mines, where the foregoing section was taken.
To describe this peculiarity would complicate the de scription. It will be found exemplified under the head of "Faults and Irregularities of the Coal Formations." (See figure in that connection.) The Buck Mountain mines are located on the extreme eastern point of the Hazleton basin, though a narrow anticlinal divides the Buck Mountain synclinal from the eastern undulations of the main basin; but it is com paratively small, as shown in our map of the anthra cite fields. This eastern portion of the basin is narrow and shallow, and contains only one workable vein, which is the celebrated "Buck Mountain," or B.
It lies on the conglomerate in the same manner as at Lee's Nanticoke mines, and is underlaid by the small seam A, in the conglomerate and over laid by C, which is here a small, 18-inch seam.
The Buck Mountain vein is here over twenty feet in thickness, and contains about 16 feet of excellent coal, which has become celebrated as a steam coal under that name. The accompanying illustration, figure 46, gives a fair representation of the bed.
This vein has all the characteristics of the lower workable coal-bed, wherever found, in the anthracite fields. In the deep basins of Schuyl kill, however, it is small and poor.
It is divided by the accompanying middle slate, as at Shickshenny, Nan ticoke, and Grand Tunnel, and wherever found, within our experience, except at New Boston. The lower bench of six feet produces a dark-red ash,—so deep, in fact, that it makes the whole vein a "red-ash coal" when mixed, though the top bench of nine feet is white ash. This peculiarity of the Buck Mountain vein is also a characteristic of the Grand Tunnel and Lee's Nanticoke beds, which occupy a relative position at the base of the coal measures. Another identifying peculiarity of the lower coal of this bed, wherever found in good condition, is its density, tenacity, and conchoidal fracture,—resembling the white-ash coals in this respect, but differing from the upper red-ash coals generally.
The basin at the eastern extremity is shallow and narrow. No. 2 slope, in operation, is about 270 feet long on an angle of 40°. The bottom of the slope or basin is 150 feet vertical from the surface. This is in the old Buck Mountain basin, which is elevated and on the eastern point or side of the Buck Mountain, or a continuation of Council Ridge. The Black Creek basin lies about half a mile to the south, over a dividing ridge which is overcome by planes: Here the Buck Mountain vein is also operated, near the eastern extremity of the Black Creek basin, under the same peculiarities existing at the old mines.