Preventing the Discharge of Silt
From Collieries
C.   L.   SIEBERT,   JR.
Chemical Engineer, Department of Health
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
PREVENTING   THE  DISCHARGE  OF  SILT   FROM   COLLERIES
This consideration of the control of silt from colleries will deal, for
two reasons, largely with the silt produced in the preparation of anthra¬
cite coal. First, in Pennsylvania the silt problem in the anthracite region
has been far more extensive and serious than in the bituminous region
and second, because the principal effort has been directed to anthracite
silt control for that reason. In the latter portions of this paper, mention
will be made of some of the similarities and differences in the handling
of fine waste solids from the preparation of bituminous coal, in contrast
to anthracite.
HISTORICAL   BACKGROUND
It is fairly well established that the American Indians in northeastern
Pennsylvania were aware of the existence of coal and may have made
some limited use thereof. There is record of a complaint made in 1766
by a company of Indians to the governor at Philadelphia, concerning the
robbing by white men of a mine operated by the Indians. Whatever
knowledge the Indians had on the subject they kept to themselves with
their customary reticence. One of the earliest records of the successful
use of anthracite relates of Obadiah Gore, a blacksmith, who successfully
used it in his forge in 1769 and who is considered to be the first white
man to demonstrate practically the value of anthracite as a fuel. It is
true that some of the early settlers in what is known as the Wyoming
Valley of Pennsylvania came from England where a very hard coal was
also found, but at that time it was not known how to use this fuel,
which in England was called "stone coal". The first coal exported from
the Wyoming Valley was shipped in 1776 to an armory at Carlisle
operated by the proprietary government of Pennsylvania and was used
for the manufacture of firearms to be used by the Continental Troops in
the war with Great Britain.
Coal was first discovered in what is now known as the Southern
Anthracite Region at Summit Hill, some 30 miles south of the Wyoming
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