History of anthracite coal mining in Pennsylvania coal was being transported annually to Philadelphia using the Schuylkill River (Dublin, Licht, 13) The Wurts brothers, William and Maurice, owned coalfields in the northeastern Pennsylvania anthracite region, but found an unresponsive market in Philadelphia, which was receiving coal from the Schuylkill and Lehigh routes. They saw business potential in finding a connection route between anthracite fields and the New York City market, and so they had the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company incorporated in 1823 (Sciaky, 275-6). The D&H Company built a canal system across parts of the Delaware and Hudson Rivers that stretched from Honesdale, PA to Rondout,
Anthracite times been futile, and several such combustion areas exist today. The existence of an underground combustion site can sometimes be identified in the winter where fallen snow is seen to be melted by the warmth conducted from below. Proposals for harnessing this heat as geothermal energy have not been successful. A vein of anthracite that caught fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania in 1962 has been burning ever since, turning the once-thriving borough into a ghost town. Among current producers, Russia, China and Ukraine have the largest estimated recoverable reserves of anthracite. Other countries with substantial reserves include Vietnam and North Korea.