Anthracite Anthracite Anthracite, often referred to as hard coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the highest ranking of coal. Anthracite is the most metamorphosed type of coal (but still represents low-grade metamorphism), in which the carbon content is between 92% and 98%. The term is applied to those varieties of coal which do not give off tarry or other hydrocarbon vapours when heated below their point of ignition. Anthracite ignites with difficulty and
Anthracite iron States, in the principal control and supervision of Ironmaster David Thomas who had begun experimenting with attempts to use locally available Wales anthracite deposits as early as 1820 soon after he became in charge at Yniscedewin Iron Works in Wales. About this 1837-38 timeframe experiments were also being made in Pennsylvania near Port Carbon, and in Mauch Chunk, but with overall better success than in Wales. White, Hazard and the LC&N Co. had begun systematic experiments to smelt using anthracite in two furnaces in Mauch Chunk in 1832-1837 with intermittent but sporadically improved successes using cold blast processes with two