Anthracite iron charcoal — long the fuel of preference for smelting and glass making, creating a decades long search for alternative fuels. By mid-1792 prominent Philadelphians had formed the Lehigh Coal Mine Company (LHCM Co.) to bring Anthracite to cities reachable via the Delaware River Valley, especially Philadelphia — the nation's largest and most industrialized city, though no one fully understood how to use anthracite as a sole fuel—just that "it 'could' burn 'some' of the time" with a hot enough base fire, so could augment furnace fuels. The LHCM Co. had great difficulty getting many ark-loads of coal to the docks
History of anthracite coal mining in Pennsylvania are surrounded by sandstone ridges, which help to “protect” the anthracite (Hornberger et al., 20-2). There are four different anthracite coalfields in Pennsylvania, all located on the eastern side of the state. The Northern field is located predominantly in the Luzerne, Lackawanna, Susquehanna and Wayne Counties; the Western Middle field in Northumberland, Columbia, and Schuylkill Counties; Eastern Middle field mainly in Luzerne County but extending into Schuylkill, Carbon, and Columbia Counties; the Southern field in Carbon, Schuylkill, Lebanon, and Dauphin Counties (Latzko, 8). Anthracite differs from bituminous in usage in that it has better heat quality and fewer disadvantageous by-products,