Conyngham Centralia Joint High School - Iris Yearbook (Aristes, PA)

Page 28 text:

THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH of Me Millions of years before history be gan when the earth was forming its present shape the area which is now the hard coal region of the United States was a huge swamp-Jungle It was vege tated by enormous weird fern like plants These plants grew to sizes which would make the giant redwoods of California look like pencils At fre- quent intervals these trees were hurled to the ground by raging furious hurri canes Almost over night these Jungles would be replaced by thicker ones which grew so fast that in a few hun dred years millions of tons of wood and foilage had piled up This wood had piled up so fast that it did not rot or decay Then a gigantic tidal wave flooded this area and when it receeded it left huge amounts of mud and silt deposited on this wood The climate of this region was very hot and damp hotter than the Sahara and as darnp as the Victoria Falls region The tremendous pressure of this mud and silt combined with the heat of this tropical climate pressed all the gases out of the wood leaving lignite a low grade of bituminous coal. Several thousand years later during the ice age huge glaciers covered this area and deposited more rock and dirt. The weight of this deposited earth and that of the ice itself pressed this low grade of coal into the high grade of anthracite found in the region today Coal mining is almost as old as civili zation itself Marco Polo found the Chinese mining coal when he made his historic travels in the Orient His dis covery however did not benefit Europe because it was several hundred years before the coal industry was started there When the Spanish conquerors came to South America they found the lncas engaged in mining coal to make Jewelry and to keep the sacred fires in the temples burning and not for heating the homes or cooking Before Columbus discovered America coal mining was rather wide spread in Europe There were coal mines in France in the Saar Basin in Wales and in Poland The coal mining industry in the United States like the oil industry was begun in Pennsylvania in this region about 1800 Shafts in these early coal mines were not very deep they re sembled the coal holes which are so numerous around here Most of the labor in these mines and in the breakers was done by men and boys. Machines were not known and mules were used to haul cars inside the shafts. This made coal mining a slow hard job. Since that time the use of electricity and many modern inventions have made the mining of coal comparatively easy and have greatly increased the scope and importance of this industry. A TEH D lt 'LFE COAL INDUSURY

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M JE: M QD D is Mn ANTHONY 1 MCGINLEY lt IS wlth great regret we w1tnessed 1n thts school year the passtng ot one ot our most beloved trrends and benetactors Mr Anthonyl McG1nley Mr McG1nley a son ot the late Patr1ck and Brtdget Murray McG1nley was born tn Centralta and spent hrs enttre l1te tn the communrty He was a member of St lgnatlus Church and was attrltated wtth tts Holy Name Soctety For the past twenty s1X years he was a member ot the Board ot Educatton ot Conyngham Townslnp Durtng that t1me he worked unseltrshly and zealously for the betterment of our schools As a token of our esteem we ded1cate thts page ot the Ins to hrs memory

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1. CHQZASSES