Around Pittsburgh and much of Pennsylvania is found coal deposits. There is two types of coal found in Pennsylvania. Bituminous (soft coal) and Anthracite (hard coal).There is a vein of anthracite coal that caught on fire in 1962 at Centralia, Pennsylvania. It has been burning ever since turning the once thriving mining hamlet into a ghost town.
Mostly around Pittsburgh and Western Pa is the soft coal variety found. Hard and soft coal is actually dead plants and animals that were buried under sediment for a period of time which in turn has produced veins of coal under the earth. Coal is called fossil fuel.
Coal is used to run generators at electric power plants. It was used in steelmaking to run the blast furnaces at steel mills such as the former J&L Steel in Aliquippa about 15 miles north of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh had its share of steel mills too. Another thing is that many homes in Pittsburgh and surrounding area had coal furnaces. They are now mostly a thing of the past.
But the main question about coal is there ever been anything found within coal? I was amazed that there was some artifacts found inside coal. But how did they get there? Here is a few artifacts that have been found in coal :
In Pennsylvania, a child's spoon was found in a lump of soft coal by Mrs Mryna Burdick in 1937.
Gold chain : In 1891, a lady in Morrisonville, Illinois accidently dropped a shovelful of coal onto the floor while carrying it to her stove. A large chunk of coal broke open exposing an intricately structured gold chain neatly coiled and embedded. Originally reported in the Morrisonville, Illinois Times of June 11, 1891, the 10 inch chain was found to be composed of eight-carat gold. When the coal broke apart, part of the chain remained in each piece, holding them together
Iron pot : In 1912, two employees of the Municipal Electric Plant in Thomas, Oklahoma, were working with some coal that had been mined near Wilburton, Oklahoma. One chunk was too large for the furnace, so it was hit with a sledge and it immediately broke open. An iron pot fell out, leaving an impression (mold) of its shape in the coal. An affadavit was filled out by two witnesses and the pot was photographed. The pot has been seen by thousands of people.
Wedge-shaped object : A wedge-shaped metallic ogject was found inside a piece of coal. (Proceedings of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 121)
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