Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 223, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1912 — Fish Coal Out of the Susquehanna [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Fish Coal Out of the Susquehanna

PHILADELPHIA. —When coal Is needed on a Pennsylvania farm bordering the Susquehanna river, little Johnnie does not grab his coal hod and scoot for the cellar. Instead he unfastens his boat, pulls out into the river and fishes till his hod is overflowing. To be sore, Johnnie doesn’t fish with

rod and line, nor yet with a net. His apparatus consists of a wire scoop, shaped like a shoved and not dissimilar to a minnow net, with an eightfoot handle. And his boat is a broad, flat-bottomed affair, sometimes with sharp bows, built like a scow, with the maximum of capacity dnd the minimum of draught; lor the coal fisher’s catch Is usually made in shallow water. And the catch is unlike any coal you over saw. This run of the river coal comes in all sizes, from little flakes to chunks as big as your head. But mostly it is smaller than pea ooaL Coal

from the mines is bright and shiny and all angles that reflect the light River coal Is neither angular nor shiny. Every piece of it is worn down, buffed, rounded off like a beach pebble, with an exterior as dull as ground! glass. Ever since men began delving for coal the operator bas cast aside a* refuse thousands upon thousands of tons of good coal, flung it out on the culm heaps. What Is his loss Is the gain of the coal fishers in the river below. Into this stream, by way of its feeders, the mountain brooks, coal lg washed by the rains, which gnaw deep gullies In the faoss of the culm banks.