Coal Below LeClair - 1873

SUITER

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 4/3/2017 at 19:19:23

The Clinton Age, Jan.10, 1873

Coal - Close by the Mississippi, three miles below LeClair, a seam of coal twenty-eight inches thick has been discovered. It is on land owned by Wm. Suiter. There were coal cropping’s by the edge of the bank about 300 yards from the river, and they dug into it for about thirty feet and came upon this good coal. A singular quality of the coal deserves mention. It is more of the nature of cannel coal than anything else. It burns with a blue flame, gives intense heat, very little smoke, and leaves nothing but white ashes. You can cut it with a knife as you can fire clay. The existence of the bed has been known for years, but everybody supposed it to be nothing but slate.

"Cannel coal" or candle coal, is a type of bituminous coal,[1] also classified as terrestrial type oil shale.[2][3][4] Due to its physical morphology and low mineral content cannel coal is considered to be coal but by its texture and composition of the organic matter it is considered to be oil shale.[5] Although historically the term cannel coal has been used interchangeably with boghead coal, a more recent classification system restricts cannel coal to terrestrial origin, and boghead coal to lacustrine environments.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannel_coal