The next discoveries of anthracite were made in what is now known as the Southern coal field. It had long been a matter of tradition among the stolid German farmers of Pennsylvania that coal existed in the rugged hills along the Lehigh River, but no one succeeded in finding it there until the year 1791. It was then discovered by one Philip Ginther, a hunter and backwoodsman, who had built a rough cabin in the forest near the Mauch Chunk mountain, and there gave to himself and his family a precarious support by killing game, large and small, carrying it to the nearest settlement, and exchanging it at the village store for the necessaries of life. Telling the story afterward, himself, he said that at one time the supply of food in his cabin chanced to run out, and he started into the woods with his gun in quest of something which should satisfy the hunger of those who were at home. It was a most unsuccessful hunting expedition. The morning passed, the afternoon went by, night approached, but his game-bag was still empty. He was tired, hungry, and sadly disappointed. A drizzling rain set in as he started homeward across the Mauch Chunk mountain, darkness was coming rapidly on, and despondency filled his mind as he thought of the expectant faces of little ones at home to whom he was returning empty-handed. Making his way slowly through the thick, wet undergrowth, and still looking about him, if perchance something in the way of game might yet come within the range of his gun, his foot happened to strike a hard substance which rolled away before him. He looked down at it, and then bent over and picked it up, and saw by the deepening twilight that it was black. He was familiar with the traditions of the country concerning the existence of stone coal in this region, and he began to wonder if this, indeed, was not a specimen of it. He carried the black lump home with him that night, and the next day he set out with it to find Colonel Jacob Weiss at Fort Allen, now Weissport, to whom he exhibited what he had found. Colonel Weiss became deeply interested in the matter, and brought the specimen to Philadelphia, where he submitted it to the inspection of John Nicholson, Michael Hillegas, and Charles Cist. These men, after assuring themselves that it was really anthracite coal, authorized Colonel Weiss to make such a contract with Ginther as would induce him to point out the exact spot where the mineral was found. It happened that the hunter coveted a vacant piece of land in the vicinity containing a fine water-power and mill-site, and on Colonel Weiss agreeing to obtain a patent for him from the State for the desired lot of land, he very readily gave all the information in his possession concerning the “stone coal.”