known, people learned more from it about the process of building a coal fire than they had learned from all their previous instruction. Nevertheless the enterprise of the Lehigh operators was still not destined to meet with success. They had embarked in the coal trade in 1814, while the war with Great Britain was still in progress, when it was impossible to procure coal from England, and when coal from the Richmond district was very scarce. They were therefore able to obtain fourteen dollars per ton for the Lehigh coal, but even at this price the cost and risk of mining and shipping was so great that the business was barely a paying one. In 1815, however, peace was concluded with Great Britain, the market was again opened to the reception of foreign coals, and the Lehigh operators, being unable to compete with the sellers of soft coal, were obliged to abandon the field. Notwithstanding the efforts and energy of these proprietors the Summit Hill mining industry did not pay, and in 1817 the mines passed into the hands of Josiah White and Erskine Hazard. They perfected a system of slack-water navigation on the Lehigh, and in 1820 made their first shipment of 365 tons. The tables commonly printed showing the growth of the anthracite coal trade usually make that trade begin with this shipment of Lehigh coal in 1820. This, however, is not quite correct, as we have seen that coal was sent to market from the Wyoming region at a much earlier date. It is remarkable that, whereas in 1820 the 365 tons of Lehigh coal stocked the market, in 1831, the year in which the system of slack water navigation was superseded by shipment on the Delaware division of the Pennsylvania Canal, this region sent down 40,966 tons. And in 1887 there was sent to market from the Lehigh district a total of 4,347,061 tons, an amount which would have been much greater had not a prolonged strike of coal miners seriously interfered with the output.