Anthracite existed from 1886 to 1904, during which time extensive coal mining operations were carried out by the Canadian Anthracite Coal Company in the surrounding Banff National Park, which is a World Heritage Site as defined by the United Nations.
At age 29, he left the colliery on a miner's scholarship to the Central Labour College, London, On returning home he worked as Llanelly Labour Party agent, between 1922–1925, before becoming an agent for the Anthracite Miners' Association, 1925–1936, and President of the powerful Miners' Federation of South Wales – The Fed – in the Anthracite district of West Wales between 1934–1936.
He received a law degree, and has served as secretary-general of the Association of Anthracite Mining Companies (Asociación de Empresas de Minas de Antracita, APEMA).
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Initial experiments, most notably by Gueymard and Robin at Vizille in 1827, attempted to gradually substitute anthracite for other fuels, such as coke or charcoal, but all failed due to the use of cold blast techniques, which generated insufficient heat to keep the anthracite in combustion.
Weiss, Hillegas, and Nicholson in 1791-92 were some of the original investors in the "Lehigh Coal Mining Company" (LCMC) which was later part of the historic merger which formed the influential and historically important Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N)—anthracite was known of, but it was not known well.
Following the war, he became secretary of the Little Schuylkill Navigation, Railroad and Coal Company, a division of the Reading Railroad, which transported anthracite from Northeastern Pennsylvania's coal region.
Ironworks were set up in the South Wales Valleys, running south from the Brecon Beacons particularly around the new town of Merthyr Tydfil, with iron production later spreading westwards to the hinterlands of Neath and Swansea where anthracite coal was already being mined.
In 1912, the New Jersey Zinc Company located a zinc smelting operation (what is now the West Plant) here, in order to take advantage of the anthracite coal being mined just north of Palmerton and the zinc mines in Franklin, New Jersey.
P. & R. C. & I. changed its corporate title in 1956 to The Philadelphia & Reading Corporation, of which Reading Anthracite Company was one of its many operating divisions.
When the Susquehanna, Bloomsburg, and Berwick Railroad was first built in 1887, it was intended to be used for the anthracite fields on the North Branch and West Branch Susquehanna River.