BLACK LUNG DISEASE

When coal miners inhale coal dust over a period of time, the dust can damage their lung tissue. They can contract a medical condition known as pneumoconiosis. or anthracosis, more commonly known as black lung disease. It usually makes a miner cough, and if left untreated can lead to more serious medical problems. Nowadays coal miners (and other miners as well) wear masks over their mouths and noses to filter out the dust. And many mines are equipped with coal-dust filtering units.

Anyone who has lived in Indiana County for any period of time probably knows someone who had contracted black lung disease. Hopefully it will remain a disease of the past.

THE CLYMER BRICK AND FIRE CLAY COMPANY

For many years Clymer had a thriving second industry thanks to the discovery of a vein of fire clay (capable of withstanding high temperatures) that lay beneath the seams of coal. It is said that John Fisher, attorney for the Clear-field Bituminous Coat Company and later governor of Pennsylvania, accompanied by R. A. Shillingford, noticed a gray-looking material under a seam of coal at the old McKean Mine (in Buck Run). After Foreman James St. Clair told him it was soft fire clay, Fisher had it tested at the Clearfield Brick Company, and the test proved successful. John S. Fisher, Henry Hall, W. D. Kelley, and others formed the Clymer Brick and Fire Clay Company, and in 1908 a brick-making plant was built about a mile southeast of Clymer. The plant was powered with electricity from Sample Run Power Plant. The brick plant produced an average of 70,000 bricks a day. By the end of 1910, the plant at Clymer was established as the largest brickworks in the state. The brickyard was sold to Swank Refractories in 1917, and they produced materials, such as high-quality nozzles, for the steel industry. (They no longer produced bricks but continued to use clay to make their products.) Production continued until 1977 and the plant closed. Today the area is now occupied by the PolyVision Company where furniture is manufactured at this particular plant. (It was formerly owned by A. Nelson Adams.)

THE GEOGRAPHY OF INDIANA COUNTY

The Allegheny Plateaus are the largest of Pennsylvania's landform regions. The area occupies all of the northern part of the state and much of the west. The plateaus extend into a number of other states, including Ohio and West Virginia. The Allegheny Plateaus region contains the immense Appalachian coalfield, whose bituminous coal deposits extend south into Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Rocks in this region are flat lying, rather than steeply folded as in the Ridge and Valley. Nevertheless, few parts of the Allegheny Plateaus are level. Most of the region has been deeply etched by streams that branch and rebranch until they resemble the arms of a great tree. Elevations average about 2,000 feet in the north and about 1,200 feet in southern Pennsylvania. (Clymer's elevation is 1,218 feet.)

THE ORIGIN OF COAL DEPOSITS

Pennsylvania, millions of years ago, used to be very warm and swampy. There were so many plants it was like a Jungle. Coal, as well as petroleum and natural gas, formed from ancient plants buried in sediments over millions of years in the earth's crust. (All of these are known as fossil fuels.) It was eventually discovered that there were rich coal deposits in Indiana County in the late 1800s, and those deposits around the Clymer area were in what is known as the Dixonville Field.

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