The New Hampshire Gazette

PITTSBURG, (PENN.) MARCH 9.

A Burning Mountain.—A brilliant spectacle has been for many months past presented to the eye of those who live nearly opposite to the lower glass works. One of the large coal pits from which this establishment received a portion of its fuel, is on fire, and a short time back was vomiting forth flames with all the sublimity of Vesuvius. During the day it is not observable from town, but as soon as night approaches, it burst upon the sights in all the steady blaze of the gas lights. How long it has been on fire we know not; it is only a few nights since our attention was called to it, but it is probable that it has been burning for many years. We remember to have heard it said the Coal-hill was on fire twenty years ago; the probability is that it has never been extinguished; it never, however, has been so distinctly seen until since it has communicated to the open coal pit; this now displays walls and a roof of solid fire extending horizontally into the very bowels of the hill. An attempt we are told has been made to arrest the progress of this destructive conflagration, by stopping up the mouth of the pit, but the attempt failed, owing we presume to the many fissures which exist in the rocks, through which air can enter. How it will terminate it is impossible to say, but a most deplorable destruction of the valuable article of coal must have already taken place: how far the loss has extended cannot be ascertained. Owing to the height and steepness of the hill the pit cannot be approached by any power sufficient to produce any effect, and we fear the only remedy we have to expect is the falling in of large masses of earth, rock, and what the Colliers call horseback. However splendid and sublime the bursting of the flame from the hill of a dark night may be, reminding us of the classic fictions of the Titans breathing forth vengeance from beneath the mountains which had been heaped on them, it produces the melancholy reflection that an immense quantity of that article on which Pittsburg depends for her pre-eminence, must be destroyed before the fire can cease from its ravages.