View of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, with Railroad

Description

The travelers reached Mauch Chunk on the evening of August 30. The next morning, with a company of friends from the local tavern, Maximilian set out to discover the objects of interest in the area, including the colliery located nine miles from town and connected to it by a railway built to transport coal down from the mountain. Maximilian expressed interest in the railroad as well as in the possibility of fossil finds in the anthracite coal beds of the region. Bodmer's view of the colliery at Mauch Chunk appeared as Vignette V in the subsequent atlas of plates produced to accompany Maximilian's publication of his travels in North America.