The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-03-05

country in the world is SO richly favored with
an abundance of coal Ms the United States of
America. There are l24, 1885 square miles eayt of
the Mississippi river, and 1897 square miles
west OF ithis is all bituminous coal, compris
ing no less than an area of 1891 80 square miles.
In the State OF Pennsylvania there are 437
square miles of anthracite coal In all Great
Britain there are only ,l39 square miles of btu
mlnous coal, and in Great Britain and Ireland
only 3,720 miles of anthracite In British
America there are $4,000 square miles of btu
minous coal, which, by most Ubiquitous mo-
nopoly grant, is lying almost as dead stock in
the provinces. Spain is richer in coal than any
other nation of Europe out of England has
3,4OS square miles; France l,7i9, aud Belgium
olS square miles Although we have such vast
coal helds, we use no quantity Of coal at all ia
comparison with Great Britain. For domestic
purpose we have had, and now have, such an
abundance OF wood, extending nearly through
out every part OF our country, that we do not
require coal, and will not for many years to
come. especially in our Northern rural districts.
The annual production of coal, in Great Britain,
is about 43,oO0,OOo OF tons per annum. In our
country II is about 100000 per annum--an-
thraclte and btuminous. The production of
American coal is becoming greater and greater
every year. AS we increase in population, the
|
ratio, for the use of wood is being curtailed wear
by year, consequently the coal consumption
must not only increase with the increase fpopu-
iation, but also to supply the place of wood.
Many OF our farmers living within twenty miles
OF New York prefer coal to wood, and use it for
fuel, while they have trees standing on their
farms.
The coal fields of Britain are finely situated
hone in the world can equal them for eyery
purpose both for ease of transportation and
their proximity to iron and lime beds, for the
manufacture OF iron. Our resources in this
respect however, are but beginning to be de-.
veioped, yet for foreign shipment, none of our
helds, that we know OF, are 80 convenient to the
Underwater mark as those of England, but then
we don't require them to be. Our great trade,
and the one we must first look to, is our inland
interior one Our country is so extensive in
area, and so various in climate, that we possess
| the sources of great, it may be said, aforeign
and domestic trade" within our own boundaries
at present but little coal is employed for loco
motives. Wood is almost universally used. If
coal was used in the form of COKE greater
amount Of coal would be added to our produc-
tive list twill yet come to this, for the for
ests are fast disappearing to fill the cribs of our
iron horses
The future presents bright prospect for our
coal trade. 1t was James Watt who said of
Glasgow, stamping with his foot her wealth
lies here" meaning coal and iron fields Well,
1t is just SO with our country. Coal fields are
more valuable than gold mines-we speak of
essential value, for we could live and be lively
without gold or silver, but not without coal to
boil our tea kettles and warm our toes. Many
years VIII not pass away, until we have railroads
extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and
| ha lin ~
from our far Western States across the Pacific
to the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, and
China. All these will form one continuous
steam line to Europe, by our Atlantic steam
SHIPS and then what an amount Of coal will be
necessary to keep up the steam
! Until the middle Of the 18th century, nearly
the whole OF the great basin of the Mississippi,
the valley of the Ohio, and the western slope of
the Allegheny mountains, constituting the great
central coal-iied of America, were partially oc-
cupied by Indian tribes and for many wears af
forwards, this vast region was held to be of so
little value, that the acquisition of the coal-felds
did not in any respect influence tho arrangements
between the parties, made at sundry times by
William Penn and his family, and subsequently
by the propldateries. BY the treaty of l7Ga the
latter became possessed of nearly the whole area
OF bitumnous coal land of Pennsylvania, I" for
presence Of coal in certain places seems to have
first become known But it was not till 1928
that the first cargoes from the Allegheny coal
fields reached Philadelphia and Baltimore With
IN the present limits of the city of Pittsburg in
IT'D, only few cabins were standings but in
our day, three fourts Of million of tons of Goals
are annually received there and the iron manu-
factpre Is so great as to confer the place the IL
tie OF the birmingham of America Yet, vast az
the produce is already in Come places, it can
scarcely be said to have begun; and it is impos-
sible to contemplate its gigantic proportions,
and its enormous yet almost untouched resour-
ce-, without being atruck with the magnificent
held it presents for future enterprise,
The great Pittsburg coal bed, running through
the Monongahela valley, is, in extent half Ms
Urge as all Scotland. The great coal product
of our country is the anthracite; in England it
is the reverse--tbe btuminous More than three
millions of tons Of Pennsylvania anthracite is
consumed every year; in England very little is
used, and none at all, we bell We, for family pur-
poses. Pennsylvania, with her fine anthracite
coalhelds, has the prescience of greatness within
her own bosom-no outward event but that of
a natural increase of our population is required
| to ensure her solid progress in wealth and great.
ness. The States east Of the Alleghenies must
always be dependent on her for their fuel
What change has been wrought in her since
the good old days of straight up-and-down
William Penn. A century ago her coal region
was wild, stony country, termed the "Wilder-
mesa of st. Anthony" and for seventy-fve years
after, it was still the haunt Of the bear and the
panther; but now canals and railroads intersect
it, and it is studded with villages of dusky.
browed, hard-fisted coal miners, who dig out
gold from benelth the rocks, and whose future
g., "a z
sible to calculate.
The coal regions of Virginia are also very
valuable, but have not been developed ns they
should be. Her vast beds of camel coal will
yet prove of more benefit to her than her gold
mines. The coal beds of the great Mississippi
valley have scarcely been broached. They will
! yet form the grand sources of our coke manu-
facturc for our locomotives and the manufacture
Of iron. The West--the Great West-what an
imitable prospect for thy progress. Without
coal we verify believe that our nation never
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