Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1853-01-06
Ir0n and Railroads.

| we answer, meg can make some Iron un-
der thirty per cent. duty, twenty per
cent. or even none at all. Iron Industry
has now obtained such developement in
this country that no possible perverseness
of National policy can ever-more utterly
destroy it. There are peculiar qualities
of Iron which could be made here and
sold at profit although common Iron
were lower than it has ever yet been -
And there are certain localities at which
choice Iron is now made and sold at
prices which defy Foreign competition,
Tariff or no Tariff
But what the Country needs is not
that Peter Cooper or Henry NJ. Watts
shall be enabled to make a few hundreds
or thousands of tons of Iron at profit,
but that the Iron product Of the c0antry
shall be brought into some tair relation to
our Home d,e1amed for Iron. We have
more and better Ores than any other Ma
ton. We have more ingenious Artifcers
and Inventors. We have Coal Wood,
Lime, Food and other elements of pro-
duction as abudant and cheap as any 9TH
er Iron-making people If we could only
adjust our public policy so as StcacliIy to
produce at home the Iron we need (which
will very soon reach Two Millions of tunS
per annum, worth at least Sixty Millions
Of Dollars, we could teach the world how
to make good and cheap Iron within a
dozen years.
But one great impediment to the gener-
al production Of cheap Iron in this Coun-
try has hitherto been the difficulty and
expensiveness of bringing together the
requisite materials. Sussex County, y.
j., for example, is known to be as rich in
choice Iron and other materials as any
other region; it has lime also in abundance;
but it has no Coal; and to supply it with
the Coal, Flour &C., requisite in the ex-
tensiye manufacture of Iron has been at
all times costly undertaking. Hence the
production of Iron there has been more
expensive by many per cent. than it ought
to be.
But the present prices of Iron and the
success Of the Zinc Company which has
It's mines in Sussex are about to induce a
signal and gratifying change. Several
Rail roads are now in progress or IN con-
temptation which will reduce the cost of
bringing the various materials together
and sending the product to market some
!, fifty to eighty per cent. The Morris and
Essex Railroad, which now stops at Do
yer, some twelve miles west of Morristown,
just on the edge of Sussex Co., is now be-
ing constructed fifteen miles further, past
the Stanhope Iron Works, and will doubt
less be pushed to the Delaware, River
within 1854. From the Delaware, a
Railroad now actively agitated will soon
be constructed to the great Susquehanna
coal-feld of Pennsylvania, commencing
at Scranton with the Legget's Gap Road,
and so forming the shortest route from
this City to the West, thus supplying the
Mineral Region of New-J Jersey with Coal
from Pennsylvania, and Flour, Meat, &c,
from the West at the lowest rates. An
other Railroad from the intersection of
the New-burgh branch with the Erie
Railroad at Chester will speedily be driV-
en- through the heart of the mineral re-
gion of Sussex to the Delaware Water
Gap, passing the Zinc and other exten-
tive mines on the way. Besides, Mr.. Pc
ter Cooper is now building a Railroad
from Waterloo on the Morris Canal to his
mines at Andover, Sussex Co. III miles, }
and has proposed to extend it to the Zinc
Mines (S miles further) on terms which
are now under consideration. Such ex-
tensions would reduce the cost of trans
porting the Zinc Ore from the mines to
Newark by at least fifty per cent.
These are but samples of the facilities
for the cheap production of Iron which
our British rivals have long enjoyed, and
which our American lron-makers ao1H en-
10y, not in our district only, but through
out the Country, should the present de-
mand for Iron continue at something like
present prices for two years longer. The
way to Cheap Iron permanently lies
through the cheapening of the actual cost
of producing Iron; and this will be effec-
ted by increasing and extending the fa-
cilities for concentrating the materials re-
quired in such production.
At present, all is activity and hope in
the Iron region Of New Jersey. The wien
of Franklinite in the Zinc locality is some
four to twenty feet thick, and has One
Million Tuns of ore above water level
This Franklinite has been extensively
sold at SIS per tun, to mix at the rate of
ten per cent. with ordinary Pig Iron for
the production of the best Bar In this
way, it is extensively used in the manu-
facture of fine Wire at Greenswich, Conn.
and will doubtless 60 into use in all di-
rections. Suppose this Franklinite to be
worth in the mine but So per tun for this
purpose-here is property of Five Mil
lion Dollars which has been lying dormant