The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-06-04

lation of our city, and has sensibly expanded our
commercial area. We have, moreover, one signal
advantage over Philadelphia Our deposits of
Bltumnous coal are of superior quality, and within
easy reach; whilst hers are generally inferior and
are remotely situated. Nor is this disparity coun-
terbalanced by any difference in her favor with
respect to the transportation of the Anthracites;
for the anthracite coal basins lie quite as near to
Baltimore as they do to Philadelphia, and our
means OF access to them are equally good. We
lay some stress upon these comparative statements
not from any sentiment of Jealous rivalry, but be
cause every one, who reflects upon the subject at
all, must see in the development of the coal trade;
in the industrial pursuits it stimulates, and in its
commercial Importance, sources of prosperity upon
which we can always confidently depend, and
without running the usual hazard of serious COM
petition. Railways, and coal-feds, are the two
great stimuli of modern progress. If we connect
with these an enterprising people, and port favor
ably situated upon the seaboard, upon of our
Great Inland Lakes, we have all the elements of
present success and future greatness. Railways
benefit alike the merchant and the farmer. If the
population of cities like Chicago and Cincinnati,
and of many other towns in all sections of the
UNION increases with a rapidly that battles all our
calculations, it is owing to the influence exerted
upon them by the Railways that, terminating there,
push out their main trunks, and their inersecting
branches far into the Interior and connecting with
other main trunks, and other subsidiary lines, ex-
tend their wonderful ramifcations from Canada to
the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic ocean to
the head-waters of the Missouri river How the
agriculturalist is benefited may be readily under
stood by comparing the value of lands through
which railway passes, or by which it is drained
of its surplus products, with those of districts
where railways are unknown, and market is too
remote to be proftably available. A single in
stance of the effect of railway in one of the older
States, will suffice to show their agricultural value
ln 1850 the taxable value of the land in the coun-
cites through which the Virginia and Tennessee
Railway passes, was estimated by the census taken
''in that year, at S28, 942, CAL In 1856 the State
assessment makes S53 81 229 or an increase of
''nearly twenty-five millions and half of dollars
lin the brief space of six years" and this result
has been accomplished by public improvement.
which has cost only 81, 900, 900, thus showing a
clear gain to the land owners of over eighteen mil
lions of dollars. Who, then, can measure the fu-
ture progress of those cities where railways centre
and where coal-the basis of manufacturing indus
try-is brought to market at comparatively
trifling cost? We know that Baltimore, according
to the last census, doubled her population in thr
teen and half years; and we know, also, that
during that period the coal fields had not been
reached; our ship channel to the Bay was too shall
low to admit the entrance into our harbor of the
larger class of vessels, and we were staggering UNI
der the burthen of railways in process of construc-
ton, and which were at once costly and unremu-
nerative. These works are now efficient and pro-
ductive. We have transcribed the Alleghanies
and tapped the Ohio at Wheeling, and at Parkers-
burg. We are within thirty-f miles of the great
northern lakes. Our supplies of coal are album
dant and the channel to our harbor has been
gradually deepened. Surely the future opens be-
fore us full of promise.