The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-08-28
| Joy the benefit SO nearly within our

JOY the benefit so nearly within our
reach? .t, r. = e5.f.r ma.
The advantages OF the Blue Ridge
Road over any other that has been
projected are manifest. Z" .fs
1st. It is the shortest line through
the mountains from the seaboard to
the Ohio River. It must, therefore,
always command both trade and
travel. The great West exports
corn, wheat, flour, bacon, lard, to-
bacco, whiskey, lime, salt, mules and
cattle. These find an outlet through
New York and Baltimore on the one
side, and Mobile and New Orleans
on the other. At the present time,
bacon may be found in Anderson
which was shipped from Cincinnati
to Wheeling, thence to Baltimore,
thence TO Charleston, and thence to
the interior-a distance of more than
1,500 miles. Were the Blue Ridge
Railroad completed, the distance
from Anderson to Knoxville would
be only 195 miles, and from Knox
vile to Cincinnati less than 300
miles. making total of 1876 miles,
and saving in travel and expense
1000 miles. To illustrate this item
of expense, corn which in Columbia
before the war cost one dollar O
bushel, could be bought just across
the mountains in Tennessee for
twenty cents.
I'd. During the winter months,
Northern roads are frequently OBJ
structed by snow, and business is
seriously interrupted. At DO time is
such casualty likely to occur in the
softer climate of these Southern
States. Our ports will always be an
outlet through which the West can
supply the markets of the world, and
receive in return not only the wealth
OF distant peoples, but the rice and
cotton of our own fertile fields. Ter
minating, as the road will, upon our
coast at Charleston and Port Royal,
it has q further material advantage
over those lines which terminate
upon the Gulf of Mexico. Here the
freighted ship may proceed direct to
sea. There she must round the
capes of Florida, and encounter the
increased difficulties and dangers of
navigation, consuming time, and
swelling the cost of transportation
and insurance.
Sd. The Blue Ridge Railroad pass
es through q country rich in re-
sources of every kind. The soil is of
unequalled fertility, and adapted to
nearly all profitable species of agri-
culture. Gold, silver, iron, coal and
copper mines abound, and only wait
to be tapped by the hand of industry
to add their vast stores to the wealth
of the nation. Employment may
thus be furnished to thousands of
sturdy laborers from every portion of
Christendom; emigration will be en-
couraged; hitherto unsettled country
will be opened to enterprise; our
water-courses will be peopled; manu-
factories will rear their pleasant
shapes; villages will expand into
towns and towns into cities; business
will thrive and its pursuits become
more diversified; and, in short, the
whole State will feel the pulses of
new life throbbing through this
great artery of trade.
4th. The Blue Ridge Railroad will
be the feeder of every other railroad
in South Carolina, and large and
remunerative local business must
supersede the present stagnation.
Charleston and Columbia, as COM
mercial centres of the State, are not
only to be benefited, but Port Roy
al, with its best harbor on the
Atlantic coast between Pensacola
and the Chesapeake, must become O
railroad centre, from which imports
will be distributed to the North,
West and South, a harbor wherein
ships will likewise be gathered from
every quarter of the world, to receive
at that terminus of this great high
way the freight which the West and
South would exchange for the pro-
ducts of the old world, and the East
and West Indies. It is well known
to commercial men that, during the
winter season, the price of transport
alton to points North of Cape HATTIE
ras is nearly double that paid ON
shipments to Southern ports.
9Th. The building of the Blue
Ridge Railroad is of vast military
and political Importance to the
Union. Aside from the sympathy
naturally existing between agricui-
tural sections like the West and
South, and strengthened as it must
be by all the ties of trade, the neces-
sity of O great air line across the
continent in this direction, with