Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-07-01

must avoid by some means. This road
is the link connecting the Owensbolo and
Russellville read with the Ohio and Mis-
sissippi Railroad, and the people along its
line ave raised $500, 900 and proposed
to Cincinnati to giUe her that sum If she
will furnish 100000 to finish it.
OF course, Cincinnati will do that,
thus acquiring the ownership of the
entire road at half price, and already the
amount has been nearly all taken. Nash
vile must struggle to maintain her posi-
ton as one of the great centres of the
railway system of the South. Chatta-
nooga, Atlanta and Memphis are contest
ing the palm with her, and now comes
the North and South and Rockport and
Owensboro Railroads, and propose to
give her such an undisputed supremacy as
no other projected route can do. From
Chicago through Nashville and Decatur to
Montgomery, is in line as straight as if
surveyed by the engineer of single road
seeking an air line. .--....
If Nashville will do her duty the whole
route will be completed before any other
North or South road now projected. And,
then we will have the control of the
straightest, cheapest, and shortest road by
hundreds of miles, connecting the
Northern lakes with the Mexican Gulf
Since the Slate misunderstanding, the
sections feel their dependence on each
other, and have exhibited an almost fever
ISL desire to unite themselves by bands of
iron, ana communicate with each other
upon the Swings of the steam." -
Shrewd railroad kings are seeking every
opportunity of becoming interested in
roads pointing from the Equator to the
Pole. They feel that the utmost deyel-
opment of this great country depends not
upon entangling alliances or foreign in
fluences, but upon the interchange of the
products of the sechOns-the cotton, the
sugar, the tobacco, the rice and the pro-
duce of ''the region where the magnolia
blossoms and the palmetto waves" with
the fruit, the cereals, the hay, the stock
and the manifold riches that are bursting
from the bosom of the great North.
But if these ideas partake too much of
the nature of ''glittering generalities" the
friends of the road present to us induce
ments that directly affect our material
interests and appeal to every mans
pocket.
The Chief Engineer in his report says
that the lands of Mclean, Muhlenburg
and Logan counties, Kentucky, ON the
line of the road, "are burdened with for
ests, fruitful in unrivalled timber, virgin
country, containing oak, poplar, hickory,
walnut, maple, cypress, etc, in almost
inexhaustible quantities." and there will
be nothing to prevent Nashville compe-
ting with Cincinnati in the furniture and
wood line, instead of going there to buy
our bedsteads and easy chairs. MIR. Nc
Leod, Chief Engineer of the E. and P.
Railroad, says: 'Gt is in Mecklenburg
county that the most extensive and most
valuable deposits of iron arc found, and
in the very heart of the richest coal mines
in the Mississippi Valley. Late
researches and borings have proved that
this valuable ore of iron underlies thou
sands of acres within the limits of the
county, and in three tiers, one above the
other, varying from two to four feet in
thickness, while deposits of other ores of
iron prevail to a greater or less extent.
On the line of the Greensboro road, not
far from Greenville, lies the axis of the
Kentucky coal region. Prof. Owen, on
page 139 of his report of the geological
survey of Kentucky, says: ''Both the
analysis Of the ores, the thickness on the
ore beds, the proximity of the finest coal,
with an ample supply of forest timber,
all indicate favorable position for iron
works, as soon as direct line of commu-
nication to a market is established"
The coal is more abundant, and of
better quslity, in this county thar in any
of the other coal fields of Kentucky.
There are five layers of the coal, of the
following thickness:
No. u coal, from 8 to 5 feet thick
No. II coal, from 10 feet thick; No.
10 coal, from to feet thick; No Q
coal, from to 81 feet thick; No coal,
from 81 TO feet thick. =
OF No. II coal, the Engineer says: 'Tt
is the equivalent and counterpart of the
great Pittsburgh coal, probably as good as
any American coal, broad in extent, and
has 2 peculiarly favorable situation verti-
cally," 50 as TO be easily reached from the
road. Under scientific tests it is reported
to equal for gas purposes the best Pitts
burgh coal He also says that coal can
be delivered at either terminus for ten
cents per buSheI, while no other coal of
equal quality can be placed at the same
point for less than twenty cents per
bushel. This will enable coal dealers to
furnish Nashville from this road at one
half the present cost and make the same
money they do now. Now make the cal
culation, and it will be found that if
Nashville gets her coal at half price, she
will save in five years some 81, 400, 600
nearly enough to construct the entire !
road