Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-04-02
COAL AND IRON IN TENNESSEE.

gen. wilder ON Our Mineral Resources.
No man in Tennessee has such thorough
or practical knowledge of the coal and iron
wealth of East Tennessee as Gen. Jno.
It. Wilder, who for the past seven years
has been literally living amid our coal and
iron beds. He has favored us with ad-
vanced sheets of an article on the coal and
iron of Tennessee, which is such valu-
able document that we give most of it in
full to our readers. 1t is a mine of knowl-
edge and should be sent to every coal and
iron man in the United States. Such in
formation disseminated over the name of
Wilder is an advertisement for East Ten
nessee, worth-no one can say how much.
The letter is as follows /:
On the northwestern side of the valley
is the level-topped Cumberland mountain
plateau, sixty miles wide, with its south
eastern side next to the valley of East Ten
nessee. For distance of $50 miles from
sale Creek Thirty miles above Chat
tanoogal to Cumberland Gap, it is tilted up
or folded back against the horizontally
stratitied Cumberland mountains. This
uplifted edge is called Walden's Ridge, and
is the southeastern limit of the great APP
palachian coal field which runs entirely
across the State, from northeast to SOUTH
west, with an elevation of two thousand
feet, and an average of sixty miles wide by
two hundred long, making coal field of
SIX thousand square miles, or $50 acres
exceeding by 454 900 acres the entire coal
area OF Great Britain, including England,
Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
This wonderful valley of East Tennessee
is lowest near the base of the Cumberland
mountain, containg the coal fields on its
northwest side. All it's streams head in
North Carolina and Western Virginia and
drain northwest into the Tennessee each
river forming natural highway down
stream to the coal fields. Nearly every
tloge IN the valley contains minerals of
some Kind, the cuts through which the riv-
ers flow forming natural openings to the
veins of iron ore which outcrop in nearly
every ridge, whilst the great Alleghany
chain is ribbed and scanned with veins of
IRON ore of nearly every known variety.
from the same range are taken large guam
Gties OF copper at Ducktown, whilst all
along fs northern base rnns a great broad
belt of roofing slate and most beautffuI
black marble intersected with snow-white
veins. Along the base of the Cumberland
range runs entirely through the State, a
low range or ridge of about two hundred
feet altitude above drainage, containing in
variably two veins of red fossiliferous iron
ore, varying in thickness from three to ten
feet, cropping out near the crest of the
ridge on its southern slope and dipping at
an angle of about forty-fve degrees to the
northwest. It is supposed to extend under
the coal field at all events it crops out at
precisely the same geological horizon on
the opposite side of Walden's Ridge, in
Sequatchie Valley and in Elk Gap, oppo-
site Knoxville, localities one hundred
miles apart, and each ten miles from the
place OF disappearance of the ore at the
southwest base of the mountain.
EAST TENNESSEE COAL.
.o
a dry. semi-bituminous or rather
semi-anthracite, working raw in the
blast furnace, and recurring at
lockwood about two and three-fourths of
ton OF coal to 'smelt one ton of pig-metal.
The ore averages yield of sixty per cent.
OF iron. and the Observation-Disclosures lime
stones furnish ample and excellent fiuxing
material, requiring twenty or twenty-five
per cent. of flux. :. ..r 81. -
Nowhere along this long line of two
hundred miles is 1t more than half mile
from the iron ore to the coal beds, while
ohe massive llme-stones are invariably be-
tween them the entire distance The coal
at lockwood is very much disturbed, vary-
ing from seven to over one hundred feet in
thickness. Our No. furnace has been in
blast most of the time for over four wears,
making a fine quality Of pig-iron for rails
with only one kind of ore. Our No. 9
furnace OF forty (40) tons capacity, will be
- VIC ~WHeH We
VIII turn out With furnaces, seventy-fiye
tons OF pig'iTon Per day, at an average cost
OF Si4 perton. AT the base of the Allie
ghany Chain, on fhe south side of the val
ley, ls wide chain of high knobs. i'm
many OF which are Wonderful beds of the
brown hematite iron ores, some of which
contain manganese. In the Alleghany
Chain are einexhaustible veins of brown
hematite, and in the high mountains of
the Blue Ridge are large veins and lodes of
magnetic iron ores, All these must 90
with the rivers to the coal fields on the
horthwest side Of tle great valley, for this
reas9nzfthat it reqnites one ton and half
'of good iron ore to,make one ton of pig
ron, and II takes about three tons of coal
TO reduce il, and three OF, four more tons of
coal 70 convert and finish it,into bar iron
thus using seven tons of coal To produce
one ton OF iPerchantable iron, and one
third of a ton Of limestone, making i'm all
seven tons and a hnlf of, fuel and fiux.
Tnese are founti contiguous to large and
persistent beds ofiron'ohe: only reouirinp
mixture OF ore;lialf. ofStfie. brown ,hema~
iitS i.ii;. ma Epetic 0rss 10 make, merchant
aole IRON, ntfor any use in.arts or com
merce, and giving de advantage. to man.
uiacturers located. near the coal, lin proper
lion tothe'greater tOnnage>of fuel and. ilux |
used, 70 the vastly lesser weights and
ireights, of ores, feqpIred,to, produce one |
ten of iron in utherwortls saving i'm the |
product iOu.Of li.r irnfis ma 10 - 10 ,,.,'