Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-02-18
! rrEyNrssEE CoAL AND 1RoN.

tennessee has no interest that better de-
serves Tie consideration of its citizens than
its coal and iron. The letter of Gen. VIII
der, published in the UNION AND AMERI-
CAN of Feb. 2, contains facts that speak
volumes on this subject. Il Is one thing to
possess Important facts, and quite another
to be able to. give to such facts their full
and exact meaning.
The Roane Iron Company, of which
Gen. Wilder is President, has had four
years experience in using both the coal and
iron ore which he described. He can not,
therefore, be much mistaken in the quality
or quantity of the articles consumed daily
for forty-eight months in succession. He
says: awe are working here vein Of dry
i-bituminous coal, varying in thickness
from ten to forty feet, and in some places
much thicker" This coal is described as
working splendidly when raw" Again 1t
is characterized in these words: "Coal and
lime Uery pure" When one sees the Sc
Q,toira gigdntia, or giant pines of Califor-
ma, be is amazed at their vast proper
tons; but they have no signih-
canoe if compared with that primitive veg
citation which gave existence to the coal
measures forty feet in thickness in the
State of Tennessee. The extent Of coal
strata in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
and Alabama, as we'll as in Tennessee, is
too well known to need comment, but the
facts are not SO generally known that by
taking out Of the ground some twenty mil
lion tons of coal year, for many years, in
England, the expense of working mines far
under the sea and deep in the earth else
where, has sent up the price of coal in Lon
don to $3.50 ton in gold. To obtain
fair glimpse of the value of Tennessee coal
and iron, their future history must be read
by the light of twenty million tons of Brit
ish coal burnt every year, partly in the pro-
duction Of six million tons of iron and
partly in the manufacture of goods
estimatedin value by the hundred million
dollars.
L=tus briefly compare the advantages Of
Pennsylvania and Tennessee for the cheap
production Of iron and steel and of the
endless fabrics and tools that have steel and
iron for their essential ingredients. Gen.
Wilder says, "Coal costs one dollar and
fifty cents per ton; ore from one to two
dollars per ton, lime eighty-fiVe cents per
ton" "With the Cincinnati Southern rail-
road finished to Chattanooga via Emory
Gap, Pittsburg can get her cheapest supply
of ores from this region, as the road will
run along the ore beds eighty miles of its
Southern end"
Coal that costs, in Pittsburg from $3.50
to 81 80 ton, can be had in Tennessee at
81 SO a ton; while there will be saving of
600 miles transportation on the ''cheapest
ores of Pittsburg."
1t will be seen that the raw material for
making iron and steel costs not half so
much il Tennessee as in Pittsburg, the
centre of this important interest in Penn
sylvania; nor does it cost over one third as
much as in Great Britain where 10000 lab
orers in the iron and coal business are on
a strike for higher wages. All this means
that empire must emigrate West to Ten
nessee, and avail itself of squire coal forty
feet in thickness" not thousand feet be-
low tide, and mile under the sea, as in
England, but above the leye! plain at the
base of the mountain. Cumberland noun
tain runs out in Alabama; and starting from
its southwestern terminus, in tracing it
back through the State of Tennessee, sew
eral hundred miles into Virginia, we find
the richest beds of coal, iron and time, in
juxtaposition, that exist in the known world.
Iron, as We all know, is easily converted
into tough steel. Hence, we see suspension
bridges of great length and strength, made
Of steel wire. One is to be built across the
Hudson river at the Highlands, to support
at the breaking point twenty-five thousand
tors, and to have 10000 miles of tested
steel wire. Civilization has had its age Of
stone, its age Of bronze, It's age of iron; and
now it is just entering into its age of steel.
What sharp steel age, and edge, will do,
it is not necessary to predict. But it can
not fail to build up cities in Tennessee that
exceed In population the grea. interior hives
of human industry, known by the names of
Thetes, Palmyra and Babylon. Had for
eign commerce by sea been necessary to
the support of great city, not one ofthese
could have existed in any age of
the world. Like Paris and Phila-
delphia, they had local advanta-
ges; but not one of the five cities ever had
local advantages equal to the coal, iron, and
copper mines of this State. Irrigation did
much By the aid of Persia n wheels, worked
by man aud beast, to feed indefinite mil
tons, in the valleys of the Nile and the
Euphrates. But these treadwheels, on
which men and women labored painfully
to water land by the foot, were toys, COM
pared with our best steam pumps, such for
instance, as lift water from tie Cumberland
river TO supply Nashville.
What is the coal Of Tennessee worth?
That of Great Britain performs the labor
of one hundred million men, and has given
to London a population of over three mil
lion. Steam engines till the soil of Eng
land, and make all enterprising nations go
there to buy goods, and borrow money.